Ok, so with the exciting evening in Youngstown, we ended up checking into a Hampton Inn, so I woke up still being in Youngstown, Ohio. Ken came by and took us out to one of the local spots for breakfast, it was called “The Yankee.” Had a good ole Ohio breakfast…normal 2 eggs, sausage, etc. Crowd was mostly retired and it is important that they all keep the local businesses going. Youngstown use to be a thriving steel production town…but that industry is pretty much gone and now there are quite a few abandoned areas.

After breakfast, Dan took me over to Randy’s house and we went to the Rock n Roll Hall of Fame (RRHF) so I can see their analytics systems. I had no idea of what the RRHF would be like, it was pretty amazing. The building is all glass, really interesting design. It is right on the shore of Lake Erie and gives amazing views from the upper floors. The RRHF has great exhibitions of everything related to music from original lyrics, clothing, guitars, Elvis’ car, etc. They use analytics to protect open areas that are not behind plexi (guitars, wardrobes, cars) and when a motion alarm is triggered a loud announcement comes on and strobe lights are triggered. Very nice installation!

After visiting the RRHF, Randy and I went to get some lunch at Great Lakes Brewery and had their sausage platter (I am so going to die after this trip)…was told I had to have them as they are known for their sausages (that came out wrong). Also had one of their locally brewed beers, it was very tasty too. After lunch, did some Cleveland sight seeing and then went back to my headquarters at Dan’s.

After relaxing for a bit, watched a movie in Dan’s home theater….very nice! Has a projector system and since it is out in the country, you can really crank up the sound. That was a real treat Also toured the outside grounds a bit and really realized how large and fantastic it all really is. Woods, trails, man made ponds, etc….yep it is all here at Dan’s ranch.

Tomorrow is going to be a relaxing day and catching up on some laundry. Monday, I head back to Chicago in the morning and fly back to Long Beach in the late afternoon.

I definitely will say the Midwest is hands down the most friendly and home feeling type of place I have ever visited.

Rock n Roll Hall of Fame, Click to View More

Alright, day 3 on the journey. Today Dan and I drove over to Youngstown, OH to visit the Butler Art Institute. We met their facilities manager Ken and first had lunch at a spot in the Metro Park System. Beautiful location full of lakes, trails, and various wildlife. Had some chicken pepper soup, was very good!

After lunch and exploring the town, had a tour of the analytics system at the Butler Art Institute. It is pretty amazing in what they have done there. Basically every piece of art work is protected via cameras with motion alarms. When a motion alarm is set off, an in house pager system pages all guards with the gallery name that triggered the alarm, which makes it super easy to investigate. One camera can cover a great area of gallery space and the system is so smart that you can adjust it for sensitivity. Also learned about the control room setup and how motion alarming play a role in view schemes.

After spending the day at The Butler, we all went out for some Youngstown Friday night happy hour. Went to an Itallian place and had some drinks/food. After happy hour Ken took Dan and I around town to show us some of the happening night spots and the proper way to spend an evening in Youngstown. Ken’s quote of the evening was “You are both in mother’s arms now.”

Me, Dan, and Ken

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

I have now arrived in Chicago, IL. Is not that windy for a windy city, maybe another day. Airplane ride was perfect, no issues at all. Took me an hour to get our of the Chicago airport between getting my bag and renting a car. I met my CDW rep Josie for dinner tonight at Hugo’s forg Bar & Fishouse. I had the best crab cake and filet medallions I have ever had before…so freaken good! After we talked business, Josie’s friend Holly joined us for some drinks. After dinner, we moved to the bar and had drinks/dessert. Vic our bartender was a funny guy and joined us for a photo (see below). After that we went on the search for the perfect margarita. I had a very good margarita at Blue Agave Restaruant which is a restaurant/tequila bar. Was very tasty and worthwhile!

Tomorrow I head to Acuity-VCT headquarters, where I will be meeting with some of their programmers and have some ideas I will be sharing (joystick control for ptz cameras, multiple monitors, etc.). Joining Steve (a.ka. MacGyver) and friends for dinner.

Will keep you all posted.

