The shoe tree

I remember the shoe tree in Nevada.
My second throw sailed high
And clunked down,
My favorite sneakers,
A limb
Then another.
Then, they. crawled,
Like, one, of those, Slinky toys,
Down, the, stringy, cluster,
Of, shoe fruit, until,
One tangled,
the other shoe dangled
And spun lazily, free,
the lowest berry in the tree.

American Dreaming – 1990’s / Part XIX

The first function I became interested in within AOL’s offerings was that of chat rooms. I was captivated by both the number of folks and the subject matter discussed within some of these chat rooms. Eventually, I ventured into some of the chat rooms that had titles suggesting they were areas people who were single “and looking” could meet.

Being the painfully shy person I am, I was not immediately emboldened by the anonymity that the online service offered. I didn’t even have the sense not use my “real name” in my login. That part I wised up to before I actually began to post. Initially my tact was to only watch and read but, not add anything to the communal discussions.

It was after about three weeks of casually watching some of the discussions in these forums that I received my first “instant message.” I was startled by the interaction and stumbled through it. It was intimidating to think that there was another real person on the far end of this system that I was actually conversing with in this new and interesting medium.

That person who (seemingly on a whim) reached out to me became a fast “friend”. While we hadn’t met physically we discussed a variety of topics. She was a military wife who seemed to indicate that she was lonely. Husband out at sea. We conversed in this manner for a few weeks. I began to enjoy the medium and we talked about a lot of different topics.

About two to three weeks of chatting back and forth (with a few e-mails thrown in for good measure), she said that she knew of someone that I should meet. She said that she had a friend who lived in Detroit. She said that she thought “we would be a good match because we both talked over her head”. I thought it was an amusing observation but, I told her that I would be willing to chat or exchange e-mail. I was skeptical about the prospect but in deference to my new friend, I would respond if asked. She then circled back with her friend who basically responded with well, if he writes me, I’ll read it and perhaps write back. Not exactly a warm beginning to my friend’s attempt at matchmaking.

I began to exchange email with this woman in Detroit. It rapidly progressed to daily emails and then some regular chats. After about two to three weeks of this, we started conversing on the phone. My phone bill over the next couple of months was huge but, a romance had started. I couldn’t believe that this was really happening. I had pretty much resolved myself to not having anyone else in my life. I had made peace with living alone and actually enjoying that freedom. I never imagined that I would be involved with a long distance relationship but, that was most assuredly where I found myself by September of 1996.

We resolved to meeting face to face. We decided that we would meet at a neutral location half-way. The date and travel arrangements were set that we would meet for the first time Pittsburgh at the end of November. As the days and weeks passed by the desire to meet this lady increased. Apparently that was a mutual emotion because we then decided we couldn’t wait until the aforementioned meeting date in Pittsburgh and decided to meet in Buffalo on Veterans day in early November.

On the agreed upon date, I returned my son to his home in the southern portion of New York and set off by car to Buffalo on a Sunday night. The 390 mile trip was filled with a whole battery of emotions. I was thrilled, I was nervous, I was scared. I had come to allow emotions to be felt that were long dormant and I thought dead.

Limericks and Haikus from Buchanan pass

There once was a stream in my bedroom
Over my head hung darkening gloom
So raising my face
I became this place
And now I weave joy on this day's loom

I have the most delectable rug here
It's cool; it's soft; it's green; it's tender
I'm barefoot all day
I'm dancing in hay
And the flowers will all be my partner

Clouds like silver mist descend
The gloaming darkens
Pattering rain slakes my bowl

My mountain bowl of Sencha
Stony peaks surround
Stream, tree, and sod soak it up

My meadow green, gray the lid
Darkness darkens, dark
Cold breath blows a lullaby

American Dreaming – 1990’s / Part XVIII

New company, new challenges, new working conditions. I was both thrilled and curious as to where this job change would take me. My responsibilities (in comparison to the last job) were miniscule. I had no staff to manage, I had no responsibilities in other offices, my primary initial tasks were to ready the organization for a transition of the corporate messaging platform from their current reliance on Lotus Development Corp’s CC: Mail to a different product, Lotus Notes. The Notes platform offered messaging but, also had application development capabilities that provided for workflow and collaborative applications to be developed, deployed and managed centrally.

I took over a series of servers and readied them with new software and began testing the data conversion process to migrate the post office files within CC:mail to the .nsf file format that is native to Lotus Notes.

This was interesting work but, a huge paradigm shift for me coming from a 24/7/365 regimen of dealing with maintenance and troubleshooting a large network to being responsible for servers that (at the moment) had no users or corporate production responsibilities.

All of a sudden (it seemed) I had leisure time. This was such a foreign concept for me (given my work habits and assignments over the last 5+ years) that I had a very difficult time coping with this change. It seems odd and I know it wasn’t a particularly healthy outlook on work (and life) but this was truly an unusual time for me.

I initially began to deal with it (at work) by pitching in and getting involved in other aspect of the IT functions within this organization. I asked a lot of questions and learned about the desktop support standards, I willingly pitched in and assisted desktop techs and eventually the network technicians with troubleshooting and designs to meet the changing needs of this growing company. This added some time to my (perhaps under-utilized) working conditions but, didn’t address the leisure time question at all.

I had to retrain myself to accept that I did have some time outside of work that I could use to pursue self-interests. It was permissible for me to table my workaholic tendencies and seek out some fun venues to pursue and enjoy. Again, this was such an abstract concept for my mindset to accept. I began to take stock of my life, my role as a parent and began to ponder over what my options were.

As fate would have it, it was my role as a parent that led me to what was the next major event in my life. My son spent every weekend with me and I relished and looked forward to those times. It was on one such weekend that he asked me about an online service called AOL (America OnLine). I had a typical technician’s bias against this service. The Internet was a medium that I saw as having an infinite number of possibilities and the amount of information that was making its way to this network was staggering. I thought as long as you had access to the Internet, that AOL was somewhat irrelevant. Being the absentee parent and stricken by that guilt, I eventually acquiesced to his request and opened up an account with the service. My son utilized it to primarily gather information he was interested in with regards to electronic games.

After he left one Sunday, I decided to investigate what else was offered within this service.

