As summertime comes to the Pacific Northwest, workers get lazy and gazes start to linger on the cool blue and green scenery just outside the office windows. I am by no means immune to this malady and so once again it's time to take a vacation and enjoy life out under the big glowing blob in the sky.

I'll continue to update the blog but posts will probably be more intermittent for a month or so, and less topical, as I am hoping to leave some of the topics behind for a while. Besides, who isn't tired of "recession this, recession that" discussions? I'm going to get a tan and think about what's next for IT; come to think of it, you're probably pretty tired of "cloud this, cloud that" discussions, but it's hard to escape the conclusion that utility computing is going to be the major part of information technology's future. What might be more interesting is a better examination of how that will continue to evolve… so in between swimming and fishing, I'll put in some quality nap-time thinking about such things and report back with my conclusions.

In the meantime, I hope you're having a great summer… if you're one of the victims of the economy, you may as well take some time out and enjoy the weather. If you're one of the lucky ones who are still employed, you're probably too busy to enjoy much… but we'll be thinking of you!

• Slowing it down for the summer