Once Again, We Begin

 It's 7:04 pm central time on 04/12/2021.

Once again, we begin again.

At the end of this month, I'll mark the 21st Anniversary of my first attempt to vomit partially coherent thoughts onto the interwebs.  I was most fortunate to have others to follow, and ... well, some small ape on my back beating me to go faster, faster, try it out.

The original and continuing name of this barf-fest is Daynotes On A Budget.  I use the term "Daynotes" with a deep intellectual debt to the late Dr. Jerry Pournelle, he of Chaos Manor fame, the late Robert Bruce Thompson, he of building your own PC, to start with, and a significant group of others who formed the Daynotes gang.  

I wandered my way through College by reading Byte Magazine.  Dr. Pournelle, then just "Jerry" to me, wrote captivating and fascinating columns about day-in-day-out computer use and the developing field.  I knew less than nothing about the man - he was a columnist.  That much I knew.  Then I started to learn more.  

When I learned of the passing of Robert Heinlein, one of my favorite authors, I took to Yahoo (this was pre-Google, kids), and searched the tree until I found a web site by this Jerry Pournelle fellow.  And I went to it and sent him an email thanking him for inspiring me to veer off the Business path at St. John's University and steer towards Technology, and I thanked him for the greatly enjoyable times he had given me.  I thanked him specifically because I had not taken the time to write another author whom had given me many hundreds of hours of reading pleasure, a fellow known as Robert Anson Heinlein.

To my absolutely stunned shock and delight, Dr. Pournelle graciously replied.  And he also noted that the loss of Mr. Heinlein hit him hard, and was personal.  He knew the man.  Personally.

Wow.  There I was, two degrees from one of my literary heroes.

And I was stuck.  I kept reading his site.  And found him in correspondence and conversation of sorts with other like individuals.  People who wrote, about technology, for a living, or for enjoyment.  I was inspired.  And so I started doing it on an internal to my then-employer's computer, as a tool to leverage my knowledge through my company's entire enterprise, where I was responsible for all IT.  I had 150 mostly local users, some who traveled, and another 200 users who were 100% remote.  And the sole saving grace there was that we had a mostly Macintosh-based network.

Why, you ask, was this a saving grace?  Simple - I had a huge percentage of very smart folk who were just doing a job - not a technology job, just a job that relied on the technology just damned working, damnit.  And I had to keep it so.  And to this day I still say if the job you do fits within the Apple mold, and the tools you require are available there, Apple is a more-than-adequate solution.  It is not a very broadly capable solution, it is not very adaptable, and if you seek competition for solutions, you're in the wrong pond.  

I am a woodworker, and a tinkerer.  So I have a fair number of tools.  And Apple computers and software are much like a pair of pliers.  They are somewhat all-purpose, as I have, in a pinch, hammered in small nails using a pair of pliers.  I have also cut wire, turned bolts, turned screws, extracted nails, clamped, twisted, formed, bent, broke, and otherwise violated many warranties using a pair of pliers.  They are utterly 100% terrible at producing a slick video message - which is where Apple of that time, back in the early 2000s, excelled.  They also did a wonderful job with graphics, word processing, could handle accounting, and a number of other tasks.

Unfortunately, my employer had needs that the Apple platform could not meet adequately.  So we had to adapt and overcome.  Which is several hundred posts worth of material.  Or was when I worked there, at least.  

But as it does, things changed.  As did I - rather greatly.  

In the late summer of 2000, after being laid off by said employer when they chose to hire in a fellow with extremely limited IT experience and an even narrower view of the IT field in general, and he became my supervisor.  As was the nature of that particular company at the time, I'd been hired by a great guy who left to aid his wife in her real estate career when she moved out of state with the rest of their family.  Wise choice on his part. 