American Dreaming - 1990's / Part XVII

In my ongoing quest for new employment, I found out quite by accident that potentially there might be an opportunity with a small entrepreneurial company that was local to the area. The opportunity was for a managerial position within the company that would principally be involved with email / messaging and workflow/collaboration application development.

The real appeal of this opportunity though was that this company was the organization that one of my mentors had moved to. The former manager/ regional VP that was undoubtedly the best reporting relationship I would have in my career. She was the reason I got the shot at the position. I made a pitch for products that we were using at the managed care facility as a consultant but, I was hoping for a shot at a full time employee position within that firm.

I made a very good impression indeed when I made my pitch for the software platform and over the course of a few months that interest did evolve into an opportunity for a position. I was thrilled at the prospect of moving to that company. We negotiated salary and the like and in the middle of 1996, I received confirmation and an offer letter to become a Manager of Groupware Administration and Application Development for this company.

I arranged for the transition with my current employer. I positioned the change to take place at the end of May 1996 with a one-week break between my jobs. I wanted to take a vacation break prior to joining the new organization. With some able assistance from my Administrative Assistant, I arranged for a one-week trip to Key West, FL over the week starting with Memorial Day weekend of that year. I had never been to Key West and thought I really needed that break to refresh myself for the new challenges with the new organization.

The job move itself was really a lateral move in the sense of salary but, a huge difference in level of responsibility and certainly my ability to perhaps cultivate a personal life was a lot more possible with the reduced scope of my responsibility and my “off-hours” responsibility being reduced as well.

Up to that point in my life, I had never taken a vacation alone. My son, who was 12 years old at the time, was very disappointed that I would consider (and eventually do) a vacation without including him. I explained that the place where I was going was decidedly an “adult fun” place and therefore, I wasn’t sure he would have a lot to do. I also committed that 9 years from now, when he was 21, I promised that I would take him to this locale and we would have the combined vacation we couldn’t have in 1996.

This was a promise I never forgot and I did follow through 9 years later with a wonderful four day excursion to Key West with my (then adult) son.

American Dreaming – 1990’s / Part XVI

It was time to go. It was time to leave this organization. I knew that as surely as I knew my decision to leave my hometown, marriage and civil service job was the right move in accepting a role within this company. I thought that I had pretty much accomplished all I was about to within this organization.

My reporting relationships still appeared to be on a revolving lazy susan. I was alternately reporting to a series of upper managers with little to no support or understanding for what I (or any of my staff) did. It was almost as if they knew they needed us to keep the data center and networks functioning but, it wasn’t something that any of them wanted involvement in. The only attention I got was when there was either a hardware or technical issue that led to some degree of down time. It was usually a function that they didn’t want to pay for redundancy but they felt that they had a license to complain if not having that redundancy caused service disruptions. In short, I was in a no-win situation.

I started to canvass potential sources for a change of venue. I discussed the idea of taking on a consulting position with a few different firms. One such firm offered to place me in a position in a lab working with IDM on developing a popular workflow based application software. It sounded like really interesting work but, it would also mean that I would have to relocate to somewhere near the city of White Plains, NY which was about 120 miles away from my current home.

I considered this and actually accepted the job on a Friday afternoon. The paperwork was sent to me over the weekend and I took that interim time frame to drive down to the area around White Plains to look for potential future homes. I picked up my son and the two of scoured the area for the better portion of a day but, really couldn’t find anything that remotely looked appealing (at least to me).

That coupled with a few other reasons that led me to reconsider the position. When I received the paperwork from the consulting firm, I informed that I was not going to accept the position after all.

I also garnered an interview with a large software company to begin working within a lab in Boston, MA. This would have truly been a dream job for me. I prepped for a couple of days prior to this interview (which is something I had never done for any other job interview in my life/career). When the time came, I drove out to Cambridge and went through an interview process that was unique within my experience. I was introduced briefly to the director that I would potentially report to and then went through a series of interviews with a half dozen middle managers within the imaging and document management groups that, if I was the successful candidate, would be working with on a day to day basis.

I came to understand that there was a pattern of checks and balances within each of these interviews. I was asked similar questions and I recognized after a couple of hours that the managers were comparing notes on my responses as I went from interview to interview.

After about five hours with no breaks (although I was offered some), I eventually wound up back with the director. We went down to their in-house cafeteria a had some coffee and discussed the day. I was told that the managers had relayed their impressions to him as the day went on and that all of them were duly impressed with my manner and credentials. I was led to believe that I was perhaps the leading candidate for this job.

As I drove back home, I was elated. I jokingly characterized it as I was running ahead of the car I was driving.

During the next few days, I awaited anxiously any word on a final decision regarding this employment opportunity. I followed up my interview with a thank you note to the director. Unfortunately, for me, the decision was “no decision.” The job function that I was applying for didn’t get final approval so the job was never created. I was thanked and assured that they would keep my resume and interview records on file and … (the usual spiel). I was disappointed but resolved that I had to continue looking. The working conditions for me at the current organization seemed to be perpetually in limbo.

Trout about

... like spearing fish in deep water,

No, like
When I was six
Trapping tricky trout.
Barefoot, elbow deep
In an amber clear cold stream,
Fixed on the motionless wavering form.
Motionless both but moving, frozen.

It would be 36 years until I would think sushi beautiful edible art
And only now that I think that that trout was beautiful living art,

But I knew it
Even then.

Slipping hands,
Sliding nearer,
Shadow to shadow
Nearer,
Closer,
There!
Upsweeping jet of splashing flipping flop,
Water and fish arching onto the nearby bank.
The dying trout lie gasping on the primordial green grass
Of my youth. Me, the man, here, now
There the child boy and between
The attempt to capture
These lines...

American Dreaming - 1990's / Part XV

So, I refrained from formulating my email with the “I told you so” message for the time being and began the efforts to try and salvage what we could from the present flooding situation.

In lieu of the prepared disaster recovery program that we had proposed two months earlier, it was time for an impromptu disaster recovery plan.

