Iowa City - NTNC

On Saturday evening, I was sitting at the airport getting ready to head to Iowa City, IA. I haven't been to Iowa since I was around twelve years old when we passed through on the way to Minnesota. This was the view out of the window on Sunday morning on the way out of Portland heading east. I really liked this view but after sitting in a plane all night, I really wasn't feeling up to enjoying the view.

 

The trip from Fairbanks to Iowa City ended up being five legs. Fairbanks to Anchorage, Anchorage to Portland, Portland to Chicago, Chicago to Cedar Rapids, then a shuttle from Cedar Rapids to Iowa City. Lots of flights but no real issues and I was fortunate to get upgraded all the way to Chicago. This is the view coming into Chicago. Not much to see.

 

Here's how I know that I'm no longer in Alaska. This is one of the displays in the Cedar Rapids airport. In Fairbanks, this would have been snow machines, four wheelers and boats. Here, small tractors and lawn mowers.

 

After looking at todays weather back home, I think that I'm better where I am right now. Even with the rain, sleet and snow. There are about 30,000 students at this campus and is located in the middle of Iowa City. Like many other states, I still get the two systems confused. I am at the University of Iowa as opposed to Iowa State University. I am here attending the Northern Tier Network Consortium steering committee meeting.

 

This is an example of how embedded the university is within the City. We are meeting in a shopping mall where there are still quite a few businesses and university departments essentially have storefronts. University buildings are all around the hotel and this mini-shopping area. So far, I haven't seen a single corn field. That is what I remember from my last visit to IA almost 40 years ago. The picture was taken yesterday afternoon shortly after arriving at the hotel.

 

This afternoon, we were given a break from the all day meeting and visited the new data center for the University of Iowa IT group and the medical center. This is just the IT side of the facility. It's a pretty impressive facility. I believe that it is brand new and they are still in the process of moving in. The existing data centers on campus barely survived flooding recently and that may have been one of the drivers getting this facility moved up in priority with the legislature.

Another participant noted how many "100 year" have occurred recently. Storm, flood, hurricane, tornado, and now maybe we should add meteor to the list. Though that may be in the "thousand year" category. Apparently, there is record of a huge meteor strike in this area but I don't have a reference but evidence of the crater was discovered from drill logs and extends all the way into South Dakota.

It really is great to meet with colleagues from other universities around the country and Internet².

Tuesday Morning Update - It's not looking better today back home. Even here in Iowa City, it was 0°F this morning.

 

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