The Smalligan Factor

In case you didn't know, Jamie Smalligan is a 7'0" senior center for the West Virginia Mountaineers. Smalligan is easily the biggest man on the court for the Mountaineers. Next closest is Joe Alexander coming in at a measly 6'8". But Smalligan may be the smallest "big man" there could be. He gets pushed around on the inside and would much prefer to hang out on the perimeter and shoot 3's. (Remember, he was a John Beilein guy). I'm not saying this to knock Smalligan...he is what he is. What I'm going to talk about is how badly Mountaineer fans want Smalligan to actually succeed in the new Huggins system.

While attending the Seton Hall game today, no player quite generated the pull of the crowd like Smalligan. Everyone kinda cringes when he touches the ball, afraid he'll do something really, really stupid but they are definitely hoping he does something amazing. The guy behind me was very, very excited that Smalligan pulled down 3 rebounds early in the game and insisted that Smalligan was on his way to a double-double. (BTW, Smalligan averages 2.9 rebounds a game compared to Alexander's 5.9, Butler's, 5.5 and 6'3" Darris Nichols' 3.6).

Unfortunately, Smalligan did not get his double-double, only scoring 3 points but pulling down a solid 5 rebounds. And while that was a decent effort for the seven-footer, it is probably far from the game Bobby Huggins would want his center to have. Despite a rigorous off-season training program, Smalligan remains soft around the basket and awkward with the ball inside. His moves leave a lot to be desired and I would guess that Huggins won't be completely upset to the see the senior leave.

But Mountaineer fans have rallied behind Smalligan despite the obvious flaws he possesses in Huggins system. WVU fans want to see Smalligan miraculously turn into the "big man" and put together a monster game. I want that too. I just don't see it happening. But we still have a few games to hope and maybe, just maybe, Smalligan will live up to the potential everyone believed he had when he transferred from Butler. We can only hope...

Sheriff Finds No Reported Threats In Rodriguez Case

I think the Title says it all...read the article for yourself...very funny:

http://www.wvmetronews.com/index.cfm?func=displayfullstory&storyid=23442

Roger Clemens Before Congress

In what has to be categorized as a sorry debacle, Congress hauled Roger Clemens in today to find out if he really did steroids or not. Clemens denied. Some called him a liar. Some called McNamee a liar. Most people didn't care. I wondered if this is really why we elect politicians. But, it was what it was and there was a multitude of amazing quotes from the hearings. Here are a few that I found on the good ol' Inter-web:

• "Mr. Clemens bled through his designer pants."
• "Mr. Clemens, do you recall any bleeding through your pants in 2001?"
• "Those little band-aids for his butt, if it bled."
• "Mr. Clemens, according to your account, Mr. McNamee injected your wife in your bedroom without your knowledge."
• "That said there was a palpable mass on the right buttock of Mr. Clemens. On another record, it also noticed a similar mass on the left buttock.”
• "That was a hurried instance when we were in the closet."

Go get 'em Congress-people!

Here ya go...

Just a simple post for the moment...enjoy:

The Obligatory "You Are A Racist" Article

It was only a matter of time before some hack wrote the story about how everyone is racist even if they don't mean to be. Wray Herbert from Newsweek was the guy who decided to write "The Secret Haters" and basically declar everyone racist even if they don't mean to be a racist. And while he never mentions the word Obama, this is clearly the "if you don't vote for Obama, it's because you are racist" article.

I hate this type of thing. The only goal of such an article is to elicit guilt from the reader, especially if they have made up their mind to vote for the white candidate or the male candidate. I find it completely insulting that this twit believes all people harbor resentment towards certain segments of the population, even if they don't mean to.

If anything, recent events should show how far along in race and sex relations we truly are and should not be chided. We are currently in the midst of a historic campaign that will see either a serious black candidate or woman candidate for president. And both draw support from whites, blacks, men and women. Americans have shown an unbelievable ability, by far, to look beyond race and sex and look to the actual candidates to determine who they will support. Mr. Herbert obviously believes those intentions are clouded.

This article is nothing but a smear campaign against a majority to the population. Granted, there are still bigoted and ignorant people in this country but to lump everyone into that category as Mr. Herbert did is unfair to the vast, vast majority of Americans. It has been a long, bumpy road to where we are today but the progress is undeniable and I believe we are very close to seeing a country that doesn't identify people by race before they identify them by the person they are. Articles like Mr. Herbert's actually damage that progress and demeans all of us.

