Starting from the Peter Senge definition of vision: "Future reality stated in the present tense as though it already exists," Karen leads our management team through a card sorting exercise to collect statements that might be true of our team or web site in the year 2011. We all created three rough versions of vision statements, and early tomorrow morning, we'll boil those down into one draft to discuss.

- mike lee - chesapeake beach, md

One of our exercises is to use photography as a catalyst for applying creativity to our daily work. Our team's theme used Liz's pink sneakers.

- mike lee - chesapeake beach

- mike lee - chesapeake beach

*sniff* We're leaving Baby Cianna at grandma's house on her first ever overnight. Wife and I are going to a management retreat for the next two days.

- mike lee

I just found the Squirt 2 infrared beacon/active tag device that Rich DeVaul gave me two weeks ago when I was visiting the Lab. I had stashed it in a Silly Putty egg I found in a junk pile.

There are 50 or so Squirt beacons scattered around the third floor of the lab. Each beacon, which can be powered by a coin cell battery for 15 days, 5 volt AC adapter or solar cell, broadcasts a unique ID number using the same protocols in home electronics remotes. A device called IR-suck can read these numbers and feed the information in real time to a wearable computer.

Since these things cost about $10 each to make, you could, for example, plant one in every office in a building. A cell phone or PDA with an infrared port could detect the unique ID in a given room and bring up relevant information about the occupant of the office. If your mobile device is on a network, the fact that you are in a specific office could be known by a server-side application. With this information, your calendar software could send a message to the keeper of your next appointment to let her know if you are running late. And, um, this kind of technology would also make it possible for your boss or others to track your movements, so privacy would have to be managed in a respectful way.

- mike lee - baltimore - and baby likes the rattling sound of the squirt bouncing around in the silly putty egg

...on the phone last night trying to call T-Mobile to upgrade to the Sidekick II. I spent an hour on this last night while the recordings got progressively more generic and finally gave up when the phone exchange started spewing "Sorry you have dialed a number that can not be reached from your calling area." I got the same recording this morning. I imagine the lines will continue to be jammed for days.

As I head off on a two-day business trip, I have remind myself that I can wait a while longer for the Sidekick II because it simply won't change my life in any way that matters. My current device thankfully works fine.

- mike lee - baltimore

O.K. I will not let the system beat me. I AM going to make this soup photo appear to illustrate the previous.

Alternate link: Soup!

Attempting the soup photo again for previous.

Today's lunch at Cafe Atlantico included this refreshing and fun-to-look-at cold tomato and watermellon soup. I found a similar recipe at Just Soups to keep for reference.

- mike lee - baltimore

...down I-95 this morning, but I'm glad someone is sleeping through the ride.

- mike lee