Got up early this morning (5:30 Chicago time…so 3:30 Cali time) and walked around downtown Chicago a bit. Was quite a trip. Windy finally. Lots of business folks going to work. Found a Mc D’s that had a sign of Cubs and White Sox, baseball is definitley a big deal out here. Left the hotel at 7 and was on the road to visit Acuity’s office and then go out to dinner with Steve, ending up at Dan’s place for the nice. Took the I-90 East and was a nice ride…straight mostly. Toll roads were new to me…lots of choices, but cash seemed to be the obvious one. It cost about $15 total in tolls to go from Chicago to Ohio, not too bad and the road was well maintained (compared to Cali highways at least).

Arrived at Acuity’s office in the afternoon and met with a few of their team members. I was happy to see I made an impact on Justus as his office now has a water fountain too! He also has the USB powererd nerf style rocket launcher that I am a bit jealous of…will have to work on that. Discussed a lot about analytics and how it can be used to protect art work and objects. Pretty amazing technology. Also talked about joystick control for our PTZ cameras (this was for you Mike) and looks like it can be done…just need to use some analog controls…this will make operating the PTZ so much easier.

Steve arrived after our meeting and took me over to his house. Man, it is so beautiful out here right now…and everyone has sooo much space, it is pretty amazing. You have a house and then a HUGE back yard. Maintaining the property lines must take a lot of work…but it is probably very calming too. Nobody seems to be in a bad mood and everything is easy going. You just cannot be in a real hurry out here.

We all went out to dinner at Steve’s nephews restaurant and it was a bistro that had soooo much food it was impossible to eat it all. Was great to catch up with Steve, he always has an interesting story and is pretty much the modern MacGyver. While on job sites he is always danging from a bucket 100 feet in the air being attacked by falcons, thunderstorms, angry workers, you name it! Steve can pretty much do anything it would seem.

After dinner, I followed steve for a ways and then Dan drove out and I followed him to my home til Monday. We were suppose to meet up at a gas station, but did not quite work out so well and instead Dan came running out in the street waving arms and all…I locked my doors as I though we had an Ohio maniac on our hands…but no, it was Dan. So through the woods to Dan’s house we go…it is really amazing. Very quite and definitley away from anything resembling a major city. There is a forrest in the back yard, a pond, and lots of animals (inside and outside). They are definitely animal lovers here, I learned a lot about fish. You can even do surgery on award winning gold fish to keep them going, who knew?

On Friday, will be going to Youngstown, OH to visit the Butler Art Institute and will be looking at their analytics system they have installed to see how it all ties together. Theirs also pages security guards upon a breach. Curious how that works. I believe we are staying over there for the night and then cruising back to Ohio on Saturday, visiting the Rock n Roll Hall of Fame on Sunday.

Will keep you all posted!

Steve’s Back Yard - Click to View More