Internet Friends

I fully realize that the emergence of cyber relationships has its pitfalls. Case in point is the inability to really know someone by being physically seperate from them, so the relationship is primarily founded on visual input...photos, artwork, and words in blogs or IM's.
Some people will make the choice to use the ability to mask their identity on the internet, some will not, some will to a degree. How many people in the real world are named Goodboy, or Handlemaker or whatever? I chose to use combinations of real world elements for all my various online ID's, and post pictures of myself.
Still, its interesting to me that people will make the decision to get familiar with each other online, to the point that sometimes they might telephone one another, or make phyiscal contact. I was in a situation like this several years ago, and it turned wierd when my friends decidied they wanted to come visit me, which i thought would be OK, only when they showed up, it was to invite me to be part of a threesome in sex, which was not at all what I had in mind...and which when my honey found out caused some real friction in my family about computer usage.

[edited by canice because I wanted to]

While i ramble on about this, I thought according to the media that the old "you woman, stupid; me man, smart" thing was history. Not where I work. Crap, even though I am being paid to manage a project for this agency, the people that run the place, all men, will ask you stuff and then act like you never told them anything. The facility manager, a woman who has worked there for 30 years, and i recommended some new equipment, and were told to look into it. Meanwhile the boss gave instructions to the engineering staff to buy XYZ and install it. So why are we wasting our time doing anything? It is very frustrating...reminds me a lot of Dilbert, and how the boss is off doing something totally weird...

Internet Friends

I fully realize that the emergence of cyber relationships has its pitfalls. Case in point is the inability to really know someone by being physically seperate from them, so the relationship is primarily founded on visual input...photos, artwork, and words in blogs or IM's.
Some people will make the choice to use the ability to mask their identity on the internet, some will not, some will to a degree. How many people in the real world are named Goodboy, or Handlemaker or whatever? I chose to use combinations of real world elements for all my various online ID's, and post pictures of myself.
Still, its interesting to me that people will make the decision to get familiar with each other online, to the point that sometimes they might telephone one another, or make phyiscal contact. I was in a situation like this several years ago, and it turned wierd when my friends decidied they wanted to come visit me, which i thought would be OK, only when they showed up, it was to invite me to be part of a threesome in sex, which was not at all what I had in mind...and which when my honey found out caused some real friction in my family about computer usage.

[edited by canice because I wanted to]

While i ramble on about this, I thought according to the media that the old "you woman, stupid; me man, smart" thing was history. Not where I work. Crap, even though I am being paid to manage a project for this agency, the people that run the place, all men, will ask you stuff and then act like you never told them anything. The facility manager, a woman who has worked there for 30 years, and i recommended some new equipment, and were told to look into it. Meanwhile the boss gave instructions to the engineering staff to buy XYZ and install it. So why are we wasting our time doing anything? It is very frustrating...reminds me a lot of Dilbert, and how the boss is off doing something totally weird...

May 28, 2008

Well, I was (past tense) going to start vacation tomorrow, but my work has presented some obstacles to that..I am project manager on a pretty big project, moving an industrial plant from a location as old as i am to a new concrete tilt up down the street. I started this project when they had already installed almost all the equipment at the old plant because the new site had not been located yet, then they had other issues and finally we now have a lease, after 14 months of fooling around. Now we have to prepare the new building to be used, since it basically is a big shell, so we will be meeting with the general contractor and property management in the afternoon, you guessed it, on what was my first day of vacation. When these situations arise, why is it they always want to meet say, 3:30 to 5??? Whats wrong with 9:30 AM???

OK, so i got that going on, and then there is negotiations for a new piece of equipment because when they started they didn't realize that at peak production there is a piece of equipment that if it fails, stops production-Hello, anyone listening? Project manager here, you need redundancy in your systems! So now they understand that and need me to be the wet blanket on the sales pitch, which I seem to be good at, especially when they said on the phone the new machine is $850,000 without the software or maintenance. Are you kidding me? If anything, lets talk $475,000 like the last 3 we got, and include software and upgrades, patch management, and a year of maintenance, with a prorate on the maintenance according to our existing maintenance contract I negotiated today..
I know this seems weird, but to me this is no more complicated that haggling over the price of anything...kind of reminds me of buying a car, with someone else's money, and if they don't like it, you're in BIG trouble...

