One week on the ground–that’s all I have in between flights. We got back from a two-week vacation in the Philippines. I was glad to see that I’d tied everything up neatly before I left and things had gone on in my absence. Between catching up and getting ready for my next set of flights, my week was just packed (but in a very good way). Here’s what happened:

• I made my first photobook. Well, I didn’t bother with captions or anything… Just dumped all the pictures into Picasa, did a little photo correction, uploaded them to Shutterfly, and organized them into roughly logical groups. We’ll see how well that worked when the photobooks arrive.
• The jetlag-assisted early start was terrific for my productivity. Unfortunately, it didn’t last all week. A few late evenings set me back to my pre-trip schedule. At least I’ve tasted the productivity of an early-morning schedule. If I can get away with following that schedule during the next few weeks’ conferences, I think that would be awesome. If late-night networking means I can’t get up at 3:30 or 4:00 without zombie-ing out during the conferences sessions, I’ll stick with the usual day schedule, and I’ll try going back to an early schedule after this month of conferences.
• Most of my week was spent doing internal work for my team, preparing for the various conferences that are coming up. I managed to do a little client work, too. I feel reasonably happy with my preparation for the next few conferences.
• I finished my article on personal finance with Ledger and Gnuplot for the Linux Journal. Hooray!

Next week, I’m flying to IBM Palisades in New York for the Best Practices Conference, and then to Florida for the Technical Leadership Exchange. If I can survive both conferences with plenty of networking opportunities and without falling flat on my face during my presentations, I think I’ll count that as a win.