Dave MacKinnon

ncaa football fan (@cal #GoBears), and gadget guy. Managing Partner @PrometheanOne former TV tech guy @nbcuniversal

[Department of State @StateDept]

Against impossible odds, hope endures. 🇺🇸

American search and rescue teams rescued an infant from beneath the rubble following the earthquake in Venezuela. Every life saved is a victory.

[California Gridiron @calgridiron]

Between 2002-12, Jeff Tedford led the Bears to 82 wins making him Cal’s all-time winningest football coach. He also led the Bears to a school-record seven consecutive bowl berths. He was Pac-10 Coach of the Year in 2002 and 2004.

#82 days until @CalFootball.

[Dave MacKinnon @mackinnond]

@avi__8 trying to submit a warranty claim but your website just spins. Do you have an email address I can send to?

[Dave MacKinnon @mackinnond]

Using @grok to help mock up colors for painting my house and I gotta say it’s really impressive.

[Peter Girnus 🦅 @gothburz]

I am a senior coordinating producer for the White House Correspondents' Association Dinner. I have worked eleven of these. I was backstage at the Washington Hilton when the shots were fired.

The first thing I heard was not the gunfire. It was glass.

A champagne flute hit the floor of the International Ballroom at approximately 9:47 PM. Then a second. Then the sound that I have since been told was a 12-gauge shotgun, which from inside the ballroom sounded like a heavy door slamming in a parking garage. Then the Secret Service moved. They moved the President, the Vice President, the First Lady through the east corridor in under ninety seconds, which is protocol, which is practiced, which is the one part of the evening that worked exactly as it was designed.

Everything else was improvised.

I know this because I ordered the wine. 94 tables. Two bottles per table. 188 bottles of a Willamette Valley pinot noir that the Association selected in February after a tasting committee spent three meetings debating between Oregon and Burgundy. Oregon won. The budget was $14,200. I signed the invoice. I can tell you the vintage. I can tell you the distributor. I can tell you the per-bottle cost because I negotiated it down from $89 to $76.

What I cannot tell you is how 147 of those bottles left the building during an active shooter evacuation.

I can tell you what I saw. A correspondent from a network I will not name picked up two bottles on her way to the east exit. Full bottles. One in each hand. She was wearing heels and she did not spill. A man in a tuxedo tucked one inside his jacket the way you'd shoplift a paperback at an airport bookstore. A woman picked up a bottle, looked at the label, put it back, and took a different one.

She checked the vintage. During an evacuation. That's editorial judgment under pressure.

The theme of the dinner was "A Free Press for a Free People." The banners were still hanging when the evacuation began. I know because I hung them. Twenty-three banners, navy blue, gold serif lettering, $11,400 for the set. They were still hanging when 2,600 guests were directed to the exits by Secret Service agents, one of whom had just taken a shotgun round in his ballistic vest and walked to the ambulance on his own feet.

The agent's vest costs approximately $800. The wine that left the building was worth $11,172 at Association cost. At restaurant markup, roughly $29,000. The guests saved more in wine than the vest that saved the agent.

That's priority.

The video went viral by 10:15 PM. Not the video of the evacuation. Not the Secret Service response. The wine. Three guests in formalwear grabbing bottles off white tablecloths while being told to move toward the exits, while a man with a shotgun stood in the same motor entrance where John Hinckley shot Ronald Reagan 45 years ago.

A woman near the service entrance was crying. She said "I just wanna go home." She was not holding wine. She was holding her phone. She was the only person I saw that night who looked afraid rather than inconvenienced.

That's the distinction. The rest of the ballroom did not look afraid. They looked interrupted. An active shooter at the WHCD is a logistical problem. The dinner was disrupted. The timeline was off. The after-party at the French Ambassador's residence would need to be rescheduled. These are contingency matters. Contingency matters have solutions. Fear is for people who attend events without security details.

I have produced eleven of these dinners. I have managed seating charts that require diplomatic-grade negotiations. I have handled comedians, cabinet secretaries, network anchors, and the editor of a major newspaper who once threatened to leave because his table was behind a column.

I have never, in eleven years, seen a guest leave a $76 bottle on the table during an evacuation. I have also never seen a guest check the label first. Both observations are consistent. The bottle is worth taking. The evacuation is worth surviving. The instinct is to do both simultaneously.

188 bottles placed. 41 recovered. 147 unaccounted for. One agent shot. Zero guests injured. Zero bottles broken.

A free press for a free people. The press is free. The wine was $76 a bottle. They took it anyway.

[Promethean One @PrometheanOne]

Promethean One has had the privilege of supporting CA in the future design of CAPSNet, the statewide microwave network that connects more than 260 sites, 300 MW paths, and over 7,000 air miles of comms infrastructure.

We’re proud to keep California connected.

[Promethean One @PrometheanOne]

If security only gets attention during a fire drill, it’s already too late.

The goal isn’t panic-response — it’s steady operations.

We help teams move from reactive mode to operational mode: fewer surprises, clearer priorities, and better follow-through.

[Promethean One @PrometheanOne]

The most expensive business risks are the ones you don’t know you have.

Blind spots create exposure — and attackers depend on them.

We help leadership teams get clarity on what matters most and what to fix first.

#BusinessRisk #Resilience #Leadership #Security

[Promethean One @PrometheanOne]

Here are 5 questions every leadership team should be able to answer:

✅ Do we know our top risks?
✅ Could we recover quickly?
✅ Are critical systems continuously protected?
✅ Do we have monitoring and response coverage?
✅ Who owns follow-through?

[cinesthetic. @TheCinesthetic]

Idiocracy (2006) gets funnier every year. Fox had no idea how to market it and barely released the film, which accidentally made its satire hit even harder. A comedy that aged into prophecy.

[jmh.creates @JarodMHamilton]

Nighthawk out in Death Valley
#F117

[Dave MacKinnon @mackinnond]

I know the video kind of sucks but it’s pretty amazing to be sitting on your porch watching a rocket launch hundreds of miles away in space and hearing mission control talk through what’s happening. #spacex

[Talkin' Baseball @TalkinBaseball_]

Triston McKenize joins the Padres organization

[Fox News @FoxNews]

DOGGONE LUCKY: Lifeguards near San Diego rescued a black lab named Sadie after rip currents swept her away from shore. Crews found her after searching for more than an hour.

Sadie’s owners say they’re “forever grateful” to the first responders.

[Cal Football @CalFootball]

Welcome back to Bear Territory, @coachlup

#GoBears

[Dave MacKinnon @mackinnond]

#GoBears

[Cal Football @CalFootball]

Rockin’ the rivalry look 🪓

#SmartAndTough #GoBears

[Dave MacKinnon @mackinnond]

#GoBears

[This Day In Sports Clips @TDISportsClips]

November 20, 1982:

“The band is out on the field!!”

[University of California Marching Band @CalBand]

We’re off to the farm! See you there!

#GoBears #KeepTheAxe 🪓

[Dave MacKinnon @mackinnond]

Look, all I’m saying is that if @PeteHegseth and @DARPA use Clear-Com products for “mission critical” reliability then it’s definitely a good fit for broadcast, theaters, sporting events, etc.

#MadeInAmerica 🇺🇸