In March, 2018, I spoke at the AWS Summit in Milan. That was the excuse – the real reason for the trip, in which I was joined by my BFF Sue, was to clear my remaining personal belongings out of my former home in Lecco, where my ex was (and is) still living.

Another speaker at the Summit was Tara Walker, an AWS evangelist who gave one of the best technical talks I’ve heard. I knew it was good because the audience were sitting bold upright, paying attention, rather than looking at their laptops or phones.

I was back in Seattle six weeks after my first trip, to participate in the annual get-together of AWS evangelists from all over the world – a very fun bunch of people whose expertise and skills in sharing that expertise I quickly learned to rate very highly. Our team, Open Source Marketing (though some team members didn’t want to admit that marketing was what we were there fore) had similar tasks and skills.

We had a couple of days of presentations on upcoming services and technologies, and one of those team-builder puzzle games – which was fun, but the weather was hot and the air in Seattle very polluted from forest fires – I ended up with a miserable sinus infection.

I had been to Seattle a few times before, but of course I’d be seeing a lot more of it over the next few years.

This was the last event I attended for Ericsson, and honestly I didn’t have a good reason (from Ericsson’s point of view) to be there – by that time I was well on the path to my next gig. But Brendan was speaking, and it was held in Austin. I heard some good music, ate some good food, and saw old friends, including one who was about to be a new colleague.

My first trip to Stockholm for Ericsson. I ended up making that journey about four times a year, except during cancer treatment.