Bummer

 

President Barack Obama is coming to Raleigh Wednesday to hold a Town Hall Meeting. The event will be at the Broughton High School Gym which is a typical school gym - a rather small venue. I'd guess maybe 500 - a thousand tops - could fit in there.

With such a small venue - the demand for tickets would be great and supply tight.

I was very surprised when I got a call Sunday afternoon asking me if I'd like to attend.

Of course! Awesome!

OK then - come by the school Monday (today) to pick up 2 tickets. Bring ID, etc. etc.

Well - I happen to have scheduled 2 days of contractor interviews for Tuesday and Wednesday.

When the State needs to hire consultants / contractors for design work - we request proposals - sift through them - pick out the top candidates - interview them - select who we want to hire - then negotiate a contract.

Typical contracts are in the hundred thousand(s) range. Pretty good money - but nothing to get excited about. Lately we've been getting a dozen or more interested firms per project. Usually we interview 4 firms. Pick the best - and carry on. Happens all the time.

This particular project is different. It's for some very complex landfill and contamination investigation, remediation, and implementation of clean up. There's hundreds of these sites in NC. The budget for the initial contracting is $40 Million.

We plan to contract with 4 companies (instead of 1) and are gong to bundle multiple sites together per contract. The average contract will be $10 Million - which is bit more than the typical couple hundred thousand.

For that kind of money - there's been a LOT of interest. We received dozens and dozens of proposals.

We're going to interview 6 firms on Tuesday and 6 firms on Wednesday. Select 4 - and go from there.

This is just way to important a project for me to hand off to someone else at the last minute. Plus - If I did get someone else to handle it - they'd have to commit for both days AND all subsequent negotiations and everything else that goes along with the project.

As much as I'd like to go see the Prez - there's just no way.

Bummer.

Sooooo - the tickets are going to Nuke'em and a guest of his choosing.

Of course, Nuke's politics are a bit to the right of Attila the Hun.

In the interest of National Security - I went ahead and alerted the Secret Service.

They said they already knew all about the Nuke'a'Nator and would have plenty of tasers on hand.

LOL

Just kidding.

Nuke seems to be really looking forward to going.

With such a small venue - it's gonna be up close and personal for this type of event. I bet he really enjoys it.

If he gets to shake the President's hand - I'm gonna be pissed off big time.