Severe Policies

Earlier this month, Management instituted a policy that Severity 1 tickets (issues of the highest importance) were no longer to be opened. Analysts were to open lower severity tickets and then notify the Function Desk. Why? Because too many analysts were opening high severity tickets incorrectly. So, instead of TRAINING people to do it right, they create a more convoluted procedure that is even MORE likely to be done incorrectly.

And so, today I had to pick up the pieces. A user called to report that all the phones for an entire building were down. A ticket was opened that should have been a Severity 1 issue. It was opened at the lower severity, as directed, but a bunch of other things were screwed up.

Fifteen minutes later, a Senior Vice President calls and asks me what's going on.

Nothing.

The ticket had not been assigned. It had not been updated. The severity had not been raised. Nothing. This is an entire building down. People with deadline. People have to communicate with the Federal Trade Commission. People who need to move money. So, I updated the ticket and went up to the Function Desk to find out what was going on. The excuse was that they couldn't get into the ticket because I had been in it.

"Not for the past 15 minutes!"

In the end it took a full half an hour for the ticket to be assigned.

When the Site Manager came back on the floor, I took a few minutes to rant at him. "I know why you took away Sev 1 tickets. It's because people were screwing it up. But you don't solve that problem with another procedure they're going to screw up, you do it by training people how to do it right. Now, I know you don't want me as a trainer anymore but you have to find someone to do this shit."

He had a look on his face like he was surprised to find out that I wasn't wanted as a trainer. Apparently, the Service Delivery Manager hadn't passed on the contents of our last conversation.

"In any case, there is no reason for it to take half an hour for a ticket like this to be assigned. This procedure has failed on EVERY level and I'm getting sick of cleaning up this sort of crap because of sucky training. If you find someone who can do training better than me, fine. Do it. But get someone training people how to do this right or we're going to get burned."

Apparently, I ruffled some feathers because latter the Problem Manager, the guy who covers the Function Desk, came over to tell me I didn't know what was going on behind the scenes. That they were on the phone trying to contact people while I was in the ticket.

"I didn't know what was going on because there wasn't anything in the ticket. That's what the ticket is for. To keep track of what's going on so that when Executive Staff calls asking what the hell is going on we don't have to say, 'Nothing' or 'I don't know.'"

He tried grilling me about the specifics of why it was a Severity 1 issue and when I said "communicating with the Federal Trade Commission isn't enough?" he chided me for not stating that in the ticket.

"I didn't open the ticket. Someone else screwed that up and I'm just trying to clean up the mess while Executive Staff is asking why nothing's been done with her issue."

Countdown

There are times that I react to things without realizing what they are. As when Team Lead D and half a dozen of hos co-conspirators were fired and I, hidden behind my cubicle walls, could sense that something was going on outside my sight. I had a similar response today. I don't know if users were particularly stupid or if I simply had a harder time moderating my response, but I was in a bad mood all day and I didn't know why. Only at the end of the day did I realize what was really going on.

While I was droning away in my cubicle hell, the elves came out while I wasn't looking and set up Christmas in the lobby.

I suppose Thanksgiving isn't even a holiday anymore as we've skipped right from Halloween to Christmas. Even in the stores, they seem to have given up on Thanksgiving altogether.

41 days, 5 hours, 40 minutes.

The Creation Museum

Hugo nominated author John Scalzi vowed that he would never visit the Creation Museum. His readers, however, dared him to go, bribed him with a lot of money, and he has thus created the following review:

"Here’s how to understand the Creation Museum:

Imagine, if you will, a load of horseshit. And we’re not talking just your average load of horseshit; no, we’re talking colossal load of horsehit. An epic load of horseshit. The kind of load of horseshit that has accreted over decades and has developed its own sort of ecosystem, from the flyblown chunks at the perimeter, down into the heated and decomposing center, generating explosive levels of methane as bacteria feast merrily on vintage, liquified crap. This is a Herculean load of horseshit, friends, the likes of which has not been seen since the days of Augeas.

And you look at it and you say, “Wow, what a load of horseshit."

Read the rest of his review at http://scalzi.com/whatever/?p=121

Ubuntu Ascending

I've solved the issues I had several weeks ago with my iPod and USB drive and appreciate Ubuntu for it. Having had difficulties getting both Win98 and Ubuntu to recognize these devices I pulled up Ubuntu's system log. Helpfully, the log suggested an issue with the USB cable. I worked out with my desktop machine that the issue was with the unit's USB port. Using a different port solved those problems.

I had a similar problem with getting my iPod to also be seen by my laptop. Using a different USB port also solved that issue. For some reason the iPod prefers to use the upper port rather than the lower one, even though the port itself is fine and other devices work on that port without issue.

I've installed Crossover from Codeweavers.com, an application that uses Wine to run Windows applications on Linux. The application I want most to run, National Geographic TOPO, doesn't work, unfortunately. Autostitch works. GSAK fails when you first start it but then works.

I have had an ongoing issue with connecting to the wireless AP at Carnegie Library in Squirrel Hill. A week or so ago, I was at the library in Carnegie and was able to connect without issue. Today, I am now able to connect at the Squirrel Hill library (I'm posting from there now) so I imagine that my update to Gutsy Gibbon had something to do with that.

Total Appreciation = $28.88.

Today's Employee Appreciation prize was a Timberline Colorado fleece blanket (50" x 60" with heavyweight nylon stadium carrying strap and imprinted with The Bank logo). They spent all of $8 for it. Ooooh. Ahhhhh.

Actually, it's the first thing all week that I find actually useful. Well, besides the food.

Total Appreciation = $20.88

We received an email from The Bank to the IT Department (of which we are nominally a part):

"By now you've received the first of several tokens of our appreciation for the hard work and dedication you've shown throughout the year. On Monday we celebrated the tremendous effort by our entire team around The Integration, the largest and most complicated integration in The Bank's history. Please enjoy the other events throughout the week and know that none of this success could have been accomplished without IT's greatest asset, our employees! Watch for a surprise on Thursday as the week draws to a close."

Surprise! Today's addition to Employee Appreciation Week was a certificate thanking me for all my "hard work and dedication." Ooooh. Ahhhh.

Total Appreciation = $20.61

The Operations Manager sent out this message:

Hello Team -

In continuation of "Employee Appreciation Week", we have a CAKE for your enjoyment. Please feel free to stop over to get a piece. (It is located next to my cube.)

Again, thank you for all your "Hard Work" and "Dedication".

Why is "Hard Work" and "Dedication" in quotes? Is it the ironic or snarky usage of quotes meant to imply that we are not working hard or are not dedicated? And while that may or may not be true, it's not particularly professional for Help Desk Management to state it this way. It makes me think that they really don't "appreciate" what we do. But, in all honesty, I just think that the Operations Manager is clueless when it comes to corporate communications.

