Archive of the '2010 All Things IEEE' Category

This place is crowded! Everywhere I go I see lots and lots of people visiting the booths. The flow of information is amazing. I have also seen young engineers all over the place. The ones I have talked to are blown away by the size of the exhibit hall. They wonder how they are going to see it all in just 3 days!

Pat Ryan and Tommy Mayne gave me a quick overview of the Expo. They have been living with it since the close of the last Expo in Chicago. They are also planning the 2012 Expo in Orlando. I don’t see how they keep it all straight, but they do. Like I have said before, we attendees just don’t think about all the work needed to put this on.

I ran into a new friend of mine, Bob Gonzales. He is Tommy Mayne’s right hand man. He had a load of bags and boxes, which got my attention. Bob told me on Thursday there is going to be a big raffle taking place at the party.

Everyone will drop their ID badge into a bucket. During the festivities, they will start drawing names. The prizes - a Mac Pro computer, 4 iPads, and 4 Kindles! Wow, that is a raffle. Make sure you stick around for the party.

Today New Orleans had its Iron Man celebration. I didn’t think the movie came out until next month. Just kidding. The streets were blocked. it was safe to jaywalk - actually encouraged. It was more like a party than a grueling physical event where people push themselves to the brink of endurance. But the local committee (Crescent City Currents) told me the Big Easy makes everything a party. I believe them now. I can’t wait to see what goes on at the conference. I know it will be good!!!

For the past couple of nights, we have gone the traditional path of going to restaurants. We went to the Court of the 2 Sisters and it was fantastic. We also went to K-Paul’s Louisiana Kitchen, again fantastic. I can highly recommend either of these fine establishments. You can’t go wrong, but do get reservations. There will be an Information booth on the floor at the Expo. Stop there and talk to the volunteers. They are locals and have a great sense of where to go if you tell them what you like.

We tried another method today - the progressive dinner. We hit the French Quarter and wandered amongst the stores, stalls, and restaurants. We found a great little place for sea food gumbo. They had a plate of lightly toasted French bread to go with it. Next, we found a place with alligator kabobs. They also had snapping turtle, but I really wanted the gator. I haven’t had that in a long time. Twenty paces later, I found alligator on a stick, but passed it by in search of other taste treats. We found frogs legs too with a spicy sauce on them - great, great, great! To wrap it up, there was a place with homemade bread pudding. Mine had white chocolate sauce. Pam’s had rum. When you are looking for something to eat at the Expo take advantage of the area. Cajun cooking is great. There is just about anything else you could want too.

Pam and I decided to come to New Orleans a couple of days early to sample what the host city has to offer and is is always enjoyable. We do this a lot with PES conferences. The conference committee spends a lot of time in the selection process to find places that add to our experiences. It’s kind of like those enrichment classes we all took in college. Many students took advantage many did not.

I am a certified nerd engineer, but I found out a long time ago life is more than work. You have to recharge those internal batteries. So, the next couple of days are going to be blogs about the fun side of the conference. We will get back to the education and work on Monday!!

Sure, we all tell the boss we want to go to the T&D Expo for education, see new technology, and gain hands-on experience with the equipment. Of course that is true, but there is more. As they say in New Orleans it is lagniappe (something extra). Did I get that right Uncle Vito (he is bound to twitter when he sees me trying to use the vernacular).

I was talking with my friend John McDonald (past President PES) last week. We were discussing some smart grid technologies and the utilities using them (BTW - don’t be late for his Smart Grid Day opening presentation). Somehow we got off the subject and ended up talking about the great PES General Meeting was last summer in Calgary. We have both been heavily involved in volunteering in the operations of the PES over the years. We really look forward to seeing old friends at these meetings. We all keep in touch through e-mail and phone calls, but it is great to see each other over a cup of coffee. The people are really the most important aspect of our organization. Thanks to PES I have expert friends that I can call and ask any question. They may shake their heads, but they always answer the question. That is lagniappe in its best sense!

We are setting goals of 20% of all our electricity being generated by renewables in the next few years. This is pretty much a world wide target, but it seems that Mother Nature loves to mess up our plans. If you doubt it, check out wind generation vs. peak loads! I worked for a utility in Kansas for many years. Kansas is one of the windiest places around, but during the hot summer - it doesn’t blow. The sun beats down, the temperature climbs, and the wind is calm. Unfortunately, this is all so true all over the wind belt.

So what is an engineer to do? Glad you asked. Tuesday’s Super Session #1 (Energy Storage and the Integration of Renewables - 1:00pm) is focused on that very subject! They are exploring the missing link - Energy Storage. Many of my wind generator friends get sensitive when I bring up this subject, but we have to take advantage of all the smart grid technologies to get us out of this problem. PES has a lot of great session planned for the Expo like this one. My big problems is being in so many places at once. This is a great problem to have. I have been to so many conferences that my e-mail has been more interesting than the event - thank God this isn’t one of them!!!

The PES T&D Expo blog is up and running. In the past two years since the 2008 T&D Expo I have been to a lot of conferences. None of them took advantage of the the social networking technology like the blog. Blog - what a strange word. it comes from journalist John Barger. He made daily changes to his web page and called it a weblog (web log). Someone thought it read we blog. That was shortened to blog and the rest is history.

It’s a great way to keep friends and family up to date on what is happening, which is why we do it. The PES family is about to have its biggest reunion ever! I am going to try find interesting people, products, and anything else I think will help us have a great time in New Orleans. Let me know what you find interesting. I need help because I can’t see it all (as much as I try). So, send me comments on what has attracted your attention.

Can you believe it? the 2010 Transmission and Distribution Conference and Exposition is almost here! It seems like a few months ago we said good bye in Chicago and now we are on the eve of the 2010 T&D Expo. The Crescent City is calling. For the techno-geeks like me, it is the Superbowl, World Series, and March Madness all rolled into one and making it even better is the setting. New Orleans - jazz, Creole cooking and Cajun Cuisine, the French Quarter, and chicory coffee. We have an exhibition floor with just about everything imaginable in the way of technology and business solutions for our industry. Stay tuned blog followers - this is going to be exciting. I plan to do some pre-conference exploring and will report back.