Once again, I want to write something about my job, and once again, I will not.  You never know who's reading this thing.  It's a great job but there are times when I find it exasperating.  I shouldn't need to parse my emails as much as I do sometimes.

Take a hike, 2009

It has been my custom to write a "wrap up" post at the end of the year, usually while I'm bored at work on New Year's Eve. I was actually a little busy today, so this post is going up late.

2009 started out well enough and had its high points. The Steelers won the Super Bowl and the Penguins won the Stanley Cup, which would be enough to make any year stand out. I also went on a couple of great vacations, in New Orleans and on Block Island. I played some of my favorite works with NYRO and heard the New York Philharmonic play some as well, perhaps too often. I helped organize and run another successful NYRO benefit gala and I've learned some lessons that will make 2010's gala even better. But then there were the sour moments that are foremost in my mind as the year comes to a close. I'm not as happy as I was when the year started. That's something I need to work on in 2010.

Ten years ago I was married and stuck in a crappy job in a new city that I hated. Now I'm divorced and in a much better job in that same city that I have grown to love in ways I never expected. I have regrets about some things from the past decade but I wouldn't change many of them. I've loved and lost. I've had highs that were unforgettable and lows that I never want to know again. I traveled Europe and Asia in this past decade. I've become that cantankerous old guy at my job (not so old yet) who knows where all the bodies are buried. I've made some incredible friends. I picked up the viola again after too long a break, and I swear to God I'm not putting it down again until my fingers stop working.

That's it for me. I'm off to drink bourbon and forget about the past for a while. See you on the flip side.

I'm ready for some football

I know you're all dying to see how I look in my new #92 James Harrison jersey, so here you go.

From the front:


And from the back:



Contrary to my appearance in these photos, I do not have anything wrong with my shoulders.

The problem with perception

I spent part of my Monday afternoon wandering around one of the floors in our offices checking the signal strength of our wireless network. Someone from the IT department had conducted a demo for some lawyers last week and reported problems with the signal and connectivity during the meeting. I went over there to check things out for myself and found that the wireless network was perfectly functional, though the signal strength meter in my Windows system tray flickered between green and yellow. The software that controls the wireless card reported 40-60% signal strength in the problem areas indicated last week by our colleague. I didn't notice any trouble connecting, reading and sending e-mail, or browsing the Internet despite the periods of "yellow" coverage.

I considered what the people who use that conference room might be thinking. They might see the yellow indicator on their computers and think that they have a problem, when in fact they are connected and working. Computers don't need a full 100% signal in order to transmit and receive data. I think the wireless signal indicators on computers are about as accurate as the bars on a cellphone. Since Wi-Fi and cellular signals are radio waves, they fluctuate depending on interference from other devices, walls, buildings, and so on. Full bars on either one doesn't mean that a phone or computer will have a robust, strong connection. Wireless networks are designed to work with less than 100% signal. A computer can connect to a wireless network with a 20% signal and still be able to send e-mail and download movies. There might be a speed drop-off, or there might not be. And even if there is a difference, it might not be noticeable without a speed test application.

But the perception is that a weak signal means a weak connection, and that's bad for network adminstrators. Most people don't understand the way wireless networks function, and to be fair, it's not necessary for everyone to know the link (or lack thereof) between signals and connectivity. The challenge for network administrators like me is whether to explain 802.11a/b/g/n networking to the general user community, or if it's better to saturate the office with access points so that the laptops always show "green." Many of my daily struggles with technology in the workplace boil down to these two choices: explain a problem to the users and how to work around it, or just throw money at the problem and make it go away. I'm not sure how this particular situation will play out. I suspect we'll choose the latter option.

Moving update, settling in

It's the end of day two here and I'm beginning to feel more comfortable in my new cubicle and office. The worst aspect of the move thus far has been the elevators in this building. The firm's New York headquarters building has 54 floors and 24 elevators, with six serving my firms's floors. This building has 34 floors and just 12 elevators, and of the six that serve our two floors, only four appear to be working at this time. In other words, we're "under-elevatored," to use the manufacturers' jargon. I arrived right at 9 AM yesterday morning to find a crowd of about 25 people waiting for the elevators for our floors. They didn't all work for my firm; I think most of them worked for the credit union that occupies the ten floors below ours. This morning when I arrived at 10 AM the crowd was sparse but the wait was much longer than I'm used to. And at 1 PM when we went to lunch in the cafeteria across the street, we had to think about the elevator waiting time for our departure and return. I'm glad I'm not on a time clock or else I'd have to arrive ten minutes early just to punch in on time.