In response, an analyst commented:

"Now, Milton, pass the plates around so everyone gets a piece, ok?. . . JUST DO IT!"

Referencing the scene in "Office Space" when the long oppressed Milton passes cake around to all his coworkers to find that the pieces have run out when it's turn for his piece. There is certainly irony in this as yesterday those who weren't first in line to get "Employee Appreciation Sandwiches" were left out. There was plenty of bread and salad, bowls of condiments and a gallon of salad dressing but not enough meat and cheese.

I sure those hungry employees felt "appreciated".

Total Appreciation = $18.86

Today's Employee Appreciation Week festivity was lunch. Big bowls of salad, fixin's for sandwiches, chips and cans of pop, served by our management staff. I figure they spent another $8 or so a person on this. Ooooh. Ahhhhh.

They set up tables on the empty side of the floor in an apparent attempt to get us to sit and socialize but the vast majority of people simply grabbed their food and went back to their cubicles.

Animator-vs-Animation

http://alanbecker.deviantart.com/art/Animator-vs-Animation-34244097

Remember, remember the fifth of November

"Happy Counterterrorism Day" by Scott Horton.



"Special Comment: George Bush’s Criminal Conspiracy of Torture" by Keith Olbermann.

Total Appreciation = $10.56

The first day of Employee Appreciation Week and we have received a Leeds New Connections Dual Compartment Lunch Cooler affixed with The Bank's logo, valued at $10.56. Ooooh. Ahhhhh.

The plastic logo was easily removed so now I have an insulated lunch bag that I will never user to sit next to the three other insulated lunch bags that I have collected over the years and never use.

Yeti@Home

It's a mangy bear.

Why do I say that and not agree with the Bigfoot "experts" in saying that it's an "unclassified primate"?

1) Bear spines curve like that, primate backs do not. They are straight. And even when bending over, a primate's back does not curve that much.

2) Bear front and back legs are pretty much the same length, ground primates, like chimps and gorillas, have shorter back legs.


3) Bears are common to Pennsylvania, primates are not. In fact, there is no physical evidence, either contemporary or in the fossil record, that primates have ever lived in Pennsylvania since they first evolved some 34 million years ago.

4) Two bear cubs were photographed by the same camera at the same location 28 minutes earlier. This close association suggests that the mystery animal is not only also a bear but a bear related to the cubs. Perhaps even the bear's mother.

The PA Game Commission agrees in saying that it's a bear. The Bigfoot Field Researcher's Organization debunks the Game Commission's statement by saying that the PGC is wrong when they say there are no mountain lions in Pennsylvania when there actually are. First off, this is not a "debunking", this is an ad hominem argument, saying that someone is wrong about one line of reasoning because they are wrong about a completely different thing.

Taken on it's own merits, the arguments of the Bigfoot enthusiasts simply aren't convincing or even compelling. And that they label the photographs "unclassified primate" instead of "unknown animal" lead me to think that they have already made up their minds as to what they want the creature to be.

That is bad science.

Appreciation

Next week will be Employee Appreciation Week at the Help Desk. On both Monday and Friday, the "business casual" dress code will be relaxed so that employees can wear Steeler black and gold. There will be a free lunch. Free cake. Certificates of appreciation and gifts from several divisions of The Bank in gratitude for all we at the Help Desk did during recent integrations and major rollouts.

Meanwhile, other technicians within The Corporation are having their compensation adjusted. They will no longer be receiving commissions but will have an increase in their base pay. When the dust settles, however, they will be getting three or four dollars an hour less than when they were making commissions.

Now that's some appreciation.

The Golden Rule

"These books denigrate Christianity, thrash the Catholic Church and sell the virtues of atheism," said Bill Donohue, president and CEO of the Catholic League.

So quotes a Fox News Online article on the Philip Pullman series of books from which "The Golden Compass" film has been adapted. The raving is that this is some nefarious atheist conspiracy to steal the faith from American children.

I knew there was a reason I wanted to see this film.

Hands of Blue

Went to see Blue Man Group last night, my first time ever going to a rock concert. As a drummer myself (high school marching band and continuous foot tapping and leg drumming) the beat was great. I wanted to get on stage to play with the instruments.

Help Desk Quote of the Day

Executive: "Someone who's paid as much as I am shouldn't have to put up with these problems."

Thanks. Bye.

I was asked by Team Lead R if I could stay to work an extra half-hour. I agreed, whereupon Team Lead R thanked me for my support. . . and then left for the day.

I took 104 calls for the day. He took 3.

Don't bother calling

The Bank has been encouraging employees that need to access systems from home to get the VPN software installed on their home PCs. Using remote desktop, they can then access their PC at work and do all the things they need to do.

For The Bank, it saves them the expense of buying these user's laptops. It also keeps them from spending any money on support. Note the document below that they are required to sign when they choose to use remote access:

In consideration of The Bank’s grant of access to the Remote Access System, you agree to the following:

1. The Bank will provide you with (i) software that will enable your use of the Remote Access System and (ii) documentation explaining how to install such software. The software and documentation are provided to you 'as is,' without any warranties, express or implied.

2. You are solely responsible for the acquisition of all equipment necessary to run the software and use the Remote Access System. The Bank will not be responsible if the software does not run properly on your equipment.

3. You are solely responsible for the acquisition of any services necessary to connect to the Remote Access System, including, without limitation, internet access or telephone dial-up services. The Bank will not provide such services.

4. You are solely responsible for the installation of the software. The Bank will not provide support in the event you have problems with the installation.

5. Your use of the software and the Remote Access System is at your own risk. The Bank will not be responsible if the software or Remote Access System directly or indirectly cause any damage to your equipment or to any other software installed on your equipment. You agree not to file a suit or make any claim against The Bank or otherwise seek damages from The Bank in the event any such damages occur.

6. You agree that you will not use the software or the Remote Access System in a manner that is inconsistent with any provisions of The Bank’s Electronic Media Policy, as set forth in the The Bank's Code of Ethics. This obligation applies whether or not you are an employee of The Bank. You agree to review The Bank’s Electronic Media Policy before using the software or the Remote Access System. The Bank's Electronic Media Policy is accessible via The Bank’s intranet. If you cannot access The Bank’s intranet, it is your responsibility to request a printed copy.

7. You agree that you will not use or install other unlicensed Bank software. Standard desktop products which licensed by The Bank and are also allowed to be installed on a home PC without an additional license are limited to: Lotus Notes, Sametime, and Symantic AntiVirus.

8. In the event any portion of these Terms and Conditions of Use is deemed to be unenforceable in its current form, such portion shall be enforced to the maximum extent permitted by law, and the remainder of these Terms and Conditions of Use shall remain in full force and effect.

So, to sum it up. . . use this software, use only this software but we're not going to help you use it, make sure it works, take any responsibility if it doesn't work or otherwise help you in any way.