Holly, Vic (our great bartender), Josie, and I - Click to View More

So here I sit in Long Beach on the start of a combo work/pleasure trip to Chicago and Ohio. The trip started as a pleasure idea to go visit Dan and crew in Ohio of Acuity-VCT. I always joked about going to Ohio and now I am in for a real treat. Then the trip grew to where I started thinking I have airfare to Chicago, so I could visit my CDW rep Josie. So now my plans are to go to Chicago for one night, then to head over to Ohio to look at security camera installs at the Bulter Art Institue and Rock n Roll Hall of Fame. They are both using a system called analytics that sets up motion alarming and pages/sets off sound if a motion alarm is broken…but not your typical motion alarm as this is done with cameras and has variables that are taken into consideration (shadows, lighting differences, etc.). Then I will spend the weekend in Ohio and come back to Santa Barbara on Monday.

I am currently in Long Beach at a Quality Inn after a three and half hour gnarly drive. Not too bad for a cheap room, has wireless Internet and a deadbolt on the door, all a techie ever needs. I fly out on award winning Jet Blue tomorrow (you know the ones that land with the nose gear sideways?) But they do have DISH satellite so at least you can watch the plane on tv

Will keep you updated on my travels!

Tonight was our annual summer social event at work. Instead of the normal style of a picnic, our great staff reps put together something a bit different that many have never done before, a sunset cruise on Santa Barbara’s own Land Shark. It was a very fun adventure. Got picked up out front of the Museum and then headed down to the harbor where the vehicle drove right in. On the journey down, got many waves from random spectators…people can’t help but notice this giant boat vehicle heading down the street. Had some nature of sea lions in the harbor. After the sunset cruise, headed back up State street to the Museum. We had a two hour tour and did not end up on an uncharted island.

Heading to the Land Share, Click to View More

Well now I have done it…something I said I would never do and have mocked many for it. I have joined the revolution of having an Apple product. An iPhone. After all my hate of Apple and protection of Microsoft SmartPhone devices, I have made the change. Wonder what caused this to happen? Perhaps it was meant to be. The biggest selling point for me was the ability to have direct push info from Exchange, wihtout that it would have not even been an option. Perhaps the latest “I am a PC” ad really made me feel sick and felt it was time. Perhaps I secretively always wanted to use one but was afraid to let go of my Microsoft base.

I do know that in my four hours of constant use of so of the iPhone 3G, I am quite impressed. Has not crashed once and everything is so simple. Requires no thought process at all. A bit too simple, there must be a catch at some point. How can this device do everything? Everything from handle my mail, contacts, calendar to telling me how to get somewhere or what phone number to dial. Or even tells me where I am with the GPS find me.

So good bye to Mr. T-Mobile Dash..who served me well for over two years. And hello Mr. iPhone, who provides great business assets and joy at the same time.

Yes, I have gone to the dark side, but maybe it is much lighter than I ever imagined.

Visit theiphoneblog.com

The last Nights! of the season at SBMA was awesome, ended with a bang as it should. The two nice features of the event were that it started at 7 PM instead of 5:30 and the entire plaza was used as an outdoor club with KCRW sponsored DJ Jason Bentley. Sauza was the alcohol sponsor for some good margaritas (not nearly as good as mine, but whateva). The crowd had a great time and there was a good vibe overall.

Video of Projection Effects:

The Gang (minus Chuck, taking photo):

Tim, Patricia, Myself, and Amy - Click to View More

Mmm…gotta love disk storage space. Recently finished up rack mounting the latest additions to my family at work. Got a new HP DL 360 G5 for our file server. Attached to that is a MSA60 box with 1.8 TB of enterprise level storage. Each drive is 300 GB, 15K, with dual port domain functionality. The MSA60 has a dual domain card so there are two pathways to the data in case one pathway dies, love redundancy!!! got a new robotic library to back every up with. A HP MSL2024 tape library that has an LTO 4 Ultrium 1840 tape drive and 24 slots. The new tape drive can hold up to 800 GB native and 1.6 TB compressed per tape, for a total of 38.4 TB tape storage combined, sweeeeet!

Today was the farewell party for my supervisor Diane who I have worked with over six years at two different organizations. The theme was college football, so we decorated accordingly and had all types of tailgating style foods. I even found an inflateable five foot palm tree to give it the look. I will definitely miss working with Diane as her and I have a great working relationship and understand one another.

Tailgate Zone Ahead, Click to View More