The first calls were to our telecommunications service providers to see if we could forward our clinical line to some other number (temporarily) and how soon could such a change be put into place. We were told it would likely be at least two business days before that could take place from their perspective. Shortly after that news met my ears, we were told by our telecommunications specialist that we could forward the lines to corporate offices as long as the PBX within our building remained functional. We opted to begin that process and within a half hour we had successfully shifted our clinical line to Virginia and vacated the building of the clinical staff. Side note – unfortunately for the clinical staff they had parked their cars in the basement parking garage and those vehicles were summarily toast.

I was met at the location by two of my network engineers. I dispatched them to start to shut down the networking communications gear within all the floors of the building. My son and I went to the data center and began to shut down the servers. Within an hour of that effort starting we had basically shut down all of the data center, we had physically uninstalled two of the primary servers and transported them by hand down the stair well and into my car.

I then transported the primary file server, workflow server and email server to my home along with the backup tapes from the past week of all relevant functions (including our PBX configuration tapes).

So, in essence, the disaster recovery plan was to move the data center for a fortune five hundred regional office into my kitchen.

The water did stop rising around the time we took these actions and fortunately, the electricity never did get cut off for the building. It took the balance of the weekend for the water to recede to the point where the parking lot was useful (the basement still had a massive amounts of clean-up to be done to make that space useful again).

Somewhere along the line some kind of assessment of the structural integrity of the building was done and it was deemed that the building had not suffered any material damage. Therefore come Monday morning the effort was made to bring the servers, the backups and all the reset of the communications and network gear back on line. We were essentially back up and running by 9:00 on Monday morning.

We had definitely dodged a bullet. It was now time to resurrect my disaster recovery plan and the “I told ya so” emails…

American Dreaming - 1990's / Part XIV

Another effort of note that I took on during my tenure with this managed care company was to embark on developing a disaster recovery program for the operating units that I was responsible for.

Because of the bombing attack on the World Trade Center in the early 1990’s a renewed focus was prevalent in a lot of organizations (both large and small) to focus on developing a plan/process and procedures to deal with catastrophic events that might disrupt normal corporate operations in any capacity.

I enlisted the aide of a local consultancy to work with my staff to compile all the relevant forms, and resources that we would need as an organization to keep key functions operating while any time of relocation or rebuilding effort took place. The effort involved interviews with administration and human resource staff to accumulate information on all the various functions in those realms that would be required to be restored quickly. We also went to each of the clinical areas and garnered application and data needs that those departments would need and a minimum time to restore for those various IT functions.

After six months of documentation work and doing some investigation on potential “warm” sites (locations where we could have equipment that could be utilized in a restoration effort but, not running) and “hot” sites (locations that would essentially be duplicate sites to our production facilities and ready to be utilized in a moment’s notice) along with the costing and time frames to outfit such resources.

We presented our findings to senior management in late November of 1995. The reception we received was respectful but, the price tags were seen as cost prohibitive. There was no appetite to take on such a project at that point in time.

There are rare instances in life where you throw your support behind an effort (or cause) only to see it go for naught followed by circumstances or events that conspire to actually prove out the worth and correctness of your position. For the lack of a better term, I’ll dub this the “neenerneenerneener” moments or an “I told ya so”…

Well, this was one of those occurrences.

Less than six weeks after our proposal to senior management on developing a disaster recovery plan, the river spoke. The primary office of this region was in a building that bordered closely the Hudson River. During the month of December 1995, we had an uncharacteristically harsh number of snow storms. During the second week in January 1996 there was a sudden change in climate amounting to a mid-winter thaw. As a result of this thaw, the river flooded. I got a phone call on Saturday morning as I was traveling down to pick up my son for our customary weekend visit. I was told that the building had seen a little of bit of flooding.

I asked “How much is a little bit of flooding?”

“The basement is under water and the water is anticipated to continue to rise for some time.”

“The whole basement area?”
“Yeah.”

“Okay I’ll be there in less than a couple of hours but, that’s the best I can do, I’m in transit right now.”

I then endeavored to reach some members of my staff but, being a sunny Saturday and still relatively early, I was only able to leave voice messages.

By the time I got there, I encountered a vision I’ll never forget. Here was a seven story building, a former shirt factory with a large smoke stack construct on one side and it looked like the Hudson River had widened to the point that it was literally flowing through the base area of the entire building.

Our data center was on the second floor of this building. Our offices consisted of the second, fourth and fifth floors. We had 24/7 clinical coverage that was dependent on the second floor of the building being habitable.

When I arrived, I conferred with our facility staff (who were on site) and asked for current status. I was told that if the water rose another six inches, that our local utility provider would be cutting electrical feeds into the building as a precaution.

My first thoughts were that we were going to have to shut down the data center ahead of any effort to cut electricity to the building. The second thought was where were we going to shift our clinical referral line coverage.

Feeling Older...

I'm feeling much older than I normally do based on the fact that we are approaching the 40 year anniversary of the Apollo 11 Moon Walk.

I remember laying on the living room floor of my parent's house and watching all the coverage of the journey that the Apollo 11 flight crew was undertaking. The night that they were actually going to be walking on the moon, I tried to stay awake but, I couldn't keep my 10 year old eyes open and unfortunately fell asleep and did not hear Neil Armstrong's momentous words or actions live. I woke up as the announcers were recounting the event and preparing for the second walk that was to take place later the following day.

Another event that I'm also astounded is going to be passing the 40 year anniversary point is the music festival at Woodstock. That was such a momentous occasion and given the close proximity that my parent's house had to that event, led to a much stronger connection to that event than the moon walk.

I remember my parent's basically talking about the event and proclaiming that there is a lot naked hippies running around up there and insisted that my sister and I remain indoors over the course of those three days because they were sure that there was "going to be something in the air filtering over to our area" and didn't want us exposed to this "threat"...

I chuckle today thinking of those times and my parent's naive reaction to this event that they clearly did not understand.

...sigh... memories....pressed between the pages of my.... ah, never mind...

American Dreaming - 1990's / Part XIII

Despite the successes outlined in the previous sections of this story, my professional career in the first half of the decade known as the 1990’s wasn’t without some huge setbacks.