I've uploaded some photos of my new cubicle, and I've already moved things around since yesterday. Initially, I set up my computers in the same way they had been configured at my old desk. But in this office I have less privacy than I used to, and the arrangement with my Mac in the middle of the desk was too open for me. This afternoon I moved the Mac to the inside corner of the cubicle, to the left of my laptop. This arrangement gives me a little more privacy from people walking by, or at least I think it does. And it gives me the rest of the desk for paperwork or testing other computers as needed.

I also deployed my rearview mirror when it arrived. For the time being it's going to rest in a coffee mug so I don't have to glue it to my monitor. I just have to remember to look at it when I hear people approaching me. And also not become absorbed in my own reflection.

The office move is nearly complete

This weekend my department and a few others are moving to a new office space across the street from the main office. It's a big effort and it's created plenty of work, and my employers are doing their best to make us feel like we're still part of the firm. They've given us some perks in the cafeteria, installed new vending machines and coffee makers in the new space, and built new cubicles with new VoIP phones. The last item's inclusion means that my group, in charge of the network, are now partly responsible for voice communication as well. These phones have already been an issue. As with any new technology (or new to you), there will be problems and a learning curve. The new office space opens tomorrow, and I was there this afternoon to unpack and check my computer setup. Last week I packed all of my office items except for my computers and peripherals, and the hardware department set up the computers yesterday. I lost a KVM switch and a spare mouse somewhere in the move process, so I hope to get those back later this week. Otherwise, everything is unpacked and set up so I can get right to work tomorrow.

I also ordered a rearview mirror for my computer monitor. Until Friday I had a prime cubicle in the back corner of our office, with my chair facing the entryway, so no one could sneak up behind me. Now my monitor is positioned facing away from the way my superiors will likely come to visit me. It's not that I'm doing things I don't want them to see, but I'm uncomfortable with the idea of people surprising me. I usually wear earbuds while I work so I can't hear people walking by. I hope that the mirror will give me a clue as to when my boss is about to stop by and see how I'm doing. And it will give me a way to check my teeth for stuck bits of food after lunch.

Requiem for a coffee mug

I've been at my job for a little more than eight years. During orientation on my first day in July 2000 I received a white coffee mug with a torch and the words "One Liberty" on it (I work at One Liberty Plaza downtown). Everyone got one. I don't remember who else started that day, but I'm sure they don't have their mugs anymore. I've drunk more cups of bad Filterfresh coffee from that mug than I care to remember. I've had my mug through two or three office moves. It survived 9/11. But it didn't survive a fall onto the kitchenette floor a few minutes ago. I was cleaning out the gunky residue from yesterday's Filterfresh brew when the mug slipped from my hands, bounced off the recycling bin and shattered on the floor. The handle broke into a few pieces, some more bits chipped off the rim, and there were shards of ceramic all over the floor. I didn't even look at the mug that closely before I threw it in the trash. I suppose I could have tried to glue it back together, but it's dead to me now.

So this is weird. It's not the loss of a mug: I've got several other coffee mugs both at work and at home, so it's easily replaced. Right now I'm drinking coffee from a mug that commemorates the firm's 60th anniversary two years ago. (For the anniversary, everyone on the admin staff received a mug and we had a reception in a conference room with wine and beer, while the attorneys had a lavish prom-like party at the AMNH.) But it feels like I've lost something that represented me when I started here as a cheerful 26-year-old who was still new to the city. I wasn't the experienced network administrator that I am now. I also wasn't the jaded graybeard that I seem to have become over the years. My boss at my last job used to say of the people who'd worked at that firm for years that they "knew where all the bodies are buried." I've started to feel like I'm that guy here. I haven't figured out yet whether that's good or bad or a mix. I might be ready for a job change soon, but since I don't know what that change might entail, I'm staying put.

Goin' home

Well, that was fun. But all good things must come to an end, and I'm on my way back to New York. I had a good time in Florida. I learned a few things about the product we use, I learned a few things about myself (mostly, that I'm 34 going on 74), I saw more fake breasts than I've ever seen before, and I got to relax on the beach and eat some great meals.

