NaviBlog powers ahead

* I got a message yesterday from Paris that the money is finally moving from the London side and should be in my account by Friday EOD. It is a relief and I hope Mike is OK his side as the final date for the entire payment is next Friday (1/28) EOD...
* Went into Maxim's de Paris last night for a quick martini... what? no Absolut Peppar? Well, just went for the Absolut Citron instead. All rather older suits, coming in groups of 2-10 at a time, then leaving for the restaurant space downstairs. Talked to Takashi, the chief bartender who had spent some time in Paris, so a good chat there. But that's all it is really, a cushy place to sit down and have a drink then move on. The piano was interesting, and so was the girl playing it, but after a while the non-descript yet comforting music made you want to move on. Quite different to the Rouge Bar, which is much cosier.
* Mike is on the A-List for my first assignment to an IT job. If everything goes well, he should be heading the consulting team for the helpdesk at a major insurance multinational. Good luck Mike!!
* More or less decided on the machines I want as NaviBlog's first two servers: two IBM xSeries 345 (with IBM Express built-in), which are high-entry level application servers. However, they can scale up very nicely to 880GB, have a number of strong failover functions in case one part of the server fails, and are generally sturdy little things. They don't take much room either, so that's good too.
* The development environment is coming together nicely: we've sent off for 4 machines, IBM again as we get discounts through SDB Corporation (lucky, that). Those will arrive within a week or so. And our very own NaviBlog high-speed connection will be operational by the end of the month too.
* Have to decide on the timing of our pre-launch party, that will include Rico's fashion show "Eclipse" (she's pretty crazy, but I think she knows what she's doing): I've narrowed down the places to 2 - the Juniper Bar or the Heartland Bar, both in the luxury Roppongi Hills complex. Now just have to talk to the owner of both. In the case of Juniper, it's not exactly what I want but will talk to Laurent at the Grand Hyatt and see what we can do.