My old team decided to post the slides from my sessions at the Gartner EA Summit last month. Well, they’ve posted PDF versions of said slides and the fonts are somewhat off, but you’ll get the idea.

• Beyond SOA: Understanding the Role of Users in Architecture
• The Dell Integrated Desktop: A Case Study of the Role of Users in Architecture

If you’re interested in more info on the Dell Integrated Desktop, you can check out the full case study.

FYI, Gartner recorded audio for these sessions and supposedly it’s on its way to me. I’ll try and post the audio with synced slides as soon as I can.

I’m settling in to my new job. One way to tell, read Dale Churchward’s blog. Dale’s a teammate of mine. He only joined Microsoft a few months ago. Apparently, he used to blog at his old job, but either way we’ve now doubled the number of bloggers on my new team, with hopefully more to follow.

In addition to his opinions of political discource and the Seahawks chances next season, Dale’s got some interesting posts on data integration and system diagrams. Check it out.

My new pal 😄 Ted Leonsis does the hockey math on the re-acquisition of Richard Zednik.

So, if my math is correct, we will have Zubrus on our first line, Zednik on our second line and Gordon (who will most likely play for the Caps and Hershey next season) in exchange for Jan Bulis, Trevor Linden and a second and a third round pick.  That is a pretty decent set of deals.

Actually, Ted’s math isn’t quite right. We got Linden as a part of the original Zednik trade, then traded him for the 1st round pick we used on Gordon. And of course, we started with Zednik, so that’s a wash. So the actual math goes Zubrus and Gordon for Bulis, a 2nd round pick (not sure who the Canucks got with that pick) and a 3rd round pick in next years draft. On paper, Bulis and Zubrus are close to a wash – Bulis had 20 goals and 40 points last season, Zubrus has 23 goals and 57 points. So that breaks the trade down to a 1st round pick (i.e. Gordon) for a 2nd and a 3rd. Not bad, but not mind blowing either.

That being said, it’s nice to have Zed Head back in a Caps jersey. Hockey is played on ice, not paper. I’d rather have Zubrus and Zednick than Bulis and Linden any day.

Albert Einstein is often credited with saying “Everything should be made as simple as possible, but no simpler”. However, in researching the quote on Wikiquote, I discovered the full quote is actually:

The supreme goal of all theory is to make the irreducible basic elements as simple and as few as possible without having to surrender the adequate representation of a single datum of experience.

I think it’s funny that the canonical quote on simplicity is actually a simplified version of a significantly more verbose quote.

Yesterday, the Dallas Stars signed the Capitals captain Jeff Halpern to a four year contract worth around $2 million a year. My mom (even more rabid a Caps fan than I am if you can believe it) thought this was a mistake, but I’m not so sure. As reported by the Washington Post, the Caps are stocked w/ checking-line forwards. They apparently offered Halpern $1.5 million a year for two years. Sure, Halpern is a fan favorite – he grew up a Caps fan in Maryland – but $8 million seems like a lot to tie up in a checking forward / face-off specialist.

In the “old” NHL, you often saw teams throw crazy money (typically the same teams every year) at marginal players, hoping they would be the last puzzle piece to put them over the top and help them win the cup. Now with the salary cap, I think it’s going to shift from dollars to contract length – plus all teams will have a chance to be involved, not just the same five teams year after year. Players want longer contracts and teams want shorter contracts (go figure). A team in the Stars’ position – Dallas won their division last year but were bounced from the playoffs by the Avalanche – is more willing to tie up long term money for short term gain than a team that’s rebuilding as the Caps are.

So while I’m sad to see Halpern go, I think it’s a good move in the long term for the Caps. As much as I’d like the Caps to be competitive next year, I’ll believe it when I see it.