Big A** Mutant Blog

OK, it's time for me to officially declare my status as a fanboy for YellowCast. Yeah, I know, they have only put out 2 episodes but it has really drawn me in (I'm their #1 Fan! - a 'King' reference for you T). Chris Toohey and Tim Tripcony have a great chemistry that makes it really fun to listen to.

I have known Chris Toohey since before I came to work with Lotus 911 and have always thought he has had a great sense of humor and in the latest episode of YellowCast (Episode #2: Vicodin and MonkeyButter), around 42:33, he described the love/hate we all feel for Lotus Notes and Domino...

Domino is the little brother. I can pick on my little brother, because he's my little brother and I can pick on him but no one else...

Domino will always be my little brother... If you come in and you're another Domino Developer, you're a part of my family, and you know what, you can beat up Domino. Because for all the crap that happens, you know that there's benefits, you know that even though my little brother might be stupid, he might be not the brightest one out there sometimes, but you do see that he is amazing in other ways. You see that as a family, but if someone is walking down the street and goes 'Look at that Motard', I'm gonna attack!

That's the little brother...Domino is the 'Little Brother' syndrome.

Beautiful!

(Mutant Note: Chris does state that this is no reflection on his actual little brother.)

Good job guys! And remember... "The Audience is listening"

BigMutant (self-declared YellowCast Fanboy) Out!

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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.