Good luck. . . suckers.

Ubuntu Miscellanea

I wanted to upload some more music to my iPod but the gtkpod application wouldn't see my iPod from my laptop where the particular MP3s were. (The CD-R of music I had would not play or rip to MP3 on my desktop but would on my laptop.) Ubuntu would mount the iPod as a volume but the application couldn't see it. When I went to my desktop machine I found that it wouldn't recognize the USB drive that I store all my MP3s on. The Win98 drive plugged into the desktop will see the USB drive without issue but Ubuntu won't anymore. I wonder what might have changed since the last time.

I updated my OS from Feisty Fawn (7.04) to Gutsy Gibbon (7.10) on both machines without any issues whatsoever. That didn't resolve my iPod and USB drive issues, however.

I had some issues with my laptop loosing network connectivity. I still had full bars on the wireless AP but just didn't have the connection. Looking in the system log I saw the system repeatedly trying to get an IP address and failing. I reconnected to the AP, inserted the WEP key and got a good connection that seemed to hold. I suspect that it had to do with the fact that we have two wireless routers. In any case, that issue is resolved.

I uploaded some flickr pictures and discovered that when I use the Gimp graphic editor in Ubuntu, the EXIF data (camera, focal length, shutter speed, date and time, etc) is retained to be uploaded to flickr automatically, whereas when I use the Paint Shop Pro software on my Win98 machine, that information is stripped. Yet another reason for me to migrate to Ubuntu.

That is, if I can solve my iPod and USB drive issues.

Interlopers

There was evidence that we rodent invaders in the house so the traps went out. Got one on Friday and another one today. I took him out back of the house into the woods to let him go. Those deer mice are kind of cute, when they aren't pooping on the kitchen counter.

Project Pterosaur

http://www.objectiveministries.org/creation/projectpterosaur.html

This parody site would be hilarious if it didn't hit so close to the truth of the "science" done by IDiots.

Call the helpdesk

It used to be that new branch users underwent training that included how to signon to their systems. Occasionally the passwords they were provided didn't wok and they had to call the Help Desk for a reset but, all in all, passwords were a part of training.

Well, not anymore. User's are sent to their new branches with absolutely no clue how to signon to the machine and what password to use. The mail program is a standard initial default, set to the same thing for everyone, and you would think that at least one trainer out there might know to give that to the users but, no. Nothing. Call the Help Desk.

There are callers who don't know what the time sheet system is. They don't know how to get login screens for various applications. I've even had users call not knowing their login id. They were just told to call the Help Desk.

We are not branch trainers. This is not our job. There are people called trainers who are currently being paid to do this and they are not.I'm sick of picking up their slack.

World War W

The President: "I’ve told people that if you’re interested in avoiding World War III, it seems like you ought to be interested in preventing them from have the knowledge necessary to make a nuculer (sic) weapon."

You're warning us of World War III if we allow Iran to have the KNOWLEDGE of nuclear weapons??? Hell, I have the knowledge necessary to make nuclear weapons. Go to any frelling public library or search the Internet and you can have the knowledge necessary to make a nuclear weapon. Is W going to attack Iran because they know something that's almost public domain?

No, he's going to use that knowledge as AN EXCUSE to attack Iran. He talked about "actionable intelligence" and needing FISA gutted to allow him to get actionable intelligence but really, he doesn't need it. He doesn't even want it. He's got a hard on to attack Iran just like he was jonesing to attack Iraq even before he got himself elected president. He's using the talk of WW3 to scare people into giving him carte blanche again.

I hope it doesn't happen this time. Of course, all of Congress's noise about not giving the president everything he wants really isn't much compared to what the president keeps doing in spite of the noise. I have no doubt that W believes that he can attack Iran at any time and that there's nothing anyone can do to stop him.

STFU

Team Lead J: "Geis, I am getting some complaints from other analysts concerning the volume of your voice. It is affecting their ability to hear their own callers. I know we have had this conversation before and I realize it is your natural speaking voice, but please take whatever measures you can to provide a more quiet environment for your neighbors."

So, let me get this straight. . . I report to management that employees and a Team Lead are using bigoted, belittling, sexist and otherwise offensive language and nothing is done about it for two months until someone notices that pornography is also involved and you are censuring me because of the VOLUME of my voice?

Paintball

I played paintball today with my sister's family and friends at Riverside Renegades. To put some of this in perspective, I've been playing paintball since about 1985 or 86. Back then, it was Splatmasters, PGPs, no maximum velocities, no organized fields and no full face masks. There was a time when I was playing regularly but that group has moved on and I simply don't have the time or the circle of friends to keep in practice. Even so, I can tell my nephew that I have experience from before he was born so I am something of a legend in that sense.

Today, I had a chance to try my camera. I couldn't mount it on the mask so I ended up strapping it on the side of my gun, an older Spyder Compact. I won't go into all the games, just the video highlights.

We were advancing on a 3-walled fort with the flag. There was at least one defender inside and I had some support up on the hill to keep his head down. The walls of this particular fort (DJ's DMZ) do not reach all the way to the ground so I advanced, almost casually, fired a few round to keep the defender's head down and then. . .



. . . shot his feet out from under him. Oooh, he hated me for that. I grabbed the flag and ran back and then started down the hill. I passed the flag off to one of my younger teammates to get it back to our fort. There were still plenty of defenders to lay down fire and slow his return. I don't know if we won that round or if time ran out.

A later game and we were advancing down the hill towards the enemy's flag in a fully enclosed fort with a floor (Dragon Scales). There were to begin with at least three defenders inside but eventually they were picked off, leaving, I thought, only one. Everyone else was sort of hanging back so I continued past them down the hill, reaching a bunker below the fort without opposition. I then turned and came up from behind.

This fort has an access up through the floor in the back, tricky to get to if someone is watching the back. . .



I popped up through the floor and fired one shot. I then moved around the front, thankfully not taking friendly fire, and took out another defender on the right.



I grabbed the flag and passed it off to one of my younger comrades who had followed me to let him run up the hill. I yelled at him quite a bit to just go up the hill but he insisted on taking the long way. I walked up the middle in full view to see if I could draw any fire and gauge the remaining enemy numbers. I took no fire and eventually the kid got back to our fort and won that game.

Another game found that my gun wasn't working properly. I play with a 4 ounce tank, which isn't a lot of CO2 but it should last for more than one game. I think it was getting too cold from firing and the gas was liquefying. Anyway, with my primary gun out of action almost immediately, I headed towards the exit, which was right past the enemy fort (Jared's). When I reached a ref, I told him that my primary gun was out of air but I wasn't calling myself out. My sidearm, a vintage Sheridan PGP, was still full. I walked right by the fort with paintballs flying past on either side. I hadn't raised my hand to signify I was dead and so any of the enemy would have been well within their rights to shoot me, but they didn't. On the far side, just near the exit, was another fort with a single defender.

