Ah, day one of my “geek week” has arrived! I’m writing this entry while riding a super smooth intercity train from Zurich to St. Margarethen where I and four other sprint attendees will (hopefully) be met by our lovely hosts.

2006 has been incredibly busy for my wife and me – both of our workloads have just gone through the roof and so part of me is actually a bit sad, because during the course of the upcoming week I will get to see even less of her and the kids. But at the same time I’m already beginning to really enjoy spending some quality, continuous hacking time. For one thing – and this is an absolute novelty! – I’ll be having my mobile phone switched off for the entire duration of the sprint. I’ve recorded a voice mail informing any callers about how to reach the folks who are watching my back while I’m gone so I can rest assured that everything will be taken care of during my absence. After five years of running tomster.org as a one-man-show and maneuvering myself into that awkward corner called ‘indispensable’ I’ve finally been fortunate enough to be part of a team of admin-colleagues. While each of us still works independently we’ve reached a level of familiarity now where we can blindly trust each other.

To sum it up: this snow sprint marks the first occasion in five years of me really being able to take a break from being a self-employed family father a.k.a “from it all™”. I can only imagine, what it will be like to spend more than just a day hacking – but, as they say: “there’s only one way to find out!”

Update: the entire trip went incredibly smoothly and we’ve arrived at Lovely System’s offices. And if I hadn’t been up drinking vodka with Cryx and Erdgeist till 2am this morning despite having to get up again at 3:30am to catch my plane I might actually do something now… you know… something else than taking a nap noon and feeling incredibly old...