Tonight I’m in Boise, Idaho staying at a Hampton Inn and Suites hotel near the Idaho capitol building. Last night I was in Orem, Utah again at a Hampton Inn and Suites hotel. Tonight I’m actually in a suite. Last night was a normal room. This suite is very nice. Last night’s room was just OK. In fact, I may find time sometime to blog a bit about hotel rooms and all the dumb things that hotels do. I just saw on Twitter that there was a magnitude 5.6 earthquake near San Francisco a few minutes ago. That reminded me of the first big earthquake in Japan. I had moved into the house we were renting a little west of Tsukuba and Nina and Jared weren’t there quite yet. The earthquake happened in the middle of the night and I flew out bed, and then didn’t have a clue what I should do. The house was still moving and I stumbled to the bedroom doorway and stood there hoping that was the strongest part of the house. The earthquake seemed to go on for a very long time. The next day at the office I learned that the quake was a magnitude 5.2 and had lasted for twelve seconds. No damage done. It was considered a “small” earthquake. I knew then I didn’t want to be in anything larger than that.

This morning I attended a CTO breakfast that Phil Windley organizes each month. The link has a recap of the event. I really enjoyed being there and meeting the folks that attended. It was well worth my time and I’ll be at all future breakfasts that I can work into my schedule. Then it was over to American Fork to my new “office”. It’s a small, one-room office in the middle of a larger office space. Big enough for a desk and a chair. The phone is set up and working. I don’t know how much time I’ll spend there, but it does give me a place to be while I’m doing the business development work down there. After lunch with a potential client, I then drove to Boise. Once out of Salt Lake and Ogden, I didn’t have to slow down but once through a small bit of construction and got to the hotel about an hour earlier than I had expected. Downtown Boise is DEAD at night. There was a small pizza place open not far from the hotel, so that was dinner.

Tomorrow I’m attending a conference being put on by the governor’s office on how to do business with the State of Idaho. In attendance will be representatives from all the state agencies. There is some potential work here as well, so the meeting should be useful. Then comes the four-hour drive back to Pocatello. I’ll miss Halloween, but Nina thinks she’s got a mouse trapped in the house and has seen another one. Obviously we’ve still got some in the house … moving around!