This will be a short post for the end of the week of October 12th. I had lunch on Thursday with Jordan Becker, who is at SAIC and is one of my favorite people. I hired him at SAIC many years ago from UUNET/MCI, which is today a part of Verizon. Jordan was a close advisor to me when I worked at SAIC. And although his expertise was in the Internet and telecommunications generally, he understood the latest IT innovations as well or better than most people I know.

Jordan gave me a lot of information on the history of the Internet from his perch, since he had been employed by UUNET — one of the original companies chosen by National Science Foundation to run the Internet. After Jordan was hired by UUNET from ANS Communications, I met him on one of the monthly trips to Washington I used to make for marketing and administrative matters. I eventually got to know Jordan quite well and asked him if he’d like to move to the west coast to help me at SAIC. After a while, he accepted and became one of my most influential advisors here.

Jordan was our expert not only on networking, but also on British Petroleum which I introduced him to. We built a large business with BP, most of which SAIC still has, providing IT services for the company in London, Scotland, and several other locations around the world. That association led to an introduction to PDVSA, the Venezuelan oil company, before it was nationalized. Jordan was one of the main reasons we maintained lasting relations with BP in the IT area — an area where they had plenty of their own people. I like to tap into Jordan’s memory bank every once in a while.

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On Friday we took Solutions to Oceanside. Steve Fisher, SAIC’s treasurer, accompanied Ron A. and me. Oceanside harbor was crowded with a lot of vessels so we had trouble getting our usual slip. We were able, however, to find a slip at Oceanside Yacht Club, where we tied up and took a cab to the Monterey Bay Canners restaurant.

The highlights of the trip over and above the enchanting discussions that occurred during the trip included seeing some blue whales and Larry Ellison’s new trimaran which he is planning to sail in the next America’s Cup. Ellison apparently thinks he can challenge the Swiss team with a trimaran much in the same way Dennis Conner answered the Kiwi’s Cup challenge with a catamaran in 1988. This would be an exciting outcome, although everything is currently tied up in court.

That’s the end of my exciting week. Hope you had equally exciting experiences yourself last week.

– Bob

P.S. I am including two photos from last Tuesday’s expedition on Craig Venter’s boat Sorcerer II. One photo shows my friend Andy Allen from the Venter Institute who patiently educates me on genomes and what the wiggly things that we see in the samples under the microscope mean. Venter’s boat makes a trip to two different sampling spots off Point Loma — one deep and one shallow — each month. This is the same boat that will leave in about a month for Europe — I hope to be onboard for the first leg. Who knows what I will do, though — I’ll make the decision at the last minute.