Random Ramblings

It has been a busy week.  I was out of town last Wednesday, Thursday and Friday for a meeting in Charleston, South Carolina.  Monday I tried to catch up on the backlog from those three days, and needed to leave by 1:45 for the in-town conference.  Monday evening was Hillary Clinton, a very likely candidate for President in the next election and then Tuesday was conference all day long, including the lunch speech by the Vice President. I was pleased that I passed the secret service screening for the VP.  They were running around with pictures on I-Phones tapping people on the shoulder and asking them to leave.  There was an article in the Washington Post today about the number of places in DC where someone is eavesdropping on your cell phone activity - no big surprise. I was surprised that I was able to post to Facebook while the VP was in the room, they have the ability to block all the phones near the protected asset. Today I had a Conference planning call, a meet and greet for our fall semester interns and spent the rest of the day trying to cut an article from 2,800 words to 2,000 words.  I have it down to 2012 words, about as close as I am going to get.  They want exactly 2,000 words, not 1,999 and not 2001. These people are crazier then I am.

Charleston was great fun.  The hotel was plush and comfy.  We took a horse drawn carriage tour with a very entertaining local guide.  Charleston has become very up-scale over the last 30 years.  The guide said, houses from this point to the bay start at one-million-dollars and go up.  Someone asked where the money comes from and he drolly responded, we just assume that all Yankees are millionaires. Gucci and Louis Vuitton both had stores on the block the hotel was on.  A nice place to visit, but I couldn't afford to spend a lot of time there.  Boeing has an assembly plant at the airport in Charleston, I got to watch one of the Boeing super 747 freighters take off.  I like big planes.