(The following was written a few weeks ago, and I present it verbatim as I wrote it then.)

I’m feeling a little overwhelmed as I write this. I am crammed into a coach airplane seat heading cross-country to the DOMAINfest conference in Hollywood. Last night I was at the AFC Championship Game in Foxboro, MA watching my Patriots win another shot at a Lombardi trophy. This is being written on what I just found as the last piece of paper in my folio pad, along with other to-do’s and priorities for the week.

Last night I talked with my lovely wife who herself has been away for a week on business and shared with me what was going on with her, similar to how I whined in the previous paragraph. She then said something I have been repeating a lot since our call, “there’s never a best time for anything” and as I recite it over and over, I realize how right she is.

Wouldn’t it be great to take on a new project just when we get back from vacation after finishing another? Of course, but the phone rings usually when we are our busiest. Everyone and their pundits are saying now is not the time to buy a house or get a mortgage. But what if you need one? Both industries have not seized, and if you need a place to live, you can find one and a loan to live there.

I am writing this with the intent on publishing it after I return from home after the conference. Hopefully you will share my amusement in looking back on how I overcame a bit of overwhelmness!

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The next likemind coffee will be next Friday, February 15 in dozens of cities around the world. In Chicago, it will be at Intelligentsia Coffee, 55 E. Randolph, at the corner of Wabash in the Loop.

I call likemind it a gathering of creative-minded people, from various disciplines including Internet, advertising, art, et. al. Coffee is gratis thanks to Anomaly.

This marks the return of likemind after several months, and now I am one of the coordinators. In addition to posts on The Hot Iron you are welcome to join the likemind Chicago Facebook group. Business • Technology • (7) Comments • Permalink

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The second gift I got from Dunkirk Systems for Christmas was a computer from the One Laptop Per Child (OLPC) program. This comes from what was originally the US$100 laptop program. Now, they are $200, and through the end of last year you could have bought 2 for $400, one for yourself and one for a needy child. This article talks about how the OLPC computers have helped a village in Peru. For someone like myself who has had a computer since junior high school and made a career out of them, I bought into this program completely.

The notebook itself (sorry, I don’t like the term laptop) is interesting. It is white with green trim and looks like it was made by Fisher-Price. Its most prominent feature is a carrying handle – why hasn’t someone thought of this before? It is designed to be rugged. When you flip up the antenna on each side then the top, it is open for use. The top swivels like a tablet PC but the screen is not touch-sensitive. Right away by the size of the screen and keyboard you see it is for a child, especially with the spill-proof keyboard. Other hardware features include a camera, speaker and microphone. You can read more of its features on its Web site.

So what have I done with it? Not too much so far. I was able to get the MAC address of the WiFi card with help from the OLPC Wiki and set it into my wireless router and I was quickly on the Internet. I ran the gauntlet of several of my Web sites with the pre-installed version of Firefox and all looked generally good, though I could not get the Flash plug-in to start and sound did not come from the browser. I also tried some of the various applications pre-installed, from drawing to video, but only once.

When you connect to WiFi you look for it in the “neighborhood” and see dots representing each hotspot. If another OLPC is within range, you see a stick-figure icon that is the logo for the program. This is how children can link to each other and is part of the power – and fun - of this program.

So far I have yet to see anyone within range when I have used it, which doesn’t surprise me. Does anyone out there reading this have one? It would be interesting to get a group of people together with their OLPCs to connect and learn!

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A recent article on cigars was published in UR Chicago, a great lifestyle magazine in Chicago by an even greater journalist, Daniel B. Honigman. Following the statewide smoking ban in Illinois, Daniel introduces cigars to some - reaffirming them to others - and how smoking a stogie adds to an experience, rather than just getting a quick drag on a cigarette in the cold outside of a bar. He interviewed me for the article, and my quote is at the end of the article. You can download a PDF of the January 10-30, 2008 edition and read the full article.

I enjoy an occasional cigar, and it usually compliments an event or get-together with friends. There’s nothing like a cigar during a Patriots game tailgate party!

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