National Transportation Conference in Phoenix

I just spent the past few days in Phoenix, Arizona, well technically Scottsdale, at my employer's national transportation conference. Every two years all of the engineers involved in transportation design get otgether for a massive conference which entails a couple of days of endless presentations and ample networking opportunities. Typically the conference is held at a hotel that is isolated from anythign remotely interesting and they schedle your activities from 7AM to 11PM so there is no time for sightseeing, golf, or any sort of fun. Not exactly relaxing but a nice change of pace from the office.

I gave a presentation on Industrial Rail Clients that described what types of industrial rail cients HDR can look to serve, how to go about getting work from them and how working with an industriual client can be different than working for a major Class I railroad. It went very well and was well received by those in attendance.

Bizzarely, it rained on one of my days in Phoenix. I haven't seen rain in months. Figures I'd see it in the middle of the desert.

The other notable event on this trip was in the departure lounge before my flight home from Phoenix. An older gentleman pulled a large hunting knife out of his cooler and started peeling an orange with it. Within about 30 seconds two TSA officers came up to him and excorted him back to security. I have no idea how he got that thing through security in the first place, but luckily they didn't evacuate the terminal and send everybody back though. Also lucky that he didn't take it out on the plane next to a trigger happy air marshall.