A Trip South (for work)

While the country while building tension around Election Day, I was down in Austin, Texas for the Tableau Conference via my employer. It was quite the full week.

Monday, I came to the Austin Convention Center to register and got comfortable.

Monday evening, Tableau hosted me and my bosses (VP and Manager) to a dinner at Fogo. I don't think I'll ever turn that down.

Yes, I did participate in much learning through presentation and technical hands-on training.

But I will say we were treated well, perhaps even sweetly...

Tableau also provided opportunities for social events.  I just went for the food and went back to the hotel.

The Conference ended Thursday afternoon. With the result of the election, how apropos was it that Bill Nye, the Science Guy, provided the final Keynote address.  The speech started off well....

Until he alluded to the election as "the end of the world."  He then went on to talk about how humans are responsible for climate change and how "climate change deniers" are scary folks.  Frankly, it didn't have much to do with analytics once he started.  The speech just turned into a political meltdown regarding the election, which did amuse me.

Right after the Conference, I decided to head 15 minutes up the street to one of my favorite activities when I'm in state capitols, visit the State Capitol. 

On Friday, I took the day going up to the University of Texas.

On the University of Texas campus is the Lyndon B. Johnson Presidential Library.  Since it was Veterans Day, admission was free to tour the museum portion.  Yes, it was worth every penny.

Touring through LBJ, I really came to realize how activist an Administration President Johnson ran.  Not only was he a FDR Socialist with his advocation of building new Cabinet departments (Housing and Urban Development) and entitlement programs (Medicare, Medicaid) through his Great Society programs, but he was quite the neoconservative as seen through the Vietnam War.  He also enacted laws regarding voting rights and gun control. He was no doubt a paradigm changing figure during his Presidency.  

So I took a picture of a replica of the Oval Office at the Library/Museum.

So as left the building, I ran into a gallery of Presidents and First Ladies.  I saw them all and it was well done, but my final memory was seeing this..

As the past held, the future portends... 

(I wonder what Donald and Melania Trump's portraits will look like).