I am a very, very lucky person in life for a thousand different reasons. As my mother has told me, "David, if you are ever given the choice between being good and being lucky, choose lucky every time."
A week ago Saturday I got lucky again. It is very lucky to have the chance for someone like Dave Edstrom to be able to speak with such an industry legend and icon such as Dr. Vint Cerf. On Saturday, I was at Dulles Airport in the United Airlines lounge doing some work on my brand new fully loaded MacBook Pro (which runs at the speed of thought) when I look up and see Dr. Cerf and his wife come in and sit in the table right next to me. My first thought was, don't bother Dr. Cerf, but it is probably ok to say hello to him as you have met him on a number of occasions.
When I said hello, we then ended up speaking for an half an hour on technology with most of the time on Internet of Things (IoT) and MTConnect. Below is Dr. Cerf and me taken by Mrs. Cerf.
We ended up speaking for over a half an hour until he and his wife needed to head to their flight. I told Dr. Cerf the first time I met him in person and it was at Yorktown High School in Virginia. Dr. Cerf was giving a talk on "Interplanetary IP" and I got there early to hopefully get him to sign my book. I walk in the auditorium and Dr. Cerf is getting set up on stage. I am the only one there besides him. Since Sun was a casual place, I was wearing what I wore to work that day, jeans, a Sun shirt and a Java leather jacket. Dr. Cerf sees me and says, "I need you to get up here and move this podium over here, put that table next to it." I set down the book I was hoping Dr. Cerf would sign and did exactly what he asked. After I do it, a guy walks in from the side door and says, "I am the janitor here, do you need anything or are you good?" Dr. Cerf looks at me and says, "if he is the janitor, who are you?" I said, "I am a Chief Technologist from Sun Microsystems Dr. Cerf and I was hoping to get you to sign this networking book." I told Dr. Cerf that story again last Saturday and he just doubled over laughing as I reminded him of the story. We both just laughed out loud together. I told him, "you know Dr. Cerf, I have told that story HUNDREDS of time!". Dr. Cerf said to me, "I bet you have Dave!"
I said I would drop him a copy of my book, MTConnect: To Measure Is To Know, in the mail and wished Dr. Cerf and his wife safe travels.
I am very, very lucky to have had the chance to speak with someone like Dr. Cerf.
Below is a signed copy of the A protocol for packet Network intercommunication by Vinton G.Cerf and Robert E. Kahn in 1974 that I had both Dr. Cerf and Dr. Kahn sign at their Awards Ceremony many years ago and NO it will never be sold. npg has the other copy that I had them both sign.