The Right vs. John McCain

A lot of people want to know what John McCain did to conservatives to make them look at him with such contempt. Why is Ann Coulter vowing to campaign for Hillary Clinton if McCain is the GOP candidate? Why is Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity and other conservative pundits piling on the presumptive Republican nominee? The answer is easy: John McCain is not a conservative.

McCain has long aligned himself with liberals in the spirit of "compromise." Case in point is the McCain-Feingold Campaign Reform Act, which is an assault upon political speech. McCain's recent proposals for amnesty for illegal aliens has also struck at the very core of the conservative movement and has further alienated him from the conservative base of the GOP. McCain has also shown a penchant for kowtowing for the media to receive positive press, which is a cardinal sin in the eyes of many conservatives who value true beliefs above popularity.

The bitter battle between McCain and Bush from the 2000 election remains on the minds of many Republicans and some of McCain's comments at that time have continued to haunt him. And the rumors of his flirtation to switch parties have persistented despite his denials. Regardless of fact, the mere rumors are enough to enrage most conservatives.

McCain will be the Republican nominee but his ability to rally the troops remains to be seen. It is acceptable for conservatives to question McCain's true colors and it is healthy to truly evaluate a candidate before throwing support behind him. The question is whether, after much searching, true conservatives will ever be able to throw their 100% support behind McCain. I think they may eventually get in line...but the lack of enthusiasm in doing so may doom the GOP's chances in 2008...handing the presidency to Hillary.

Rich Rodriguez Saga Continues

I have tried not to write too much on the Rich Rodriguez saga out of reverence for some friends and because I moved on from his departure relatively quickly. Those who had trouble moving on should have moved on following the Fiesta Bowl victory and the building of what I would describe as a compentent football staff.

However, this story just won't go away and, while I have tried to stay neutral to some extent, the fault lies with Rich Rodriguez himself. After seeing Rich cry on television last night, I am more convinced than ever that he only cares about numero uno and could care less what happens to West Virginia University and the fans that supported his Mountaineers throughout his tenure, including that atrocious 3-8 Year One.

Rodriguez's failure to pay the $4 million dollars he promised the University in his latest contract is what is fueling the contempt many West Virginians have for him. Despite numerous promises of a bombshell against the university, Rodriguez has only been able to produce minor complaints and the contents of an alleged conversation with now President Mike Garrison. A mere conversation does not render his signed contract null and void. And while he may have some complaints about the appropriations of some of his booster funders, he has yet to show any evidence that the funds were improperly handled or managed.

Rodriguez comes off sounding like a 5-year old, running around the University yelling "Mine, mine" and crying to anyone who would listen any time someone would say "no". The University and boosters have every right to demand the $4 million dollars that Rodriguez agreed to pay if he failed to fulfill his contract. That is not disputable. Rodriguez has a right to defend himself but he has yet to show any reason that he should not be responsible for paying the $4 million. If he has a legitimate, legal basis for claiming fraud or breach, he should present that evidence and end this charade of innuendo.

Until a resolution is met, the animosity West Virginians feel toward Rodriguez will not subside. If Rodriguez can prove the University wronged him, the anger directed towards him will be moved to the appropriate person. But so far he has done nothing to prove anyone did anything wrong other than him. Death threats are wrong and I believe they probably stopped long ago (Rich has no evidence of any recent threats against him...) but the vitriol Mountaineer fans have against Rodriguez is understandable and will continue for as long as he continues to live up to his obligations and bad mouths the University in the process.

The Bleeding Edge

A lot of people like to be on the leading edge of technology. And there's something good about being out there in the front. But there's also that line that you don't want to cross...stay up with the technology but don't be the first to try to use it. Well, unfortunately, we crossed that line with our ambitious upgrades and we are now on the bleeding edge of technology. Attempting to integrate programs that have never been used with Windows Vista into Vista and making them work. And it has presented some issues as you can imagine.

One of the biggest problems with Vista centers around rights. The Program Files folder is locked down completely and I haven't yet found a way to give permissions to even change an INI file as a user. Therefore, for programs that must make changes to the application and aren't Vista-compliant, we have had to install in alternative locations, especially the ProgramData folder. This appears to be fixing some issues. Thankfully, I have a scripting program to push down permissions to client PCs to fix our problems.