Once I walked past him, I set down my useless primary gun, drew my sidearm and fired right at the middle of his back. The gut went off but there was no paintball. He didn't seem to notice so I cocked the gun, stepped up beside him and pressed the barrel of the gun against his arm.

"Do you want to surrender?"

"Aren't you out?"

"That gun is empty. This one isn't. Do you want me to shoot you now?"

He surrendered. A few moments later, three defenders came over from the fort. They moved so casually that I thought they might have been out but the took up defensive positions inside the fort I was in.

I'd like to say it was like shooting fish in a pond but it didn't work that way. I shot one guy in the back but the ball didn't break. I shot the second guy but I don't think a ball dropped into the chamber because I cycled too fast. I shot the third gut in the chest and it broke. My fourth shot went off just at the same time they realized something was terribly wrong and someone shot me in the hand. My ball didn't break so he survived.

I love carrying a sidearm.



Finally, something unrelated to paintball. Buddy, the guy who runs Riverside Renegades is something of an ass. He wears the moniker with pride, I should think. That sort of behavior encourages that sort of behavior and at some point one of my sister's friends whispers to me that he was about to use the term "Buckwheat" before he realized that one of the players on the field was black.

"Not a good thing to say," he said, referring to the circumstances.

"Never a good thing to say. Ever," I responded.

And later, Buddy was going of on one of his rants about women and the trouble they are, and he said, "If I had it to do all over again, I would be a stone faggot." Everyone laughed, my sister, my brother-in-law, my nephew, and everyone else in attendance. I didn't laugh.

Sometimes my family embarrasses me and I wonder how I was able to escape to turn out the way I did.

Liberal Media

I have been a long time and loyal listener of WDUQ public radio. I've been a member on and off over the years, mostly depending on how my finances happen to be when pledge time rolls around, but DUQ is on my radio almost all the time. (Except when Music from India is on, then I prefer opera on QED.) But this evening there was a report that shook my support.

You may have noticed that Planned Parenthood has been underwriting DUQ programming this week. I know that I noticed it. And Duquesne University noticed it too. The Catholic university, which licenses WDUQ and claims to give them editorial and financial independence, came down upon them like a ton of bibles and ordered that the spots be pulled and the money returned.

The claim is that Planned Parenthood doesn't meet with the "Christian" ideals of Duquesne University and, since a gift to DUQ is also a gift to Duquesne University, they could not accept the gift. So, how independent is DUQ that the university theocrats can step in and dictate who they can accept donations from?

When I heard the Duquesne University spokesperson explaining why they couldn't accept a gift from Planned Parenthood ("and we have a stack of legal precedent to back us up, nyaa, nyaa, nyaa") I also heard her saying why they couldn't accept a gift from me. I support women's reproductive rights so my money isn't welcome.

Oh, I'm sure that they would actually take my money, even knowing I was an atheistic anarcho-collectivist disestablishmentarian, because they could do so anonymously. They don't have to acknowledge on the air that they took money from a heretic such as myself.

The journalistic integrity of WDUQ has been compromised. Was that recent epic-length report about the installation of the new bishop in Pittsburgh honest journalism of interest to the community or was that influences by the Duquesne University higher ups?

I just got a raise recently and, since my finances were looking better, I was going to be renewing my DUQ membership. The operative word in that sentence is "was" because now, that money is going to be sent to Planned Parenthood.

Help Desk Quote of the Day

User: "I need my password to be reseted."

As expected

So, Boss, how's that Voluntary After-Holiday Overtime working for you?

Not so well, apparently. The Helpdesk fielded 2380 calls yesterday, 1000 more than on a typical busy Monday or the typical day after a holiday Monday. I took 107 calls and at least three other analysts took over 100 calls as well. This is unprecedented. I don't recall any day ever when more than one person has taken 100 calls, to have four do so tells me that there isn't enough staff to handle the call volume.

I have every expectation that the day after Veteran's Day we will be returning to the Mandatory Overtime protocol.

Passage Party

Last night I attended Tim's 16th annual Passage Party and, as always, it was enjoyable and enlightening.

What is a Passage Party? The basic format is that guests read a 10 minute passage from a book, article, poem or other literary work. It is completely freeform although graphic violence, sex, political and religious propaganda are encouraged. No kids are permitted but children's books have been read from. There's about three hours of this, an hour to eat a pot-luck dinner, then another three hour of readings. Then, there is several hours of conversation and finishing up the food.

Many times, there are passages read that prompt me to go out and obtain said book to read the rest. Most of the selections I have chosen to read from have been humerus stories (to reference a Mark Twain passage on the subject that was read last night) though some have not been intended as such. Last night, there was time for me to get in two passages.

"The God Delusion" by Richard Dawkins. Chapter 6: The Roots of Morality, wherein Dawkins describes a statistical study of Harvard biologist Marc Hauser. Participants were asked their response to a number of moral dilemmas and the results between religious people and atheists found no difference in response. The conclusion being that faith does not make us good or bad.

"Critical Mass: Bicycling's Defiant Celebration" by Chris Carlsson (Editor). The Great Bicycle Protest of 1896 describing the massive bicycle advocacy rally in San Francisco at the turn of the century and how that movement, in agitating for and creating better roads for bicycles actually lead to their marginalization once the automobile came along a took the streets.

In past years, I have also read:

"Gates of Fire: An Epic Novel of the Battle of Thermopylae" by Steven Pressfield

"Crucible of War: The Seven Years' War and the Fate of Empire in British North America, 1754-1766" by Fred Anderson

"A Walk in the Woods - Rediscovering America on the Appalachian Trail" by Bill Bryson

"War of the Worlds" by H.G.Wells

"Tarzan of the Apes" by Edgar Rice Burroughs

"Stephen Hawking Builds Robotic Exoskeleton" from The Onion

"The Atlatl Hunt that got Weird or Blunt Trauma" by Bob Berg from "The Atlatl" 2002, Vol. 15, No. 2

Overworking

Two weeks ago, my Team Lead sent out an email asking what shifts people worked. It seems a bit, I don't know, incompetent to ask this. Isn't it a manager's job to define when people work? In any case, I took that opportunity to bring up that I had been working the so-called "Mandatory Overtime Mondays" since May when Team Lead D and 6 of his cohorts were fired. I noted in that email that the overtime was supposed to be interim until staffing levels had been increased and, while that seems to have happened, I was still working as hard if not harder. I also noted that I seemed to be one of only a few that were actually working the overtime.

I received no response.

Last week, the Tactical Manager sent out an email about how upcoming holidays were going to be handles. Columbus Day I was going to work 4 hours and Veterans Day I was going to have off. I responded with a question about the standard "Mandatory Overtime" after holidays. I also made mention to him about the "Overtime Monday" question.

I received no response.