The conference ended last night around 8 PM, after a largely disappointing closing reception (not enough food, badly lit room). One of my former co-workers lives in the Miami area, and he met us at the hotel for dinner. We wanted to stay close by, but a consensus soon developed around the idea of going to the Hard Rock Casino on a nearby Seminole reservation. We had a bit of trouble finding the place, but once we saw the lights from the highway we couldn't miss it. I'd only ever been to casinos in Las Vegas, so I was curious if the typical Florida casino patron is of the same species as the Nevada variety. The casino is next to an outdoor shopping mall with a few restaurants, so we chose TATU, an Asian restaurant, for dinner. (No relation to the Russian pop duo, apparently.) I don't know if the place was a chain or a one-off, but the food was excellent. It was some of the best pad thai I've ever had. After dinner we went to the casino itself to see if we could find some of our friends. I was not surprised or disappointed to find that my anthropological theory was correct. There were plenty of old ladies (and old guys) in Members Only jackets chain-smoking in front of slot machines. There were also plenty of beautiful and surgically-enhanced women wandering around, but that didn't help with the depressing impression I had. I didn't like the casinos in Las Vegas, at least not the gambling parts of them, so I suppose I shouldn't have expected anything better from the Hard Rock. In any case we hadn't intended to gamble, and we couldn't find our friends, and it was after midnight and everyone else hadn't slept the night before, so we went back to our hotel.

Back in my room, I found that I'd somehow screwed up my Mac earlier in the day. I had no afternoon sessions to attend so I'd hoped to get down to the beach one more time before I left. But the afternoon thunderstorms that had held off most of the week appeared on schedule at 3 PM, and that put the damper on my beach plans. I went back to my room and read some blogs and tinkered with the Mac. I discovered via the system logs that the Mac was trying to load some software that I thought I'd uninstalled, and that some components of the software were still running. I found a tech support site that told me how to unload everything, and I rebooted and the Mac was fine. Then I went out for the night. When I got back to the room and plugged in my camera, the Mac was sluggish and unresponsive, so I rebooted it again. That's when things really got weird. The Dock crashed and Finder wouldn't load. I took a few deep breaths and didn't panic. What was the worst thing that would happen? I'd have a sad Mac to take home and fix back in my apartment, and I'd have to run to the office over the weekend to pick up my backup drive to restore my data. I rebooted in Safe Mode and OS X came up properly, and after a few minutes of checking some things I rebooted normally. So far (fingers crossed) the Mac has been fine since 2 AM last night. If I have any problems after this I have the Mac OS X DVD at home to help me through my troubles. Besides, I have TV on the plane so it's not like I NEED to use the Mac on the flight. I think I'll be OK.

My first business trip in two years

This week I'm in Hollywood, FL, near Fort Lauderdale and Miami, for an accounting systems user conference. For the past year or so I've been the backup IT administrator for our Unix-based accounting system at work, and one of the privileges (or drawbacks) to that role is that I get to go to the annual conference for this particular system. Last year it was in Vegas, this year it's in Florida. So far it's been a relatively uneventful trip. My flight landed at the Ft. Lauderdale airport just before a major thunderstorm stalled over the field, so we sat on the tarmac for 90 minutes while the airport shut down to wait out the storm. Once I got to the gate, I had another hour-long wait for my luggage. But by late afternoon I was sitting in my room enjoying the ocean view from my balcony and watching another thunderstorm roll by. Tomorrow morning my plan is to get up and work out, then go to the beach and/or the pool before going to a some tutorials in the afternoon. This trip is as close as I'm getting to a beach vacation for a while, so I'm going to try to make the most of it while I'm here.

I don't know where my head is lately

I should preface this story by pointing out that except for last night, when I slept about 7 hours, I'd slept less than 6 hours each night for the past three or four nights, and I don't think I've been eating properly for a few days. So sleep deprivation and a change in diet might explain what's been going on with my brain lately.

I had a weird trip home from work tonight. I left the office about 6:30 and got on a 5 train, which was good because if there was a Yankee game tonight the 4 train would be crowded but the 5 would not. I got out my iPod and put on Bob Dylan's "Bringing It All Back Home," which I haven't listened to in a long time. I was thinking about what I had to do tonight: buy groceries, call a friend who's going to cat-sit for me this weekend, watch some TV, get ready for work tomorrow, talk to Kate, and go to bed early. For some reason I decided to play solitaire on my iPod, something else I haven't done in a long time. I thought I was keeping track of the stops, but I must have been "in the zone" because when I looked up I saw that the next stop was 125th Street, one stop past mine. I still think I was in some sort of time warp, because I've been riding the 4/5 trains for five years and I've missed my stop only once or twice before. I was a little freaked out at my mistake, but I switched tracks at 125th Street and got on a downtown 4 train and got out at 86th Street.

