A Presidential Monday
Nov. 11th, 2002 07:46 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
tugrikThe secret-service types are amazingly good at what they do. They filled the room without being in the way; they covered all the exits, bases, and risks in an effortless manner. I was truely impressed.
Shortly afterwards, the President walked in and shook hands with our receptionist.
Okay, so it was the ex-President, Bill Clinton. But I think just saying "President" is applicable too. I never did learn all the proper-title rules about our government.
During his administration, President Clinton signed into law a number of things that helped create the job I now have. The removal of Selective Availability from the GPS system and the Enhanced-911 Location Mandate are two of them. Those and other governmental actions, combined with a really nifty team of old cold-war-era orbital scientists and PhD math-heads brought about Global Locate, the company that I perform Network Architect duties for. Of the many things we do, the two most important are the indoor-capable GPS chips we've designed for celphone use, and the Worldwide Reference Network. The WWRN is what I do; it's a network I got the chance to build from the ground up over the last year and a half. That network combined with really scary math provides the data Assisted GPS needs to function. If you really want to know more about it, check out my company's site.
Since his administration helped bring us about and we also have a board member who's a friend, Clinton thought it'd be fun to pay us a visit and have a chat with our execs about where the technology he got started is going nowadays. We gave him the standard demo of our indoor GPS product and showed him around the new office.
Now when I say new, I mean new. I won't go into a rant about how hard it was to move into the new space within this deadline -- I'l just say it was seriously ugly. As it is we spent all day cleaning and doing those "one more thing" fixups, right until minutes before his arrival. When he got here all the work paid off, though. Last week we would have been some crummy little shop with card-tables and stacks of hardware, folks sitting 2 or 3 to a desk (no kidding). Now we're 4x that size, with proper cubes and good furniture, with plenty of relaxed room for all and wonderful storage space for the hardware. We look Real, and it felt kind of nice.
After the demo, he wandered the office and shook the hand of every employee. We're a tiny company, so that didn't take long. A few engineers cheezed it up and brought their kids in, but that was cool. I was the fellow drafted to be behind the camera as the execs here like my photowork. I warned 'em that I don't do 'march around the crowd getting candids' very well but they still wanted me to do it. The downside was that as the guy behind the lens, I didn't get any good pictures of myself with Da Prez. He shook my hand and we chatted for a moment. He's a surprisingly solid-and-likeable guy in person.
Clinton and the execs trundled off to one of the smaller offices chosen by the Secret Service (using whatever odd criteria they have for such things), and talked shop for a halfhour. All of us employees will get a briefing on what was said tomorrow, as the execs all either ran off to tell folks about "I got to meet the Prez!" or followed his entourage to a speaking engagement farther up in the Bay. It's all probably company-private stuff anyways so I doubt I'll get to post it here.
A few more handshakes and a final walk through Engineering to see all the stacked up RF testing gear (a somewhat impressive sight), and he was gone. Again the Service displayed remarkable efficiency; it all ran perfectly smooth. I took a sec to download the pictures from the camera and email them about for people to take home, and Alex surprised me with one he took. It's a little out of focus and done with a pocket digicam, but it's the only proof I got that I got to be part of this. It's also proof that I work in incredibly loud, colorful shirts.
From left to right, that's the back of Clinton's head, our marketing guy Frank giving the demo, our short-but-cool CEO Scott, the feet-shufflingly-shy VP Don next to him, and big-blue there with the camera looking away from the action, getting ready to head over to my next picture-taking spot.
Next time I get to meet an UberVIP, I'll make sure to get a good pic, I promise. :) Of all the pictures I took, the ones here on my Imageserver page are the ones the bossmen are letting me release. They're all kind of generic around-the-halls-and-offices shots; I had to edit out the areas that had our non-disclosure stuff. The pics themselves are raw out of camera as this event was only an hour or two ago. I'll edit up the images a bit this weekend to balance out colors and brightness levels.
I didn't care a lot for Clinton when he was elected, but I grew to like him just on the merits of what his policies actually did by the time his term of office was coming to a close. Most of my friends seem to wrinkle their noses at the thought of the guy, but even so I think they'd like him in person. He's an OK person in my book. And hey -- his visit made for one of the least boring Mondays at the office I've ever had.
Shortly afterwards, the President walked in and shook hands with our receptionist.
Okay, so it was the ex-President, Bill Clinton. But I think just saying "President" is applicable too. I never did learn all the proper-title rules about our government.