One of the most prominent setbacks had to do with my reporting relationships within that organization after I lost the manager I had in 1993. The last three years that I was with that company, the average life expectancy of my reporting relationships was about 30 –45 days. I seemed to be relegated to a manager of the month pattern. To some extent this was due to the fact that I never really needed a manager (except when I truly did need one due to conflicts in shifting priorities). I’ve always been very much a self motivated force within any organization I was affiliated with (still am). It was a de-motivating factor though because I never got any kind of performance review, little encouragement, and no support.

What I got in the form of direction was deadlines. I managed to the deadlines as well as I could and dealt with the manager of the month when I needed to (didn’t help but, I’ve always tried to be a “team player” and play by the rules even when it wasn’t easy to know what they were)

It was around the middle of 1993 when I was confronted with a “crossroads” decision in my career path (such as it was). I had been involved in developing the networks and telecommunications infrastructure to support the three operating units in the northeast and involved in a very interesting project regarding statistical analysis of episodal data from medical records and claims data to develop software that would evaluate outcomes. In essence it was taking the universe of data that we as a managed care company collected through the course of dealing with both patients and care providers with the intent of deriving patterns (or outcomes) based on the type care being provided and the symptoms that were being reported within the claims. In this manner, theoretically we would be able to “predict” outcomes. We could also produce patterns based on general area population that might point towards the need for better education or proactive means of curtailing those kinds of problems for that population.

It was a fascinating project and involved crunching a ton of data from disparate sources. I was working with some really great consultants out of Cleveland, OH and flying back and forth to that area on and off for about 6 months.

Unfortunately, it was apparent that I couldn’t pursue both paths. It was apparent to my manger at the time (the last really great reporting relationship I was to have in this organization) and she basically forced my hand. She gave me the option of which path to pursue:

1. I could pursue the data analysis path and continue with the development of the outcomes software project with the consultants in Cleveland or…
2. I could let that project go and then direct my full attention to the network design and eventual management tasks that I also was very interested in.

Well, I pondered the question and eventually came to this observation / conclusion. I felt that from the company’s perspective, it was going to be easier to find someone to do the data analysis chores (and that the consultants in Cleveland were doing much of the “heavy lifting” in this regard anyway) and there was no one within the company that had the breadth of skill to deal with the networks and integration work that I was doing.

So… I told her that I would be sticking with the network chores and that they would need to define who I was to pass off the materials and meeting notes that I had accumulated with the data analysis project.

Well, the adage of “no good deed goes unpunished” is relevant here because the company decided to hire “outside” and brought in a gentleman to work on the data project. Within three months, that project (which had a fair amount of interest from upper management) flourished and the gentleman that they hired became one of the many folks to become my manager. It was painfully apparent at that point that with the changing management, the project I had abandoned (though small in scope and importance to the organization.. it only had any relevance to one operating unit) somehow seemed sexier than developing the networking infrastructure of three offices supporting 67 books of buiness.

I can’t win for losing….

American Dreaming - 1990's / Part XII

Despite the unsatisfying outcome from that effort, I did outlast the Ferengi. Life within the company settled down for a spell. The operating unit in Manhattan was moving along. I began to shift my focus back to managing the units. That’s when I suffered a few notable setbacks.

A couple of my close friends and key cogs in my support (emotionally) group left the company. My manager (VP of operations) had promoted me in the middle of the NYC buildout to regional director. I think that promotion was pretty much in name only but, it was an effort on her part to give me a bit more notoriety when I was contending with the Ferengi. She decided to go back to the small entrepreneurial company that she had left two years ago to join us. Whit her went the best reporting relationship I was likely to have in my professional life.
In addition to the loss of my manager, two of my close confidents also left the company. All of this change left me reporting to a different Regional VP (for a time) but it also signaled the beginning of the end of my time with this organization.

I had developed a really good group of folks within my staffing. I hired well. We were a fairly close group and those folks would do about anything for me. I was truly blessed. Losing my friends left my wicked schedule without some of the lighthearted banter and fun that was one of the more appealing aspects of the job for me.

It was shortly after the loss of my two friends I was handed another assignment. I was being asked to oversee the movement of our Boston office from its present location to some other suitable area within the city limits of Boston.

I had spent only a short amount of time dealing with the Boston office up to that point in time. I had managerial responsibilities to the two PC techs that were assigned to that operating unit but because the business model for that office was so different from either NYC or my home office in Troy, NY they had little cause to call on me for much.

I was to work with our facilities manager in trying to track down a suitable relocation spot for this office. We spent three different trips that were essentially day trips (Boston was about 3.5 hours away from our Troy locale). In each of them, the office spaces we were reviewing were nice enough but, the telecommunications aspects of each building was wanting. I found that a lot of the older buildings in Boston suffered greatly from basement flooding. The telecommunications demarcation point in all the buildings (we looked at) was in the basement and below the high water mark clearly visible on the walls of these structures.

I was extremely reluctant to want to endorse any of the options that our facilities manager had managed to drum up. In the mean time, our deadline was looming large as the lease was due to expire within 60 days. If we were going to make a move, it had to be pretty accomplished pretty quickly.

It was during the third trip that we wound up circling back to the existing office near South Station in Boston. I took that opportunity to confer briefly with the two PC techs that were assigned there. They were understandably curious as to what progress we had made in determining a suitable landing spot for the operating unit after this current lease.

I also took this opportunity to discuss some things with the current landlord. I originally asked for some time with him to begin to lay the groundwork for the move. It was during that conversation that I found out that another of his current tenants (on the same floor) was also leaving within the next month. I asked about the possibility of moving the operating unit down the hall to this newly vacated spot. The office space was a little bigger than the current area that the Boston office used. It would provide for a little bit of the anticipated growth while avoiding a good deal of moving expense.

I called in the facilities manager and passed the idea by her. Of course, neither of us was authorized to execute another lease without checking with our corporate contracts folks but, in principle it seemed like the best of the options being presented to us at that time.

The contracts manager was more than happy to move on this idea. The current lease was rolled into an agreement to move into this new space. We would be granted some additional parking in the building’s basement parking area and all in all, it seemed that we had almost “dodged a bullet” in finding new space. The existing staff that were located in the office were perhaps the most relieved group of folks.

Sorry, no post today

God Mannon hath ruled the day.