The other issue that keeps coming up is the UAC (User Account Control). This thing is just downright annoying...prompting every time an "untrusted" application attempts to run. And there's no way to add a trusted application that I have found yet. The only alternative appears to be to contact these small vendors and tell them to get Vista-compliant or turn off UAC completely. Not sure yet...

We have found that we are the first to try several products with Office 2007 too. It is never good to be the guinea pigs when you're talking about pushing to end-users in 1 week. There's a whole lot of work that needs done and I'm not sure there's enough hours left to complete it. Nevermind the fact that we haven't even finished setting up network shares or migrating data or rights from our Novell servers.

I sent a scathing e-mail yesterday questioning our preparedness for the move going forward starting the 18th. It seems to have stirred up some things here today with the integration group...they have been in a meeting for over 2 hours this morning discussing migration strategy and whether or not we are truly prepared to move forward. On a positive note, I have fixed 4 applications that were having problems this morning. On a not so good note, we still have at least a dozen to fix. And that, I'm afraid, may just be the tip of the iceberg.

UNC/dook

There aren't too many sporting events that raise my blood pressure quite like UNC/Duke. Sure, when WVU plays anyone in football, I get pretty excited. WVU basketball can occassionally bring up the pulse. But everything else pales in comparison to the UNC/Duke game for me. Especially when UNC loses. It's a very, very difficult pill to swallow. Especially considering the non-stop mouth of Dukie V. and the arrogance of Coach K.

Of course, I could make excuses for last night's loss by the Tarheels. Laweson being out of the game surely hurt UNC's chances. The unbelievable hot streak of shooting the Blue Devils got on won them the game. And the return of Dick Vitale can't be underestimated in helping Duke win against UNC. But at the end of the day, Duke unfortunately, again, outplayed UNC at the Dean Dome and walk away with bragging rights...again. It really makes me pretty sick to think about...but, what are you going to do? There's always next game...I guess.

Until then, I will continue just to make fun of Duke as much as possible...

The Races Get Interesting

While McCain seems to be pulling ahead in the Republican nomination race, the Democratic side is just heating up. First, on the GOP side, McCain has enjoyed success largely thanks to Mike Huckabee's ability to draw conservative votes away from Mitt Romney. McCain, a pseudo-conservative at best, has been under serious fire from the conservative movement and it may be very difficult for him to build a strong Republican base...which could play into the hands of the Democrats come November. There's a building feeling in some conservative circles that it would be better to elect a Democrat to lead the country astray rather than allow McCain and his liberal policies have the same effect and hurt the party. I'm not saying I subscribe to those beliefs...but there is that feeling.

On the left, things seem to be getting more interesting. With Barack and Hillary splitting votes on Tuesday for the most part, neither seems prepared to concede. There's a good chance that it will become a bit of a bloody battle down the stretch, especially if Obama's momentum continues. There's little to no chance that the Clinton War Machine will allow Obama to quietly walk away with the Democrat nomination and end the Clinton monopoly on the party. It should definitely be an interesting battle.

All in all, Super Tuesday didn't clear the picture completely for either party. It did make it obvious that it will take a small miracle for Romney to win the Republican nomination but the Democrat victor is still highly in doubt. Should be an interesting few weeks coming up...

Bobby Huggins Pimpness

I know this is a little late to post, but I defy anyone to look at this suit that Bobby Huggins wore during the Cincinnati game and not agree with me that Bobby is nothing if not stud-tastical. Seriously...I challenge you to tell me something like that...

The Immortal Eli Manning

Starr, Namath, Bradshaw, Staubach, Montana, Elway, Young and now Eli Manning. Regardless of what you think of Eli Manning's body of work before last night, the simple fact is that he has now become immortal in the football world by leading his team to the world championship over the much-favored New England Patriots.

To proclaim Eli Manning the only reason the Giants won would be completely unfair to a New York defense that constantly hit and rattled the infallible Tom Brady. The Giant defense did a miraculous job in shutting down the big play receivers New England claimed to have. But at the end of the day the play between Manning and Tyree will be what is remembered most from Super Bowl XLII. The improbable escape followed by an unbelievable catch is what will be replayed for years to come, much the same way as the Immaculate Reception.