Life on Mondays, when its Tuesday

Monday holidays throw me out of whack anyway, and then there is the looming vacation, and the pressure that brings. I am talking about having to "tidy things up" at work so that when a week goes by without me, i wont return to a friggin disaster.
Although i planned to start vacation on Thursday, it looks like I will work, and have to maybe do some telecommute on Friday. Not that I was going to do anything other than not go to work, which is great in an of itself.

I sometimes forget where I am blogging, having moved to another site years ago. This site seems so pedestrian compared to the visual effects available on the other site, but with no support, its strange...I post some things like video embeds and so forth in html, and they dont show up on my screen, but do on other peoples...unless I refesh a bunch of times. In case you havent guessed, i am one of those sorta geeky middleaged females that most young men hate. OH
That is so true! I was sitting at my desk and the tech guy wheels in a new computer for the analyst that sits behind me, and so i start asking him questions...why is he getting a 23" flat panel? Why is he getting a Vista machine ? Does it have a dual core processor? How much memory?
Jeez lady, who are you anyway???
(analyst that sits behind me to tech guy) She's the new IT Manager, she's my boss. You better tell her what she asked.
(Tech guy- turning a little red) Sorry mam, I didnt..
You didnt think did you. Now then...

Yahoo continues to slowly sink

Sometimes in business, you have to wonder if the ship called "the company" is on course, off course, or floundering aimlessly.

I don't know the answer to these questions, but some people make a living writing about these things. Some probably have some training and experience at understanding such things, so it is with that in mind I looked to see what the day after view is to microsoft pulling back its offer from Yahoo..

Shock and Awe: Microsoft Dumps Yahoo!

Wininfo

"Despite our best efforts, including raising our bid by roughly $5 billion, Yahoo! has not moved toward accepting our offer," Ballmer said in public statement. "After careful consideration, we believe the economics demanded by Yahoo! do not make sense for us, and it is in the best interests of Microsoft stockholders, employees and other stakeholders to withdraw our proposal."

Regardless of the reasons, the cessation of merger talks leaves both companies to deal with the perception of failure. Microsoft had never made such a financially risky or aggressive takeover bid, and the company repeatedly claimed it needed Yahoo!'s resources to help it "scale" to compete more effectively with Yahoo!. Meanwhile, Yahoo! is on a steady downward path, as clearly indicated by its willingness to outsource core technology to its biggest competitor. While it's unclear how or if Microsoft will improve its market share online, one thing is clear: Yahoo! is on the way out.

Reuters
Investors eye Yahoo's alternatives to Microsoft
Sunday May 4, 9:10 pm ET
Yahoo is likely to push for an advertising partnership with Web search leader Google Inc, sources familiar with the matter said. A tie-up with Google, seen as a big winner from the end of Microsoft-Yahoo talks, should help boost Yahoo's operating performance in the near term.

Yahoo has conducted tests with Google to outsource some of its search listings to its arch-rival. It has also held talks in tandem with AOL and Rupert Murdoch's News Corp.

"The real winner in all of this seems to be Google," said Canaccord Adams analyst Colin Gillis. "There's going to be no powerful number two" in the Web market, he said.

Ok, so Microsoft shares will go up, and Yahoo likely will go down, and Google off the chart. And thinking about AOL Yahoo makes me more queasy than the Microsoft Yahoo deal did

A totally different topic:

All day this song my dad loved to listen to has been in my head...

for May 02, 2008

Today I am posting a hit map in my blog, to get an idea where people that read this stuff are.
Talk about loss of privacy!!!
I have decided to try( and I dont know for how long either) to return to blogging on MySpace, that fascinating dominant social site that even the politicians have pages on...geez.
http://www.myspace.com/caniceusa


I also have a Multiply page, which is to me sort of goofy, and blogger, which I used several years ago, and now find too boring to continue. Blogger is actually more pure blog oriented, which is fine, but I like the mix of features on 360, which continues to baffle me why Yahoo thinks dumping it is such a great friggin idea...everything I have seen that they propose is not as good in MHO...

