Ray Ozzie: V3, former leader of Iris Associates, which developed Lotus Notes, and former leader of Groove Networks, which developed Groove, and now CTO for Microsoft, takes his 3rd turn at blogging. It should be interesting to watch.
Having read his now infamous Internet Services Disruption memo, I look forward to seeing how his dialogue with the internet community develops.
Haven't posted in several weeks for a couple of reasons...both stress-inducing.
First, and most important by far, my brother was stricken with severe back pain, combined with a very high fever. So, off to the hospital emergency room we went (after a brief detour to the chiropractor, which the fire department obliged via ambulance...don't ask).
After an X-ray and an MRI, he was admitted to search for the reason for the high fever. Initial speculation centered on the possibility of an infection, which it was theorized could have manifested itself partly as back pain.
A blood culture and a few days of growth revealed a strep infection in his blood. Additional tests included a bone scan, a CT scan and a white cell scan...not to mention a TEE. The fear about this particular flavor of strep was that it could cause a heart infection; specifically, one known as bacterial endocarditis. Not a good thing to get or have.
After 10 days in the hospital, being filled with a combination of two antibiotics (ampicillin and gentamicin) as well as doses of a pain killer called hyrdromorphone (avoid it if you can), my brother was pretty much out of it. I came to find out after he came home that he didn't remember a lot of what transpired in the hospital (visitors, etc.). I spent a good part of each day (8 hours or so) at the hospital so that if any of the doctors were to come by, I could provide the necessary coherence to a conversation on behalf of my stricken brother.
For those of you who have had family in the hospital, you all know that it is not fun. For me it was all-consuming, both emotionally and intellectually. While I had work that I wanted to get done and tried to make myself think I could do some of it in the hospital while he was sleeping, I could simply find no available brain/heart cells to allocate to anything but my brother's care.
One of the reasons I no longer like to go into hospitals is that both of our parents, after being admitted (separate events), died due to complications from surgery. While these events were 13 and 9 years ago, to this day, I don't get a good vibe being in hospitals at all.
Without any exercise for about two weeks and eating plenty, I managed to lose 2 pounds on this stress-induced diet.
My second stress inducer over the course of the last week or so, has been my work on trying to sell a company. I am an investor in the company and the company has had more than one inquiry about being acquired. Among the more difficult things to do in such a situation, particularly as the lead negotiator (my role in this instance) is to make sure that the company's (the selling company, that is) stakeholders are all on the same page with respect to what a reasonable deal could be for this company. So far, so good, but it certainly can be trying. At times it can be a relief to deal with the prospective buyer(s) as there is a clear separation of interests and both sides know when the other is dealing reasonably. For the "insiders", the agendas are not all consistent and often hard to discern.
Anyway, just a quick note on my most recent stress-related weeks of life.
