Jamie Thingelstad

This evening I was able to attend the first UnGala for Cristo Rey Jesuit High School. What is an UnGala? Think of your typical fundraiser kind of event but more of a party atmosphere with live music and more casual dress. We have several students from Cristo Rey as part of TeamSPS so I have known about the organization for years, but it was great to hear more about this incredible school that has gotten 100% of every student ever in attendance accepted into college programs. Many of them becoming the first person in their family to attend college. It is an impressive organization. Feel free to join me in supporting their mission.

At the end of the event we got a team photo with Alberto Vergara who was part of TeamSPS as a Cristy Rey student and is now a full-time Account Executive on our sales team! 👏

Today was Tech Connect 2024 hosted by MnTech at the Saint Paul RiverCentre. There were over 600 people this year and a number of good presentations.

Sessions I attended:

• Unleashing GenAI: 5 Real-Life Learnings with Jake Krings, Mikey Vu
• The Era of Quantum Utility with Kenneth Wood
• Three Keys to Building AI Products with Speed and Confidence with Patrick Wolf
• Beyond the Bat: Technology’s Impact on Baseball and Beyond with John Avenson, Lisa Moschkau, Sam Henschen, and Jeremy Raadt
• Scaling Cloud Governance through Developer Enablement led by TeamSPS members Troy Jordan, Nathan Carr, Jesse Lang, and Nate Anderson
• Leveraging Generative AI for Business Excellence led by TeamSPS member Jason Popillion
• CIO Leadership Panel with Jennifer Hartsock, Darrin Hebert, Mark Murphy, and Cris Ross

Overall observations:

• There were so many references to AI. Everyone still talking about it and starting to show real-world use cases. There is still more hype than substance here, but the substance seems to be showing up. Multiple companies shared that AI adoption isn’t automatic and you have to make sure you bring people along.
• The quantum computing session was more interesting than I expected and showed how far that technology has come. I think this is still a decade out and a big bet, but accessing quantum infrastructure via the cloud is an obvious go-to-market path to bring this esoteric tech to teams.
• It is super fun to watch the Minnesota Twins technology team because their content is so fun and very advanced stuff. Plus they have a whole production team that makes super high-quality visuals.

I pre-ordered the Ledger Stax on Dec 10, 2022 and after a very long wait I got notified that they will be shipping in June! I have two on the way. I am looking forward to trying the Ledger Stax out after a 17 month wait!

For Mother’s Day I ordered some Freese’s Candy for Tammy. We had these when we were in Milwaukee and she has declared them her favorite Turtles. They are delicious. So I ordered one pound of them for her as well as a pound of salted caramel in milk chocolate.

I timed the order so it would come next week, but they shipped it fast and it delivered even faster. They dropped it off on Saturday at 2:34pm.

In just two hours, an intrepid squirrel approached. The squirrel smelled it, pushed the box around, tipped it over, and got to work at whatever delicious smells were inside.

This rascal even took a break sitting on my chair! 🐿️

After the mayhem was in full swing one of the neighborhood rabbits thought they would check it out too.

Over the course of that afternoon and the next morning several squirrels stopped by to check out the situation.

When we got home we found both boxes of chocolate completely emptied and bits of the box scattered around. I hope those squirrels were miserable from all that sugar.

Finished game of Five Crowns — Mazie was the winner!