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

I was wondering when my retirement account would show a red! They have this total that compares three months ago to today. For the longest time it has been positive which is totally incorrect as I am also putting money into it as well and the positive number is much lower than the amount I have been putting in. This morning, it is actually in the red, so even after my contributions over the last three months, it still went to the negative side…thankfully I am young and the market has time to rebound (and fail a few more times I am sure).

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!

Who would ever imagine a lad from San Bernardino would ever live in such a beautiful place as Santa Barbara! It has been hitting me more and more in the last few months as to how special this place really is. The quality of life is amazing…the only trick is figuring out how to own property here, which I think is next to impossible. The photo below is the view I get from my nightly walk at Shoreline Park. Not many can say they see that every night. Definitely beats my future of working in a radiator shop in the middle of the desert!