Russell Beattie Notebook

Celebrity Sighting: Jonathan Schwartz at IKEA

Posted on Monday, November 17th, 2003 11:00 AM

So I'm at IKEA again this weekend, this time with Ana and Alex, picking up a bunch of other stuff we need to finish off the house (including the main thing: the sofa) and who's in front of me in line waiting to get the Manager's Special at the cafeteria? Jonathan Schwartz, Executive VP for Software at Sun.

It was very amusing... I was looking at him hard, confirming that yes indeed this is the guy I've only seen before in one inch square Real Video streams when he looked up and saw me staring right at him. Being caught dead on, I gave him a weak smile and then spent the rest of the time in line (which turns a couple times) trying to pretend I was looking at something else. Don't you hate that? Trying *not* to look at someone is the worst.

But *then* he pulled out his Nokia 3650... and I thought, "Wait a second! He's a geek. He's got a 3650. Surely he's Googled for info about his new cool phone at one time or another..." And if so, he's found my weblog. Cool! So maaaaaaybe it wasn't just me gawking at the powerful software executive who's decisions affect my working life, but in fact *mutual* recognition as he looks up and thinks "hey, that's the geek with the 3650 weblog staring at me..."

I tried to Bluejack him, but he didn't have his Bluetooth enabled. Damn.

;-)

-Russ