well... obviously a lot of you know already, but we're off to Lotusphere 2006. A few of you might have guessed because some of the referrers I've been getting from frappr.

Laurette and I are making the trek across to the USA in January (spare a thought for us on the epic journey from Sydney-LA-St Louis-Orlando without a bed or a shower!) and will be braving the US winter as we travel around for a couple of weeks afterwards. I don't know if many of you have done the trip from this part of the world, but it's kind of weird booking a flight which leaves at 3pm and arrives at 10.30pm on the same day, but takes 30+ hours to get there.

After Orlando we're off to Washington, NYC, San Francisco, Las Vegas and then home again so if anyone knows of any user group meetings in those places in the couple of weeks after Lotusphere let me know as we'd love to drop in and see what's happening in your part of the world.

I won't be packing any Fosters or VB (not that I would anyway as being a born and bred Queenslander requires me to remain forever faithful to that nectar of the hop Gods - "XXXX"), but I'm sure we'll be more than willing to savour the taste of the local product whilst we're there. If you see us, stop and say "G'day", we're looking forward to finally putting a face to some of the personalities we've been following online for the last year or so.