What a series of events

It never ceases to amaze me how exciting our lives can be when we take moments to reflect on how fast we are moving. Early last week I was in the middle of New Mexico giving a talk to several hundred people, middle of the week working on fiscal year ’07 planning for our company’s marketing plan and at the latter part of the week in the middle of a secret service protection detail on our campus. I can certainly say that I ma most decisively not bored. But lets talk about the excitement from Friday.

The day began at the typical crazy 4am start, arriving at work at the only slightly less crazy 5:30. I began to gather needed supplies and make ready for the task of the day, helping coordinate command and control for the security of our CEO, the Governor of CA, and not the least, The President of the United States. I bring our mobile command post to the back of our main building on campus, directly adjacent to the key building of the day. The only soul around is a single secret service agent reading a book in his car while his bomb sniffing dog gently nuzzles his hand. My counterpart and I begin the drawn out process of setting up all the capabilities in our command vehicle including the raising of a 75 foot mast to gain a network signal, setting up half a dozen IP phones, as well as camera images from our entire campus. Soon San Jose police begin to arrive and look for direction as to where begin their own set-up. Due to a meeting later that day I am dressed like an authority in a nice black suit, somehow that must make me appear to be in charge. I try to tell them that in the great big totem pole of command, I am simply the dirt holding it up, somehow they seemed to agree we all fit that same category. With that I began helping them arrange their dozens of police cars, two horse trailers, dozens more motorcycles and all other necessary supplies. All told they had almost 400 officers assigned to the task of protecting this event.

Interestingly enough once some of the police’s senior leadership saw the capabilities in this cutting edge command vehicle and the fact they could monitor all the operations on the entire campus without relying simply on radio descriptions we were soon inundated with police and fire senior leadership. In fact the chief of police was actually watching over our shoulder, fun until reports come in of a hummer entering into a secure zone plastered with protest signs and with people hanging out the windows. However with the help of some incredibly talented tech people we had it on screen and fully monitored before the first police car pulled up less than 30 seconds later. It was a good moment. There were other brief scares and other activities which I feel would be inappropriate to talk about here, but suffice to say it was not boring.

So although this whole event was hyped up to the nth degree, with major streets all around the campus completely closed off and an entire populace asked to work from home, there was a tangible energy that pervaded the day. They of course think of everything, a fence line hundreds of feet away from the rear of the building is blockaded by a dozen buses to prevent a gunman from hiding in the bushes, and other preparations which even I would not reveal in this forum. But the adrenalin rush was tangible, and one wonders if the aids and entourage ever gets tired of it. Their exit was only a few blocks away to where two gun ships and two transport helicopters were ready to whisk them away to their next stop in Palo Alto. Interestingly enough there was supposed to be anywhere from 20,000 to 50,000 protesters for the president’s visit, however due to some smart work by the police a vast majority were unable to get close enough to satisfy their goals so instead they abandoned our location and turned to Palo Alto. Our police leadership gets the call that the police up at Stanford were quickly being overrun by protesters who were performing sit-in protests in every public street. So on command decision almost 400 officers to a caravan consisting of horse trailers, motorcycles, SUVs, and cruisers preceded code 3 up our main highway to back up their fellow officers. That must have been a sight to see with well over 100 vehicles. I jokingly asked the Captain if I could tag along in my personal vehicle to beat the traffic on my way home. Alas no dice.

Later that day I traded my suit for a pair of jeans to meet a friend for some tapas and a quick movie, Thank you for Smoking. I highly recommend the movie if you have the time, but certainly bring someone along that would be willing and able to engage in a bit of discussion afterwards for this movie does more than entertain it brings up questions of freedom of thought and expression. A great cast and a fantastic dialogue, certainly a must rent on DVD if you miss the theater showing. As for me, well for now I think I might just take a bit of a nap to help recover.