But my then employer found a rather desperate need - this being back in 1998 - when their accounting system they'd been using and extending the development of for twelve years turned out to have a rather small two-character problem.  That is, it did a fine job keeping things sorted in the 90s.  But there was a bit of a cliff out there that we were heading towards at a very specific speed - that little date when the year rolled over to a new one.  And most of the time it's a minor detail.  In fact, in the previous years it hadn't even raised a sneeze or hiccup.  But we were stomping ahead into one of those ... well, small year end events that was going to cause a problem.  Because when you count pennies and you've got a good size jar, your brain adequately adapts to going from 99 cents to a buck.  The bigger problem we had was when we went from 99 to a buck, those new dates were going to sort themselves below the ones ending in 99 - because we were all fairly cheap and short sighted at the time and a year was two digits long.  Who needed more?  

That's the sort of thinking that came out of the folks who built FORTRAN, COBOL, and a lot of early software.  Keep it short, simple, small, and don't get greedy.  Use minimal - because memory was expensive.  

In college, I was working on a computer that was or theoretically could be shared by every one of the 2500 students in my college, and we could also bring in the 2000 or so young ladies from our sister campus.  And all of the staff and everyone else.

And this incredibly complex, fantastic tool had a whopping 24 megabytes of RAM coupled with a processor that ... well, in those days, was spectacular, until you looked at an 80386 processor.  I recall the PC Magazine cover when the 90286 roared up to 20 Megahertz, and added an 80387 coprocessor.  Those two chips, when combined in a Compaq Deskpro, were capable of 7 MIPs.  That is, back when the dinosaurs roamed the world and we used computers, we used a yardstick to measure capability between the many varied platforms and systems that was called a MIP.  That was an acronym for Million Instructions Per Second.  Yeah.  

And so where was this tangent headed?  The computer I shared with many other people was a VAX 11/785, using one of the most elegant and easy to use and understand operating systems known then as VMS - The Vax Management System.  This permitted multi-user systems across multiple buildings.  And we had tools that permitted us to exchange messages on an "as you can get to it" basis, along with real-time communication.  I mean, it was almost literally like talking on the phone!  But we typed, instead.  And in true irony, that utility we used was called "Phone".  

But how does this all tie together, you ask?  Well, I walked into that employer's offices having a very broad range of experience.  In the employer before that stop, a company who is no longer in existence, I had become something of an expert in the configuration and management of a particular piece of time and attendance software.  That is, if you ever had to track your time by punching in and out, you likely used a timeclock.  In fact, my first job that used an actual timeclock, I used one of those timeclocks that later grew into computer software I supported.  

And in synchronicity, I was asked to learn how to install and support the UNIX version of this software.  I was asked because the resume I had submitted in order to get the job included my VAX/VMS experience.  And if you know computers, the two are wholly unrelated.  But my boss at the time did not know this.  She just thought I might be able to make it happen.  And it turns out I did.  

So then things continued to snowball.  I became an expert on the UNIX version of a system originally built in DOS.  Then it was translated to Windows, which was a short hop.  And then it moved along the road to other systems.  In fact, I got some exposure to IBM's AS/400 world by installing on one of those machines.  And then an opportunity came along to go back to my roots.  A local client I had some familiarity with on a personal level was looking to install our software - on a VAX.  

And so my boss told the company we distributed for that I could do it.  They scoffed at the idea.  Then I got on a phone call and explained that I wasn't a user of that platform while in college, I'd been tasked to assist with the management of the system as a student-employee.  And one of the students I had to "support" was a young fellow from a local high school who was hell bent on controlling the system.  He was seeking all sorts of ways around the system security to obtain access to things which he was not supposed to be able to do.  

And while I'd love to claim a whole lot of credit for preventing him from doing any of it, the bottom line truth was that the system was too secure and robust to permit him to do that which he wished to do.  It did give me substantial exposure to the system's overall security features and gave me a solid understanding of things like social engineering and various hacking techniques before those particular avenues had gained any sort of wide exposure.  