I started walking home when I realized that I had forgotten my Macbook Pro's power supply on my desk at the office. (I realize that I could do without bringing the Mac to work every day, but I have been using it to test the Lotus Notes client for Mac, and it's fun to have at work anyway, so I bring it each day.) I've been making this trip with the Mac since I got it in February, and I hadn't forgotten the power supply before. I was cursing my absent-minded, hunger-addled and sleep-deprived brain when I remembered that I could just buy a spare power supply at Best Buy back at 86th and Lexington. So I turned around and walked back. I had been thinking that I should just get a spare power supply anyway so I wouldn't have to worry about carrying one to work each day, so I didn't really mind paying for another one. When I got to Best Buy I was still thinking about how dumb I was when I realized that I was halfway down the stairs into the subway station again. Now that was me operating on pure muscle memory. I go into that subway station at least once a day on my way to work and sometimes twice if it's a busy travel day, so that's why some part of my animal nervous system ignored my brain and assumed that was where I wanted to go. I turned around again and walked into Best Buy and got my spare power supply.

Three hours later, I feel much better after eating dinner and relaxing. I plan to get more sleep this week and eat right and try to exercise and hopefully that will put things right in my head. It's hard enough to get through my day when my brain is operating at peak efficiency. When I'm suffering from self-induced ADD, I'm not doing myself any favors.

Gawker doesn't want me to work for the rest of the day (or the week)

They just posted a link to Nerve's top 50 comedy sketches of all time. And in the comments, people have posted their own favorites that didn't make the list. I might just have to go home early, hook up the Mac to the HDTV, and go to town. Speaking of which, I've got another home theater post rolling around in my head, so look for that in the next day or so, whenever I get around to writing it.

Busy busy busy...

Work has been kind of crazy for the past few weeks. We've got a couple of projects that are due early next year and so many of us are scrambling to get things done before the holidays. My vacation starts tomorrow (though I'm not going home until Sunday) so I'm trying to get all of my work done by the end of the day. The last thing I want is for someone to call me while I'm at home next week. (I should probably be working instead of blogging....)

Also, it's holiday party season and my schedule has been booked solid with gatherings of one kind or another. Monday night was the office party on Wall Street and I took it easy on my liver, my stomach, and my dancing shoes. I did have a great time enjoying the firm's largess and another year at this job. The evening reminded me that as much as I sometimes complain about work, I know some great people here and I have an extremely generous employer. As for the rest of the week, I have dinner with new friends tonight, as-yet-undetermined birthday plans tomorrow, two parties on Friday night and something else on Saturday evening. And then there's the matter of passing the time on the 7+ hour train ride back to Johnstown. Last year I watched episodes of "Heroes" that I'd downloaded, but this year I don't have any TV series to catch up on. Maybe I'll work my way through some Netflix movies and some podcasts instead.

good things and bad things about my class

My Linux class was a "hands-on" affair, where we installed the OS on a PC and tinkered with it all week. It's the sort of thing I've been known to do on my own from time to time, so it was fun and interesting.

However, I had to work with another student. Usually that's not a problem, and sometimes it's even one of my co-workers, so we make a good team. But this time it was a guy from another company, so I had no idea what I'd be getting. He was a decent guy and seemed to know his IT business, but he was so busy answering phone calls and checking his Blackberry all week that he didn't pay much attention to the instructor. And he admitted that he was new to Linux, so he was a disaster when it came to the command line or following the labs. I tried to help him along and not get frustrated (and considering my tendencies, I think I did a good job of maintaining an even temperament). When he performed the instructions in the lab manual, I could tell he was just typing the commands, with no regard for what they did. When I did the labs, he'd make sure I followed all the steps, but he didn't care what happened. As soon as we finished the lab he'd go back to his laptop and e-mail or chat over IM with a friend.

Now, I've been known to go to IT training, get out my laptop, and spend 8 hours paying the least amount of attention possible while surfing the Web and goofing off. And I did have my laptop out all week as usual. However, I paid attention, asked questions, and got my work done. Despite the class being about 75% review for me, I think I learned a few things this week. By his own admission, my partner needs to buy a Linux book and spend some quality time installing and configuring a system on his own. I don't think he got anything out of a class that cost his company about $2000. Their loss, I suppose.

