Hello from Anaheim, CA

Hello from Anaheim, CA

Wednesday night    November 10, 2010   (First travelogue of this trip).

I am in Anaheim, CA without the bus and Pat.  I flew here today.  More about that in a paragraph or two.

I did not get a chance to finish the last travelogue.  When we left off, we were at sea and running several hours behind.  The problem was that we were not able to leave the pier in Cozumel due to high winds.  About half way from Cozumel to Miami, the captain announced that they would arrive in Miami at 10:00 AM on Saturday (over two hours late).  That caused us considerable concern about making our flight.  I got on the internet and started corresponding with our travel agent.  She did some work with South West Airlines to see what our options were.  As it turns out, we were at the pier by 9:00 AM and easily made our flight.  Everyone noted the much faster speed of the ship on that leg of the trip.  I would hate to pay the fuel bill for that trip!!!

In the last blog I was discussing the fact that this was not our favorite ship.  Indeed, it was not our favorite cruise line.  Pat loves the formal dining format where you have an assigned table in a very fancy dining room.  Everything on the  menu is included and you can order as much as you want.  After dinner you can order a cappuccino – also included.  Dress code is pretty strict.  Most have at least one “formal” night.  I, on the other hand like the Norwegian Cruise Line “Freestyle Cruising” where you go to one of perhaps 10 or more restaurants.  The dress code is informal and you don't have assigned seats.  It seemed neat to me the last time we were on Norwegian.  Not so this time.  There were 13 restaurants (including the pool bar).  Out of the 13 only 4 were no cost.  The rest cost between $10 and $30.  The beloved room service pizza for the kids is now $5 and the cappuccino is no longer include in the cruise fee.  That just goes against our grain.  A major enjoyable feature of cruises is the fact that the food is great and included in the cost of the cruise.  Perhaps that is a thing of the past.

Now lets talk about this trip.  I am staying at the Embassy Suites hotel in Anaheim (map).  This is a business trip to test a new product that we have developed.  I will also get in one day at the NHRA drag races at Pomona.  That will allow me to see some old friends.

As background, a bit over a year ago, we were approached by a major vendor to the specialized heavy duty vehicle market.  Our fire detection system was very interesting to him and would compliment the gas detection system he markets to the natural gas powered commercial vehicles (mandated by the government).  We did a preliminary design of a very comprehensive gas detection/fire detection system.  The project became very complex and we decided to focus on the fire detection phase.  A couple of months ago we finished developing a rather sophisticated detection system that would function with an new generation fire suppression system developed by the people who manufacture the suppression system that I market to the RV market.  All of our testing was very successful, but the customer wanted to work with one of his customers to do some joint testing.

Our customer has arranged to do some testing at a refuse facility that has a fleet of trash trucks.  These trucks experience fires periodically and it appears to be a good market.

I will try to detail the event of the next few days as time permits.