[Joe Johnson]

I asked FIRST if they were interested in either the Chief Delphi Rookie Camp or the motors or programming seminars.

They said thanks but no thanks.

Then, I got a call from Jennifer Harvey (Team #503) who is working her tail off to make the local kickoff here a success. She wanted me to do a seminar or two. My thought was, hey, why not have a seminar series that would knock your socks off? Like many things with FIRST, having thought of a good idea, I could either let it die or roll up my sleeves and start making it happen.

I chose to make it happen.

By the way, I just went out to the Novi Expo Center tonight to check out the faciliities and let me tell you, THE MICHIGAN KICKOFF IS GOING TO ROCK!

The Novi Expo Center is PERFECT for this. It has many HUGE halls to choose from for the actual kickoff and field unveiling. It is going to have huge projection TV's to watch it all on. It will have a real field (Bye the way, thanks to Andy Baker for "tricking" FIRST into buying into this concept). It has conference rooms attached for seminars. It has a food court on site. It has parking galore. It it going to be all shined up and looking great.

To be honest, I don't think anything in Manchester (or the other kickoff locations for that matter) are going to be able to top it.

Now if only Dean would move his house to Detroit...

See you at Novi.

Joe J.