Dinner with Jim Gray

I love sailing. I love working with computers and developing (CAM) software. The intersection of these two interests is a sweet spot for me. With all the sailing blogs, regatta websites, class websites, sailing videos, virtual racing and more... the internet is clearly the best sailing invention of all time in my book. But I'm a little late for that project.

Tillerman's latest group writing project invites people to share "which sailor or sailors, living or dead, real or fictional you would like to invite to a dinner party." There are some that quickly come to mind: Hans Horrevoets, John Newton, Alex Thomson, Steve Fossett, Lia Ditton and Zac Sunderland to name a few...

Coming back to the intersection of wind and bytes, I think I might put Jim Gray at the top of my dinner party list. No, not that Jim Gray. I'd invite the Jim Gray that (most recently) worked for a giant computer industry monopoly in Redmond, WA who was lost at sea in January of 2007. We could talk about his pioneering computer science work related to database transactions (probably a real party killer but something that touches all of us every time we use an ATM or make an online purchase). So, we could "talk shop" as well as share sailing adventures as only geeks can... Of course finding out what happened on board Tenacious on that fateful winter day would also be interesting. I'm sure those that searched for and miss him would like to know...

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