American Dreaming - 1990's / Part XI

After my arrival and the requisite 45 minute ($45 worth) cab ride from Washington National airport to our corporate offices, I immediately went up to the suite of offices that the working group had called home for the last year. Upon getting a cup of coffee from the pantry I sought out our consultant project manager. I found him in one of the cubicles over by the window looking forlorn and seemingly in need of a friend.

“What’s up Don…?”

“Bad news I’m afraid.” (I had already surmised that he was troubled so this was not a surprise)

“Oh? How so…?”

“Looks like its you and me, Jim.”

“What happened with Ozzie and Linda…flight delays?”

“No… they won’t be coming. They submitted their resignation yesterday. Gone, Kaput… I don’t know who would be taking their place but, I’m sure it won’t be before our 11:00 with the board.”

“Uh huh, I see. That’s a bit of a shocker”

“Yeah. A lot of the assumptions they were insistent on including in the proposed architecture were the most contentious portions of this document. I don’t know if we should do anything with that section or whether it even matters at this point.”

I knew what portions he was speaking of. We had many hours of debate on certain elements of what we were calling our “to be” environments. I paused but then said “I don’t know as if we really have any time to put in any major modifications to the presentation. I guess we can keep that nugget in reserve and pull it out if/when those questions come up.”

After all the forceful proclamations that came from those two IT professionals and how much change (and grief) I was subject to from that source, I was left with a puzzled set of mixed feelings. I really never saw that coming. In the last conversations I had with the two of them they were relishing the opportunity to present this proposal for projects and changes to our IT organizations to the board.

I wasn’t sure if I beat the Ferengi or not… Did I win or lose here because I was the only one that ultimately was going to face the board with a recommendation that would consist of work products that would take several years to build along with five million dollars of cost.

The actual meeting was a bit of a blur. I wound up not having a very prominent role in the meeting after all. The board had already received and reviewed copies of the report and the recommendations within it. They had already made up their minds as to what they were going to do before we walked. It was more of an opportunity for them to relay to us the direction they were going to announce to the company then an opportunity for us to present anything.

After a year’s worth of work and probably several million in consultant and travel fees, they made up their minds that they weren’t going to do anything. They were going to keep all the components of both IT organizations going for the short term until some of the contract renewals for some of their key books of business were complete. They would eventually seek to bring new books of business into the fold using a set components of IT (some from one company and some from the other) and that would consist of their “go-forward” strategy. Eventually all books of business would be folded into that model.

None of the recommendations for additional functionality or technology upgrades would be considered at this time. Thank you for your time on this project, have a nice day.

Sheesh…

---Jim

American Dreaming - 1990's / Part X

The initiative was the brain child of all of the Senior Staff of the new combined company. Our Regional VP (former COO of our operating unit and my mentor) Jack Riser had been reassigned to be the COO of the Corporate functions in Falls Church, VA in the new regime. The initiative was to form working groups that had representation of all IT functions from all of the offices within the organization (some 28 offices in the country) and review what each company had in place as far as custom software, corporate claims payment systems, telecommunications, messaging, provider and customer relations and HR functions.

I was charged with a seat on several working groups (Claims payment, Telecommunications, Data Services and Overall Architecture). As a result of this designation, I was going to be spending two to three days a week flying back and forth from Albany, NY and Washington, DC to participate in these work group meetings assisted by a small army of consultants.

The work was really quite interesting. It was certainly a very complex setting for what was, in essence, an exercise in human nature. I watched a massive amount posturing, mass justifications and even some thinly veiled pleading for reduced change. Both former organizations seemed to be embroiled in a tug of war with attempting to lobby for the technology choices that were inherent in each of their respective corporate cultures to invariably “win out” and become part of the IT function of the newly combined company.

I understood this posture but endeavored to learn as much as I could about our former rival’s technology infrastructure and to some extent have an open mind in any assessment. I believe I was pretty effective in gathering information on the technology choices in place as well as the management functions and help desk organizations because I attempted to be neutral or a minimum non-threatening. My counterparts did not reciprocate my collegial posture or practice during this assessment. Their inquiries were almost posed in the tone and manner of threats. They didn’t enjoy or look for debate or consensus but rather relished and sought out confrontational situations. It was around this time that I took to referring the triad of the three highest managers in that former organization as the Ferengi (an ode to a Star Trek race of aliens that were noted for their greed and hunger for power).

The Ferengi were tireless in their pursuit to prove out their points that the servers they used were far better than the more commonly used equipment we had deployed for the production applications. They continued to reiterate that the investment and reliance on NeXT machines was a worthwhile one (even though the company that created and maintained that technology was drawing its last breath during this year). Their arguments were delivered with such passion and venom that if I didn’t have to deal with them as intimately as it seemed I must, I would have begun to feel sorry for them.

The consultants we were working with compiled all the information as well as all the operational requirements. At the end of a yearlong effort, we were finally ready to present our findings to the board of directors of the combined company. I was selected along with two of the Ferengi lieutenants to represent IT during the presentation. Following my usual pattern in those days, I flew down to Washington DC on a Monday morning to prepare for the presentation.

American Dreaming - 1990's / Part IX

During this project I received my first taste of the mergers and acquisition game. It was announced shortly after the project was started that my organization had merged with the number two managed care firm in our market. In this market, it was widely accepted that the organization that I was with was the number one managed care firm. After the merger we (the combined company) put a pretty large amount distance in market share between my company and the nearest remaining competitors.

At first, I didn’t pay much attention to this news but, in time, this change would involve me in some pretty interesting corporate decisions and actions. Shortly after the announcement of the merger, I was contacted by one of my counterparts within the IT organization of our now sister company. In not too many words, I was told that they were now in charge of the internetworking aspects of the combined company and that I should prepare my staff to relinquish control of all of the switches and routers within our network because we would be receiving replacement units to comply with the networking standards of their organization. I replied with “Not bad, how are you?”

I immediately conferred with my COO and was told that we would be meeting to discuss this matter with other members of our corporate IT function. The meeting was setup and in the interim, I continued with the project in NY City.

The first meeting with these folks took place in their (former) headquarters in rural Connecticut. I was instructed to bring along an inventory of the equipment we had installed in all of our regional offices as well as the equipment that we had in our management schemes within the corporate data centers.

