ICOM Lore

Anecdotes about ICOM, Inc., a software automation company, last located in West Allis, Wisconsin (1985-1994).

The intention is to have volunteers contribute their memories. Over the course of time, one person's memory is not always the same as someone else's memory, and may not even be accurate. But it might be entertaining anyway…

The volunteers can be virtually anyone, an ICOM employee, distributor, customer, vendor, or even competitor. But, there needs to be some rules:

1) We cannot intentionally do anything that might violate trademarks or copyrights held by Rockwell Automation or others.
2) The intention is to post fond memories of ICOM, not memories that might embarrass, humiliate, or otherwise hurt someone's feelings. Of course, this goes for photographs as well.

To reconnect with former ICOM employees, we suggest using LinkedIn.com.

Saturday, January 08, 2005

Heart of Gold

Heart of Gold

It must have been 1990 or 1991 when Joe bought that 45-foot Bayliner, one of the largest boats in Milwaukee's McKinley Marina at the time. He christened it the Heart of Gold after the improbable spacecraft in Douglas Adams' The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy; the Neil Young song was just a meaningless coincidence.

That Bayliner was Joe's first boat. Neither of us had any experience boating, in fact, so we took a Coast Guard course to learn safety, navigation, and how to tie the thing up so it wouldn't float off on adventures of its own. The course was terrific, taught by an old salt in a boating store way out on west Capitol Drive. (I'm fairly certain they no longer teach the course at that location, however; in recent years the building has been converted to a large, modern-looking church.)

For navigation, Joe outfitted the Heart of Gold with a state-of-the-art GPS receiver wired up to a PC running some pretty nice navigation software, and bolted a big color CRT in place in the pilothouse. This gave us a live "You Are Here" chart while we were underway. An autopilot, radar, and depth finder completed the instrumentation.

Now besides being 45 feet long, the Heart of Gold was also a fairly wide vessel, making it quite the floating party barge. Joe set up the enclosed lower deck with a nice sound system and ceiling-mounted television projector (which were huge contraptions back then --- it's visible above Janice in this picture). Throw in a well-stocked bar/kitchenette, a blender built into the countertop, and enough room to sleep... well, quite a few people, actually, if you count the pilothouse, the sofa in the lower deck, a couple actual cabins with beds, and, in a pinch, ample floor space... and you have the setting for some very memorable voyages.

Probably the favorite destination for these trips was Grand Haven, Michigan, more or less straight across Lake Michigan from Milwaukee. Grand Haven featured a great marina, one of the upper midwest's best beaches, and lively summer night life. Another favorite destination was Traverse City, Michigan and the surrounding area. At least one trip took us up to Mackinac Island and over to Sault St. Marie, then back down the Wisconsin coast with stops in Sturgeon Bay and Manitowoc.

Once in a while Joe and Scott would entertain distributors or other out-of-town guests on Joe's boat, but usually it was crewed by Joe's friends at ICOM. Eventually Joe traded the rather slow Bayliner for a much faster boat, but it never quite achieved the party status of its predecessor.

Getting somewhere quickly wasn't the magic of the Heart of Gold; like ICOM itself, it was the journey and the people we traveled with that made it special.

Here are a few photos of the ship and her crew for you to enjoy.

posted by Dave Ruske @ 1:54 PM   0 comments