My once-a-year training class

I get to go to training (or a conference) once a year, so this week I'm in a four-day Linux class. I've been managing Linux servers at work for about four years with no formal instruction, just the bits and pieces I've picked up along the way. The class has turned out to be more of a review than new material, but that's OK. I need the practice, and it's been useful to see the best way to do things, instead of the haphazard methods I've been following for years.

One thing that the instructor said has been bothering me. He pointed out on the first day that many companies will pay for Linux software from vendors like Red Hat, Novell, etc., and buy support from those companies as well. However, since there's a rich community of Linux administrators on the Internet and many sites with Linux documentation and tips, the instructor said several times that it's a waste of money to pay for support. If you can get help for free, why pay for it?

Well, if something goes wrong with one of my production servers and I can't fix it, I don't want to tell my boss (or his boss) that I'm checking user groups and web forums and waiting for someone in Europe to get back to me with a suggestion. I'd be in a world of trouble. We buy support for all our software, regardless of how trivial or how extensive the user community is. You never know when you'll need help, and you can't rely on Joe Sysadmin in Fresno to know how to fix your systems. That's why we "waste" our money on support. Because you never know.

the two slowest days of my life

I had jury duty on Thursday and Friday in one of New York City's finest jury holding rooms. When I got the summons I thought it was for a different location than the last time I went, in 2001, but when I got to the jury room it was the same place as before. We had to arrive at 8:45 AM on Thursday morning, and it wasn't until close to 9:30 that they showed us the juror orientation video with Ed Bradley and Diane Sawyer giving us a history of the court system, what happens in a courtroom, and so on. The best (or worst) part of the video was at the beginning. They show you a medieval "trial by ordeal" where they throw the defendant into a lake. The judicial theory was that if the accused floated, he or she was innocent. It looked like they filmed that part of the video somewhere in upstate New York, but for all I know they shot it in Central Park. After that, we sat around the jury room until just after noon, when they sent us out for a two-hour lunch. Yesterday I went to New Green Bo on Bayard St. to try the tong po pork (based on Alex Balk's recommendation). It was a platter of fatty pork over bok choy, smothered in some kind of tangy sauce, served with buns. It's not haunting my dreams the way it haunts Balk's, but it was tasty. After lunch I wandered around Chinatown for a while, then went back to the jury room. They let us go around 3:30 on Thursday and told us to come back at 10 AM today.

I got back to the courthouse right at 10 and waited half an hour before they did a roll call. Then it was two more hours of reading and surfing on my laptop (the courthouse has free Internet access now, albeit with some web filters -- for example, I could read blogs and post comments, but I couldn't sign into Blogger to write posts on my own blog) before they gave us another two-hour lunch break. This time I went to Au Bon Pain, then killed an hour at J&R Music. They were having a sale on EMI classical CD reissues, so I picked up some Vivaldi violin concertos, the complete Saint-Saens piano concertos, Mahler's Das Lied von der Erde, and some Beethoven piano trios. I should not be allowed to shop on my lunch break. I got back to the courthouse right at 2 PM, and about 20 minutes later they said we were dismissed with credit for two days of service and we wouldn't have to come back for at least four years. A few people wanted to know why they couldn't have told us we were dismissed before lunch. I didn't care. But I am a little disappointed that we were never called for any trials. I would have liked to see some courtroom action. I did get two days off work with pay, which is always a good thing. And my public service is fulfilled until well into the 2nd Clinton administration.

working from home thanks to the MTA

I missed all the excitement on Wednesday. I woke up around 8 AM, took a shower and put on the TV around 8:30, and that's when I found out I'd slept through severe thunderstorms that flooded all the subway lines in Manhattan. I spent my morning on a conference call and watching NY1 for updates on the subway situation. By lunchtime the reports were not promising, so my boss told me and the rest of the Manhattan staff to stay home and work. I got more work done from home today than I usually get done at the office. I'm not saying I want to work from home all the time, but it was kind of fun. I had the news on for a while, watched part of a movie during lunch, and then listened to music in the afternoon while working with one of the guys in the office to get a server installed.