The meeting was rather abrupt and brief but the message was crystal clear. It seemed to be that within the combined company my staff and I would be taking direction on technology choices from the IT management functions of our former rival. We would be tasked with arranging for the replacement of the entire networking infrastructure within the Troy, NY and New York City offices (in time). Shortly after this meeting it was also announced that the former CEO of our company was leaving and the new CEO would be the former head of the sister company we were merging with. All of this added up to massive changes in our corporate structure and precipitated a lot of defections in the ranks of our company. What seemed at first to be good news and perhaps an avenue to new and exciting challenges had become the harbinger of very bad news for a lot of the co-workers and organizations we were familiar with.

We managed to finish the installation of the operating unit in NYC (using our former standards to set up all telecommunications functions) as there wasn’t enough time to involve the new sister company. Shortly after that office “went live”, another major initiative was announced and I was thrust right into the middle of it.

---Jim

The bizarro world of Kerry and Tophie - part 2

OK, so this where I'm supposed to post the endings of the story, that's right endings, but since I haven't quite finished the second one and I write in crayon so I have to type it out in order to get them on the interwebs, I am going to cheat and just explain the rules.
There are two possible endings to this adventure and you, my friends, get to chose which one becomes the actual ending and which one disappears forever into the oblivion of random bytes. I might also consider accepting write in alternatives which I will then change slightly and claim to be my own :-)
So by posting this little expository introduction I can just edit it tomorrow and it will still appear to have been posted on time... clever, devious, or just lazy. You decide.

American Dreaming - 1990's / Part VIII

The second startup operation that was fortunate enough to be a part of with that organization was a book of business that we captured in covering the municipal employees of the city of New York.

This particular assignment was very similar to the first one in that we had about 90 days to pull of the miracle of building an operating unit that could take on the calls and the claims for the municipal employees (several million covered lives as I recall). The first hurdle was defining all the integration aspects of the systems that would need to be developed to support this particular operation.

The first integration point that was made known to me was that we were partnering with a different organization to actually pay the claims for these medical services. For this we would need to provide for an emulated IBM 3890 client. This wasn’t that big of a deal but we did need to interact rather quickly with the claims payor in this instance to determine all the system requirements that their legacy claim payment process required.

The second integration point was that we were also partnering with yet another information service entity to provide data that would be fed into an already resident system that would take claims payment data and provide some degree of analysis for outcomes studies. It was a very interesting prospect but from a pure telecommunications aspect it provided yet another challenge. This system meant that we had to provide interactive access to an IBM 5250 emulation client for the data to be entered into that system.

We were looking to staff a data entry crew that would be tasked with the triple entry that this book of business seemed to be predicated upon. Once these aspects of the systems requirements were known we began the work of designing the network and the software / hardware requirements that were going to have to be installed in a king hell hurry to meet the deadline of a “go live” in 90 days.

That part I could deal with. Purely technical challenges I had become pretty adept at dealing with and reacting to. The part of this project that I was wholly unprepared for was the human aspects of trying to put up this much technology and infrastructure in a building in the great city of New York.

The biggest hurdle as we would find was in the dealing with the trade unions as this was a “union building” that we were looking to house the operation unit that we were designing and implementing. I have a great deal of respect for the work that union folk do but, given almost unreasonable time constraints this was a challenge.

I had never dealt with a group of folk that I didn’t have any leverage with and were absolutely of the mind set that they were going to do whatever tasks assigned to them at a pace that wasn't going to meet our deadlines. There was no sympathy for business requirements, artificial deadlines or legal obligations. They were going to work in the manner and pace that they were accustomed to.

There was also no hope of being able to circumnavigate these folks and attempt to get some of this work done with resources that we were ready to provide for in this effort. No way… fat chance...this was a union building and as such all of that work had to be provided for by union workers. A lot of begging and pleading ensued. Some concessions were made to accommodate for a lack of some of the anticipated amenities being constructed before our "go live" date.

This project posed a couple of personal challenges for me. I was living in Troy, NY and had organizational supervisory responsibilities within that operating unit and I had begun to take on supervisory responsibilities within our Boston office as well. The project was going to mandate that I spend at least three days a week in NYC. I began a pattern of waking up at 5:00 am to get out of the door by 5:30 to make it to the train station within Rensselaer, NY by 5:55 to arrive at Penn Station in NYC by 7:45 to arrive at the (eventual) office location (four blocks away from the train station) by 8:00 am to do a 10 hour day to take the 7:00 train back to Rensselaer, NY to arrive by 9:45 returning to home by 10:00 pm to then get up the next day and make work by 8:00 in Troy.

I firmly believe anyone can get used to anything given the right motivation. I adapted to this schedule after a couple of weeks and was operating (more or less) at near top proficiency in all of my assigned tasks. It meant no social life but that was certainly not a priority at that point in my life. I maintained this schedule for nearly three months during the construction and formation of this operating unit.

We were successful in our efforts and the operating unit did start-up on time and in spectacular fashion. We dubbed it the miracle on 34th street and were very proud of the effort and the operating unit. I took on the supervisory responsibilities of the staff operating and administering the network within that unit and just added more hours onto my already overbooked professional schedule.

----Jim

and now a word from our sponsor...

Before we get back to the exciting adventures of Kerry and Tophie - Thanks to Jim for reminding me how much I love Haiku and yes, it's a quick way to get a post for the day:

This one goes out to all those who love the bad, crazy ones and ignore the sweet/nice girl/boy.
A cautionary wail:

That sweetness that wanted just
reciprocation
has died of loves attrition.

That is it for dedications. The rest just are what they are:

If you wager your roll on
what others think of
you, the bet's against the House.

Rock, flower, moss, and lichen,
where the wind is born,
God's hand sweeps with sure chaos

The tundra sponge flows and spills
streams through aquifer
and converge into my mouth

--- Jer

A Bizarre Bazaar

The scene: An Arabian bazaar. A public gathering place.

I strolled into a large plaza. It was filled with many natives of middle eastern countries dressed in native garb. It is very hot and somewhat dusty as I strolled under an archway and moved towards the center of the plaza.

