Archive for April 22nd, 2010

The Expo ended with as much excitement as it started with. Tommy, Mark, and the Crescent City Currents really know how to throw a party and generate excitement. I hope you didn’t get hit with a flying orange. Let’s plan to get together again.

Pam and I have been planning for the trip to New Orleans and the PES T&D Expo for months. We have studied the city, the tours, everything. I have been looking forward to seeing friends and daydreaming about the new technologies I could play with. Now it is over. I feel like I lost a friend. I don’t want to go home - well maybe. NOLA has been a fantastic host city. I don’t think I met anyone in the service industry that wasn’t trying to be helpful.

I always feel it was a great trip if I wish there was more. I really wish there was more. I guess it is time to start thinking and planning about Orlando. Heck, it is only two short years and we can do it again!!

I have been to the SouthWire booth three times. I thought I had seen everything. Wrong! I had missed the copper thief technology they are displaying. I had one of those forehead slapping moments. How could I have missed it??? I don’t know. I should have kept my mouth (blog) shut and not admitted it, but I had to. It is just too neat.

Have you seen the Thomas & Betts area? If you are looking for transmission structures or distribution poles, you will find them there. Between them and SD Myers I don’t think you will be disappointed. When you include all the divisions this is one huge area to look at. I think it will take a couple of hours to get through all the product displayed here.

The folks at Southern States are very proud of their newest device to hit the industry. It is the RLSwitcher. They designed the world’s first device specifically for switching reactors. Of course they have a lot of other world’s first in their list, but this is the newest. The have also combined it with the space age current measuring device. When will they ever run out of ideas - never I hope. They keep me on my toes staying up with them. Go to to Joe Rostron, Rusty Ortkiese, and David Moore. They will be very happy to show the toys.

Imagine what it took to get a piece of equipment the size of this (photo) into the convention center. Add the effort to put it together. Multiple this by all the booths with large equipment in them. That is a staggering image! Our manufacturers are really committed to showing off their best!

I finally found a little touch of heaven and it is at the Thomas & Betts booth. They have a wonderful lady there making coffee, espressos, cappuccino… You say please and you get a great cup. It was so good, but then I am partial to cappuccino. What a great pick-me-up after miles of walking.

I am technically challenged on this trip. I will be getting video added to this blog - by Ned! The Internet connection in the hotel was very slow. It crashed one night and really impacted what I was doing. Anyway, I have made several video files, but they are very large. It took 20 minutes the other night to upload one. Then I couldn’t get it to append to the file. I’m not sure if it is my computer or the links. When I get back to my office I will work on this and get them added to the blog. Be sure to check back next week. They will be there!

I had just finished talking with an exhibitor and turned around to leave his booth. Surprise, I ran into an old friend I haven’t seen since last year. Nick Miller from GE was walking down the aisle. He had made a wind presentation and had a chance to get out on the floor. It amazes me that in a crowd this big, you can run into friends. Our industry is a small world, but this is ridiculous.

Stop by the GeoDigital booth. They took a truck with LiDAR gear and drove down the street. Then they process the data clouds. The results are on a large monitor. You see all the distribution lines, streets, cars, - everything. It is amazing.