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Smiley's Synopses

Reminisces of a has-been SysOp

Almost Out of June

Sunday, 28. June 2009, 15:34:53

7:00a and I'm almost a month into moving from the farm (hereinafter called "Not Home") to our new home in Newberg. We spent yesterday shampooing the carpets at Not Home in the master bedroom and the living room which ate our entire 4 hours rental of the carpet shampooer without making my target of getting the hallway and the guest bedroom done. I also didn't accomplish the lumber and planning for my "Tower Cabinet" in the office at home. The tower cabinet is going to house a couple of servers, routers and switches, my enormous HP3si duplexing laser printer, a small 15" LCD display and a KVM switch. That addition coupled with an 8' flourescent light over the workbench should empower me to finish emptying our stuff from Not Home while still leaving me a prayer of putting it away at Home. Next weekend is a very long one for me, Friday is a paid holiday at work and I'm taking Monday off using that last of my PTO (paid time off). Out of those four days, we've only got the annual Family Reunion on the itinerary on Saturday, so I'm still hoping to complete moving out of Not Home and cleaning it up in the remaining 3 days of that weekend. Taking a break to mow the lawn too.

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Nicky, Grace, DHS and Maggie

Sunday, 26. April 2009, 22:55:50


Maggie and I have a couple of daughters--sort of--that are now working on being adults with children of their own. The "sort of" requires quite a bit of history that I don't want to digress into right now, so accept the above as a premise for the rest of this article. Tabitha is now post-30 and married to Dwane, living in Albany with Emily (2) and Leonard "Leo" (5). She's been a full-time Mom since moving from Portland to Albany and is actually doing quite well in life.

Gracey is 26, not married and had Nicholas "Nicky" (7) and Tyrone "Ty" (3) until DHS removed them from her charge last year, placing them in Foster Care when Maggie and I told them we didn't have the capacity to handle them.
Nicky and Ty landed at our home because they were being neglected and abused by Grace's latest partner Troy a 43 year old drug user with a fairly long police record of child abuse and assault charges. Troy's sister reported an incident to DHS and they came to us for help picking up the boys from Grace's campsight in the woods. Grace was finishing up her second year of homelessness and the boys weren't getting adequate meals or facilities for hygiene and sanitation. The reported incident was a relatively severe case of physical abuse on Nicky, so we helped DHS remove them from Grace's custody and spent a month delivering the boys to Daycare in Carlton while we were at work back in July of 2008. When we realized this arrangement was not going to work (financially or fiscally) DHS convinced Paul and Louise to "come out of retirement" and accept the boys as Foster Parents. Paul Harper graduated from Ashland High School with me in the class of '73 and is very well known to my Mom as a major influence in the Royal Family Kids camp a ministry to foster children in which my Mom's church participates. We had a lot of fun reminiscing and are probably going to try and maintain a relationship into the future.

DHS launched a standard program of trying to reunite the children with their mother by giving her a list of action plans designed to ensure the children's safety and health. Most of these action plans were to have no contact with Troy or any other known child molestors and to find adequate housing and food. Maggie and I attended the quarterly Family Unity Meetings and watched with dismay as Grace continually ignored any program steps that involved Troy because she just couldn't live without him and apparently the loss of the only children she's able to bear (both pregnancies almost killed her and after Ty's birth she consented to a tubal ligation) wasn't adequate incentive to find a better partner than Troy. Now that the clock has ticked down to the one year mark, DHS (not seeing Troy being removed from the picture) is forced into trading Plan A (reuniting mother and children) for Plan B (placing children elsewhere for their protection) as the primary focus.

So what alternatives? 1. Foster care, 2. permanent guardianship or 3. adoption in ascending order of desirability and difficulty of implementation. Number one is very expensive for the state (the children's current legal guardian) and fraught with its own hazards for emotional and sexual abuse of the children both of which Nicky has had to endure more than any seven year old should ever have to. Numbers two and three require finding a market for these children which would not be difficult for Tyrone because he is a healthy three year old with no obvious physical or mental handicaps, but the boys come in a package (if at all possible) and Nicky has Neurofibromatosis, hemihypertrophy and relatively severe learning disabilities. Discovering a healthy sub-thirty year old couple willing to accept this pair into their family is going to be a real challenge to say the least.

Maggie and I arranged Nicholas' naming ceremony after we won the hard fought battle with DHS that got him back in Grace's custody for his first birthday. We were named as his Godparents at that ceremony and charged with his spiritual development, a charge which we both accepted with small trepidation and plenty of aplomb. That was six years ago and now we're preparing to adopt him and his little brother to release him from this not-self-imposed hell in which he's been abiding for half of his too short life.

