Nearly six years ago now, while working at 3Cube, we were putting together collateral and Web page templates for a new product roll-out, and as is common, one of the tasks was to create faux persons and companies, as placeholders. Rather than go with the standard "John Smith" from "ABC Company" or "Acme Inc.", I tried to dress it up with more real sounding names, while staying generic. I believe "Linda Johnson" from GoodFiles Inc. was one of the chief participants in our FAQs...

During one of these meetings, I presented an example which included a company by the name of "Asypta". It didn't mean anything, but it sure sounded good, especially at a time when companies would rebrand themselves, or spin off subsidiaries with neat-sounding names that added no real value. For some reason, I got all sorts of questions about "Asypta". It sounded real enough that my colleagues wanted to know if I had an in on the ground floor of a top-secret pre-IPO start-up or something... but I kept using the example and sounding mysterious.

I stumbled on the idea of "Asypta" as companies often can be found with an A at the beginning, consonant, vowel, consonant, A. Think about how many you can name... for example... Avaya, Asigra, Altera, Atipa, Asera, Altria, Ariba, Aceva, Acterna, Acteva, Adexa, Azanda... and I'm sure there are many more. At one point in 2001, I had registered the domain name Asypta.com, with the dual intent of acting as if it were a fake company, or secondly, to "grade" company names by their "Asypta factor". Ariba would be a 10 on the scale. Avaya another 10. Something like Alhambra... not so much. Asypta eventually came to stand for "A simple, yet pointless, technical acronym." It's worth noting that almost none of these Asypta companies explain their corporate name on the Web site. Simple, yet pointless.

Fresh off returning to the Bay Area from our East Coast travels, we turned right around from being business focused to being Oakland A's focused - a very pleasing endeavor. This morning, my wife and I caught up with a friend from high school and made our way to the Coliseum to start off the 2006 A's baseball pre-season the right way, with the opportunity to see A's players and coaches, get a tour of the player's clubhouse, and eat ballpark food, more than 60 days before the start of the regular season.

It wasn't overly crowded, like any playoff game, but very busy - focused on autograph seekers and a serious push for ticket sales. We got into see a Q&A with the A's four top rookies from last year (Huston Street, Nick Swisher, Dan Johnson and Joe Blanton), but late. The ushers would wave 1 or 2 or 3 in at a time to fill empty seats, so we got in and had an angle that saw all but Huston. Still fun and good spirits by all. The best comments were when Ray Fosse ripped on Swisher for saying Joe Blanton is the best bunter of the four - saying that to have Blanton pinch hit for Swisher in a bunting situation would be very embarrassing. Fosse also slammed the guys trying to learn how to play guitar, and swore he was going to use his noise-reduction earphones to block them out on the next trip.

We took the clubhouse tour, and I was surprised by how small it seemed, as well as the dugout. Fairly close quarters to say the least.

A hidden surprise was a Q&A with manager Ken Macha and coach Renee Lachemann. Macha is a good conversationalist in person and did well with the crowd - even when one person challenged his use of Joe Kennedy in a must-win game. The guy kept going back to it, and berated Macha so much that the crowd booed him. But Macha came back to Kennedy's defense in a big way, and we all applauded. Macha also had some good insight into dealing with Billy Beane and how to deal with a deep lineup, but he wouldn't spell out his opening day line-up.

Tomorrow morning will mark the 20th anniversary of the Challenger disaster, and news site MSNBC has compiled a number of pieces commemorating the event, including an interesting piece on seven commonly held myths surrounding the morning of January 28th, 1986.

As with many famous sporting events, more people will say "they were there" or had seen it live, having ingrained the story so much with their own lives, that they too want to be involved, or to add personal notoriety to a famous happening - and that's just one of the "myths" addressed.

I remember learning of the Challenger disaster quite vividly. Still in elementary school, our teacher, crestfallen, told us that the shuttle had broken apart after launch, and all seven astronauts - including schoolteacher Christa McAuliffe, had perished. My mind racing, I formed a mental picture of these astronauts jettisoned into the black of space - gasping for air and finding only a hostile vacuum. Not until I had come home, and saw the news reports playing the event again and again, did I have the truth indelibly etched into my memory.

Space travel has always been dangerous as evidenced by Apollo 1, where three were lost in a fire, and Apollo 13, where a near-disaster averted a moon trip, and later became a major motion picture. But by 1986, a nation had forgotten this, and turned a lazy eye to the Shuttle program. As with car racing, it took a major accident for us to stand up and take notice again.

Our two-day jaunt in Boston is complete - we had nine meetings with about 25 people in total, and have three more to wrap up the trip tomorrow, just not in Boston, as we've landed in New York, and get to spend one odd night (for $279) here, with it 27 degrees outside, before doing our work in the morning and flying back cross-country to make it back to the West Coast late tomorrow.

Aside from being surrounded by East Coast snow this week, and walking duck-footed to avoid slipping on icy driveways and sidewalks, we've enjoyed the other East Coast tradition - of wearing suits and ties, and topcoats, to each of our stops. Often, we're expected to look like laid-back West Coasters with a casual dress and attitude, but have put our hosts to shame. It's not quite "Project Runway" on the WB, but the team cuts quite the pose. In preparation for the trip, I bought a new pinstripe suit at the Men's Wearhouse, the first one I've bought myself, and the first one I've purchased to match my increasing waistline, which is now officially more round than my legs are tall. I preferred being a 32 by 32 "square", but it was not meant to last. Days of being out on the road, eating out for every meal, and jamming back into cars or planes aren't helping either...

One problem with these quick stops in New York is there is zero time to "see the sights". I've been here three times in the last two years, and still haven't even glimpsed the Statue of Liberty or anything. Don't know which way to look out of the plane... someday maybe I'll come on a more-relaxed pace and stay for fun.