During his administration, President Clinton signed into law a number of things that helped create the job I now have. The removal of Selective Availability from the GPS system and the Enhanced-911 Location Mandate are two of them. Those and other governmental actions, combined with a really nifty team of old cold-war-era orbital scientists and PhD math-heads brought about Global Locate, the company that I perform Network Architect duties for. Of the many things we do, the two most important are the indoor-capable GPS chips we've designed for celphone use, and the Worldwide Reference Network. The WWRN is what I do; it's a network I got the chance to build from the ground up over the last year and a half. That network combined with really scary math provides the data Assisted GPS needs to function. If you really want to know more about it, check out my company's site.
Since his administration helped bring us about and we also have a board member who's a friend, Clinton thought it'd be fun to pay us a visit and have a chat with our execs about where the technology he got started is going nowadays. We gave him the standard demo of our indoor GPS product and showed him around the new office.Now when I say new, I mean new. I won't go into a rant about how hard it was to move into the new space within this deadline -- I'l just say it was seriously ugly. As it is we spent all day cleaning and doing those "one more thing" fixups, right until minutes before his arrival. When he got here all the work paid off, though. Last week we would have been some crummy little shop with card-tables and stacks of hardware, folks sitting 2 or 3 to a desk (no kidding). Now we're 4x that size, with proper cubes and good furniture, with plenty of relaxed room for all and wonderful storage space for the hardware. We look Real, and it felt kind of nice.
After the demo, he wandered the office and shook the hand of every employee. We're a tiny company, so that didn't take long. A few engineers cheezed it up and brought their kids in, but that was cool. I was the fellow drafted to be behind the camera as the execs here like my photowork. I warned 'em that I don't do 'march around the crowd getting candids' very well but they still wanted me to do it. The downside was that as the guy behind the lens, I didn't get any good pictures of myself with Da Prez. He shook my hand and we chatted for a moment. He's a surprisingly solid-and-likeable guy in person.Clinton and the execs trundled off to one of the smaller offices chosen by the Secret Service (using whatever odd criteria they have for such things), and talked shop for a halfhour. All of us employees will get a briefing on what was said tomorrow, as the execs all either ran off to tell folks about "I got to meet the Prez!" or followed his entourage to a speaking engagement farther up in the Bay. It's all probably company-private stuff anyways so I doubt I'll get to post it here.A few more handshakes and a final walk through Engineering to see all the stacked up RF testing gear (a somewhat impressive sight), and he was gone. Again the Service displayed remarkable efficiency; it all ran perfectly smooth. I took a sec to download the pictures from the camera and email them about for people to take home, and Alex surprised me with one he took. It's a little out of focus and done with a pocket digicam, but it's the only proof I got that I got to be part of this. It's also proof that I work in incredibly loud, colorful shirts.
From left to right, that's the back of Clinton's head, our marketing guy Frank giving the demo, our short-but-cool CEO Scott, the feet-shufflingly-shy VP Don next to him, and big-blue there with the camera looking away from the action, getting ready to head over to my next picture-taking spot.
Next time I get to meet an UberVIP, I'll make sure to get a good pic, I promise. :) Of all the pictures I took, the ones here on my Imageserver page are the ones the bossmen are letting me release. They're all kind of generic around-the-halls-and-offices shots; I had to edit out the areas that had our non-disclosure stuff. The pics themselves are raw out of camera as this event was only an hour or two ago. I'll edit up the images a bit this weekend to balance out colors and brightness levels.
I didn't care a lot for Clinton when he was elected, but I grew to like him just on the merits of what his policies actually did by the time his term of office was coming to a close. Most of my friends seem to wrinkle their noses at the thought of the guy, but even so I think they'd like him in person. He's an OK person in my book. And hey -- his visit made for one of the least boring Mondays at the office I've ever had.
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no subject
Date: 2002-11-11 08:39 pm (UTC)Congratulations on meeting him!
Neato
Date: 2002-11-11 10:14 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2002-11-11 10:35 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2002-11-12 12:20 am (UTC)Not sure what else to say, but very cool :-)
no subject
Date: 2002-11-12 05:59 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2002-11-12 08:44 am (UTC)FYI, the title protocol is President (while in office) and Former President (upon leaving office, but while still alive). Late President (upon the death of a current or former president) is usually only used for about 30-50 years or during the normal life span of the constituancy who could have been expected to vote for him. Ex-President currently only applies to Nixon, as he is the only former office holder who did not complete a regular term for reasons other than death in office.
Clinton appears to be following in the path of Carter, in that he's retaining & even expanding his popularity & his scope of influence after leaving office.
no subject
Date: 2002-11-12 02:34 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2002-11-13 06:11 pm (UTC)And unlike amilori, I'd think it was cooler if it was Bush, I saw him speak at my sisters graduation, and was pretty impressed.
Still, even though I dislike Clinton, it is cool to meet a (former)President.