"Monday morning started with a rush. I was to do 2 hours of d-TIPS training at 10:00 for Anglo-Swiss. Cindy Peevy was the salesperson. I had Carlos go with us to install the software. There were some problems and he had to download some stuff across the net to get it to work. He did an excellent job, making it look very easy. Then we gave them a presentation on how to use d-TIPS, which is the fluid substitution modeling software Fred Hilterman and his son-in-law Scott Smith and which is a key component of the TILESTM Project I have been working on this last year. They seemed pleased with what we demonstrated and delivered. Cindy took Carlos and I out to a nice Italian restaurant close to where Gulf Publishing had their offices on Allen Parkway when I wrote New Technologies in Exploration Geophysics with them. I do not recall what else was going on at work when we got back. I just remember things have been very busy for many weeks.
Tuesday I received a call from Nancy Colleton, who is heading up the U.S. Geo Workshop I was scheduled to go to the end of the week. She asked me to be on a panel in one of the U.S. Geo sessions and to give a 20 minute presentation in my session. The presentation was to be about key enablers for decision support systems, and to include:
Early Wednesday morning Andrea and I flew to Washington D.C. and specifically Reagan International Airport via Atlanta. Thanks to Audrey we flew on Delta for about $100. each, which I thought meant I could write the entire cost off to GDC since the two tickets was less than the cost of one coach ticket for me (0547.html). I enjoy traveling with Andrea. And she likes to travel more than I do. So it works out when I go on a trip and she can go with me. I don't get as much done in the evenings as far as working on An Open Mind or Book of Mormon word patterns or reading. She turns the TV on, which I seldom do. And we end up going out to dinner and such. And it is nice to have her with me to talk about the day and to go out to eat with and to hold my hand.
We stayed at the Washington Plaza at 10 Thomas Circle NW, which was the cheapest hotel close to the Reagan International Building that we could find. It cost $20. to get a cab to take us to the hotel from the airport. We met Fred Turner from WRI (Western Research Institute) in Laramie, Wyoming at the airport and shared a cab with him. Then we met Michael Hauck, who used to head up WRI and is now working for In-Q-Tel and Mr. Gabor from the giant road building company Parsons-Brinkerhoff at the hotel. We ended up going over to Parsons-Brinkerhoff for our meeting that afternoon. Andrea went walking around the monuments while we talked about the Transportation Consortium and how GDC might get involved in supporting this effort. Michael took Fred, Andrea, and I out to a very nice Lebanese Restaurant for dinner. It was a nice evening.
My meetings with the U.S. Geo sponsored meeting titled `Earth Observation System Architecture: Enabling an Entrepreneurial Environment' started at 8:00 on Thursday morning. The meeting was interesting, and turned out to be a nice forum for my thoughts about the Infinite GridSM. I'm not sure anything will come from my presentation and work, and if you don't work at it, it is guaranteed nothing will come of it. I ended up being a very vocal contributor to the decision support systems sub-working group. However, I will refrain from writing detailed notes about the various presentations and comments, at least until I find out if something is going to come from it or not.
Thursday evening at 5:00 I met with Fred Turner and Michael Hauck again. This time we met in the offices of Dawn Sienicki who is a lobbyist with Digital Globe at the law firm of Wexler & Walker, just a couple of blocks from the Reagan International Building where the U.S. Geo meeting was being held. It is interesting and it is sad how political the transportation consortium is. I was particularly surprised at how important it is to have a sponsor to get anything to happen in Washington D.C. Oh well! After our meeting Michael took Fred, Andrea, and myself out to dinner again. This time we went to an Italian restaurant. It was also very good. There was a long line.
