It has been another busy week. I flew out on Friday morning to Montreal for the annual Montreal Grand Prix. Our distributor, Future Electronics hosts a very nice annual executive event and also have a great suite in the paddock club above the pits at the raceway. The Formula One is an amazing race and it is difficult to describe the sensation of being there and feeling and hearing the power of these cars. We also have access to the pits so we can go right up to the cars and check them out - pretty cool. Last year Angela joined me but felt that she could not go this year and as it turns out with all of the illnesses that the kids are experiencing - she was right. The event is nice but it is actually work - especially if your spouse is not there since you are talking about work the entire time and always have to be "on". On Monday morning George and I flew to Detroit for some additional customer meetings. We stayed in a very cool historic hotel which was built by Henry Ford on the Ford campus in 1931 and is now a Marriott property - very nice. Here is a picture of Henry Ford in the early 1900s.
The picture was in our room and George climbed up for a closer look. This morning we got up early and flew from Detroit to Des Moines, Iowa. These are places I have never been before so it is interesting to see. Right now it is a little iffy since there are floods everywhere. They are sandbagging the road in front of our hotel right now - good thing I am on the 11th floor. I just hope I can get on a flight home tomorrow after our last meeting. Today one of our meetings was in Oskoloosa, Iowa. We visited a customer that does a lot of stadium lighting, most of the major baseball and football stadiums, racetracks etc. are lit by them - they also do a lot of set lighting for Hollywood. George and I saw a cool statue in the town square of an Indian Chief so he wanted to get his picture taken - I obliged him. Below is some information on the Chief that I got on Wikipedia.
Mahaska, or White Cloud, (1784 – 1834) was a chief of the Native American Iowa tribe.
Mahaska became chief at an early age after killing several enemy Sioux to avenge his father’s death. He was later imprisoned in St. Louis, Missouri for killing a French trader, before he escaped and led a raid against the Osage. Afterward, he decided that his father’s death was finally avenged, so he laid down his arms and adopted the lifestyle of the white settlers, building a log home and farming. He refused to let his braves avenge the death of an Ioway chief named Crane at the hands of Omaha Indians in 1833, and when several Ioway killed six Omahas, Mahaska assisted in their arrest.
The next year one of the Ioway escaped from Fort Leavenworth and killed Mahaska.
Chief Mahaska became a symbol of the virtues of his native lifestyle and of the possibility of peace between natives and settlers.
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