As great as the Giants accomplishment was, the Patriots failure also weighs heavily today. Obviously Bill Belichick couldn't handle the pressure and blew the game by wearing a red cutoff sweatshirt instead of the normal gray. He didn't even stick around to watch the final second of the game. But who can blame him considering his team had just pulled off one of the greatest choke jobs in the history of the NFL? Not since a man named Joe Willy guaranteed a Jets victory in Super Bowl III has there been such an upset (the Pats over the Rams doesn't count...especially if the Patriots were cheating).

At the end of the day, the Patriots finished the season 18-1 and left the 1972 Dolphins as the only undefeated team in the history of the NFL and Eli Manning has taken his place alongside some of the great Super Bowl quarterbacks. The patience the Giants have shown in both Manning and Tom Coughlin has been rewarded. And the retirement of Tiki Barber and injury to Jeremy Shockey only made the Giants better. What a great day...

Wheeling Nailers Game / Shred-Rodriguez Night

I attended my first ever hockey game on Saturday night and it was definitely an experience. I had previously made arrangements to attend the game after my last trip to Wheeling and had purchased tickets but the announcement that the Saturday night game was also going to be Shred Rodriguez Night at Wesbanco Arena definitely raised the stakes of the entire evening. After having to pay for parking at our office and braving the cold weather to walk to the arena, we were met at the door by a person who was passing out papers with the picture of West Virginia's very own Rich Rodriguez on the front. Obviously, these papers were meant for the shredder...

Upon getting into the arena and following a quick news interview for Stanley, we found ourselves at the shredding booth, which was manned by "the coach" and had a mob of people standing around watching pictures of RR being shredded. When I had first read the promotion for Shred Rodriguez Night, I had the understanding that people would actually be able to run him through the shredder themselves. I had looked forward to the screams for help following a lost finger...but apparently they realized that people playing with shredders was a poor idea and on "the coach" could actually do the shredding. And there was a lot of shredding to do.

After watching the shredding became boring and a quick tour around the arena, including a visit to the rink floor, we moved into our seats to see the zamboni preparing the ice.

After what seemed an eternity, the Nailers finally took the ice, led by one of their mascots named Spike. As a sidenote, the Nailers play a lot of music during the course of a game...very loudly. I will probably mention that again...

From the opening face-off, I was in awe of the speed of the game. It really does move and you can only truly appreciate the speed in person. Most people say it and I now believe that television does not do justice of the game of hockey.

The Nailers got off to a hot start and scored the first two goals of the contest. Upon their first score, I was deafened for a short period by the airhorn the blasts throughout the arena. To say this thing was loud would be an understatement of monumental proportions. This thing was unbearably loud. As you can see from this picture, the lady in front of us had a minature tambourine and the gentleman had a cowboy. All in good fun...

During the first intermission, the Nailers featured a dodgeball game between West Virginia and Michigan. Obviously, West Virginia won. The disdain for all things Michigan were in full effect throughout the night as most people in the arena wore either West Virginia or Ohio State apparel.

The action, as I said previously, was very good. Lots of big hits, lots of movement. Again, they played loud music during every break...but the musical selections were good. There were some fans around us who were really into the game and apparently attend most of the Nailers games because they knew the players. It's always good when there are passionate people around. In the second period, a puck flew into the stands 3 or 4 rows behind us. I had previously predicted I would get hit by an errant puck before we left...thankfully, this was as close as I got.

During the 2nd intermission, Spike and Buck entertained the crowd and then they did this promotion for a local Italian Restaurant in which people who previously purchased foam pucks could throw them onto the ice and the closest to landing in the center (which was Rich Rod's face) won a free meal. Very cool promotion. Also during that second intermission, a blimp and hot air balloon they fly around the arena attempted to shred a picture of Rich Rodriguez that was attached to the blimp using the propellers from the hot air balloon. Sadly, they were only able to shred his crotch...take that for what you will.

Despite the fact the Nailers scored the first two goals, they were unable to hang on and lost the game 6-3, much of the chagrin of some of those around us.

Overall, the hockey game was pretty cool. Like most things, much better in person than on TV. Compared to other sports, hockey offers non-stop action. The only thing I would change would be the length of the intermissions (18 minutes x 2) and the volume of everything that was happening. Other than that, it was definitely an enjoyable experience considering the price. It was a lot of fun and I didn't even lose my eyebrows...or something...

