Weekend in Chicago Area

We enjoyed a visit to the Chicago area this past weekend. On Friday, we stopped to visit Georgia, one of Kathie's Alpha Phi friends.

Next, we stopped to see Tom, Kris, Cullen and new baby Conor. Kris is Kathie's niece. The boys were really fun. Hadn't seen Cullen since he was a baby, and of course, now that he is two, there is lots more for him to say and do.

Friday was a miserable, cold, rainy day with temperatures barely reaching the low 40s. Henry had a baseball game that afternoon. Most of the boys had so many extra clothes on that you either couldn't see their uniforms or noticed that they were very padded with extra layers underneath. Henry was happy to have us there though, and he played well, including scoring the go-ahead run that eventually resulted in another win for Little Louie's (his sponsored team's name).

You can get some idea of the lovely weather for watching a game as we grandparents and parents occupied our ringside seats.

Afterwards, a stop at Starbuck's for some hot chocolate and coffee seemed like the right thing. The kids liked watching them make their treats.

Betsy took this great picture of us with three of our special grandkids.

On Sunday, Clara had to go out for baseball practice as well. Her game on Friday evening had been rained out. Fortunately, Sunday was a much better day for being outdoors.

Later, Henry and Clara taught Nana and me how to play Ticket to Ride, a board game that involves capturing train routes to link cities together. We enjoyed it! Frederick was more interested in iPad games and coloring pictures, however.

On Monday, I briefly stepped back out of retirement and into work mode and attended the 20th anniversary meeting of the Internet2 organization. Internet2 had invited lots of us old timers and past organization founders to join the event. I was one of 34 individuals (each of whom represented a major research university) who met at the O'Hare Airport back in 1996 to commit resources and time to the creation of an organization called Internet2. This was roughly at the time that NSF had decommissioned NSFNet, arguably the first true Internet. Those of us in higher education, especially at the so-called R1 research universities, were concerned that the subsequent commercialization of the Internet would not continue to serve higher education well, and that has proven to be largely true. Internet2 was a major turning point in the direction of a dedicated, very high performance backbone network for higher education. The resultant technology and advances have accelerated Internet capability and capacity on both the commercial and academic sides.

I am proud to have been a part of this effort, and it was great fun to reconnect with my old colleagues to celebrate all that has happened in the 20 years since. There were several sessions that dealt in a retrospective way with all the major milestones and events that have occurred over that time. I had been asked to make a very brief set of comments on my related roles at the founding, while a CIO at Iowa, and also while serving at NSF from 1998 to 2000, when I directed a program that provided significant levels of funding to aid universities in these developments.

In addition to my close friendships with the other Big 10 CIOs, some of my most cherished relationships are with other NSF colleagues from that time period. Here I am with George Strawn and Mark Luker. George and I were already good friends from the days when he was at Iowa State and I was in the Department of Computer Science at Iowa. George directed the division at NSF within which my program was housed, so he was my boss there. Mark Luker preceded me at NSF in the same capacity. Mark had been CIO at Wisconsin, so he and I were also good friends. Each of them has enjoyed further career opportunities in Washington, and the three of us have stayed in touch over the years.