Louise helped Nicky bake his own cake for this seventh birthday last month.

Grace became homeless in December of '06 that was after Nicky had been sexually molested by a neighbor in '05. Grace is still homeless today and after living that pattern for this many years it doesn't look good for dragging out of that rut anytime in the foreseeable future. We've already talked with Grace and she is willing to autograph documentation relinquishing her parental rights to the boys. We'll have to get similar docs from the fathers, Thomas Barnes (Nicky's Dad) is in Colorado, but should jump at the chance to get out from under child support payments, so we're anticipating no challenge from that front. John Vhang is in California and has only seen Tyrone once that I'm aware of, he's got several other "issue issues" attached to him and we don't anticipate a lot of challenge there either. The real challenge is the home front. Mom (owner of the land my Landlord is renting upon which our house sits) does not want the children living on the farm. And since there is a "no children" clause in the lease agreement Maggie and I signed, we have to move out.
This is going to be extremely difficult for us, since we've been enjoying our stay at the farm. We got here to fulfill the Prime Directive of giving Mom a comfortable stay on the farm she was born on and trying to fill some of the functions that Dad did before he died in '01. Some of the landscape maintenance, odd fix it jobs, running the Cider Parties, computer tech support, etc has filled some of the time I've had away from work, that and doing her chores when she takes a trip as a missionary to Equador or a long weekend to Belize. My three brothers, Cliff, Ron and Andy formed a sub-chapter S corp that bought us a used double-wide trailer to empower us for this onus so we've had palatial digs as a result. Almost 1500 square feet of 3 bedroom 2 bath accomodations including a functional jacuzzi big enough for both of us is going to be very diffucult to walk away from. Thankfully they are letting us do so, since our rental agreement calls for $830/month payments for 8 years to finish paying off the $30K loan and we've only barely completed 3 of those 8 years. It's going to be pretty much impossible to duplicate this kind of living arrangement elsewhere. Our research so far shows to get a 3 bedroom house with a garage and (very small) yard in Newberg commands rents in the 900-1200 range and we just plain can't haul that much freight given our future employment situation. Maggie will not be able to hold a job while raising these two boys, so we've got to find her something invoiceable in her voluminous spare time while Nicky is in school. That is the other reason to find something in Newberg, their public school system is one of the best in the vicinity. Most of Washington County is the worst with Multnomah County coming in barely ahead of Washington, The reality is we just aren't going to have enough spare ergs to consider home schooling unless we can develop a network of some kind to expand our resources. Therefore, for the next couple of years, we're going to have to make do with a two bedroom house and garage and the boys will have to make use of the bunk beds Cliff and I shared in Ashland in '61. That kind of scenario fits into our current and foreseeable future budget and we'll probably be implementing that as a plan around the First of July 2009.
Needless to say, your prayers would be greatly appreciated.




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Invoice is King

Wednesday, 11. February 2009, 15:36:09



It's Wednesday again, but it is no longer a "day off" as it were. I called it that last week, but that's really a misnomer because the genuine purpose behind reducing my hours "at work" was to put the energy saved into creating an income at PMA Consulting. My mantra when I got this job was "it is way better than nothing" and although true, it is not a motto that you can fly at the van of an army or use to inspire greatness in a ball team in the lockers prior to going out for the second half of the game. It just hasn't got the same ring as "remember the Alamo" or ". . . the shores of Tripoli"; the 300 Spartans aren't going to rally to "it's better than nothing". So I need a much better motto, something that better reflects the purpose of this endeavor. Something along the lines of DO SOMETHING FOR WHICH I CAN COLLECT MONEY today. That's close, but not quite, because I don't really have to collect the money today, just be confident that I can collect the money in the near future.
DO SOMETHING INVOICEABLE
Yeah, I know it isn't a word, but we can chalk it up to poetic license for this week, I like the ring and I'm going to use it.

You might have noticed that we've got a lot of neighbors and friends that are seriously underemployed today. It might well be postulated that we'll have even more as we march bravely into what 2009 has in store for us.
Most of those folks are not entrepreneurs, so their energy is going to be spent flooding the postal service with resumes and applications or maybe going back to school to polish up some marketable skills that they can put on that resume. I would like to suggest that a better exploitation of those resources would be "do something invoiceable". If you find yourself underemployed--which is definitely my situation, the fact that someone can buy a person of my calibre for $20k/year is almost nauseating to admit--then maybe you should adopt my new motto.


