$1,000,000

Me, cool? Ha! I'm a nervous wreck all the time.

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By the way, I knew the answer to that question. But then again, I'm a child of that era.

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Pretty good turn out here in Orlando. I'm not sure if that signifies anything. But it's a good, vibrant conference.

One presentation down, two to go ... then I go "zoooooom" back home.

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I am re-reading the book "The Godfather" ... what a great read! With the movie firmly burned into my memory, the book is coming to life quite a bit. I can see where Coppola lifted key lines straight out of the book. Last night I was reading the part where they were planning the placement of the gun at the Italian restaurant where Mike was to meet with Sollozo and McClusky. As I was reading, I could see Abe Vigoda saying, "It's perfect. It has one of those old-fashioned toilets ... you know, with the pull chain."

Right now I'm into a section of the book that's going into excessive detail on Johnny Fontane (the Frank Sinatra character). Coppola wisely left most of that stuff out of the movie.

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In preparation for my trip to Canada recently, I flew to Washington D.C. and stayed at the home of my former neighbor from that area. The two of us drove up together, as has been our practice for the last six years. He recently changed jobs, landing a position at a famous government intelligence agency with a three-letter acronym name. In celebration of that, he purchased a 50" plasma HDTV.

I like TV as much as the next person. But I do think there's a limit to how big someone's TV should be. These wall-sized things tend to utterly dominate a room. I think if I were to drop that kind of money on a flat-screen, I'd go for something smaller ... in the 35 to 40" range, but no more.

Those things do have remarkable pictures. Have you ever seen a good flat screen with a true HDTV feed? Remarkable.