Big Mutant Blog

With Florian Vogler putting out the new MarvelClient Skinning Edition for IBM Lotus Notes I started to work on a BleedYellow version. But then I looked at the blogs and saw that Devin Olson beat me to the punch and I liked his version better so I scrapped mine and decided to push his instead

So cruise on over to his blog and take a look. They are really sharp.

Good job Devin!

OK, this kind of freaked me out the other day.

Just the other week I followed along with some tongue-in-cheek responses on Nathan's blog:

Then, a few days later I received this email at work.

Coincidence? I don't think so ;-)

OK, since everyone else is doing it, I might as well log my version of:

"How I Learned to Bleed Yellow"

OK, let's start at the beginning... First the earth cooled and then the dinasours came.... oops, sorry too far back, ;-)

I was woking as a Systems Administrator for a consulting firm called Origin Technology in Business (later called Atos Origin) and I was on a long term (stress on the LONG) at Procter & Gamble at their data center in Cincinnati, OH. I was mainly in charge of the 2nd level support of their HP3000 midrange systems but I also rotated through 2nd level support for their network as well as mainframe systems.

One day they came by and left these cd's on our desks to learn about something called "Lotus Notes" (this was back in the 4.x days). So I played the CD and watched a bunch of stick figures move around on the screen and after it was through I thought to myself that had to be the dumbest thing I ever saw. So, about 2 weeks went by and they started installing all of the Notes servers so I started reading up on it and found that it was better than the CD led it to be. I was getting real bored with second level support and with the company I was with I needed to prove I could do other things before they would let me move to other things, kind of like proving you don't need a loan before they will give you a loan, So I decided to try and teach myself Notes programming.

Up until now whenever we did our disaster recovery drills it consisted of grabbing 25+ (heavy) binders filled with mostly outdated processes and throwing then onto a cart and hauling them 30 mile away to our secondary site -- PIA. So for my first attempt at making a notes database, I wrote an application to store all of these documents, which were then regularly updated and backed up to a CD. Then all we had to do was take the CD to the secondary site, my (P&G) boss loved it...until her visited our European site. <ominous music>duhn duhn duhn</ominous music>

He was going over to Europe anyway so he decided to show them the new database I had written. What he found out was that 2 months earlier our European counterparts had contracted an outside company to do the same thing and they were not happy that we had already created one. So, even though our's was complete (their's was not) and didn't cost anything the higher-ups decided to scrap ours (but we still used it). When their version was finally completed (a month later) they showed it to us and we instantly began to find holes in it like in the US there were government regulations that needed to be followed that they had no idea of and approvals that were not included. When we presented this I was instantly put on the review committee to ensure their database added all of the US standards that were required.

From that point on I began hemorrhaging (yellow). I was moved to the Lotus Notes team within Origin were I continued to learn until a couple of years later when P&G decided not to place them on the "Preferred Vendors" list (their prices were too high). Slowly the worked dropped off, people began getting layed off and even though I was not officially layed off, they told me they would call when they had work for me, so I began job hunting. I found a job with a trash hauling company in Cincinnati for a few years, where I was both Administrator and Developer. I developed new working relationships with other developers (right Mr. Toohey?) and I then grew the need for Notes there that I was able to hire on one of my previous co-workers from Origin that was layed off before me. A few years later my wife finished her PhD and received a fellowship at the CDC here in Atlanta where I applied for a position and now find myself with Lotus 911 (YEAH!).

I hope my tale was not too long on boring for you. I now return you to the rest of your day.

Hailing frequencies closed.

There was sad news in the entertainment world Saturday, one of the last of the ultimate screen legends has left us. Saturday, April 5, 2008 marked the passing of screen legend Charlton Heston.

Mr. Heston was one of my all time favorite actors and it was hard to hear the news. He starred in blockbuster movies such as Ben Hur, The Ten Commandments, Airport 1975 and Planet of the Apes to name only a few.  In addition to movies he was also the President of the Screen Actors Guild, chairman of the American Film Institute and an active member (and past President) of the NRA.

To view a brief write-up of the life of Charlton Heston, see the CNN report here.

"And our intentions true! So I must leave you. (Ben Hur - 1959)"