Not Surprising, But...

I've always held the belief that most people are somewhat intelligent. Throughout the course of our current upgrade at work, my perception is beginning to change a bit. One thing has become certain, people don't read their e-mail regardless of whether you say Important, Urgent or Please Read. They completely ignore it no matter what. We repeatedly warned users that our most recent document management change would remove what they call Project Folders. These folders would disappear from the DMS but they could search from them in a different manner and, if they wanted to recreate the Project Folder, they should print out a list of documents so they could recreate them.

Seems simple enough...print out your list of documents. They had over a week to perform this task and they were advised multiple times that such an event was going to occur. So, it did occur on Friday of last week. Project Folders were removed. So, how many complaints do you think we received this week about missing Project Folders. 10? 20? I would say in the neighborhood of 40. When asked about the repeated e-mails, all they say is "yeah, I remember seeing something about that but..."

I don't understand why people don't comprehend the information we are providing them. We clearly state that our upgrade could have an adverse action on them and they should take a precautionary measure but they completely ignore that advice. And they don't even call to say "I don't understand what you mean..." so we can help them through their questions. They wait until later and then complain. Sound familiar? It's the American way...

On a lighter note, the department has received no fewer than 15 calls regarding the CTRL+ALT+DEL users must now hit before they can login to the system. 10 of them were to complain about having to hit this everyday to login...we told them to get used to it, it wasn't going to change. The other 5 said typing in CTRL+ALT+DEL wasn't doing anything. Upon further interrogation, it was determined they were actually sitting there type in C-T-R-L+A-L-T... And I thought most people were smart...

Goodbye Rudy; John Edwards

Reports say that both John Edwards and Rudy Giuliani will both end their campaigns to become the presidential nominee from their respective parties. I'm not surprised about the John Edwards exit as he never stood a legitimate chance to become the Democratic nominee for president. However, the Giuliani fall has been somewhat surprising considering I predicted him to be the Republican candidate.

Giuliani's downfall started with the public's examination of his personal life. Rudy's marital issues and parenting problems have become somewhat well-known and presented a moral dilemma for the right wing party. His somewhat liberal social agenda also presented serious issues for his primary campaign in which voters tend to be further right than in the general election. Rudy's only real issue to which he could claim some victory would be homeland security but that obviously wasn't enough for the Republican party. This leaves a battle between Romney and McCain, in which McCain has taken the upperhand. At the end of the day though, I wonder if McCain is truly any more conservative than Giuliani. If McCain is the eventual nominee, the Republican party has taken a serious jump towards the left.

Speaking of the left, Edwards demise has been a longtime coming. Hanging in the teens, Edwards commanded loyalty from only the most left of the Democratic party. His talk of the plight of the poor may have been noble to some but coming from a man who has made his fortune by taking advantage of those who have been victimized seems a bit hypocritical. Edwards is withholding his support for Obama or Clinton but, if he makes a move between now and Super Tuesday, his support could tip the Democratic nomination. I'm sure both candidates are courting his support and I would tend to believe he would lean towards Obama. I'm not sure if Edwards is interested in another shot at the vice presidency or not but I think he would harm the ticket is he is 2nd in command.

Things should be interesting over the next few days as Super Tuesday approaches. A bleary picture should clear up following the primaries next week and we may be able to see for sure who will be the presidential candidates in November. At least I hope so...

Ted Kennedy

This is going to hurt because I'm going to actually send a compliment towards Edward M. Kennedy. On Monday, Kennedy announced his endorsement of Barack Obama. That, in itself, is not something that provokes a great deal of feeling from me. However, his reasoning for making such an endorsement and the timing is something I can appreciate.

It appears that Kennedy was going to try to stay somewhat neutral in the Democratic primary until Bill Clinton began his recent campaign against Obama. Clinton began playing the race card in South Carolina, charging that Obama was the "black candidate" in much the same way that Jesse Jackson was the black candidate. From all appearances, this was the breaking point for the elder statesman. Attempting to marginalize Obama as simply a token candidate forced Kennedy's hand and I actually respect his stance.

