Another MacWorld in San Francisco that I didn’t attend, but until WWDC moves somewhere else, I’m OK with that. After watching the rumor sites post the play-by-play today and reading some of the media feedback, my initial thought was that this must be one boring MacWorld show floor. With only two iPhone prototypes on display in the Apple booth (under glass no less) and only two other hardware announcements from Apple (the Apple TV and a new Airport Express base station), there really wouldn’t be much new to see. Microsoft pre-announced Office 2008 for the second half of the year, but I’m not sure if they are showing anything at the show. Still, there are lots of things to talk about. (more…)

Bit of a let-down yesterday after that dominating victory against Atlanta earlier in the week. Martin St. Louis is such a small guy–I wish someone would have hit him a few times. The effort at the end of the game was impressive, but time just wasn’t on our side. All of those pipe ringings didn’t help much either.

We had a few snacks during the pre-game warm-up and wow, does Buffalo Wild Wings serve some really hot wings! I also saw my cousin and her boyfriend from long distance, but didn’t get a chance to visit.

Here’s a couple of other things Jake and I talked about during the game:

• We’d prefer Shawn Belle to Martin Skoula on D–swap them out for a few weeks and see what happens. We got ‘em both for Willie, but maybe we’ve been playing the wrong one in St. Paul.
• When Gaborik comes back (which should have been this game–just what happened in the Thursday morning skate, anyway?), place him on the Walz line and sit out Dupuis for a while.
• Jake thinks Glen Taylor should buy the Penguins, move them to Minneapolis and call them the North Stars. Target Center has a nice hockey layout and he’d probably make more money than he is now. Can the State of Hockey support two pro teams? Perhaps. And just think of all the money they’d save on travel expenses.

Next tickets: January 16 versus Rollie the Goalie and the Edmonton Oilers.

Last night my daughter and I went to see Kim Johnsson and Todd White of the Minnesota Wild at Hockey Unplugged. This edition was held at Joe Senser’s in Bloomington and was well attended by the Wild faithful. This is the second Hockey Unplugged event we’ve seen and continues the great community relations tradition of the Wild. Johnsson was especially friendly and I have two more “To DK” photos to add to the wall in the office.

The next Hockey Unplugged is close to home in Lakeville (players TBA), so we’ll probably hit that one as well. Stephane Veilleux is also scheduled to make an appearance near our office on January 17.

My officemate Jake and I scored free tickets to tonight’s game against Tampa Bay. Sounds like Gaborik won’t be back tonight as I had hoped, but if they play half the game they did against Atlanta, it should be a blast. Great seats too–row 20, section 118. Thanks Alan!

Following a meme passed to me by Chuck Goolsbee (and following the instructions here), I present my Mini at Mount Rushmore.

Happy 2007 everyone! I have a good vibe about the upcoming year and I’ve been working a lot on planning and strategy to get things off to a good start. We have a lot of exciting things coming up and I’m anxious to hit some of the lofty goals we’ve set (more on that in a later post).

All of this planning made me think about the movie Run Lola Run, where fate leads the main character to three different outcomes based on slightly different breakpoints in each storyline. I have experienced several major breakpoints in my life and have often wondered how things would be different:

Breakpoint #1: Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute

This was almost my address for college. I had never visited RPI, but was advised that it was one of the best technical colleges in the country, behind only MIT and Cal Tech. They also had a great hockey team, so it would feel like home.

I applied and was accepted into the mathematics degree program, but decided I really wanted to be an engineer and that the cost was too high. I ended up enrolled at the University of North Dakota in their aeronautical engineering program instead of RPI and the much more interesting Hudson River Valley.

There was another college breakpoint at UND–what if I had begun the flight training program there instead of transferring to the University of Wisconsin to study banking and finance (like my grandfather before me)? I probably couldn’t have afforded to become a pilot either, but going to Madison did get me closer to my future wife. (more…)