February 4, 1999
Dear Everyone:
Yes, I did watch
Super Bowl
“Ex-ex-ex-eye-eye-eye” last weekend.
Which is to say, the game was on all three TV’s while I puttered
around the house getting a few things done.
Was the actual game as pathetic as it seemed to me?
Some of the commercials were fun, though.
But what does that say about American culture?
The commercials were better than what they were supposed to
supporting?
Still spinning my wheels on getting the new
software purchase pushed through.
I gave management my pitch last week.
And they are leaning
strongly towards my personal favorite.
But, not surprisingly, they had a number of fine-print questions
that have to be answered before they will give it their blessing.
Consequently, I’ve been bouncing phone messages and
email back and forth between “Hobby” and “Idaho Falls” all week.
And each time I find the answer to one question, our Project
Manager comes up with at least two more.
His latest: Can the
software (whichever one we choose) be set up to force people to use
completely non-remember-able passwords of at least eight characters, and
can it require both alpha and numeric combinations with both upper and
lower case?
Another issue is the “back-end” software.
Each of these products is designed to work with one of about
three
Relational Database Management Systems (RDBMS).
One is out of the picture because someone must have really ticked
off someone high up at Company.
They’re on the blacklist.
Of the other two, the more established one is already in use in
various parts of the company.
It’s also the much more expensive one.
The less-well-known one, a
Microsoft
upstart, appears to be much cheaper, but there are fewer people who
have experience with it, so that’s a possible drawback.
Much time is being spent trying to scrabble together numbers to
show how much each one would cost.
Naturally, their pricing structures are completely different.
Apples and oranges again.
Also, they want me to go and see both of the
Records
Management products in use by real customers with real data.
Which means travelling, since neither vendor named anyone in the
Bay Area.
But they don’t want to spend any money on travelling (have you
seen the price of “subject” lately?
It’s in the cellar); so try to find two customers in the same
city. And plan to stay at
the Motel 8
out by the airport.
And, of course, you know how much I love to travel.
Speaking of accommodations, I tried to get rooms
for us in Ashland
for next summer. Here it is
the beginning of February, and “Will’s Place” is already booked.
I did manage to get a “suite” at the
Stratford Inn.
It’s not that far away from downtown, especially for people who
get up at dawn to go running.
The rest of us can rely on the car and Mother’s handicap parking
permit.
No movies again this week.
“Jeannie” and I were too busy (see paragraph one).
Plus there’s not much being offered right now.
There probably won’t be any movies this coming weekend either,
because I’ve been “volunteered” to appear in a video that
ARMA is taping this Saturday.
More about that next week.
Love, as always,
Pete
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