Monthly Archives: January 2004

Weather

Weather, Football and Networking

Much as we did last year come February, we are poised for a snowy time, with another ice and snowstorm due tomorrow. That’ll probably put a damper on our Super Bowl festivities — the bowling team is set to come over.

Of course, the game is non-event. The Rams aren’t in, so we’ll be watching the big game for the commercials. I’m still rooting for the Panthers, but I don’t know if they have enough umph to pull it off.

On another note, Mom finally got her bi-directional satellite internet connection hooked up and working. Kevio tells me that they’re getting about 600kbps down — not too shabby! That was the only broadband solution that was available on The Mountain, so that was the solution they picked. Pretty cool!

Weather

Icebox

This morning was the coldest of the year — 0.6 degrees below zero. BRRRR!

The last week has been frigid, and hasn’t lent itself to getting the snow and ice off the grass and driveway. Not a big, big deal, but it sure keeps things feeling cold.

Becky and I are trying to figure out where we’re going to go on vacation in a few months. She and both have our corporate anniversaries coming up this summer, and must burn two weeks of vacation in order to keep from losing it. Nice position to be in, but I feel some pressure to come up with a plan to use the time wisely. I would prefer to go somewhere, rather than spend it all sitting here at home. That’s just a huge block of time, and I haven’t been able to take two weeks off work in almost ten years.

I’d love to do something big, go someplace unusual, but with the sale of the old house looming large, it’s hard for Beck to focus on a big trip, and I don’t want to add to the pressure on her.

Sports

Blue Thursday

$1.569

Tonight, Frank and I went to the Blues game. The game was abysmal, with only a few sparks of life from the hapless Blues. They had the best record in the league for much of the first part of the season, but have fallen off significantly since then, and just can’t seem to win a game. Tonight was no different.

What was a mess was my shooting some photos at the game. I checked the Blues and Saavis Center web sites. Everything there indicated that still cameras were allowed — like the other sports venues I’ve been to, they just didn’t want video. So I went, camera and long lens in bag, to Saavis.

I entered, opened my bag for inspection. No complaints.

I shot the whole first period. No complaints.

During the first intermission, “Jesse” from Security came by and asked if I had a shorter lens. I didn’t — didn’t think I’d need it. Now, at this point, I thought someone had complained that maybe I was in their way, although I couldn’t see how.

Jesse let me know that I would have to check my camera in with the Customer Relations folks, as “professional” cameras like mine weren’t allowed.

What it finally boiled down to was this. Despite a policy that allows still cameras, they seem to get nervous about long lenses. Jesse said that had I a shorter lens, I could’ve continuted to shoot with that, despite at another point in my ten minute conversation, him telling me that they shouldn’t have even let me in with my camera.

I haven’t decided how far to pursue this. It’s really not worth a big fight, but I know I was in the right, and they were just freaking out over something that on the big scale of things was chump change.

Politics

Outsourcing

$1.599

Yesterday, our CIO announced to IS that we are starting an endeavor to outsource some of our projects overseas. Now, I think this is the third project that I’m aware of that’s been sent abroad, but I guess the news is starting to hit the streets, and that’s why we were informed officially of this move.

I have opinions about this. Imagine that. 🙂

I think that, in chasing after the almighty dollar, American businesses are setting themselves up for future problems as they try to bring higher profits to shareholders. Anything that can be done remotely — programming, system administration, system performance — can be sent overseas, and be done at a fraction of the cost of doing the same work here.

Our CIO tells us that we are doing this for legacy projects, and there will not be project design efforts perfomed overseas. That may be.

Then again, this could just be the beginning of the end for folks doing programming or system work for our company. Either way, it’s a sad state, to me anyway, for a company that so prides itself on its strong American heritage to begin giving work away, rather than keeping it here in the US.

Yeah, so this is probably a firing offense to disapprove of this sort of thing, but I just can’t support it.

Politics

Twofer

Tonight, it looks like John Kerry moves another step closer to the Democratic nomination. I’m not greatly surprised that New Hampshire went for him — that’s his backyard, after all — but I am disappointed in John Edwards’ performance.

I still think he’s the best candidate out there, with the best message… Of course, that means he doesn’t have a snowball’s chance.

However, a Kerry-Edwards ticket might be fun. You’d have “native sons” from the North and South, and a reasonable swath of rich and poor, war hero and social programs. A pretty good combination, I’d think.

The last I heard, Edwards didn’t want the VP, but if his performance isn’t better come next Tuesday — eight states, I think? — his tune may change.

