My wife has been wanting to go to Turkey for a long time. A cruise, a tour, on our own... she's just anxious to get over there.

On the Meyers-Briggs, I always come out as an INTJ, which is spot-on.

I did the Strength Finders thing in a training session a couple of years ago. While some of it was accurate, I felt like there must have been some kind of significant breakdown somewhere. My top five were:

1. Learner
2. Restorative
3. Strategic
4. Focus
5. Relator

The first three are on target: love of learning new skills and facts; I like to fix objects, systems and people; strong desire to analyze and find the best path through the tangles. #4 is basically true, as I like to keep my eyes on the prize. It was the #5, Relator, that was way off base. My own assessment is that I don't relate with people very well at all, and I don't immediately seek out connection and mutual knowledge through emotional intimacy. Quite the opposite, in fact.

One that was not in the top five, which I was very surprised to see missing, was Communication. I love to be in front of a crowd and tell a good story, convey information in a way that people will find compelling, turn the perfect phrase that will stick in people's mind.

So, are these things useful? Maybe. As you said, the descriptions for each are quite complementary, so if it matches you, it makes you feel great. Where it falls apart, though, it calls the underlying algorithms into question.

When they made me, they broke the mold...

We aims to please!

I can think of 6 ways to make money doing that... ;-)

Excellent - looking forward to it!

Yep. Going a bit crazy trying to meet some deadlines ahead of this trip, though, so have been mostly offline.

I'll be staying at the conference hotel Wed & Thur, switching to the Intercontinental Bucharest downtown after the meeting ends Friday. I fly out Sunday morning.

How's it looking for a meetup?

My condolences on the loss of your friend. To my mind, a friend is a friend. I used to draw the distinction clearly, but don't anymore. It's rare that I'm able to physically interact with the friends I have from slashdot, twitter, etc. However, there are people who started as friends in real life - neighborhood, school, church, whatever - who are now geographically distant. My interactions with them are 99% online, with the 1% being the possibility of getting together in person the next time we're near each other. There are many, many professional friends and colleagues whom I know originally from e.mails, conference calls, etc. whom I meet up with maybe once a year or maybe never.