On Thursday I flew to Boise for a workshop put on for the CIOs of the various land management agencies. The Forest Service, Bureau of Land Management, National Park Service, and others were represented. They originally got together to solve the issue of radio interoperability but have been looking at other areas as well. Since I work for an Assistant Director of the Forest Service CIO it was pretty important to us to make a presence. Especially since we are about to bid on a large contract to manage all the wildland fire IT applications. The event took place at the National Interagency Fire Center.
The night before I found the one 24 hour Kinkos in Boise and got some posters printed for our booth backdrop. It happened to be right next door to the Tablerock brewpub. I’ve been there once before. They had decent beer; nothing unique. I was about the only one there hanging with the employees on a late Thursday. Walking out some kid was giving me a parking ticket. I started asking him questions about how he was using his phone to create the ticket and then had it printed wirelessly on the mobile printer around his neck. He decided not to give me that ticket afterall.
We took part in a conference style workshop on Friday afternoon. Each of the projects that were invited had a booth with gadgets to show how they support the wildland fire effort. We took over the front of the room and had eye catching intel data displayed in Google Earth on a large screen. We made a good impression on the bigwigs. I got some key face time with top decision makers. The most significant was probably Sanjeev “Sonny” Bhagowalia. He is the CIO of the Department of Interior and has strong ties to the White House.
As luck would have it David Grisman was playing that night in downtown. He tours constantly (for many decades) and I usually see him about once year. Although lately I haven’t seen him in awhile and was looking forward to some Friday night fun. I picked up a ticket from someone who had an extra. It was a small nice theater downtown that fit less than 800. It was a good show. Although they only played one set and they always play two sets at the Birchmere. They did rock though. A fun crowd too. The beer was local and cheap as well.
When I walked out in to the streets of downtown Boise at 11pm it was rockin’. Unfortunately I was not staying downtown and had to drive back to the hotel. Next time I’ll be staying downtown on the weekends.
And then on the way home I got lucky. I had a nice big exit row and a first class seat on my way in to Boise. My first flight out of Boise to Salt Lake City was only 40 minutes and there wasn’t a first class section. The Salt Lake City airport was packed yesterday. Flights were overbooked. I saw the FS CTO at the ticket counter and apparently he didn’t make it on my flight. I was not looking forward to a four hour flight in coach as I had not gotten an upgrade to first class. Delta came through for me though and when I handed the lady my ticket to board a new seat assignment was printed and I was relaxing in first class. As we took off I heard a baby screaming in the back. I sat in my spacious seat, ate my free lunch, and had a free bloody mary before sleeping peacefully most of the flight.
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