End of an Era

Tomorrow marks the final game for Ralph Freidgen as coach of the Maryland Terrapins. His team will face the East Carolina Pirates in the Military Bowl in nearby RFK Stadium. He was fired after refusing to retire by the brand new Athletic Director Kevin Anderson. That after Anderson declared The Fridge would be back next year. Anderson comes from a similar position at Army. Army! Well qualified I'm sure. Ralph deserved much better then how he is being treated by his alma mater. He was just voted Coach of the Year in the ACC after what I believe was the second biggest turn around in NCAA history. Who gets fired after being named Coach of the Year? The man took the Terps to 7 Bowl games in 10 years. Thats pretty remarkable given Maryland's football history. When it comes to football, Maryland isn't Texas. It isn't USC. They have a hard time recruiting the blue chip football players. Maryland is first and foremost a basketball school. I've been a Maryland season ticket holder for over 30 years now. I've seen the ups and downs of this program. More downs then up. Ralph was a bright spot during that run of years. The rumors have it that Mike Leach recently of Texas Tech fame will be the new head coach. That he will bring some sizzle to the program that was lacking under Ralph. That he will fill the seats and empty luxury suites at Byrd Stadium. He might ultimately be able to do that, but he will have to fill some big shoes to do it.

A Bad Treat

I didn't want to let another whole week go by with out writing something here. I have a post ready to go in my head about Daughter#1's and her Husband's visit last week, but I have been putting it off until I upload some pictures I have to go with it. I was going to do that last night, but I couldn't put my hands on the camera and I was too lazy to go look for it. Hopefully I can get around to that tomorrow so check back.

I mentioned a time or two on here that Thursday is Treat Day here in the office. We all take turns (or least those of us participating) bringing in goodies for the rest to enjoy. Usually it's some combination of bagels/donuts/egg casserole/fruit/etc. The usual early morning fare as we try to get our eyes open and focused. It's a nice way to start the day and mingle with the co-workers. I have to say though, and we had them this morning, that Thomas makes the worst bagels in the world. There ought to be a law that they can't even call them bagels. They're just bread shaped like a donut with a bad aftertaste. Blah!

What Customer Support?

Since I'm old I've been witness to much of the progress of the computer through the ages. I'm not sure my kids, even though they are adults, can even fathom a life without personal computers. When I was a kid, the whole of idea of computers was still like sci-fi. Sure they existed, but they were few and far between and huge. Whole rooms/areas were set aside to house these behemoths, which required a good deal of air conditioning to keep them cool and only a relatively few people knew how to operate them. When I went to college, I had to take two computer course. These were classes in programming in COBOL and FORTRAN. Auburn had one computer, an IBM 360 mainframe, that every one used for everything - from admissions and billing to athletics to students. Needless to say, student computer programs were at the bottom of the priority list. There was no Internet (or at least not that any one knew of except maybe a few Government labs), no wired dorm rooms, nothing. To run our software projects, we had to use punch cards. A single COBOL program and a simple one at that, might use 500 to 600 cards to run. We had maybe 12 to 15 punch card machines for the entire student body. Needless to say they were always busy although the computer center was open 24 hours a day. We didn't have any remote terminals to enter data. I didn't do that well in either class although I passed both. I always seem to be a week or two behind in grasping concepts. I would spend entire Quarters cussing out the computer and how dare it tell me my coding was wrong? Couldn't it read? WTF?

Fast forward to the late 80s and early 90s and personal computers are becoming much more common in households. For the most part, access is by dial up. Broadband has not made it to the masses yet. This is about the time that I first became an AOL member. Unlike a lot of people, I've been pretty happy with AOL over the years. My primary e-mail address has been an AOL address. Even when I got broadband, we have kept AOL. In fact AOL is a local company. They are a neighbor to the bike trail I visit most weekends. One of their server farms is in my county. A few days ago when trying to sign on a message appeared that my screen name had been suspended. I mentioned it to Ann, who happens to have the AOL account in her name, and she said she had been notified of a Terms of Service (ToS) violation by The Son. ToS covers everything from cussing out other people on line to spamming, to sending inappropriate pictures, etc. I didn't think that much of it as The Son has gotten his share of ToS violations over the years. Usually a call to Customer Support is all that is required. So it was yesterday that I decided to contact AOL to see what the problem was. My first problem was that I couldn't find their Customer Service phone number on the web site despite looking for quite a while. I finally Googled it and apparently others had had the same problem and were only too happy to share it much to AOL's dismay, I'm sure. So I called. After providing some basic information to a recorded voice, a representative came on line. I told her of the problem and her response: "I can't help you. You'll have to write a letter to AOL headquarters." A letter? Was she serious? She couldn't help? "No. You have to send a letter." No phone number to call? An e-mail address maybe? "No. A letter." I told her that was the stupidest thing I had ever heard, but took down the address anyway. When Ann got home, I told her of the problem and she mentioned the ToS violation, but thought it was pretty benign and therefore hadn't replied to it. We thought since she was the account holder of record, that she might have better luck then I had. So she called AOL and same thing. Customer Support couldn't help and a letter was required. For a company that provides internet access, e-mail and probably has the most popular Instant Messaging program, that they are requiring a letter just seems bizarre to me. I'm not sure what a letter will say. Ummm...not sure exactly why, but our account has been suspended. Can you tell us why and how do we get it turned back on? Oh and by the way, you're still collecting my money. It just seems so archaic. I can hardly wait to see what response our letter brings. Maybe in cuneiform on clay tablets.

