Okay - this blog, we're going to get a little off-topic, err, I guess.CHOCOLATE!!

But I have something I need to confess, and also thought a good lesson for others. I am SURE I am not the only one that has fallen prey to Chocolate dilemmas.

So here's the story, confession, and finally resolution! Glad I got to the last step!

The story, confession, dilemma ... and finally resolution!

A couple weeks ago I promised fat chocolate for Jessie Curtner given her non-food diet that had overcome her with busyness on the planning/run up to Atlassian Summit - I talked about it here.

While at the summit, I also realized that chocolate should also go to Trisha Hong - for her excellent and amazing efforts in planning the partner events. Just awesome!

strategy #1 - #fail

So then... Atlassian Summit arrived, and with best intentions - I thought - San Francisco would be one of the best places. Surely there will be a nice Chocolate place near by and I could pick up a killer chocolate bar. Not just Hershey's - something special.

Well, not so lucky. Could have gotten a big Babe Ruth, or 100,000 $ bar, or even Hershey with Almonds... but wasn't finding anything "special"...

So: "Nevermind". Will wait - needs to be special. Will do it AFTER the Summit = will taste just as good then.

strategy #2 - #fail

After the Summit, I flew to Boston for the Enterprise 2.0 Conference, and stayed near Harvard.

Have you ever been there?

Yep - this is the place for luxury stores and KILLER chocolate. On the second day, I bought 5 bars of killer chocolate ($4.55 each - THAT's killer chocolate!)

(Okay - I admit - I bought SIX... but I ate one :)

Great! Just need to get it into the Snail mailbox and should be good! Shouldn't be a problem. err... shouldn't be?

How many times have you tried to find the post-office in a strange town when you are traveling everywhere by subway?!!

I never found it!

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Sooo... the chocolate traveled... from Harvard, to Boston, back and forth a few times on the subway ... and then eventually to New York with me via USAirways.

Glad to see my husband and kids, I kind of forgot about the chocolate for a day... but um, then my husband FOUND IT! and a day later, I found wrappers!

UGHH!!!!! Back to square one!!!

He said - "Thanks so much for the chocolate... that's awesome!"... (err... I was like, "um... Sure. Anything for you babe!")

strategy #3 - #fail

My husband the next day decided to return the favor and while at the store bought 6 bars of chocolate... Hersheys.

I um, said "thanks" - while in my head - was thinking "God bless the Father of US chocolate and all - but I need "Special" chocolate". I said thank you anyways, for the thought.

I didn't complain, but 2 hours later found 4 empty wrappers of Hershey's...

This time Thing One (Ryan) and Thing Two (Stella) scarfed the chocolate.

I wasn't that bummed of course - though shocked nonetheless on the lunacy of this Chocolate dilemma. It is like the most impossible thing to move outside of our walls before someone eats it!

strategy #4 - #SUCCESS

Today I made a resolution - never again will I try to buy and send chocolate via a brick and morter store. Never. No, always online.

Today I ordered some Dan's Chocolate for you Jessie and Trisha... should be there next week. It's great stuff!!! And Special!

Small tokens for your amazing coordination and planning efforts, top-notch all the way! NOT an easy task for that big of a crowd, and not to be underestimated.

At your choice, share your chocolate with your other Atlassian coordinating minions...

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p.s. AppFusions team, while I was at it, ordered some for you too!

Thanks for getting the Alfresco to Confluence connector out... lets keep plugging... got big customers itching for that in their production environments.