Obviously I am not stupid enough to believe that race plays no role in this election. Unfortunately there are many in this country who still believe that race is more important that qualificiations or ideas. But there are also many in this country who have moved beyond the color of skin and are looking for someone to lead. The Democrats have long claimed to be able to look beyond the color of ones skin and yet they are most often the party to point it out the most. I think Kennedy's quick endorsement of Barack following Clinton's obvious attempt at racial divide was the most appropriate action.

Race should not be an issue in this campaign just like gender should not be an issue. I want the most qualified individual who can lead this country to greater prosperity and stability. I don't care whether they are black, white, male, female, Christian, Mormon or Jew. I just want a candidate who can be president. I still haven't decided if there is one on either side of the aisle yet, but I'm still watching closely.

Work Update

Things have heated up dramatically at work since we received the release of our document management software. We are now a mere 7-days away from rolling out a Proof of Concept to our IT department and a short 14-days away from providing a functional system to the first group of test users. In less than 5-weeks, we will begin actually giving this new Vista system with Office 2007 to production users.

With that said, now I must revisit every step I have taken over the last 6 months to determine what I have missed. So far today, I have discovered at least 6 applications that have not been packaged for the deployment. Obviously IT won't catch these missed applications because, let's face it, we don't really use many applications. But when we start migrating actual users and are missing applications, things could get ugly.

It will definitely be an interesting couple weeks here. My schedule is pretty full...but I'm anxiously awaiting actually deploying one of these machines to see how far we are off on this whole project. If everything proceeds on schedule, the entire project will be over by June. I can only hope for a positive outcome. Or I could be looking for alternative employment...

XBox Died

I was jamming along to the Rolling Stones' "Gimme Shelter" one minute and the next, my XBox died. Three red lights started blinking and that console wasn't doing anything worth while. So, naturally, I got on the Inter-web and searched around for about 2 seconds before I found my error and discovered that Microsoft is aware of the issue and provides free repair for up to three years. Needless to say, I'm shipping the ol' Xbox back to Microsoft for repairs.

I've had this Xbox for a couple years and registered it with Microsoft upon receipt. Thankfully, I hadn't made any alterations to void the warranty but I think it's a little shabby that Microsoft was fully aware of this GPU x-clamp issue but failed to fully inform the customers via US mail or e-mail. But what can you do? At least they're fixing it...and I really probably won't miss it that much to be honest. Just an annoyance that I didn't want to deal with.

Obama wins South Carolina

Barack Obama not only won South Carolina, he dominated South Carolina despite serious campaigning by both Hilary and Bill. In response to the overwhelming defeat in S.C., Bill said "Jesse Jackson won South Carolina in '84 and '88. Jackson ran a good campaign. And Obama ran a good campaign here." Obviously we know where Jackson's campaigns went from there.

I don't want to read too much into that line but it appears that Bill is attempting to paint Obama as the "black candidate" and marginalize his campaign as nothing more than a sideshow before the Hilary nomination. But the Obama/Jackson comparison doesn't, in my opinion, hold water and here's why:

Unlike Jackson, Barack has not attempted to pit Black America against White America. He has acted as a beacon between the races, attracting support across both race and gender lines. Jackson's primary support was that of Black America because he continually denegrated whites as attempting to suppress the black voice.

Obama also has money. Jackson was never a major fundraising threat. Obama, with high powered supporters like Oprah, has been able to build quite a war chest to maintain the battle beyond S.C. and is able to campaign in all the Super Tuesday states against the Clinton War Machine.

Bill Clinton is obviously trying to turn the Democratic primaries into a White vs. Black race with his jabs towards race at every opportunity. For an enlightened party, the Democratics sure have become affixed on race in this campaign. Maybe it's because they don't have any real issues to show their differences. I should point out that I still believe Hilary will be the eventual nominee but it could get much, much uglier than I ever had envisioned.

RR E-mails

Well, maybe the Governor was r . . . ri . . . rig . . -- well, not completely wrong. The recent disclosure of e-mails exchanged between Rich Rodriguez's agent Mike Brown and the University sheds some new light on the rift that was developing between the West Virginia and the coach. And much seems to be fueled by Brown as he demanded more money for everything.

Brown indicates clear back in August that Rodriguez wants more money for the football program. Additional advertising, a paid web-site, etc. Whether Rodriguez was fueling these demands or his agent is something that cannot be assessed by simply releasing some e-mails.

