New Orleans and diving

I was hoping to go to the next face-to-face meeting of WS-CAF in New Orleans. As last year, we've made it coincident with the annual OASIS Symposium in New Orleans. Last year was my first time in the city and I loved it: great food, great music and a great atmosphere. Myself, Eric, Greg and other friends and colleagues managed to find time from the slog of standards work (none of that sniggering at the back please!) to check out some of the Jazz festival last year, so I was looking forward to going back. That and hopefully producing another Committee Draft of WS-Context, maybe the first Committee Draft of WS-CF and trying to start on WS-TXM (a lot for a 2 day meeting, I know).

Unfortunately I won't be able to go :-( For Christmas my wife enrolled me on a PADI open water diving course. I've been talking about learing to SCUBA dive for many years, going back at least to when we spent a week in the Carribbean as guests of Bluestone for being a Bluestone President's Club Aware Winner. Several friends have also qualified over the intervening years, including Jim who kept pushing me to go do it. However, as with most things that aren't work related, I always managed to find a reason to put it off. Until this year that is. I have to say that since starting the course I've had a lot of fun and wish I'd done it earlier. Unfortunately, there are exams connected with the course, both written and practical (in the ocean - we've been doing everything in the local swimming pool so far), and some of them are coincident with the New Orleans face-to-face. I tried to postpone them, but it ain't going to happen, so I'm not going to be at the meeting in person. Which leaves me looking forward to 2 days of attending the meeting via the phone!