But it gave me a hell of a lot of experience when I needed it.  And when that company who wrote the software put their lead developer to work building a test to keep the knucklehead from getting in over his head when installing their software, they didn't bank on me.  And my employer did.  So when I got the test, had no VAX computer or tools, only my brain to rely on, and I discovered and corrected a number of incorrect pieces of information in their questions, which indicated someone who wrote the test lacked a certain familiarity with some of the corners of that OS I learned deeply, and I responded with those corrections, my boss and the company owner got phone calls.  

The calls were shocked, upset, and ... sheepish.  It turns out the fellow who wrote the test had worked very closely with the lead engineer who built the operating system.  That particular individual had left that company and moved on to another computer company, and became the lead designer and developer for a little product known back then as Windows 2000.  And the fellow who wrote the test for me had forgotten a great deal of security.  Which is how I became as of 1998 the only person in the entire world certified to install on every platform that company shipped - because no one else was allowed to take the test, and they wanted to hire me from my employer.  

I was unwilling to move to the east coast, away from all of my family and friends, and it turns out it probably wasn't a bad decision at all.  

But to get back to the main line of our story, my employer of the time had an accounting system to upgrade, a limited budget, and a head-count issue - my boss had left.  So we had an open desk, a position in our organization, and a salary we could use to keep our accounting system.  So they hired the fellow who happened to be available, and I started out as his direct report.  

What became obvious a few weeks into his tenure was that he had a communication problem.  The field my employer was in was and remains highly dominated by women.  This field was often looked upon as not particularly desirable or highly skilled, both thoughts rather - well, wrong.  But it also meant that those who worked in the field had to meet and maintain certain levels of expectation.  

And while I have worked in companies and fields that have been highly segregated, gender-wise, this particular company was far more dominated by women.  And it ran well and efficiently.  It also had certain expectations - expectations this individual was unable to meet.  That is, his daily communication was more along the lines one might hear in a locker room dominated by frustrated teenaged males.  Young men who recently discovered the joys of certain portions of the language with let us say prohibited words.  

And so I found myself in a highly professional, image-conscious field where communication was your best tool, working for an individual who seemed utterly incapable of composing a simple declarative sentence without inserting a minimum of three profanities.  

Mind you, my father, once he learned I had discovered profanity, which was prohibited in our home, would continually repeat the statement that profanity was the sign of a small vocabulary.  If one could not criticize an individual and discuss their shortcomings without resorting to profanity, one was insufficient to the task.

While I do agree with my father, I do find I am also in agreement with Samuel Clemens, otherwise known as Mark Twain, who stated "Upon occasion, profanity provides relief denied even unto prayer."  But there's a place and a time.  And when my then-supervisor was incapable of determining what that was, his continued profane language saw me promoted to report directly to his boss, where he, Mr. Profane, reported to me.  Fortunately, he was done with our conversion so this ... rather poorly handled situation resulted in his departure.  And his replacement also reported to me.  

Then this other fellow was brought in, and I reported to him until he decided that a tool which we had deployed, saved the organization hundreds of thousands of dollars and increased productivity and capabilities, was not at all acceptable as it lacked the multi-color Apple logo.  I was likely not the first person fired for bringing Microsoft Exchange into an organization, but I do know that he did not quite outlast my departure by two years by himself falling flat and leaving the organization.  The last time I encountered his name, he had changed to selling pre-owned automobiles. 

I'm not snickering at him, because I fell from that CIO position to working in retail for six years prior to obtaining my current job.  We all experience ups and downs in many areas of our lives.  In my rather good fortune, I've been able to learn from the experiences.  

And so that's how we get down to here.  I've spent the last 25 years or so working with technology and surviving a broad range of life.  I am, as I write this, just a few days after my half-birthday, which makes me 57 and 1/2 years old.  Which is older than I've ever been before.  So that's nice.  