Some things the e-mails don't show is a breach by the University in fulfilling the agreements of RR's contract. The e-mails show additional demands from Brown but not requests to fulfill promises to RR. The University is going to take the stand that they would have met some of RR's requests following an opportunity to investigate the reasonableness and legality of the request (ie, a paid web-site similar to that for which Dennis Franchione was fired). When it became apparent the University wasn't going to bendover for Rodriguez, Brown began making threats about other openings which probably further entrenched the University to not bow.

At the end of the day, I think the e-mails help the University. After seeing how Brown was threatening the University and seeing the demands RR was making, I can see why the University would stand firm. If you allow RR to push around and restructure the entire athletic department based on his whims, you lose institutional control. And what a mess you are in when he leaves...which is becomes obvious he eventually would.

Financial Meltdown?

As I have said before, the media lives off bad news and they enjoy playing up the prospects of a recession and stock market crash, housing crash, credit crash, etc. And while I believe the media does play some part in the recent down turn the economy, other factors obviously are at play here, including inflation due to higher energy costs which forces all prices higher.

So, what can we do to fix these problems is the question on the mind of analysts all over today. Of course, I have a few opinions that probably won't be overly popular but here goes:

1) Drill for oil everywhere. It has become apparent that OPEC has no interest in helping the American economy by increasing the output of oil so America needs to take care of itself by finding more oil in Alaska and off the coast of Florida and wherever else reserves may be. Also get back to building some power plants. Nuclear is the way to go to get the most bang for your buck...it's proven safe over the long haul and cost effective. Continue to develop alternative solutions for energy issues longterm but we're looking for answers now.

2) Encourage lending. Instead of threatening banks with investigations, continue to encourage lending to credible lending risks. Obviously, there has been some lending to unreputable sources that is causing a problem but with the threat of investigation, banks become apprehensive to lend to anyone. That just continues to prolong the suffering of everyone. Lower interest rates should encourage people to borrow.

3) Make the Bush tax cuts permanent. The more money people have to spend, the more money will be pumped into the economy. Tax rates are just ridiculously high. You cannot tax the economy back to life. No country has ever taxed itself to prosperity. Let citizens keep their money and everyone benefits.

Just a few ideas there. Personally, I don't see this momentary stagnation of the economy lasting for a long time. Everything has a way of balancing out and this is a correction brought on by an overly agressive housing market and external forces that we should have addressed long ago. I still see good days ahead for the American economy.

Strike for the Upgrade

Beginning Thursday evening, we proceeded with consolidating documents from 6 offices into a central location in Clarksburg. That process was completed Saturday evening and we did some testing from the other 5 offices on Sunday and Monday, and while a bit slow, everything seemed to be working fine. Monday was a holiday so it wasn't a full test...today was the day when it would matter the most. Today would be the first day that the entire organization would log into the domain and attempt to work across the WAN. A true test...

That is until I received a call at 7:45 a.m. with an ominous message: The power is down in Clarksburg. Well, at least we have a never-fail system with redundancy to the Charleston office so people should still be able to get in and work. Right? Wrong. Apparently the never-fail system wasn't setup properly and didn't replicate.

So by 8:30 a.m. users were attempting to log-in and, obviously, couldn't. The Domain Controllers were down, the document system was down and there was no other system for users to log-in to. And, of course, this entire problem will be blamed on the upgrade despite the fact it is the fault of the building.

This is a major strike against the upgrade because people will now associate further progress as troublesome. Whether it is truly the fault of the new system or not, it will be assumed that everything that goes wrong is because of our move forward. It's not a good day here...not good at all. Maybe we were too ambitious for one weekend...attempting to migrate users to login to both Novell and Active Directory plus consolidate our documents in one weekend. Maybe we weren't. But one thing is for sure...there's going to be a lot more questions about this upgrade following this debacle today.

Cheapshots

An awesome list of college football cheapshots during the 2007 season:

http://thewizardofodds.blogspot.com/2008/01/cheapest-shots-of-year.html

Calvin Magee's recent allegations against WVU are not included...

Eh...it's a Super Bowl

Patriots vs. Giants *yawn*

Does anyone care? The Patriots are going for a perfect season. Yeah, I guess that's interesting. Eli Manning is trying to get out from under the shadow of Peyton. Sure, that's going to be a storyline. But doesn't anyone really care who wins outside of Boston and New York? Sure, there's plenty of people who want the Patriots to lose because they're the Patriots and there are plenty of people who want New York to lose because of Eli...but is anyone really rooting for one of these teams to actually win?

