Chicowgo, Univa, and Fermi
So the company I worked for, United Devices, officially announced that it had merged with Chicago-based company, Univa. Our new company name will be Univa UD. Although they also focus on grid computing solutions, they have built their solutions around the open source Globus Toolkit and the Globus standards. The press reaction around the deal so far has been pretty positive.
The business negotiations had actually been underway for several months, although the final decision to merge was not finalized until a few weeks ago. In fact, most of my business travel over the past few months (San Jose, Germany, Boston, etc) were related to the merger negotiations.
I'm currently in Chicago (really Lisle, Ill) visiting our new team members as a part of a company-wide meeting and some cross-training activities. On Friday, we had an excellent presentation from our combined management team to discuss and plan the product direction. Afterwards, we drove downtown to the Navy Pier area, had dinner, and enjoyed a company boat trip to see the night-time cityscape.
One of the amusing things of the last week's kickoff activities was a celebrity look-alike contest. As it turned out, I won first place (and a small prize) for looking like Mike Shinoda, the singer from the band Linkin Park.
Since ![[info]](http://p-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif)
ivo and I had to spend the weekend here, I began looking for interesting activities. As it turned out, my Harvey Mudd College alumni association was hosting a tour of Fermilab particle accelerator the same weekend. Coincidentally, decibel45 was also in Chicago on a business trip for his own company, so we all went together to a guided tour by two HMC alumni who currently work for the facility. Since the facility was currently in a maintenance/shutdown period, we had the special opportunity of getting to safely walk into the underground tunnels that house the giant magnets that direct the anti-proton (antimatter) particles.
One surprising thing is how unsecured and open the facility is. No identification was requested, though we were told that during high-alert conditions the guards at the entry gates might actually ask for ID and record names. They encouraged pictures to be taken everywhere--there are no secrets. Additionally, most all doors are unlocked and unrestricted, except where safety of visitors might be a problem. If someone wanted to walk in an open door and unplug some wires or misalign some equipment, it would actually be quite easy. (click for pictures)