The Friday meetings were not as worthwhile as Thursday, at least from my perspective. However, during the overview session in the afternoon, I did write a possible stanza for Prime Words based on one of the session chairs who was talking about emergency response to disasters:
Friday evening Andrea and I took the Metro to Silver Springs, waited in line for quite a while and caught a cab with a driver from Sierra Leon, and went to the Washington D.C. Temple. I did a vicarious endowment session for Jesus Camilode from Mexico, who was born in 1827. We were going to go back to the Washington Plaza and watch my favorite new TV show: `Numb3rs.' However, as we left the Celestial Room, John D. Baker, a sealer, cornered us and we ended up going upstairs where we did 10 marriage sealings, the sealing of 7 daughters and 3 sons to their parents, and had an opportunity to contemplate the idea of eternal families. It was a very nice time, and there was such a good feeling in the room. John Baker is about 90 years old, and he has such a wonderful spirit about him. We ended up meeting another couple, and they took us to the Metro Station so we could catch a train back to the hotel. I was really hungry by this time, and Numb3rs was over, so we stopped at a restaurant Fred had recommended our first night and I had a rack of lamb and Andrea had a steak. Good thing we walked quite a bit to get around, because we certainly ate well while we were there.
Andrea had spent most of Friday at Arlington National Cemetery. It was neat to learn all about Robert E. Lee, and the fact this had been his estate and it was eventually taken over by the government because his wife could not afford to keep up the taxes on the property.
I spent all the time available on Saturday at the National Museum of the American Indian. I was fascinated with the building itself, the curves, the waterfalls out front, and especially the central roles of circles and the relationship to Hopi Kiva's. The ground level opens into a giant Kiva with three different types of Native American Boats: the bark canoe, the kayak, and the Hawaiian outrigger. There is another large Kiva that is a large theater on the ground floor, and the restaurant is two, or three, different Kiva's.
I spent from 10:00 until 2:00 on the fourth floor looking at the `Our People's Exhibits' for different tribes. I find the history and the legends and the relationships to The Book of Mormon and early church history absolutely fascinating. The theme was `Our Universes' and focused on `indigenous cosmologies - world views and philosophies related to the creation and order of the universe - and the spiritual relationship between humankind and the natural world.' The exhibits were organized around the solar year, and had details about eight cultures:
There was also a section which gives different groups a chance to correct inaccurate histories. This section featured:
The last thing I did on the fourth floor was go into another Kiva, where they had a theater in the round, with movies on a sphere on the floor, movies on a planetarium type ceiling, and movies on draped white Indian blankets. What a neat way to tell a wonderful story and to summarize a most enjoyable four hours.
The third floor has some very interesting modern Indian Art and Sculptures by George Morrison and Allan Houser. There was also a very interesting section on contemporary life and identities, with exhibits on:
The second level has the Roanoke Museum Store, and much of the space is blocked because of the high ceilings for several of the Kiva's on the ground floor. I did not spend much time here. I went downstairs and waited for Andrea. She had gone to see the Hope Diamond and the First Lady's dresses. She was on a tour on the fourth floor when I called her. After her tour she came downstairs and we ate some Indian food from the restaurant. Then we went to a movie about different modern day Indian efforts. There are a couple of you I would like to send on one of the `boot camps' the Indians have set up for youth who have lost touch with their roots. It was depicted very well in the movie. We left, hurried to the hotel, hurried to the airport, and made it to Atlanta. We were not sure we were going to get on the plane in Atlanta, and we did. So we got home about 11:00 PM. In plenty of time to have a good night sleep and then to get up and give a primary lesson.
There was an interesting e-mail waiting for me at home:
I responded with:
Sunday was busy. I was not able to Home Teach two of my families, and Scott Whitrock was not able to go out with me anyway. Oh well! I did write a possible stanza for Prime Words based on a talk in Sacrament meeting:
In my Sunday night calls I learned that Roice has a new screen saver program. However, he hasn't posted it yet (It's four weeks later), and so I don't have it downloaded yet. His software does give an interesting context to the earth observation discussions we had at the conference sponsored by the U.S. Geo (United States Group on Earth Observations)."