Within this bazaar there were sights and smells that were very enticing. Some vendors had only pushcarts while other vendors sold their wares from tables that were aligned in rows through the plaza area and along the sidewalks along the perimeter of the square. The sun was bright and most everyone seemed to be wearing loose fitting white or grayish robes. No one seemed to notice or pay any mind to the fact that my dress looked incongruent in contrast to all others in the square.

I was looking at various things: foodstuffs, baskets, crafty things. The behavior of all the people around me I likened to experiences I would more have attributed to that of a flea market back home. I was with my family (parents, spouse, siblings). It was some kind of family affair. I thought how wonderful it was to have the family together again. We don’t often get the chance much anymore.

Suddenly, (it seemed) I was separated from my group. I began searching for them by scanning the crowd. It was rather unexpectedly getting more crowded as time went on. The ambient noise was getting louder and louder. A group of mostly men (middle eastern in descent) were converging around me slowly. I tried to pick myself through the crowd (still looking for my family).

It was a vacation of some sorts. That’s right we were on vacation.

I started to bump into some people because the throng of folks was now so thick it was impossible not to. I started repeating a mantra of “Excuse me, please. Pardon me…”

I heard my name being called or referred to. Once, twice, a third time… I didn’t recognize the voices and I couldn’t make out the source but I was straining hard to tune my ear to try to distinguish the source through the cacophony of the crowded bazaar.

As more time passed, I began to feel and taste fear. I feared for my family and myself although I couldn’t attribute my misgivings to any real perceptible threat.

I then saw a platform with more folks of Middle Eastern descent milling about. There was a podium on the platform but it didn’t seem like anyone was using it. Because it seemed public and would pose a higher vantage point from which I could then scan the crowd for my family, I began to try to move towards the platform. I wondered what its general use was within the bazaar.

I heard my name being mentioned again… in a thick, broken English dialect.

“Yeah, he is a very funny guy… that Mr. McNierney…. You’d think he’d learn better.

I began to move closer towards this stage of some sort and the crowd seemed to part. The throng began to thin out the closer I got to the stage. I still couldn’t make out which person was talking about “Mr. McNierney” though.

Just as I was reaching the stage, I was intercepted by two large framed men. They were both wearing dark business suits that seemed very inconsistent given the native garb that all others in the plaza were attired in. They had very somber looks on their faces. Without saying a word they casually steered me to the side of the platform stage and out into even more open space.

My feeling of impending harm was rising. The fear that was rising began to manifest itself as an almost metallic taste in my mouth.

Despite the close proximity to me, I couldn’t make out much detail in either of “my guides” faces. I began to question them directly. One of the two seemed to be leading us while the other firmly had hands on me steering me in the direction that they seemed to want me to follow. I noticed that at odd times, his grip shifted from both of my shoulders to one arm and a shoulder then back to their original position. At no point did it appear they were armed but I wasn’t about to make that assumption.

With a sickening revelation, I pretty much realized they were steering me away from any vestige of public eyes to some point where I could only assume I was about to receive some bodily harm (or worse). I also realized at this point in time that between the moments when I first entered the bazaar and encountered the crowd of people and this particular point in time, I no longer had possession of my wallet. That’s how they knew what my name was I thought. Oh my goodness. My whole family’s vacation money and credit cards were in that wallet. I was fool to carry so much on my person. In addition to the fear, I now felt shame and embarrassment.

That combination of knowing I was robbed and the real fear that my situation was about to get worse, I then reacted with shouting … “Hey! Help… Someone… I’ve been robbed, please help me!”

I cried out to the man behind me “Get your hands off me! Get your hands off of me!”

I then rather instinctively attempted to kick the man behind me by stopping and swinging my right leg in a backward arc aiming (I thought) at my captor’s legs… The heel of my right foot made hard contact with something… I struck it again and again…. After three blows, I tried to spin myself around to get a better position. I then fell to the ground.

It was at that point I realized I was kicking my bed frame. I was lying on my belly on the floor of my bedroom at home. My right foot was throbbing, my heart racing… This whole sequence of events was only a dream.

---Jim

The bizarro world of Kerry and Tophie - part 1

So this guy I know, Kerry, decides to hike up Niwot Ridge. He parks just past the Colorado University Mountain Research Station at the "Official Vehicles Only" gate. He and his dog, Tophie, started hiking up the road towards the Niwot Ridge biome. There are signs all about the delicate scientific equipment and fires prohibited. After about an hour on the road they came to

the "No official vehicles beyond this
point" gate; after passing this gate they saw numerous odd looking boxes, some of which Kerry kicked to show his disregard for the scientific community.












He also found several coils of heavy duty video cable piled up in preparation for the repair of the TundraCam (but that's another story).




After about another hour they were up to treeline and the road was blocked by an extensive snow field which was fifteen feet deep at some points.















Kerry found a small alcove next to some stunted evergreen trees and decided to set up a small campsite so he could start his grill. Kerry had bought his Chill and Grill (no longer avaiable it seems) at a Walgreen in Poughkeepsie; it comes with an insulated compartment for the food (chill) and two cooking grates (grill) hinged on one side with collapsible handles on the other. Unfortunately for Kerry, he had left the cooking grates at home. Let's see what happens next.

So Kerry takes 12 Matchlight charcoal briquettes out of a Tupperware container, leaving four for an emergency, and after several attempts with his "windproof" lighter gets a fire going. Clouds have been coming and going the entire trip but at this moment it is mostly sunny so Kerry decides to take Tophie and explore the snow field. The snow is packed from warm daylight and cold nighttime temperatures so the walking is easy. The snow field is about 150 yards wide and when they get almost to the other side Kerry sees a sink hole where a stream flowing under the snow had melted away the substructure.



Suddenly it occurred to Kerry why crossing a snow field could be very dangerous. Imagining falling through ten feet of snow to drown in a river of slush, he walked very carefully to the edge of the snow and onto the tundra. From there he could see the CU weather station and the continental divide about four miles away where it crosses Navajo Peak. The tundra was carpeted with clumps of purple and white flowers.





















Kerry made sure that he stomped on a few because if it was alright for elk it was alright for him and following the same logic Tophie proceeded to take a dump on the tundra.



