Wild. So wild. We were in the same place 20 years ago and didn’t know it. I think I missed that essay - my Substack notifications got out of whack while I was trying to tune my email volume yet again, so I will have to go read that story.
I was nearly a year into my first job, working as a software engineer at St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital in Memphis. I attended with 3 colleagues (including my boss and his), all decades senior to me, so it was a rather interesting trip for a 22-year old. We came in a day early to get cheaper airfare and spent most of the day in the desert gaping a giant saguaros we’d never encountered beyond photos. Somewhere in a box are some photo prints of me standing next to a cactus easily a dozen of me taller than me. I hope I find them one day.
That is cool, and I hope you find (and share) that photo.
But I think the key "takeaway" (as those of us who speak fluent businessspeak say) is that you should NEVER, UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCE, fail to read each issue of Sundman figures it out! as it is published.
(Also, of course, share each essay far and wide, as one does.)
Sep 1, 2023·edited Sep 1, 2023Liked by john sundman
This is the most bonkers thing I've read on Substack so far, and I totally love it! Keep them coming, Mr. Sundman, please. Your mind is like a crazy diamond, shine on!
Such a lovely comment, thank you, Portia! In the immortal words of Lena Lamont, If we bring a little joy into your hum-drum life, it makes us feel as though all our hard work ain't been in vain for nothin'.
P.S. I do hope that you'll read some of my earlier posts. There is no small supply of bonkers contained therein. (I presumptuously suggest the "Scared firefighter up in the bucket" series, but I am aware that reading that would require a commitment of a good amount of time. Perhaps, then, to start with "What's the Frequency, Tom?"
Yes, I suppose it must have been the O'Reilly bioinformatics conference in 2003, because that was the year I wrote that essay. As for the 2002 conference in Tucson, I was there also, selling my books, as described in a paragraph in my "When I got knifed" essay (in which I erroneously called it an O'Reilly 'emerging technology' conference (I attended one or two of those as well). (See link below.)
That whole week of the O'Reilly bionformatics conference in Tucson was one crowded hour in my life, involving, as it did, two round trips from Boston to Tucson, the laying off of 4 people whose boss I was & who were friends of mine, and a pretty intense reunion with a former fiancé (and current paid subscriber to Sundman figures it out! !) whom I had not seen in 18 years.
In 2013, on my now-mostly-mothballed website Wetmachine, I wrote of my long acquaintance with Tim O'Reilly, going back to 1984 when we were both young dads wearing penny-loafers with holes in their soles. I'll have to bring that into this blog at some point, although I do wonder how many of my current readers have ever encountered an O'Reilly book.
Wild. So wild. We were in the same place 20 years ago and didn’t know it. I think I missed that essay - my Substack notifications got out of whack while I was trying to tune my email volume yet again, so I will have to go read that story.
I was nearly a year into my first job, working as a software engineer at St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital in Memphis. I attended with 3 colleagues (including my boss and his), all decades senior to me, so it was a rather interesting trip for a 22-year old. We came in a day early to get cheaper airfare and spent most of the day in the desert gaping a giant saguaros we’d never encountered beyond photos. Somewhere in a box are some photo prints of me standing next to a cactus easily a dozen of me taller than me. I hope I find them one day.
That is cool, and I hope you find (and share) that photo.
But I think the key "takeaway" (as those of us who speak fluent businessspeak say) is that you should NEVER, UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCE, fail to read each issue of Sundman figures it out! as it is published.
(Also, of course, share each essay far and wide, as one does.)
This is the most bonkers thing I've read on Substack so far, and I totally love it! Keep them coming, Mr. Sundman, please. Your mind is like a crazy diamond, shine on!
Such a lovely comment, thank you, Portia! In the immortal words of Lena Lamont, If we bring a little joy into your hum-drum life, it makes us feel as though all our hard work ain't been in vain for nothin'.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ucg0ZLHY5eA
P.S. I do hope that you'll read some of my earlier posts. There is no small supply of bonkers contained therein. (I presumptuously suggest the "Scared firefighter up in the bucket" series, but I am aware that reading that would require a commitment of a good amount of time. Perhaps, then, to start with "What's the Frequency, Tom?"
Thank you, John, I'm going to read everything you've written/will write. I've found you yesterday on Jane Friedman's website, what a treasure trove!
So... was it the O’Reilly Bioinformatics Technology Conference in 2003? Because I attended the 2002 edition in Tucson, AZ. Talk about entanglement...
Yes, I suppose it must have been the O'Reilly bioinformatics conference in 2003, because that was the year I wrote that essay. As for the 2002 conference in Tucson, I was there also, selling my books, as described in a paragraph in my "When I got knifed" essay (in which I erroneously called it an O'Reilly 'emerging technology' conference (I attended one or two of those as well). (See link below.)
That whole week of the O'Reilly bionformatics conference in Tucson was one crowded hour in my life, involving, as it did, two round trips from Boston to Tucson, the laying off of 4 people whose boss I was & who were friends of mine, and a pretty intense reunion with a former fiancé (and current paid subscriber to Sundman figures it out! !) whom I had not seen in 18 years.
In 2013, on my now-mostly-mothballed website Wetmachine, I wrote of my long acquaintance with Tim O'Reilly, going back to 1984 when we were both young dads wearing penny-loafers with holes in their soles. I'll have to bring that into this blog at some point, although I do wonder how many of my current readers have ever encountered an O'Reilly book.
https://johnsundman.substack.com/i/135338139/the-curious-case-of-the-colors-on-the-bridge-surfaces-again