Today, there was an email from the Tactical Manager that Tuesday, the day after Columbus Day was going to be a VOLUNTARY overtime opportunity. So, if staffing levels are so good that they only need extra staff voluntarily, then why am I still working overtime on every Monday?

I went to his cube and asked and he said that t had been decided to
minimize overtime costs and there were no longer Mandatory Overtime Mondays.

"When was this decided?"

"This week."

Which is a better answer than I get most of the time when I ask these questions and find out that decisions had been made weeks before and we just hadn't been informed about it. In this case, the decision had been made only earlier in the same week and they hadn't informed us about it. In fact, by the end of the day, we still hadn't actually been informed about this change in policy. Since only about 5 of the 40 analysts here were still doing the Mandatory Overtime Mondays-thing, I suppose they didn't feel they needed to make an announcement.

This is, of course, part of the regular cycle. In getting rid of the overtime to save money, they will soon discover that they don't have enough staff (because five of the people they hired for the big rush last month have skipped). We will be working our asses off, the queues will climb and we'll start to miss our metrics. The Bank will complain and they will have to go back to mandatory overtime or hire more people.

On an unrelated note, we got name plates for our cubicles today. In eight years of working here, this is the first time I've ever had a name plate. Wow, a raise and a name plate, it's just like if we were professionals.

Help Desk Quote of the Day

User: "Yous guys always fix this when I call. Ain't you know what you're doing?"

Cavemen

The new ABC show "Cavemen", based on the series of Geico commercials, to me had a certain potential. Much like the half-white/half-black characters in Star Trek's "Let That Be Your Last Battlefield" episode, the cavemen have the opportunity to address racism in a television landscape in ways that just aren't seen in a typical fall lineup. They could address ignorance of history and science. The could go head-to-head against creationism and it's ugly stepchild intelligent design.

I was able to tolerate about 90 seconds of the program.

Perhaps some of that potential shone through later in the episode but the first part gave me the impression that it was produced by a team of network hacks and this was going to be just another sitcom.

The Forever Monday

Every day this week I have taken between 80 and 90 help desk calls. Typically, I've only taken that many calls on a Monday and the rest of the week is in the 60s and 70s but The Bank bought another bank and last week they went "on line." So, why did last week only suck on Monday and Tuesday where this week has been sucky all week?

Burn rate.

Several of the people that were hired specifically to handle the increased call volume left by the end of the week. Add to that the call volume increasing by nearly 50% when staffing has only increased by something less than 20% (less now that several have punched out already), well, the math does not work out in my favor.

In a call Thursday afternoon, I said to a user: "It's too early on a Monday morning for this."

User: "Monday morning? Where are you?"

Geis: "Here in Pittsburgh. But it has seemed more like one, long Monday morning all week."

User: "Yea, Wednesday's can be that way sometimes."

Geis: "You are, of course, aware that this is actually Thursday."

User: "Awww, man."

Linear Parking

The driving part of my typical morning commute is typically a little over 10 minutes. If I get out of the house before 5:50 I beat the traffic on the Parkway East.

Not today.

There was an accident in the tunnel. Then, some pinhead trying to ride the berm to get to the exit ramp around the backed up traffic caused another accident. Traffic was backed up to Monroeville and I was caught in limbo between Wilkinsburg and Edgewood/Swissvale. I sat absolutely stationary for 45 minutes. I turned of the engine and waited it out, listening to the traffic reports lie about traffic getting around the accident in the left lane.

The average commute in Pittsburgh is supposedly around 25 minutes. And while I can boast of a 10 minute commute inbound, getting home the drive is about an hour. My average still sucks. I'd rather spend that time on a bicycle and, if the roads or trails would accomidate that, I would.

And they call it "rush hour."

GeisCam

An experiment of several levels. First, an Oregon Scientific ATC-2K camera attached to my bike helmet.

Next, attempting to edit the AVI file produced using the Kino video editor in Ubuntu. At first, it wouldn't load the AVI format of the original file. I needed to install ffmpeg to get it to work. It needed to be compressed in time so that the file size is under the 100meg limit necessary to post to Blogspot, which meant using only every 7th frame.

Later, I will need further work with editing. Will I be able to compress the image dimensions so that I can have a smaller file without having to sacrifice frames? I can set the camera to save at a lower image size if necessary. I notice that the angle of having it mounted to my helmet is off a bit. The camera comes with a handlebar mount, perhaps that will be better (although I like it being on my head so that I can pan about if I choose.)

It also takes about half an hour for the 100meg file to upload to blogger. I probably won't be doing that very often.

The 2gig SD card I got with the camera is good for about an hour of footage at the 640x480 30fps setting. Smaller resolutions and frame rates allow for a longer period of filming. The camera is supposedly waterproof. It comes with a rubber strap to mount it to a helmet but the strap is too short for any helmet. I was able to run a velcro strap through the air vents of my bike helmet.

I'm going to be paintballing with my nephew in a month. This camera will definitely be mounted on my gun for that.

Spiders on Drugs

Political Compass

When I was going to college, I was referred to as "Mister Conservative." The Cold war was at it's Reagan-era heights and I'll admit to being something of a hawk at the time. In one of my political science classes, I didn't do so well as the instructor was a Marxist and I didn't give the writings of Marx and Lenin a whole lot of credit. Those views had me mistaken for a conservative.

I am, in fact, a liberal following a true interpretation of that word (at least in the American political discourse). I believe that people have inherent rights and the government has only limited power to regulate or limit those rights. I believe in a liberal interpretation of the Constitution of the Constitution. I believe that the rights "of the people" are individual rights.

To really pin this all down, I went to the Political Compass website and took the test several times for a good statistical average.


I am a Leftist Libertarian, or perhaps an Anarcho-Collectivist. I am pleased to be in the company of men like Gandhi, Nelson Mandela and the Dalhi Lama. I also note that only two of the presidential candidates even come close to sharing my political beliefs. Most of the so-called liberal Democrats are actually in the authoritarian right.

When asked, I typically represent myself as Politically Non-euclidian because the terms Liberal, Conservative, Democrat and Republican have no real philosophical meaning. My refusal to place myself within the American political spectrum tends to hing on the single issue of gun rights. The Democrats take a decidedly conservative view of the Constitution when they think that the right to keep and bear arms is something that applies to "a well regulated Militia", meaning the National Guard or the police. The Republicans take a decidedly liberal view in saying that the 2nd Amendment guarantees the rights of individuals to arm themselves. Those who claim the mantle of Liberal of Conservative (or try to demonize their opponents by using those terms) don't really know what those words really mean.

And these are the people I need to choose among to lead my nation?

No wonder I'm in the anarchist area of the compass.

Chocolate Invaders

Several weeks ago, I found bugs in my Nesquik chocolate milk mix. I was upset to have my chocolate infested like that and thought it a random occurrence. Perhaps I hadn't put the lid on tight. I threw it away and the cabinet was cleaned out. No additional insects were found.

