Design Matters

I’ve been out of the office for the last 10 days riding the Trans-America Trail with 3 other motorcyclists. Rick Plant and Matt Evans from Lenovo and David Rush, a long time friend of mine from Dallas, made the trek. We rode for 7 days and covered 1500 miles from Jellico Tennesse to Bartlesville Oklahoma. Bartlesville is the “cultural backwater” where I grew up.

For the most part the route was non-paved. We traversed dusty dirt roads, jagged gravel, swollen creek beds, flooded roads, raised levees, old power line trails, barren farm fields, closed bridges, and twisty asphalt connecting the whole thing together. I’ll give you a warning, the stream crossings are extraordinarly slippery. Two of our riders went down in the water, fortunately nobody got hurt. Our average speed was just over 30mph, certainly not your typical flight down the interstate. This was one of my favorite signs along the route. How did they know I was coming?  It was poetic finally ending up at Bartlesville Cycle Sports. We bought the bikes there from my old friend and racer Bob Derrick well over a year ago to make this ride a reality.

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Matt blasting through a flooded road in Mississippi

Contemplating the strength of a closed wooden bridge

I took my ThinkPad x300 on the trip for e mail communication and an emergency lifeline via broadband. It worked flawlessly.  Dirt,  dust, vibration, and water couldn’t stop it from performing as expected. This was certainly the most extreme torture test I have personally subjected any ThinkPad to. Fantastic trip, exceptional ThinkPad.

Bob welcomes us to Bartlesville

Final navigational rollchart

David Hill

Tornado near Anadarko Oklahoma 

Lenovo has just announced a partnership with the non-profit Center for Severe Weather Research to power advanced levels in tornado and severe weather research.  More than 50 Think branded PC’s including ThinkPad W700’s, W500’s and X200’s will be deployed to power the largest tornado field research project of its kind.  That’s right field research. Can you imagine a vehicle designed to chase tornadoes bristling with high tech doppler antennas and a fleet of onboard ThinkPad’s?  Well here it is.

Doppler on Wheels Fitted with ThinkPad

Having grown up in Oklahoma and Kansas, the heart of  “Tornado alley” I am very familiar with the power and wrath that can be dished out by a tornado. When I was in college,  a friend of mine rode out a massive tornado by seeking shelter within the “walk- in”  beer cooler at the local convenience store.  He crouched on the floor of the cooler while the dozen or so glass doors wildly slapped open and closed as the tornado passed.  Beer cans, gravel, and dust swirled through the air as the storm leveled the entire structure. The only thing left standing was the beer cooler and it’s contents. Fortunately, he was not without cold refreshment following the ordeal.

Notebooks.com has a really interesting article on this topic where you can learn even more about this pioneering partnership and the storm-defying hardware.  I can think of no other notebook computer that could better stand up to this kind of rugged field use. Here’s to ThinkPad and the Lenovo role in helping to better understand these devastating storms.

David Hill