I turned on the TV in my room, and guess what shows up?

I wonder if this is a prediction of the guest speaker at the OGS…

I have arrived. Bad weather and fog delayed some flights into Orlando, but mine was on time. Landed at 11.35 right on schedule, and took a cab to Swan where I am staying. I registered and went to Big River on the Boardwalk to grab lunch. Just got back to my room (12th floor and nice view, see below) and is taking a break. Soon heading to the BALD gathering at Big River, I think.

The only disapointment was that I, as press (I am going as press since I in addition to being a developer also write articles for Computer Sweden), did not get a backpack. This is my 11th Lotusphere in Orlando, and every other year we got a backpack like everyone else.

I wonder how much money IBM is saving on that, can’t be that much… Oh well.

I started developing for Lotus Notes using 4.5 back in 1996, but it was not until 1997 I started doing some serious development.

At that time I was a journalist, working for IDG in Sweden. Since I was covering PC hardware and software, I went to Lotusphere Europe in Nice in 1997, and also to a pre-cursor to it in Maastricht, Holland in 1996. I basically learned the product on my own, which was not that hard since I had a programming background. Journalism was something that I happened to get into when the company I worked for before went bankrupt.

Anyway, in 1997 I got married to Angie, who I met in the summer of 1996 while visiting Seattle and Microsoft. After we got married, she decided she wanted to move back to the US, so I transferred to Boston where IDG is based. I now became a full-time Notes developer. My last project in Sweden wa sto write an editorial system in Notes, something I did in 3 weeks while also packing my appartment and getting ready to move on New Years day.

That application is still in production today, 10 years later. They tried a few times to replace it with commercial products, but they did not work well enough compared to the custom built system I developed.

Ever since then I been developing Notes applications, both for the client and web. In 2002 we moved to the Dallas area, since Angie wanted to live closer to her family after we had our son. I got a job as Notes developer at an insurance company, where I still work today.

I can’t imagine not working with Notes and Domino, and I am very excited about the new directions the platform is taking.

It is now 5pm Friday, I am about to go home, finish packing and early tomorrow I will board a plane to fly to Orlando for my 12th Lotusphere. I am looking forward to it more than ever, I expect to hear plenty of news, meet people I already know, and learn to know more of my fellow Yellow-bleeders. :-)

See you in Orlando!

Just 12 hours until boarding start for my flight to Orlando. I think most things are done, just need to load up my MP3/video player with some more episodes of Mythbusters, and pull down the latest security patches for my laptop…