Office stuff for April 28, 2008

I worked all morning trying to coordinate staff activities at the worksite, planning to move the entire new production to a new facility down the road. What a pain in the ...I have meetings with the phone company about getting the right kind of data lines (2 DS3 and 2 t-1) and ensure that one of the DS3 lines is dedicated and a vpn, and the other has a guarantee on bandwidth minimums since it is shared. At the new annex we will install more equipment, and (Please) end this project

My primary vendor is coming in tomorrow to install(finally) Uninterupted Power Supplies that will keep the system running for an hour, as the contract called for. The one they installed before i came failed after 10 minutes.

My client is getting fed up with the nickel and dime contract amendments I discoverd in the course of reviewing the project accounting, and now the vendors are all coming for a meeting...but i am confident because the contrat revisions I have put forward are in the standard agreements for IT projects according to our legal staff, who have fought many a vendor in court over these things"... if the vendor(see glossary) proposes any change to the waranty or maintenance agreements which is not inclusive of all component equipment and software, as defined in the project procurement and known collectively as the project equipment system, the [client] may reject said agreement either at time of award or at any point during the contract period if without cause, and upon 7 business day notice with cause, either in refusal to provide services or by omission." HUH? I read that part several times and then read the other parts below it, and it dawned on me i am really in the driver seat with these vendors...which likely accounts for how come today their project manager called and wants to meet with me this week, he has to fly here from Florida...I hope these guys get frequent flier miles because i have had the guy from PA fly out 2x, and now the Florida guy and some of their other people from Chicago are coming. Any way, he out of the blue says"Ms. MacThomas, if anyone has said anything offense to you personally, please let me know" I had no idea what he was saying, but afterwards I guessed that someone in the meeting I got so pissed at must have reported something to him...I know something was up because he usually calls and says "Hey candice, er sorry, Can-ess, hows it goin"

I had my weekly meeting w my boss and I think i could meet and leave in about 20 minutes, but she likes to discuss things, so i am game. After our discussion, she smiles and says"your background is really having quite a benefit with this project" I was puzzled a lttle, and she elaborated that my experience as a project manager elsewhere, and as a system auditor was helping. I personally think the auditor part was more an extension of what I practivced as a project leader, ensuring that whatever was agreed to is what is delivered, on time and at least on budget...cost overruns are something i really hate unless there is a valid reason...like this project has had to spend an additional million on equipment because the work they bid was under projected by their client.

I sometimes think people I work with think maybe I should dress better, which i certainly have the wardrobe for. I remeber my first day I wore heels and a suit...and haven't since. The first time i went to the client site and saw where they were assigning me an office, i was aghast. Then I checked out their server room, and was mortified. This place is close to 60 years old, and was state of the art in 1950, but in 2008, its scarey. Our office is a bunch of walls and a false ceiling constructed in 1972. Next door is a stairway to the next level up, where there used to be a cafeteria. Its been closed down for awhile, and all our cables come thru there, over the beams and drop down to the false ceiling, where they wind their way like so many snakes to conduit, which dumps them into the space under the raised floor and they resume their chaotic spread to the servers. Interspersed are broken ac vents, so some servers get adeqaute cooling and other s dont. Its a administrator nightmare. Hence my urgency to get us moved to the new facility. Now I have a meeting to discuss the server room with the contractors and building owner(we're leasing it until a new faciltiy can be built)...our engineer has spec'ed it out and now they want to go cheap and we are saying why, we're paying for it, so whats the deal?

so if tomorrow is Tuesday, maybe I should wear .....