When you are NOT underemployed, you happily commit 40-60 hours a week to arriving at and creating upon your vocation, the sun shines, you notice birds singing and roses blooming and life is pretty good. Our index of that state is usually money and we entice an employer into giving it to us. Finding that employer today isn't as easy as it was in recent years past, and the prospects for the immediate future aren't very good, so I'd like to suggest that we find multiple short term employers whom we can give an invoice. The game is to become much less UNDERemployed and the first step is admitting that you are now in a state of UNDERemployment, not UNemployment. Those of you that are collecting an unemployment claim because you don't have a "real job" are really suffering from a state of UNDERemployment. Completely inadequate expoitation of your considerable resources. So start by defining those resources. I like using a white board, but paper works really well for this too, having it posted on the wall conspicuously is an important part of this technology.
SCHEDULING:
The first obvious resource is your time. Write down a standard schedule and then adhere to it. Have breakfast eaten and cleaned up in time to go to work and be in your seat at the computer and "logged in" at the beginning of your work day, work through to lunch and then be back and logged in after lunch until the end of your day. Do that for the five days a week you've chosen as your standard schedule. Honor that schedule, you might have to ask your boss permission to shift days off for the week, but when you give yourself that permission don't lose sight of the need to get your 40 hours of production out of that week.
BattlePlan:
Write a battleplan for tomorrow before you end your day and ensure it is written with my motto constantly in mind. Do something invoiceable. A battleplan can be a simple "To Do List", but that really is the irreducable minimum, better would be a full blown Business Plan suitable for selling to a loan officer at the local Community Credit Union (notice I didn't use the "B" word). Take care, however, to avoid going into a pure organize that loses sight of the almighty invoice. Use a careful balancing act between coping through to the invoice and organizing against a future that you are creating. Organizing is much more fun, but it is coping your way through the obstacles doggedly pursuing the invoice that puts food on the table and pays down the credit card bills.
Weekly report:
I think Diary Technology is one of civilizations most powerful tools. End your week with a report to yourself of progress made toward your goal. Do not fail to report the amount of money you invoiced last week and target yourself to invoice more money next week. Use that target in next week's battleplan.
Do good works and broadcast that fact loudly:
This is not a silent activity folks. The obnoxious and even obstreperous ones are the early winners of this game. This technology will work for the quiet and timid also, but not nearly as quickly or effectively. Bulk emails, bulk mailings to purchased lists, lots of phone calls, flashy webpages and personal letters out are all part of the OBNOXIOUSNESS FACTOR, use them liberally and without apology.
The purpose is not money:
The almighty invoice I've been referring to is a remuneration for the service you've rendered. I should probably have started this article with this paragraph, but it should still serve here. Money is important, maybe even vital, but it isn't that banner that will get you out of bed in the morning or drive new customer-client-patient's to your door. The purpose is some kind of service or product delivered in excellent form and properly invoiced. Money is particularly nice in that it is a number that can easily be put on a graph to index your effectiveness at delivering on your purpose, but it is NOT THE PURPOSE. Keep that in mind while you're pencilling up your exploitable resources and writing your first battleplan.
Please add me to your OBNOXIOUS email list, this article is part of my Draq Community program and I'd like to include you in it.




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Draq - The Community

Wednesday, 4. February 2009, 14:49:10

Today is my first "Wednesday off" sort of. My employer offered reduced hours to anyone that wanted them a couple of weeks ago because call volume has dropped off and Apple has found themself with an over capacity situation on the iPhone Tech Support line. They already "layed off" (in January) the Christmas rush temporary agencies they'd hired and still we were waiting anywhere from 2-18 minutes between calls which is not what you could construe as efficient, so the offer of reduced hours went out and I jumped on it to buy myself another day to develop PMA Consulting into something resembling viable. My new schedule actually started two weeks ago, but I lost last week to a horrible bout with the flu that put me to bed for three days including the entire weekend. I've almost completed the journey down Recovery Road now, so it is time to launch Draq - The Community.

Jones and I launched Draq.PMAco.net (webhosting service) in 2003 to help our clients get onto the internet with a website and email on their own domain. This service aligned with PMA Consulting's overall purpose and I'd spelled that out in my essay on What the Internet isn't back in 2001. It was relatively successful for a couple of years, but has fallen victim to entropy recently and I really want to breath new life into it. It really is an excellent service that just needs a bit more development. Today it is pretty much a dictatorship (not necessarily a bad thing, since I'm the dictator), but also not nearly as powerful or efficient as a healthy community sharing experiences and successful actions, and that's what I'd like to help evolve Draq into, a community. We've already got an excellent collection of resources on Draq right now:
PMA Consulting has a wealth of technical expertise on computer hardware, software, operating systems, networking, internetworking and internet presence development.
Dean LaVoie is an outstanding photographer and website developer, he actually writes the code to make websites,
LeAnn Dolan at EcruPaper.com has probably done the best job I've seen of exploiting internet technologies (website, flash, blog entries) to make an effective promotion campaign for her stationary store, I'm hoping to visit with her later this morning. Have to pick up some file folders after reading her blog entry!
I'm relatively confident that this will become a genuine program, I'm kind of excited about it now and it could result in income for all parties involved if it evolves as desired. Drop me a line if you think this is a good idea and you've got some ideas for it's development.