Today, I opened a replacement container and found another insect. The seal had been broken only a few days ago.
The interloper is about 1/16" long. I was only able to find the one.

Emptying the cabinet completely and a careful examination of all the food found that the insects had gotten into some spaghetti and other noodles. Most everything was in jars, ziplocks or other sealed containers but the boxes that the pasta was contained was vulnerable.

I will not abandon my chocolate milk but the crappyness of the container produced by Nestle means that I will now have to transfer the contents to a truly sealable container after opening.

A.F.T.

Ever since the middle of June, management has been crowing about the efforts they have been going through to get us "market adjustments" to our salaries. And when they couldn't pull off the actual increases, they made a big show about announcing compensation in the form of "commissions" in every other paycheck. There was even an official meeting where they took people off the phones to be told this face to face.

So, it seems somehow suspicions when today's paycheck finally had the salary increase they've been promising for months, and yet management has been completely silent on the matter.

My base salary has increased by $2.50 an hour and they also threw in two weeks of retroactive pay to cover the entire month. Another $400 a month, $5,200 a year. Almost, but not quite, what I should have been making were it not for the salary freeze.

And they said nothing.

I can only guess that there wasn't a broadcast announcement because not everyone got the raise.

One might think I'd be happy about the raise but the obsfucation, dithering, broken promises and tens of thousands of dollars in lost wages over the past four years lead my to think merely that it is about fucking time.

I wonder if I will be called into the office to be offered a training position now that they have finally made good on my demand for compensation. They are going to be disappointed if they do because, while this raise compensates me for my job as an analyst, it doesn't reflect the added investment of being a trainer. I'd be willing to negotiate that point but they're going to need to change my job description for me to agree.

I'm not holding my breath.

It's Talk Like a Pirate Day!

Tom Smith's song has been running through my head all week. I'm going to work dressed like a pirate and, while it might be amusing to actually talk like a pirate, I doubt I'll be able to answer calls like that.

"Arrrrr, this be the corporate help desk!"

Lego White & Nerdy

Weird Al Yankovik's "White & Nerdy" is nerdy. This is meta-nerdy.

Recapitated

Had my "final" dentist appointment to have the root canaled and decapitated tooth on the top right side have a new crown emplaced. While the dentist was at it, she saw that I hadn't been taking good enough care of the crown on the top left side so she yanked it off to clean up that mess.

Next on the hit parade; I've got another root canal on the bottom left side to be done. I haven't scheduled that but I'll be making the call next month.

Behold! The Power of Lame!

Our new office space has automatic blinds that rise and fall based on some sort of obscure, supposedly green formula. The Team Leads have window seats and whenever the blinds move either up or down, at least one of them and sometimes both of them will raise their arms as if they are magically willing the blinds into motion.

Am I the only one who thinks that is inordinately arrogant? Or tragically lame? Or perhaps it's just sad that they do this every single time. One would think they'd get tired of the joke after a month. I know I am.

Busy

Can't blog now, the Kim Possible, Every Possible Episode Ever Marathon is on.

Supplemental Income

On returning from my vacation (riding my bicycle from Pittsburgh to DC) I found a check from my employers to the tune of $400. Apparently, the Site Manager was finally able to make good on the promise to get our "bonus" to reflect four weeks instead of just two (as he said it should have been last month). On the other hand, it shows that he still hasn't been able to get the "market rated adjustments" to our salaries that he has been making noise about for three months now.

Old news, really.

But what receiving this check separately from my paycheck really points out is the difference in tax rates. Of the $400 itemized as "commission", I only received $237 in cash. Typically, the Fed takes about 10% of my pay in their taxes but because this commission is considered "supplemental income", the Feds are claiming 23%. So, even though it's supposed to represent the salary increase I never received, I'm still being ripped off because the way the books have to be cooked to get me any money at all means the government is taking twice as much of it.

In spite of the rhetoric, these "commissions" are not comparable to a salary increase.

Playing the odds.

I don't know who's idea it was, but someone at the Help Desk got it in their heads to solicit analysts to join in a group gambling pool. Everyone pitches in a few bucks to buy lottery tickets and if there's a winner we can all quit this lousy job and share in the spoils.

I had nothing to do with it because I understand the odds but apparently many others did not.

$200 invested in a Powerball chance returned a win of $38.

That $38 was then invested in a Mega Millions chance at $325 million. It returned $3.

Even our company stock isn't posting losses like that, even with the former CEO suing the company for wrongful termination.

Home to roost

Our Bank bought another Bank and the integration is beginning. I received a call from a Tech who wanted a password reset for a user. He did not have the user on the line so I could not verify the user's identity (mother's maiden name and such like that). When I asked him to put the user on the line so that I could verify that information, he launched into a story that "he always does this." What he's always been doing is calling a conference line specifically set up for this sort of thing but, due to a scheduling mistake, the conference line was occupied by an unrelated meeting and he just wanted it taken care of and so called the Help Desk.

I refused to violate identity verification procedures and after some
dancing around with Team Leads and the Function Desk, I transferred him to the Function Desk who said that they would do it, which made me look like a complete moron.

I immediately went to the Tactical Manager to complain about these "exceptions" that we never hear about and are somehow expected to just do.

I learned that these calls should be going to the Function Desk, where they "just take care of it", but if they're busy, the calls roll out to the general queue. I commented that I always seem to get these calls.

Not two minutes later, the same tech calling for the same nonsense got through to me again. I immediately transferred him back to the Function Desk.

And just after that, we received a message that "If anyone gets a call from Tech_A or Tech_B to reset a password, you may perform the reset without security verification. This applies to today only!"

Geis: "Would it not be appropriate to verify the identities of Tech_A or Tech_B?"

Team Lead: "In most cases I would say yes - but this a pre-authorized process that falls under the Conversion."

Geis: So let me get this straight. . . the only way we will know that the person claiming to be Tech_A calling for a password reset is really Tech_A is that he will say that he's Tech_A. And Data Security's OK with that? And if it turns out that the person calling isn't who he claims to be, what then? Really, if we abandon the security procedures just because the techs are too busy to follow them, why do we have them at all?"

Team Lead: "What can I say? I see your point. I also see that Management made a decision on how to proceed."

Geis: There will come a day, hopefully not today, that these "exceptions of convenience" will burn us very badly. And on that day, as the people who made that decision are clearing out their desks, my only comfort will be in saying that I tried to warn you."

The Enemies of Reason

Richard Dawkins is presenting a program on the dangers of superstition and the religious assault on reality. I wish this were airing on American television.

The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette are vandals.

I have already blogged previously about the Post-Gazette's unethical subscription marketing practices, today I get to complain about their website.

