We spent Saturday in Hershey PA. That night we saw the Hershey Bears, http://www.hersheybears.com/,  wallop the Wilkes Barre/Scranton Penguins 7-2. And we then returned to Washington Sunday in time to watch the Capitals beat the Philadelphia Flyers 5-3.

We hadn’t been to Hershey since our two daughters were young. That last visit, we went to a number of the Hershey Chocolate themed places, the names blur in a memory that cannot recall last week well these days. We also visited Hershey Park, where as I vaguely recall I even went on some of the roller coasters which is normally not my favorite thing to do.

The Gibson House. Lately when we travel we try and stay in Bed and Breakfasts whenever we can. You get a bit more of a sense of a location and the opportunity to interact with the other guests is much more likely which often can be fun.

The prevalence of the Internet has dramatically increased the information available about B&B’s. Typically I spend a couple of hours investigating places, leaning a lot on the Trip Advisor ratings and any other references we run across.

In Hershey we stayed at The Gibson House, http://www.gibsonhousebandb.com/, which ended up a great choice. It was a 1925 Victorian style house, which had been updated and decorated by the owner Tom Powers. The rooms were very nice, and the “and B” part which was Blueberry pancakes was great.  Equally important it was close to the tourist areas, but in a quiet neighborhood, and just a few minutes from Giant Center, http://www.giantcenter.com/, home of the Hershey Bears.

The Museum on Choclate Avenue. We only had time to visit one of the Hershey sites, the newly built Museum on Chocolate Avenue, which replaced the old Hershey Museum, http://www.hersheystory.org/splash.aspx. We enjoyed wandering around including have some Mexican Chocolate Cake.

 I was surprised at the details of what is now called the Milton Hershey School, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milton_Hershey_School. Milton Hershey and his wife Catherine, did not have any children. Instead, or perhaps as a result of that, they created a school to help orphan children.  Originally limited to only white boys who were orphans, over time the school, happily, became available to all children in great need.

The school has controlling interest in the Hershey company, owns the Entertainment company, runs many of the local hotels as well as Hershey Park. Over 1700 children currently attend with the plan to increase that to over 2100. All students who graduate receive an $80K scholarship to attend college. The videos of former students are really heartwarming. I didn’t realize what a rich legacy Hershey, who evidently never completed fifth grade, left.

DA BEARS. That night we attended the Hershey Bears game. Evidently when the hockey team was originally formed, it was called the Hershey Bars, but was forced to change its name when it wanted to play competitive hockey, or at least that is the story we were told.

It turns out that by coincidence, the Capitals Road Crew was also attending the game that night. So we met the busload of other Caps fans at the Bear’s Den in the Hershey Lodge for dinner before going to the game that night.

We got to Giant Center around 6:00pm, an hour before the game. There already was a large crowd present; the crowd ended up at the capacity of 10,500. The Giant Center is a great arena, anyone who hasn’t gone and who loves hockey should consider the short trip up to Hershey. You get to see lots of players who have been up to the Caps plus future stars, and the crowd is great. Minor league hockey is a lot like minor league baseball, really community based and fun to attend. Hershey has  a very long and deep relationship with the Hershey Bears. The fact that they won 7-2 AND beat the farm team of the hated Pittsburgh Penguins was an added bonus.

While the Caps have two very good young goalies in Semyon Varlamov and Michal Neuvirth, it is very possible that the best of their young goalies is playing in Hershey, Braden Holtby. With both the Hershey Bears, the Capitals number one minor league affiliate, and the Carolina Stingrays, the Capitals other minor league affiliate, both far in front in their respective divisions, the organization is very deep in talent.

BREAKFAST. Sunday morning, one of those added benefits of staying in a bed and breakfast happened. We had breakfast with a couple from Carroll County, MD, who visit Hershey once a year to see the Hershey sites and go to a Hershey Bears game, and a family, with a young boy and girl, who were in from South Carolina. The wife was from the Pennsylvania area and was visiting her grandmother and other family.

We had a great conversation about hockey and to Ellen’s distress wandered into South Carolina and Massachusetts politics. It turned out that the mother from South Carolina and I had a number of mutual friends as well as an intense interest in political campaigns and politics in general. Great fun.

C-A-P-S, CAPS, CAPS, CAPS. Sunday, we return to Washington, saw the Capitals beat the hated Philadelphia Flyers 5-3 in a very physical, almost playoff atmosphere. And then sadly we had to leave the hockey cocoon to return to ‘real life’. A great two days.

International Experiences with Integrated Services – United States

The conference has been very interesting. I have met a number of people supporting this effort who work for the Government, consultants associated with the project both from Brazil and other South American countries, and speakers from still other locations including a fellow panalist this morning from Korea who supported the Korean President for a number of years regarding their eGovernment effort and who spent the last three months in Paraguay working for the office of their president doing the same thing.

The power of the idea of eGovernment and its associated themes of empowerment and especially transparency are seemingly very strong everywhere.

At the same time, the issues are equally amazingly similar in each location. The biggest conclusions I draw are that it is very important to:

• have high level political support,
• well-defined goals plus if at all possible a credible supporting enterprise architecture, and
• a willingness to take small steps resulting in quick victories in support of the big rainbow in the sky that will occur when all this is implemented

That last point is the one that seems to be so often overlooked. People responsible for policy want to accomplish big results, which is a good thing. But if the first result is the big result often the end-point is a political investigation into why the whole project failed.

The other issue that has resonated with most people that I have talked to is the importance of exposing as much data as possible even when not in a final form, which is how I interpret one of Vivek Kundra’s big initiatives in the US. Allowing others to manipulate, create mash-ups and improve upon the data allows the government to have significant leverage in a time of tight funds.

The Rest of the Week

The next two days I will participate in meetings to talk in more detail about the current action plans and my associated advice.

The people here have all been extremely friendly. For those sessions or conversations which are not in English (and sessions which are not being translated on the fly into English), one or the other person will take their time to give me a rundown on the issues.

Around the Hotel

This evening I was tired so went to the hotel a bit before the final sessions concluded and then took a walk around the hotel including visiting a nearby shopping mall. I skipped past the McDonalds and Burger King, and of all things a Montana steakhouse, decided that ordering gourmet Chinese Food in Brasilia wasn’t a good idea, and instead ate at a place that seemed to have Brazilian food. I am not entirely sure what I ordered, but it tasted great.

Most important I found on the way back an open-air Shwarma restaurant a block away from the hotel. In the event that I end up on my own tomorrow night, I know how I will cap my time here. I hear that the best Shwarma in South America is in Brasilia (well, maybe I made that up).

Coming Home

So, I am scheduled to arrive at 6:30am Saturday morning at Dulles.

At approximately 3:15pm that afternoon, I and my younger daughter Tamar, get on a bus with a big group of Capitals fans and go up to Philadelphia to see the Ovechkin-less Capitals take on the Flyers, capping <bad choice of words I guess> my out-of-town Capitals hockey games.

I have a feeling that before and in particular afterwards on the way back from Philadelphia I might not be the life of the party on the bus regardless of the game result. No one call my house Sunday morning, please.