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Economic Depression in the Internet Age

Wednesday, 21. January 2009, 23:24:11

What if we really are looking at a total economic meltdown in America in the very near future? There is a pausity of Doom&Gloom prognosticators cranking out articles this last year.

This one came out in June of 2008:

One of it's primary prognostications was a massive Financial Institution crash that we then saw as a
$1,000,000,000,000 bail-out of corporations that represent the bedrock of America's Banking industry. I haven't done the research to see what this has done to the locally owned and operated Credit Union industry, but I can imagine. Actually, more than that, I am going to be moving my personal checking account (with direct deposit of some of my paycheck) from Bank of America into Rivermark Credit Union this week. Not too much further down the road should see me shedding myself of the BofA credit card (at 28.9% APR) to a RiverMark credit card as well. BofA will still get to keep Maggie's personal checking and savings account as well as both of our company checking accounts, but I was just too fearful of too many eggs in one basket syndrome and I may well make further changes to this status as my research into acceptable financial institutions unfolds. I'm probably not going to close our House Account (Maggie's and my "personal" joint account) at Washington Mutual, though I have to admit that Chase is very, very low on my list of approved vendors. Please take note that none of these actions include converting all assets to gold and hiding it in the barn and tilling our entire yard to turn it into a vegetable garden. Neither will I be buying an ordinance reloader or investing in large quantities of concertina wire. But I do think that a wary eye toward too many eggs in one basket qualifies as prudent.

November brought us this article:

Kevin is prognosticating a boom in the ESCAPISM arena. Movies, Social Networking, probably bars, etc. We've got a historical precedent in the Great Depression of the 30's. He's also saying the internet might be a good place to hide out and weather the storm. This conforms nicely with my long time belief that the best hedge against uncertain times is to be in charge of a production facility. You're the last one to get fired when you own the company and an internet based business has the lowest TCO (total cost of ownership) and the shortest turn-key too.

December this article came out:

Om took a look at this year's Metrics during the "Quarter that spells Retail's salvation" every year. Guess whom was in the news? HDTV, Wii and Victoria's Secret. Think we could translate that into the escapism industry of Kevin's article?
But what really got me about this article was the site stability metrics. What a joy to be able to monitor these stats, this is an IT geeks wet dream and nightmare rolled into one. I'd love to know how many transactions/second Victoriassecret.com was trying to handle when it did the meltdown on CyberMonday, but that's proprietary information that won't be available to the public. I did check up to see which geek was going to get the dressing down on the carpet over that incident and was pleasantly surprised to see it wasn't a server farm in India or China. Akamai Technologies is actually based out of Cambridge, MA and has a big chunk of a Class B subnet (a slash15 to be precise). Not completely sure where Noam Freedman has his server farm deployed, but quite confident he had some not very welcome words around the oval table from the Victoria's Secret folks over that one.
This might be another instance where bigger is not always better. Just because you can host a website on a server in India or China for $9/month does not necessarily make it a good idea. The new Globalization rules haven't repealed the "you get what you pay for" law. Maybe it would be better to pay a little more to keep your money in the USofA and enjoy the improved performance you'll get from administration by American geeks paid more than $8/day. Of course, there are a bunch of those geeks that aren't even earning that now.

January I turned up this article:

This article really got me started thinking about doing freelance work for oDesk. But I've already been doing a bunch of freelance work for PMA Consulting which is based in Oregon rather than California like oDesk. The fact that PMAco is owned by my wife and I was another contributing factor, but it still holds true that I'd rather "shop local" if at all possible. ACS is my current employer doing a contract to deliver Tech Support for Apple's iPhone. With the new year and high capacity of agents to answer the phones, there is a purge going to reduce agent phone time. Layoff and firing the deadwood is being accelerated and offering shorter work weeks is also being attempted. I opted to take Wednesdays off and figure out how to survive on 32 hours a week (which still lets me keep my insurance benefits) and use that day to develop PMA Consulting again. Having a weekday available is a definite plus.

So the next step would be how to make Draq more attractive, what I want to do is help people get their internet presence improved and increased profitability for both clients and self. That's probably going to be the next article.










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