On Thursday I'll be downtown at 111 Centre St. for jury duty. I haven't been called for jury duty in six or seven years. The last time I went, I took a book and read the entire time. I'll bring a book tomorrow, but I think I'll bring my laptop as well. From what I understand, the courthouse has Internet access, so maybe I'll be able to keep up with my various blogs and news sites. I'm not worried about getting picked for a trial. If it happens, I'll have something else to talk about besides the annoyance of sitting in a jury waiting room all day.

my first sick day in years

I've had a slight cold for a few days. It's nothing severe, mostly just a sore throat and a few other minor symptoms. Since I wasn't feeling that bad, I went out and had a little too much fun this past weekend. On Friday, I went to a Mets game with some people from work and one of our vendors. We had field box seats behind the visitors' dugout, and I got some close-up photos of batters in mid-swing when I wasn't enjoying free food and beer courtesy of our vendor friend. I also got a high-five from Mr. Met, and a photo of myself next to the Mets' 1986 World Series trophy. I feel like a traitor to my hometown Pirates, though. On Saturday night, I went to an all-you-can-drink birthday party at a bar in my neighborhood. I woke up on Sunday morning with my throat feeling worse, but that didn't stop me from taking care of the errands I had to run that day. That evening, when my friends came over to watch TV, I ended up hoarse from talking and coughing. And my eyes were red from me over-wearing my contacts. I'm a bit of a hypochondriac, so I thought for a few minutes that I might have pink eye. I collapsed into bed right after they left.

So on Monday morning I sounded and looked terrible. I didn't actually feel that bad, but I had a feeling I should stay home from work. I'd already taken the morning off to get my cable TV fixed, so I called work and took the rest of the day off. I haven't called in sick in over two years. There goes my streak. Since I wasn't that sick, it was even more miserable than usual to be at home. There's nothing on TV. I watched part of "The Towering Inferno" and went for a walk later in the afternoon. I'm back at work today. My eyes look and feel much better, my voice is coming back, and the cold is nearly gone. But mostly I'm just glad to be back in the office. I'm a social person, and I can't stand being home alone for that long. Having broken my no-sick-day streak, I think I'll be a little quicker to call in sick the next time I have a bad cold. I've come to work on days when I really should have stayed home. No one wants to hear or see me when I'm that sick.

Who trashed my desk?

It's my first day back at work after a week off, and truth be told, I'd rather be anywhere else but here. When I walked back to my cubicle, I found my desk had been messed up more than usual: the LCD monitor, my speakers, my coffee mugs and French press had been knocked over, and some papers were out of order. I usually blame the cleaning staff when this happens. I've seen the late-night cleaning ladies sit at our little conference table and talk, and according to the guy in my department who works evenings, they will also sit at our desks and use the phones. There was nothing wrong with my desk that couldn't be fixed in thirty seconds, but that's not really the point. This is my workspace. I have it arranged the way I like it. I don't want anyone else sitting here and screwing it up.

I think I need some coffee.

Not with a bang, but with a whimper

We turned off the last of my firm's Novell NetWare servers this morning at 11 AM. That marks the final, real end of an era for me as a Novell network administrator. Now I'm just a Windows network guy, with some Linux and VMWare management tasks as well. The occasion feels like it merits a eulogy of sorts for NetWare, but I grew weary of defending NetWare for so long that I just don't have the energy. It was a great OS in its day with a superior directory system, but it couldn't weather the lack of support from 3rd party software developers, who preferred Windows and its ease of integration with the desktop. With the advent of Linux as a viable alternative to Windows on the server side, NetWare was finished as an OS. Novell figured this out and bought SuSE Linux a few years ago, so my firm will continue to use some Novell products. But NetWare and its directory are gone now.

Maybe I'll listen to Verdi's Requiem this afternoon in memoriam.

the end of an era

I just unsubscribed myself from the Novell NetWare administrators' e-mail list. I've been on this e-mail list since 1997, through several different jobs as a Novell network administrator. But my office is in the final stages of eliminating NetWare from our network, and I hadn't been an active participant in the list for a long time. It's one more reminder that my career as a Novell admin is at an end.

I also used to be active on a Novell GroupWise e-mail list, back in the late '90s and 2000 when I e-mail management was my primary job function. Copies of my posts on this list are still floating around the Internet, which explains why they come up when you Google "Phil Catelinet." I have to use Lotus Notes at work, and I still miss GroupWise. It was a real e-mail system, as opposed to Notes, which is a database with an e-mail system awkwardly bolted onto it.

I forgot to mark this milestone in my life, but the end of May 2006 wasn't just the 10-year anniversary of my graduation from Georgetown. May 29, 2006 was the 10th anniversary of the start date of my first real job out of college as an IT professional. As of this year, I've been working full-time in IT for 10 years. And with my Novell background, I already feel like a graybeard talking about the "good old days" when we had to use floppy disks and program in BASIC. Maybe this year when I'm home for Christmas I'll finally break out my old Commodore 64 and see if it still works.