Geek-Speak

Sir Bill

$1.629

Today, Bill Gates (aka Bill of Borg) will accept an honorary knighthood from the Queen of England. Never mind that his company seems to be lately under terribly scrutiny from all corners for their business practices. Never mind that his company is basically engineered to crush any opposition, and if that doesn’t work, acquire them, and then shelve or steal their ideas. Never mind that his company is propagating a potential computerized doomsday with its extreme market penetration and slowness to react to threats caused by that penetration.

I’m not a big fan of honoring someone for playing dirty, killing competition, lacking innovation, and being good at just those things.

So, at the end of the day, Bill can now not only buy the world, but we’ll have to say “Sir” when we ask “Do you want fries with that?”

Weather

Nice Piece of Ice

$1.679

Tonight we hunker down, awaiting a terrific ice storm — predictions are for 1/2″ to one inch of ice, to begin just after midnight tonight.

All our infrastructure cabling is underground, but trees and lines falling elsewhere could impact our power and cable. It’ll be interesting to see how that all plays out tonight.

I’ll be up for much of it too. We’ve got a network upgrade at the office tonight. I’ll be dialing in to handle my end, but if the power or phone go, I’m out of the water. And, of course, everyone who is on campus will be trapped there through much of tomorrow.

I did go and get a bunch of lumber for building shelves and a gate for the deck. The deck gate went well, despite the temps falling all day. It looks good, and Beck’s happy with it. The shelves may get started tomorrow, but only after a long, long sleep after the network maintenance for the office tonight.

Fun times in the midwest, eh?

Geek-Speak

Site Work

$1.529

I finally got the photos for November, December and January on line tonight. Not a big deal, but just took a little bit o’ doing to get it all in place. As I look at what others are doing with JAlbum, I am envious, and somewhat in awe. I think my stuff is reasonably cool looking, but I see some very creative interfaces out there, and am convinced that there are better ways to display, group and index my ever-growing photo library.

Just wait ’til I get the scanners fired up, and start plowing through Mom & Dad’s photos and slides….. plus mine and Becky’s! Many, many thousands of images in all that, along with many, many months of work to scan them, I bet!

I’ve got some ideas to spruce up the good ol’ deauxmayne, too…. Keep watching!

Politics

I Have a Scream

$1.539

So, it wasn’t just me that thought Dean was out of his mind in conceding Iowa. Now, it has become known as the “I Have a Scream” speech. What was with that sound? Primal scream? Hemorrhoids? Serious scrotal itch? Perhaps someone was giving him a wedgie.

The media has latched on to this un-presidential utterance, and have really been letting him have with both barrels. It’s really kinda comical, and frankly a little embarassing to keep reliving this low point in his campaign.

Look at it this way, though. At least Dean will have a fallback career of screaming sound effects for horror films.

Politics

America Speaks

$1.539

Wow. Kerry. Edwards. And then — distantly — Dean?

I’m amazed.

Kerry is a bolt out of the blue. I’m just flat shocked that he came out so strongly on top. I really saw Dean and Edwards duking it out for first and second place, and Kerry and Gephardt fighting for the crumbs of third and fourth place.

Wow.

(And, from a techie perspective, all the candidates’ sites were working… except John Edwards — I kept getting “Server too busy” messages from their IIS server. Kerry had a “we won” banner up before he spoke to his supporters, and Gephardt already had notes on his site that led you to believe that he would drop out because of the results in Iowa. Ain’t technology grand?)

Now, Kerry has indicated that he is in favor of making it more difficult for US companies to ship their jobs overseas. Others — namely the Computer Systems Policy Project (Dell, HP, Intel, IBM) — have indicated that allowing jobs to go overseas is the only way for American business to survive. They favor the government investing in tech research, rather than protectionist policies, like Kerry’s. They even go so far as to indicate that there will be many good jobs out there for high school grads with basic reading, writing and arithmetic.

Hope those kids are rehearsing….. “Do you want fries with that?”

So, once those companies have all their e-commerce jobs overseas, we could be held hostage to their interests, and would probably find that our quality of life here is lessened, with a smaller personal tax base, and fewer dollars to purchase those goods and services that the Computer Systems Policy Project are fighting so hard to serve from elsewhere.

Good luck guys — I think you’re wrong. I know it’s not politically correct to toot the American horn. In fact, some might say that I’m somehow close-minded, or anti-foreigner. Both are wrong. Perhaps I would be labelled “pro-American”.

That would be true.