On Wednesday, we began getting calls from users at that could not access the internet. They could access The Bank's internal intraweb sites but any attempt to get outside was met with a "Page cannot be displayed" message, as if something were wrong with the proxy server. Except that if the user's rebooted, they could again access the Internet. That is, for a single website. then, the Internet was blocked again. Clearly, something was going on with these individuals machines because it was not everyone (if it were the proxy) and it only seemed to be affecting Pittsburgh users.

It wasn't until Thursday that we were able to connect this behavior to the Post-Gazette's website. People who would visit the PG website would have their systems hang and then, *crunch*, no more Internet. Something in the PG's scripting is wonky.

Today, I got a new PC and accidentally clicked on a Post-Gazette link. Too late. The Forcastfox weather bar on my Firefox blanked out. Firefox couldn't get to the Internet. IE couldn't get to the Internet. When I rebooted I received a Java scripting error. Once my PC came back up, everything seemed fine, so I had apparently avoided permanent damage to my system, or at least a reinstall of Java.

Hey, Post-Gazette webmasters! Is this some effort to slip malicious code into my machine or are you simply incompetent? In any case, I'm AdBlocking the Post-Gazette because I simply can't trust them anymore.

Read the instructions.

When I dropped my car off at the shop to have the broken axle mount repaired, the guy behind the counter was the same guy who pulled the wheel and told me the bad new day before yesterday. He took a long time writing up the work order to make sure that the floor technician knew what to look for and what needed to be done.

Geis: "I work at a help desk and know all about it. Many's the time I had to write explicit instructions to second level support about what to do to fix a particular problem, only to have them not do that and have the user calling back the next day wondering why their problem hadn't been fixed."

So, half an hour later the floor technician comes back and says:

Tech: "I drove it around the block and couldn't find anything wrong with it."

Geis: "It was making a thunking noise two days ago. I brought it in and they pulled the wheel and called it a broken axle mount. I looked at it and it looked broken to me. After the wheel was put back on, it didn't make the noise anymore."

Tech: "I couldn't replicate the thumping noise."

Geis: "That doesn't make it un-broken. Please, just pull the wheel and look at it."

He must have pulled the wheel and seen that it was, indeed, broken, because in another half hour I was presented with a bill for $260.

What is it with these people? Do they think we are morons? Do they think the coworkers who explicitly tell them what's broken are morons? It it arrogance? Laziness? Not enough oxygen to the brain? What?

Signifying nothing

For a while, The Bank had been making a big deal about Leadership Statements being attached to the e-mail signatures of managers. That seems to have dropped off some but there are a few still out there:

"My Leadership promotes a SOLUTION not a sale"

"My Leadership Causes People to Smile and to Reach Their Goals Wholeheartedly!"

"My leadership is the catalyst for inspiring compassion, integrity and excellence in others."

Does any of this really mean anything? Really. Do people honestly believe that their leadership causes people to smile? Do they think that including a statement in their email saying that their leadership inspires excellence actually inspires excellence?

Hemorrhaging

Over the weekend I noticed that one of my car tires (right front) had suddenly gotten dramatically worn. My alignment must have gotten out of whack somehow and the tire was worn down to the cables.

That cost $271 to fix on Saturday.

Today on the drive home from work, I noticed a thunking sound in the front. Since the car just had those tires replaced and the alignment done, I figured I should take it back to the same guys. They declared that the axle mount (left front) had broken. That's going to cost me $228 to repair.

When I walked in the door of my house, I heard a clicking noise. It was the death rattle of my KVM switch. I hooked up an old replacement which can't handle my USB optical mouse and makes my display very fuzzy, so I'll need to go and get a replacement for that.

And don't forget the hundreds of dollars in dental work over the past few weeks.

Bah!

Eleventy-one

Typical of Mondays and made worse by it nearing the end of summer when people return from vacations having forgotten how to do their jobs, today was a busy day at the Help Desk. A coworker walking out the door at the end of his shift was grousing (or perhaps gloating) over how many calls he had take.

Coworker: ". . . I even took more calls than Geis."

Geis: "Yea, but I've got two more hours on the clock."

Coworker: "Awwww, man."

In the end I took 111 calls for the day, 20-25 more than anyone else. I then got to top of a spectacular day with a bicycle ride home through a driving rainstorm.

Fantastic.

Straw Man

The US House of Representatives approved an energy conservation bill on August 4th that includes, among other things, a tax break of $20 per month for bike commuters, which takes effect at the beginning of next year.

The vote on HR 2776 (Renewable Energy and Energy Conservation Tax Act of 2007) was largely split along party lines, and was preceded by inspired testimony from Congressman Patrick McHenry (R-NC).

"A major component of the Democrats' energy legislation and the Democrats' answer to our energy crisis is. . . hold on. . . wait one minute. . . wait one minute. . . it is promoting the use of the bicycle.

Oh, I cannot make this stuff up. Yes, the American people have heard this. Their answer to our fuel crisis, the crisis at the pumps, is: Ride a bike.

Democrats believe that using taxpayer funds in this bill to the tune of $1 million a year should be devoted to the principle of: "Save energy, ride a bike.'' Some might argue that depending on bicycles to solve our energy crisis is naive, perhaps ridiculous. Some might even say Congress should use this energy legislation to create new energy, bring new nuclear power plants on line, use clean coal technology, energy exploration, but no, no. They want to tell the American people, stop driving, ride a bike. This is absolutely amazing.

Apparently, the Democrats believe that the miracle on two wheels that we know as a bicycle will end our dependence on foreign oil. I cannot make this stuff up. It is absolutely amazing.

Ladies and gentlemen, I bring you the Democrats, promoting 19th Century solutions to 21st century problems. If you don't like it, ride a bike. If you don't like the price at the pumps, ride a bike.

Stay tuned for the next big idea for the Democrats: Improving energy efficiency by the horse and buggy."

There is so much wrong in these statements, he should have been embarrassed to stand on the floor of the House to make them. First off, he's clearly setting up a straw man argument, which isn't really an argument but is merely a way of ridiculing the Democrats. His statement, "Some might argue that depending on bicycles to solve our energy crisis is naive, perhaps ridiculous", is completely loaded If he was engaging in an actual argument, he would have followed that up with evidence of how that is actually naive or ridiculous. At the very least, he should explain how riding a bike does not solve energy problems. He doesn't, however. The closest he gets is calling it a "19th Century Solution."

Well, Pat. at least it's a solution rather than more of the same. Clean coal? Don't make me laugh. Clean coal is not clean, it is merely less polluting than the traditional, 19th Century coal technology. And when you say "new energy", you're merely talking about new sources of the same old energy, coal, natural gas and oil.

So, let's take a look at how much of a solution riding a bike might
actually be.

