Monthly Archives: June 2004

Mobile Office

Some campgrounds are beginning to install high-speed wireless internet. I spent the night on Thursday evening at a KOA campground in Mobile Office Rock Springs, Wyoming. I arrived fairly late in the evening and set up house. I had a telephone meeting with folks in Pocatello and Belgium the next morning at 8 a.m. so I was quite interested in finding a wifi hotspot somewhere in Rock Springs for the meeting. Turns out that the KOA has an arrangement with Hotspotzz and had 24 hours of access for $8.00. Now, for one day that was fairly reasonable until I figure out that works out to about $240 a month! They don’t have to sell very many connections a month to make good money on this investment.

It is quite amazing to me that I can be in a RV campground in rural Wyoming and be connected almost as though I was in the office. It wasn’t all that many years ago that being able to connect to any other computer at 1200 baud (about 120 characters per second) was considered "really fast"!

It’s now Saturday morning. I’ve arrived safely in Colorado Springs and was there long enough to unload some stuff from the RV, pack a suitcase, and get about 5 hours of sleep. We’re at the Colorado Springs Airport waiting to board a flight to Denver where we’ll meet up with my folks, Perry and Chris, and Eileen and Phil on our way to Seattle to get on the cruise ship for our Alaskan cruise. A week of rest and relaxation!! This is going to be a real treat. With everything else going on we haven’t paid much attention to this trip; it just kind of snuck up on us and BAM — time to go. About 11 p.m. last night I was scrambling to do the on-line registration stuff so we could get through the checkin line more quickly when we arrive at the cruise terminal.

So, we’ll spend a week cruising the Inside Passage, a day at church and disconnecting electronic equipment, and three days watching the movers. Then we’re out of Colorado Springs — when we ever come back it’ll be as a visitor. Big changes underway.

ISU Lunch

I had lunch today with the Business Informations Department chair and one
of the professors in that department at Idaho State University (located
here in Pocatello). They have had a long relationship with my current
coimpany and are interested in writing up a teaching case on integrating
two companies and two cultures.

The discussion was quite interesting. I'm quite interested in this activity
and will help get that project approved by the company. I'm also interested
in forging good relations with the university. I want to know more about
their curriculum and what graduating students would be capable of doing.

Meanwhile, I'm close to being ready to start the drive back to Colorado
Springs tomorrow afternoon. I've got a 7 am meeting tomorrow so I need to
be able to drive out of the campground by 6:30. I'll leave my other car
here so I can tow the Toyota back after the movers are done at the house.
That way Nina and I can drive back together.

I'm also interested in seeing what an email to the weblog looks like when
sent from my Blackberry. It is sunny and warm today!

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Sent from my BlackBerry Wireless Handheld