About that time the thunder clouds began to move in with threatening earnest. Kerry decided it was time to head back to his make shift camp at the edge of the treeline and check on how the coals were coming along. The only way back was across the treacherous snow field and Kerry thought it would be cool to try to get as close as possible to the sink hole so he could get a picture of the bottom of it. Water seemed to be draining from everywhere on the saddle of Niwot ridge percolating down into the aquifer. There was one particularly strong stream that ran under the snow field just above the sink hole.

Kerry and Tophie crossed the stream and edged out along the south side of the collapsed snow and holding his camera high over his head tried to take the picture.

What happened next will have to wait because it is now 11:57 on July the 5th year 2009.

Poster's note: All of these pictures and a video are the exception to the rule, in keeping with this production of the theater of the absurd.

--- Jer

Fourth of July

The fourth of July being the grand daddy of all American holidays has always meant to me that point in the year where summer turned serious.

In my younger years, this was the first major event in the school break. It was usually when the almost constant barrage of carnivals, county fairs and state fairs began their season. The holiday weekend was usually an excuse to attend some neighboring village’s carnival followed by viewing a parade and of course the requisite fireworks.

Once summer vacation was no longer a part of my life (and before becoming a parent), it was a welcome break in the work year. A time to catch up on lawn work and perhaps relax and party a little with friends and/or family.

Once my son was born, we started the same pattern for him of attempting to view some carnival or taking some time during this week end to have some family fun with a cook out or taking in a ball game.

Now that my son has grown and moved away, I guess I’ve returned to the strategy of looking at the long weekend as a chance to relax. I decided, this year, to take this moment to reflect on the holiday’s origins.

We’re reminded each year that the underlying theme of the Fourth of July is that of celebrating the creation of the union of the colonial states into the central government of the United States of America. This effort culminated with the signing of the Declaration of Independence which also gave way to the other common name for the holiday as “Independence Day”.

The document drafted (as historians have generally agreed upon) by Thomas Jefferson between June 11 and June 28, 1776 expressed a unique (at that point in time) political philosophy with ideals of individual liberty that were summarized as “self-evident truths”. It set forth a list of grievances against the King of England in order to justify the breaking of ties with the English empire. The document came about in reaction to a clear call for independence during a session of the Pennsylvania State House (later dubbed Independence Hall) on June 7th by Richard Henry Lee of Virginia. His resolution began with these words: “Resolved: That these United Colonies are, and of right ought to be, free and independent States, that they are absolved from all allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain is, and ought to be, totally dissolved.”

The Lee resolution was of course an expression of what had transpired in the colonies over the course of several years worth of struggles and political upheaval. His speech caused the creation of what came to be known as the “The Committee of Five”. The Committee of Five consisted of John Adams, Roger Sherman, Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Franklin and Robert R. Livingston. Jefferson was the only “Southerner” in the group, the remaining members being from New England, New York and Pennsylvania.

Jefferson wrote that the other members of that august committee had “unanimously pressed on myself alone to undertake the draught (sic). I consented; I drew it; but before I reported it to the committee I communicated it separately to Dr. Franklin and Mr. Adams requesting their corrections… I then wrote a fair copy, reported it to the committee, and from them, unaltered to the Congress.”**

On July 1, 1776, the Continental Congress convened and adopted the document during sessions on July 4, 1776. Church bells ringing out over Philadelphia signified the adoption of the document publicly.

The document remains a treasured and revered artifact of our nation’s history. It is truly an expression of very creative and free thinking scholars that had a vision and understanding of what was truly important for any society to evolve and more importantly the expression and preservation of freedom.

We could all do well to review the words in this document regularly. Today’s a great day to start that ritual.

---Jim


**Quoted from “The Charters of Freedom”. http://www.archives.gov/exhibits/charters/declaration_history.html

American Dreaming - 1990's / Part VII

As time went on, I became more at ease with living alone. After the first harsh northeast winter past, thoughts turned to thoughts of baseball. I joined a softball league that was formed with people from work. We stunk at playing ball but excelled at the before game and after game celebrations.

Most teams in our league looked upon us as an “easy win” and after our first circuit around the league our reputation and position in the league as the last place team was pretty much secured. We decided at that point that we would basically just focus on our strengths (drinking and partying) with baseball being a secondary pursuit during these games. Technically, it was forbidden to partake of any alcohol during a game (league rules) coupled with the illegality of the act (city park laws) but we bent them pretty badly at times.

We actually garnered some success in the second half of the season rather because we actually had more practice or we relaxed some… or maybe the other teams got tired running around the bases on our pitcher but, we actually won a couple of games. The celebrations after those games are still quite legendary in the annals of bar legend in Troy, NY.

The other aspect of life that I began to show a little interest in during the second year of my stint into this decade was an interest in the fairer sex. I dated a couple of women whom I met at work (I had no social life other than that which was achieved by working 60 hours a week). One relationship was particularly notable in this period. I met an older woman who was also in the throes of a marital separation. Coincidentally, she hailed from the same county downstate. We car-pooled for a time until we both were able to relocate to an area near our place of employment.

She was a great friend in those days when I really needed one. Because we were both basically going through some of the same things in our domestic lives, we seemed to find comfort in comparing notes and spending time together. Her relationship with her estranged husband differed from my relationship with my soon to be ex-wife in that there seemed to be regular uncomfortable confrontations when she had to interact with him and when she picked up and dropped off her son…another coincidence they had one child a son who was only a couple of years older than mine.
My relationship with my ex was pretty much a non-event after I moved out. The opposite of the emotion love is not hate. It’s indifference. Indifference was perhaps the best way to characterize my relationship with my ex.

Unlike the permanent outcome of my separation into divorce, my friend opted to reconcile with her husband (from talks with her later) seemingly for the sake of their son who took the breakup rather hard. Five years later, I heard that her husband was stricken with a terminal disease and passed away a few years later. In retrospect I’m sure her decision was the best for all concerned. While we remained close for years later, the experience was a tad bittersweet for me. I undoubtedly owe her a lot for being there and helping me through a difficult period. I believe we helped each other in that time frame. Even today I think fondly of her and wish her nothing but the best life can offer.

---Jim