FOIA - The Other Side of the Coin

I don't talk about work very often and I think we can all agree that's for a good reason. There is a reason the verb to be Dooced is now part of the mainstream blogosphere. I think we can also agree that for the most part the Freedom of Information Act or FOIA is also a good thing. The people have a right to know what their Government is up to. But I'd like to speak from the other side for a moment. First let me say that my agency doesn't do any investigations or the like. We don't compile dossiers on malcontents, etc. What we do is buy things. Very expensive things. In an environment of shrinking budgets everyone is looking for an advantage. A leg up on their competition. So enter FOIA. I'm currently assigned to work two FOIA actions since they involve my contracts. Both are clearly fishing requests related to an upcoming competition I will be involved in. The companies making the requests obviously don't know what to ask for or aren't sure what to ask for and therefore ask for everything. While you may say this is just being thorough, I say it's just using the old adage of lets throw enough sh*t against the wall and see what sticks. Most of what they are requesting just flat out doesn't exist. And when you have an effort that lasts a couple of years and you ask for copies of "all correspondence" you're literally looking at hundreds of letters and e-mails. The job of researching, cataloging, making recommendations on what is releasable and what is not and making copies of all this falls to you know who. We are coming up on the end of the year. I'm up to my eyebrows in work that needs to get done and I really don't have time for these fishing expeditions. However, by law, I have too. So far I've spent about 40 hours trying to fulfill these FOIA requests and I'm still not done. Another frustrating part of it is that I don't know who really is requesting the information. Oh sure I have a name of a company, but they are only acting as a front for who is really asking for the information. There are literally dozens of companies here in the Washington area who exist solely to do this sort of thing. It's all rather sleazy. Frankly you have to wonder who really wades through all the stuff we ultimately provide them and of what value it is. Most of what they really want, pricing information and unique/proprietary data isn't releasable anyway. And they do have to pay for my time and I don't come cheap.

On a similar note, on a competition I was involved in earlier this year, the award of which was protested by one of the losing companies, a decision was just issued on Monday - we won and the protest denied. Yes! Chalk one up for the good guys.

Shopping and Erging

Sunday dawned cold, rainy and breezy so no on water rowing for me. The next window will be Wednesday. Erg class it was then. Before I headed out for my erg class, I got up and started the laundry and ran out and did the grocery shopping. Both Ann and I work, so I it's only fair that I pull my weight around the house. Ann hates grocery shopping so I do it. I don't love it, but it doesn't bother me like it does her. I'm not sure why she hates it so bad. When I shop I like to make a game of it. I call it turbo shopping. I head in, printed list in hand with items listed in the order they come up in the store as I make my way through the various isles and see how fast I can get in and out. Before I head in, I'll take a look at the list and give myself a time goal to beat. This irritates Ann to no end. In the rare case she accompanies me, her idea of shopping is a leisurely stroll through the store carefully comparing several brands for each item on the list. This is true even though we almost always buy the same brands. When she begins one of her zen comparison moments, I'll leave her and continue shopping often finishing the list while she contemplates the various benefits of Campbell's versus B&B baked beans. This brings us to the two things the drive me crazy when I shop. If Ann accompanies me, if a question comes up about something on the list, say something she listed isn't available and I need her input, I can never find her. I'll return to where I left her and no Ann. I then half to scour the various isles trying to find where she wandered off to burning up precious time. The running joke is that she's having an affair with the butcher back in the meat department, which is why I can't find her. Once I do find her, usually checking out the makeup or shampoos, the line is "How was the butcher?" For some reason she doesn't find this as amusing as I do. Which brings us back to the list. Most of the items on it we've previously discussed as we try and come up with a menus for the week, but inevitably there will be a few items on the list that need further clarification. This week it was deodorant. I pay no attention to what deo Ann uses. So I called home from the store to find out what kind she uses. No answer, I try another number. No answer. I try her cell figuring she might be out walking the dog. No answer. Ok, I'll just continue shopping and call back. While I'm finishing up, I think of a few things Ann might have left off the list, but I don't make a note of them on the list as I make my way through the store. Once I'm done shopping, I call home again. No answer. At this point I'm on the verge of just checking out figuring she can buy her own deo. I try one last time and she finally answers. She was drying her hair and couldn't hear the phone(s) ringing over the noise. Grumbling, I find out what brand she likes and I check out and make it home in less than an hour. Decent enough time, but not great. I figured I lost about ten minutes trying to get her on the phone. How can she expect me to set new time records if she won't answer the phone? Also the items I thought she might have left off the list? She did. So no broccoli and Vanilla Zero for her.

Erg class was a bit different this week as we had a substitute instructor. In our regular class, we erg for about 45 to 50 minutes to music with the songs being of variable length with the instructor varying the intensity at which we are erging (say half pressure or full pressure, etc.). We usually get 20 to 30 seconds between songs to grab some water. Yesterday we did a series of four minutes on full pressure and three minutes off. We did seven of these with warm-up and cool down periods before and after. It was quite intense and the last two cycles were quite the challenge. Our instructor also kept upping the stroke rate during each piece. It was different so it wasn't boring, but not something I'd like doing every week.

The reason our normal instructor was absent was that she was attending the wedding of one the former members of our rowing club. So, congratulations Mel!