Monday Monday...

Words and photos by JK

Of course I woke up late. I am RUBBISH at getting to sleep when it's necessary. Nothing will keep me tossing and turning all night like knowing I need to be up (and resembling the living) early. Until I came to America I didn't even know there WAS a 6am. Now I have to try and contact victims to visit in a flurried, hasty, breathless phone call and then locate them on a Google map and memorize it (with my single brain cell that's a lot of stress) and then ride off and not speed. Live is sooooooo hard when you're a natural owl. How I envy those early risers that just say "Oh I need to go to slee...zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz"

Garrett went to McDonalds for breakfast whilst I sat at this laptop and mildly panicked. I managed to organize our day and rushed off to meet Garrett. We were SUPPOSED to ride west on I84 but yours truly in a blistering eye-movement of genius managed to miss just one word on the big sign. East. 11 miles later they reconfirmed we were truly going the wrong way when we had no time for such antics. We exited with me gesturing wildly in mock anger. Off we tore heading westward toward Portland for Hwy26 to Beaverton. Now at this point, be with us on our bikes. Trucks to the left of me, RVs on the right, here I am, stuck in the middle with you... at Interstate 5 the road divides N and S. Beaverton? Pick a road...any road... because AFTER you choose and turn you see the sign. Hello! Why not post the signs BEFORE the junctions? Oh I get it...it's Oregon humour. Hahaha look at all the people going the wrong way...hilarious.

We reached the Sage offices that handle Timberline and some other builder's software. Gorgeous offices. I could sure suffer coming to work here! Traci Williams is the PR manager that informed the 400 employees to run for cover on short notice. The curious came to see us so Fulton took some arty-farty shots of us all. What a friendly turn-out! I had briefly met Wayne Newitts at Insights in DC but of course I couldn't recognize him as the last time we laughed together he had a huge afro wig, tinted John Lennon glasses, beads and a tie-die T-shirt. He looked better that way. Just kidding Wayne!

Outside as we began donning helmets in the heat Sean Evans approached us. Sean's older brother Pat was a factory Yamaha racer in the dangerous 70's and died at Imola. He raced such greats as Giacomo Agostini. I will find time to learn more from Sean about Pat's racing career and I'll share that with you all. Sean is quiet and modest and funny and confessed that he wisely chose not to ride as his tendency to speed and sliding the bike round corners would surely end in grief. It was a good reminder to me that it was better to arrive a bit late than not at all. I'll be in touch Sean.

Down to Salem to meet with our programmers Greg Ferber and Kevin Ryan. They look like brothers but in fact they married twin sisters and are now brothers-in-law. And they are both programmers. If you believe the thing about twins these guys are a perfect case-study!

I got myself updated on our ACT! add-on called Outlook IntegrateR1 (I am marketing, not a techie, and do remember my single brain cell) so I could explain it's wonders to a group of ACT! users when I get to California. By the way, if you use ACT! and want to try it out you can get a free trial copy from our website.

By this time we were running very late but we managed to make up the time and arrived just 15 minutes late at the restaurant to meet with 4 ACT! consultants that cover the Eugene area. Herb Syverson (www.solarducknews.com) kindly spread the word and Roy Ladenslager and Kim Winton (the database repair guru) who work with TechBenders (www.techbenders.com) and Latee Brown (www.1stinstinct.com) all turned up for a chat. Latee is a biker and he had his copy of Cycle World with him. We all compared notes about ACT! and Garrett got lost listening until we had to make tracks for Sutherlin. The Olympic trials are going on in Eugene so there are no rooms for 50 miles in all directions. We made Sutherlin by nightfall riding through beautiful scenery of mountain-sized hills, fields, farms and forests. I see why our tech support chap lives here! We grabbed a meal and I got waylayed by a local who wanted to talk so it was a late night in a very pleasant, clean motel. I couldn't believe we had managed all the locations and visits but as per usual, things tend to be bigger in your head than in reality.