I flew down to San Diego for the Emerging Technology Conference today. I’m here thru Thursday which is the longest I’ve been gone from home since TechEd last year. And I’m only home eight days before heading off to SPARK and MIX for an even longer trip. Well, the SPARK/MIX trip is just one day longer than ETech. But a day can seem like an eternity to my three year old son who was predicting “Daddy come home in one minute” as I was pulling out of the driveway.

I skipped the pre-confernece tutorials, though several looked interesting. I’m really looking forward to hearing Bruce Sterling speak tonight.

And for those keeping track of my travel shenanigans with Alaska Airlines, no problems with the flight today. Apparently they only screw up when I’m in a hurry. And even better news is that I’ve re-earned my MVP status. I used to fly with them all the time, but then with the new role and new baby I just didn’t fly much last year. But they had some “quick earning” program that let me re-earn my status. They even gave me MVP status for the flight today, so I got to sit in first class. Crowded flight too, so it was nice. Of course, in what has become true Alaska Air style, I had to wait on hold and deal with a subordanant flunky for twenty minutes before I could talk to a supervisor who could get me registered into the quick MVP program, but it turned out OK so I guess I shouldn’t complain.

In preperation for SPARK later this month, we (i.e. the Architecture Strategy Team) has set up a SPARK Blog. So far it’s mostly links to a fewpeopletalking about SPARK, but it’s also appears to be an opportunity to use the work “SPARK” whenever possible, such as “SPARKs Fly“.

I’m just waiting for someone to blog about SPARKitecture. 😄