San Diego should have eliminated the Patriots on Sunday. Three Brady interceptions and San Diego could only kick field goals. LT sat on the bench, injured, and sulked. Tomlinson may be the worst teammate in the NFL who isn't constantly discredited by the media. Rivers played a decent game, also injured, but couldn't score touchdowns. Why Norv Turner punted with 9 minutes to play is anyone's guess. I assume he thought the San Diego defense could make a stop. Well, that was obviously wrong. And so the Patriots are 18-0 in the Super Bowl again.

As for the Packers/Giants game...well, Eli Manning played a good game. No mistakes. On the other side, Favre cost the Packers the game. An interception in field goal range and an interception in overtime for the loss. Now the world goes on Favre watch to see if the guy is going to retire. Hopefully he drags it on until draft time so the Packers can't draft a replacement quarterback. I would bet $10 that he'll be back though...and, quite frankly, he should come back. He had a good season and, unless his arm falls off next year, there's no reason to believe they can't compete next season. That's as close to a compliment as I will give...

So, we now wait 2 weeks for Giants/Patriots in the Super Bowl. Two weeks of ESPN hype. Two weeks of everyone digging for plots for the game. Two weeks of interviews with Peyton and Archie Manning about Eli. I hope someone interviews Tiki Barber so he can explain why the Giants are so much better since his departure. Personally, I'm going to try to avoid the whole thing...so don't look for any more analysis here until after the "Big Game". And, just to get it out there, I will be rooting for the Giants but I can't imagine they'll win. If they do, I'll be quite happy...not because I particularly like New York...see above.

A Technology Upgrade

Feels like a good time to update everyone on the major technology upgrade we are undergoing at work --

We have spent this week adding user to the new Domain while continuing to keep them part of the Novell Network. To accomplish this, users needed to login to the domain using their old account for NDS while also logging into AD with their new account. In addition to that, we needed to copy their old Windows local account to their new AD account so they wouldn't lose all their settings. Supposedly a product called NDS Migrator was supposed to make this task simple. Well, it did when it worked, which was less than 50% of the time. In the end, we ended up manually copying and joining computers to the domain which took some time.

On Wednesday, I traveled to Wheeling at 8:00 a.m. and worked their until 5:00 p.m. and then drove to Martinsburg, arriving there at 9:00 p.m. Worked in that office until midnight and went to the hotel. Traveled back into Martinsburg Thursday morning to finish moving user acounts and then traveled back to Clarksburg on Thursday afternoon. I then proceeded to work the grave shift overnight from Thursday to Friday morning and finally got home this morning at 9:00 a.m. That's a long day...

Beginning Thursday we also began our Document Management System consolidation. So, basically we're taking 6 libraries of documents and consolidating them into 1 massive collection. Over 3 million documents were copied from the various libraries, renumbered, reprofiled and loaded into the new DMS. As I said, I worked overnight Thursday working on this and got about one-third of the way through. Sixteen PCs were setup in an office to perform the consolidation. I took a picture of the room, which was impressive, but I forgot the camera at the office. I'll get them on here Monday or Tuesday. The second shift is now working on this project and we're over 50% of the way complete on the DocsOpen consolidation.

The side effect of the Docs consolidation is that documents will be unavailable in all offices until the consolidation is finished sometime on Saturday. We have been sending notices of this fact since last Friday. And, of course, what do you think the calls were about this morning? Where are my documents? Oh, I didn't read that e-mail but I need my documents! People pay no attention to the announcements we make and they wonder why IT can be irritated. For over a week we have warned that documents would NOT be available beginning Thursday night but our users chose to ignore our warnings. But, regardless, the process must continue.

This is really a major milestone in moving forward. Once the consolidation is done, we will finalize a final DMS client for our PCs and update our Vista image with the new client. After that, we will patch Vista and Office 2007 and begin distributing test machines for an IT Proof of Concept beginning the week of January 28. Final POC testing on February 4th and we'll actually begin user testing on the week of February 11. If we can proceed without any additional issues, we will beging rolling out new Vista workstations with Office 2007 by March. Several months behind schedule but at least it should work. If not, I may be looking for other employment...