way to the plains of the Midwest.
The short stopover in Chicago was uneventful. Mick caught up on some technical journal reading he had been putting off. In seemingly no time, the plane was circling SeaTac Airport and preparing to land in Seattle.
Having finished his reading, Mick relaxed and shut his eyes for a few moments. He thought about the security logs from the web server zero day the previous week. Besides his personal mobile and computing devices, Mick kept a couple of his own personal servers in data centers which he used to backup his files and manage his communication and mail. Besides the ‘Carbon is Poison’ web server compromise, he did find another one of his servers that had been compromised and had been acting as a spambot – a spam sending robot – automatically sending out hundreds of thousands of spam emails per hour into the Internet. Mick had not yet been able to figure out how this had happened.
On the ground, he caught the light rail train to his hotel downtown. Mick very rarely rented cars – he almost exclusively used public transport, although he occasionally made other arrangements.
Mick had expected Gunter to attend the conference, but Gunter had announced he was staying in Europe this week. Liz had corporate meetings while Lars was lying on beach in the Maldives. It would apparently just be him and Kateryna.
For Mick, visiting Seattle was a caffeinated adventure. He always came away wishing some other local coffee brand had gone global instead of the one that did. Mick checked his location software, then headed for a café near his hotel. It was just an average coffee house for Seattle, but it was still better than any he frequented in New York.
He found Kateryna sipping a cappuccino, and joined her after ordering an espresso.
“Mick!” she called out, looking up at him. He really liked her accent, and the way she said his name, making it sound similar to ‘meek’. Mick enjoyed accents, and especially loved to listen to women speak in Nihon. He had a definite weakness for the sound of a southern Irish accent in a woman. And of course, the every-statement-is-a-question intonation of Australian women also drove him crazy. Then he wondered at this long list and whether he had some kind of aural fixation.
“Hey Kat! Long time, no see.”
“Yeah, this is getting to be a habit!”
“What are you up to?”
“Just putting the finishing touches on my presentation. I’ll show you mine if you show me yours?” she asked, suggestively flashing the screen at Mick. He chuckled and looked it over. It was a good presentation: clear and concise. The views didn’t exactly coincide with his own, but they were reasonable and well argued.
“Very nice,” he replied. “ Here’s mine.” He pulled up his own presentation, which was shorter, blunter, and somewhat controversial. Mick was determined to make the best of use of this platform. Besides, if he didn’t speak his own strongly held views, whose views should he speak?
“Wow! You don’t pull any punches do you?” she asked, smiling at him as she leaned back in her chair. “I like it!”
“Thanks!” he replied, and he meant it.
They talked for a while about industry events as the sun went down.
“Do you have any dinner plans?” Mick asked her. When she said no, he suggested a few good seafood places within walking distance, and they picked one and set off. Over the meal, Kateryna switched the conversation to more personal topics.
“I was looking over your CV the other day. Unless my math is off, you started university pretty young, didn’t you?” she asked. Mick looked up from his plate.
“Yep. I was fifteen when I started at Columbia. Due to my age, I was given permission to live at home instead of a freshman dorm.”
“That still doesn’t quite add up – if you are twenty-four, and have three years industry
The short stopover in Chicago was uneventful. Mick caught up on some technical journal reading he had been putting off. In seemingly no time, the plane was circling SeaTac Airport and preparing to land in Seattle.
Having finished his reading, Mick relaxed and shut his eyes for a few moments. He thought about the security logs from the web server zero day the previous week. Besides his personal mobile and computing devices, Mick kept a couple of his own personal servers in data centers which he used to backup his files and manage his communication and mail. Besides the ‘Carbon is Poison’ web server compromise, he did find another one of his servers that had been compromised and had been acting as a spambot – a spam sending robot – automatically sending out hundreds of thousands of spam emails per hour into the Internet. Mick had not yet been able to figure out how this had happened.
On the ground, he caught the light rail train to his hotel downtown. Mick very rarely rented cars – he almost exclusively used public transport, although he occasionally made other arrangements.
Mick had expected Gunter to attend the conference, but Gunter had announced he was staying in Europe this week. Liz had corporate meetings while Lars was lying on beach in the Maldives. It would apparently just be him and Kateryna.
For Mick, visiting Seattle was a caffeinated adventure. He always came away wishing some other local coffee brand had gone global instead of the one that did. Mick checked his location software, then headed for a café near his hotel. It was just an average coffee house for Seattle, but it was still better than any he frequented in New York.
He found Kateryna sipping a cappuccino, and joined her after ordering an espresso.
“Mick!” she called out, looking up at him. He really liked her accent, and the way she said his name, making it sound similar to ‘meek’. Mick enjoyed accents, and especially loved to listen to women speak in Nihon. He had a definite weakness for the sound of a southern Irish accent in a woman. And of course, the every-statement-is-a-question intonation of Australian women also drove him crazy. Then he wondered at this long list and whether he had some kind of aural fixation.
“Hey Kat! Long time, no see.”
“Yeah, this is getting to be a habit!”
“What are you up to?”
“Just putting the finishing touches on my presentation. I’ll show you mine if you show me yours?” she asked, suggestively flashing the screen at Mick. He chuckled and looked it over. It was a good presentation: clear and concise. The views didn’t exactly coincide with his own, but they were reasonable and well argued.
“Very nice,” he replied. “ Here’s mine.” He pulled up his own presentation, which was shorter, blunter, and somewhat controversial. Mick was determined to make the best of use of this platform. Besides, if he didn’t speak his own strongly held views, whose views should he speak?
“Wow! You don’t pull any punches do you?” she asked, smiling at him as she leaned back in her chair. “I like it!”
“Thanks!” he replied, and he meant it.
They talked for a while about industry events as the sun went down.
“Do you have any dinner plans?” Mick asked her. When she said no, he suggested a few good seafood places within walking distance, and they picked one and set off. Over the meal, Kateryna switched the conversation to more personal topics.
“I was looking over your CV the other day. Unless my math is off, you started university pretty young, didn’t you?” she asked. Mick looked up from his plate.
“Yep. I was fifteen when I started at Columbia. Due to my age, I was given permission to live at home instead of a freshman dorm.”
“That still doesn’t quite add up – if you are twenty-four, and have three years industry
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