It's Official! NORAD

My kids fired it up first thing this morning. They could sit and stare at it for hours. Tons of excitement!!!! Once the CF-18s start escorting him in Canadian airspace they scurry to bed. Easiest bedtime of the year!:D


My hat goes off to everyone at NORAD who participates. It's such a wonderful thing. Tech Sgts, Flight Leftenants, Colonels, every rank and every service, even allied forces. It's pretty neat.
 
I first looked on Thanksgiving. Shared it with my friends who have little ones still around. Been "online" since December 1st. They've been doing it 50 years. Lots of activities for the kids. If you have youngsters, and need to learn how to use the computa', sit with them and have a ball.
For the rest of us, just let them try to get the keyboard away from me!
Merry Christmas All.... May the holiday season bring peace and joy.
 
Next year, I want to get a copy of the RFP for the contract to do this. I've never seen it published in the CBD, but it's got to be somewhere....

Think about it...wouldn't this be great on your resume?

"Designed and developed NORAD's Santa Tracking system; unclass program for USAF, also used by DHS"
 
You know, I've known about this but never looked into it... what a sweet thing!
 
Dan, it's not *all volunteer*. The uniformed members who answer the phones are volunteers. But the developers (I'm guessing GD/AIS and Google's got a huge chunk) are getting paid for the effort. Now, the Team Members may view this as good advertising and PR, but the developer staff are being paid, probably out of B&P (bid & proposal) money, which is an overhead expense. No one on any Govt. contract is allowed to "volunteer" or work on their own time. Note that the the NORAD "project manager" is a civilian in the PR department.

Yrs Trly,
Grinch
 
Dan, it's not *all volunteer*. The uniformed members who answer the phones are volunteers. But the developers (I'm guessing GD/AIS and Google's got a huge chunk) are getting paid for the effort. Now, the Team Members may view this as good advertising and PR, but the developer staff are being paid, probably out of B&P (bid & proposal) money, which is an overhead expense. No one on any Govt. contract is allowed to "volunteer" or work on their own time. Note that the the NORAD "project manager" is a civilian in the PR department.

Yrs Trly,
Grinch

Oh good grief

:nono:
 
Dan, it's not *all volunteer*. The uniformed members who answer the phones are volunteers. But the developers (I'm guessing GD/AIS and Google's got a huge chunk) are getting paid for the effort. Now, the Team Members may view this as good advertising and PR, but the developer staff are being paid, probably out of B&P (bid & proposal) money, which is an overhead expense. No one on any Govt. contract is allowed to "volunteer" or work on their own time. Note that the the NORAD "project manager" is a civilian in the PR department.

Yrs Trly,
Grinch

I will make sure I don't show your post to my kids!!:yikes:
 
Dan, it's not *all volunteer*. The uniformed members who answer the phones are volunteers. But the developers (I'm guessing GD/AIS and Google's got a huge chunk) are getting paid for the effort. Now, the Team Members may view this as good advertising and PR, but the developer staff are being paid, probably out of B&P (bid & proposal) money, which is an overhead expense. No one on any Govt. contract is allowed to "volunteer" or work on their own time. Note that the the NORAD "project manager" is a civilian in the PR department.

Yrs Trly,
Grinch

This story says Google, and all corporate sponsors, donate their services as well:
Google's Martin said that his company -- which, like all the corporate partners in the program, offers its assistance at no cost to taxpayers -- has dozens of people working on helping to track Santa.
 
another way to get kids to bed early

attachment.php
 

Attachments

  • BizarroSanta.gif
    BizarroSanta.gif
    57.2 KB · Views: 67
Thanks for the link, which includes this useful bit of data:

Google's Martin said that his company -- which, like all the corporate partners in the program, offers its assistance at no cost to taxpayers -- has dozens of people working on helping to track Santa. Those people provide technical consulting and server provisioning for the NORAD Santa Web site, as well as helping put together YouTube videos, information for Google Maps and Google Earth and, soon, a new service that will allow people to use their mobile phones to track Santa on Christmas Eve.
 
Back
Top