best of times, worst of times

So I've been quiet for a while. In many ways, the time since Lotusphere has been very nice. We spent a week in Germany for Entwicklercamp, giving some talks and touring Heidelberg, Trier, Strasbourg, and the Black Forest. Lots of good feedback from the Notes developers there (I was told Entwickler is developer in German!) and a very nice and well run conference.

Next week I'm off to Prague for Thursday, Friday, and Saturday, and then I'll be home for a bit...

In the meantime lots of work on Designer 8.5.1, which is progressing. With the LotusScript and Java editors under control, I've been focusing on core usability issues (UI *is* my favorite thing!) and searching for the most important things for us to improve *first*. Working sets are on that list, as is improving the creating a new XPage experience. Plus some smaller things that don't feel so small when you run into them (like disambiguating the Remove Database from Navigator function from actually deleting the database!)

So lots of goodness going on, yet there's been some background stress with Steve job hunting. Though he is finding that in spite of all the news reports, there actually is a job market out there, with some interesting things going on. Change is certainly stressful, but sometimes it does bring good things, and I am looking forward til then.

And since I returned from Germany with a very nice viola bow that I found in a shop very serendipitously (there are those who believe there are no coincidences, and many times I agree with them!), I am taking some time to learn how to play my viola. And when I can play music, all is right with the world.