But I've also collected, and lost, a wide range of acquaintances.  As previously noted, I started an earlier version of this on-line diary, and was "discovered" by another journalist.  This fellow was, believe it or not, from London.  And he, at the time, was known as Dr. Keyboard.  I later learned his name was Chris Ward.  And he suggested to a number of his on-line friends that I might be someone worth reading.  And one of those friends was Matt Beland, a fellow who later offered to host a version of this site on his server.  And Mr. Beland was a part of a groups, as was the Good Doctor, known as "The Daynoters."  Many of them were published authors of technology or in some cases fiction - and yet they somehow invited me to become one of their number.  

And at the head of the table, as it were, was Dr. Jerry Pournelle.  Which is how I found my name listed far down a list with Dr. Pournelle, Robert Bruce Thompson, Tom Syroid, Chris Ward, Matt Beland, Brian Bilbrey, Dan Seto, Bo Leuf, Dan Bowman, John Doucette, Dave Farquhar, Bob Walder, Phil Hough, and a number of other men who were a whole heck of a lot smarter and more talented than I was, or am, when it comes to wordsmithery - or probably most everything.

So there's another little bit about me - I'm generally a little more humble than I probably should be, but it is what it is.  As a young man, not much more than a boy, I managed to achieve the Boy Scout rank of Eagle Scout.  Unlike today where a determined family is likely to be able to find in any community of a certain size Scout Troops willing to accept the young man - or, these days, the young woman - who might be willing to do some hard work, and they can direct that into the young person obtaining their Eagle Scout award.  

Back in my day, well, it was a lot more difficult.  The troop I belonged to was the only troop in my small town, and before me, two other fellows had managed to earn that rank.  One did it six years before me, the other did it about four and a half years before me.  Both of them were gone when I got closer to the goal, so I stumbled around and into all of the roadblocks I could find - and managed to succeed anyway.  

Which is, I've discovered, one of the keys to ... well, if not succeeding, at the very least, surviving.  Just keep banging away.

Which is why this is back.  I've decided to bring back from ... where ever it's been festering the semi-regular blitherings.  I do tend to go on a long time, obviously, and I do veer from subject to subject.  Most fortunately, the study of politics has been my wife's life joy, whereas I merely tolerate those who are often described as our "leaders".  As a Boy Scout, I learned a little about leadership.  As an adult volunteer who wanted to give back to a program in honor and respect of the adults who were no longer in my life who gave their time to assist me to succeed, I decided to become a good, helpful tool for those young boys - and I learned a whole heck of a lot more about leadership.

And one of the most important things I did learn was that leadership often fell to people who were unprepared, unaware, untrained, undeniably unqualified and utterly, completely befuddled and overwhelmed.  And no matter how hard one might want to help, one's role would often be both limited and misunderstood.  And when the opportunity arose, it was also the sort of role that people would gleefully toss away - because they didn't like being reminded of the rules, restrictions, and requirements that went along with the privilege.  And in the end, when things tended to fall apart and they needed rescue, it was not at all surprising to find myself blamed by some for the failure, when others suddenly recognized the failing was right there in front of them staring them in the face the whole time - and it had required actions they weren't prepared to commit.  

So yeah, I'd like to be remembered as a nice guy, but the bottom line is if a job has to be done, and it isn't getting done because people are simply unwilling to do it, I will probably end up stepping up and doing it while going the best I know how to avoid collateral or excessive damage,  One has to break eggs to make many things - but sometimes, the eggs only need to be hard boiled.

And with that, I think it's probably time for me to make my daily pandemic commute from the downstairs computer - the other side of the basement from my work computer - to the dinner table upstairs to see if there's anything left before I take the dogs out for their nightly walk - then come back inside, crash into bed, and arise tomorrow - to lather, rinse, repeat again.  

Expect this site to undergo some significant evolution as I bring in my twenty-years-into-the-21st-century ideas about what I want out of this version of this web site, and what tools are available to a dingbat like me who would really rather roll his own...  May you have a wonderful evening and a good, safe, healthy time until we virtually meet again.  Thanks for wading through my drivel!