About 40% of all trips are shorter than 2 miles, which represents a
10-minute bike ride or a 30-minute walk.Let us make a ridiculous assumption that all of those trips were somehow able to convert from using an automobile to using a bicycle or walking. Actually, we'll use the numbers from the 2001 National Transportation Survey that estimates that there are approximately 7.6 trillion trips annually. Divided by the number of trips less than 2 miles and we'll round that to 3 trillion. A bunch of math later, accounting for the percentage of trips less than 1 mile and those less than half a mile, that come out to approximately 3 billion miles driven in increments of less than 2 miles a day.

At a typical gas mileage, if those trips could be turned into bicycle or walking trips, it would save 125 million gallons of gasoline (produced by 6 million barrels of oil). At $2.75 a gallon, it would be saving consumers $343 million.

So, riding a bicycle and saving consumers $343 million is not going to solve our energy problems. Saving 6 million barrels of oil out of the 400 million barrels that we use on an annual basis is not going to end our dependence on foreign oil. The fact is, the Democrats never said it would. The legislation is a small tax incentive to begin the process of changing the way Americans choose to travel.

Conservation. Not finding new sources of the same energy to feed our gluttonous lifestyle but actually using LESS energy. And, if it works, it doesn't matter what century the solution comes from.

Congressman McHenry used a photo of an 1886 New Club Tandem bicycle to ridicule the Democrats specifically and bicyclists in general.
Does this look like a 19th Century solution?

Or how about this one?

Is he and his oil industry friends afraid that this:
may someday be replaced by this:

Engrish

Reported error for an Xerox Fiery printer:

"Exchange time of fixing cleaning unit"

Decapitated

Two weeks ago when one of my extensively filled teeth started hurting, the dentist gave me the choice between extraction and a root canal. Last week, I had that root canal and everything went as well as might be expected. The best part was that it didn't hurt anymore. Tonight, the dentist drilled away the crown of the tooth and replaced it with a temporary cap. Now I have to wait a month before they give me a permanent replacement crown.

But, in the past week, since all this started, a tooth on the left side has started to give me trouble. Some years ago, the dentist had predicted that it would be the next on my hit parade and she was surprised when the tooth on the right side caused problems. Well, now that left side tooth has gotten sensitive to the cold.

Once this current tooth is all done, I'm going to have to have that tooth gutted and decapitated as well.

Joy.

Bicycle Boulevards

Here's another biking video I found on Metroblogging Pittsburgh.

It's another thing that I think would be great to see here in Pittsburgh but I doubt I'll ever see.

Separated Bike Lanes

Pittsburgh has bought in on the "sharrow" but has implemented it poorly by having it too close to the parking lane. I see separated bike lanes working on the Liberty Avenue corridor.

Of course, the city has no money to implement it.

My first full day in the new office

I have been told that the large plushy Cthulhu sitting on top of my monitor is now unacceptable (because of the half height cubes). Apparently it disrupts the professional conformity of the cubicle farm. I had said it looked like a call center.

The lights are far too bright. People are complaining about headaches by it being so bright. Call center

While I have a 6'x8' cube, most of the cubes are paired, with two people sharing a 12'x8' space with no wall separating them. Call center.

I despise the half-height cubes and glass actually in the cube walls. I've already taped them over but I still can't help seeing all of my coworkers. I'd rather not. Call center.

It started off a bit warm but cooled off a little after complaints. Instead of having a huge vent blowing air down on my head (which I had tried taping over) I now had a small vent on the floor behind me blowing air onto the back of my neck. Thankfully, I was able to pry up the floor vent and realign it so the air was blowing in another direction.

The Function Desk is on the far side of the room. At the old location it was on the far side of the room as well but the room was half the size. With the huge room, it should be centrally located. That is, if they actually want people to come to them with questions. I have learned that most of the answers I get from the Function Desk aren't helpful anyway so I have little reason to ask them for advice anymore.

There is no vending machine with chocolate milk so I need to wait until the building cafe opens for my "breakfast." The cafe has a decent view, plenty of seating and reasonable prices. The milk isn't as cold as it was from the vending machine, though.

A coworker has a peanut allergy so they have been banned from the workspace. Snickers and Reese's Peanut Butter Cups, about the only two candy bars I ever eat, are banned.

I was told that the building had lockers and a shower. Unfortunately the procedure for actually using these facilities make them useless to me. I would need to go to the security desk, leave "collateral" of some sort, go down stairs to us the facilities, then come back up to return the key. They clearly don't want people actually using these facilities by making them convenient.

Comfortable chair.

Morning Wood

On the ride in this morning I passed a homeless guy lying face down in the grass beside the trail humping the wet ground.

I can't think of anything witty to say about that.

Public Bike Meeting

On tuesday night I attended a public meeting concerning bicycling improvements in Pittsburgh, specifically in Oakland. And I want to start off by saying that I despise Powerpoint. I believe it makes people morons in that they end up reading the screen instead of using the so-called multi-media as a supplement. At the meeting, an intern with the City of Pittsburgh Planning Department did just that, reading what was on the screen.

At one point, the presentation involved a listing of Oakland streets that the Cornell student team determined to be "bicycle friendly." The chuckles from the audience, people who actually ride these streets on a daily basis, made it clear that they didn't agree with the designation. When the obvious question of how it was determined that these streets are bicycle friendly, the intern had absolutely no information.

I asked, "If we don't know what criteria was used to declare these streets "bicycle friendly," then how are we to make an informed decision or actively debate the conclusions?"

Even though we were told that this was not going to be a meeting where we are told what's going to happen, I don't feel we had any real substance to make informed debates. And the guy running the show regularly indicated that we didn't have time and needed to move on.

There was talk of bike lanes through Oakland on Fifth Avenue. Since there is no room or political will to sacrifice an rntire lane of traffic to bicycles, it looks like it would be one of those "sharrows" that have been put up along Liberty in Bloomfield.

I think that's a death trap. All the information online that I have see for these shared use markings is that the bicycle icon on the street is supposed to be at least three feet away from parked cars to show that bicycles should be riding well outside to opening door zone. The lanes in Bloomfield do not have this sort of clearance and cyclists in these lanes are at significant risk of being doored. I've heard of two incidents already and they've only been out for a few months.

Through Oakland, these would be deadly. There are promises of taking bicycle traffic up onto repaired sidewalks or even across an abandoned road throughway but that road is up a steep hill and this does nothing to make the road themselves safer. I think Pittsburgh is trying to do this on the cheap.

The other item on the agenda was a new bicycle parking initiative that was being developed. The plan is that any new development in the city that would involve parking, either new parking or the identification of parking availability, will be required to include bicycle parking. Build a 100 car parking lot and you will have to give up one of those parking places for bike racks. Or rather, this meeting was to find out what the ratio of cars to bikes should be.

Again, this is the City operating on the cheap. Instead of making infrastructure improvements for bicycle safety, they are passing the requirements for bicycle amenities onto local businesses and developers.

The flyer handed out at the meeting indicated that 1,635 people use transportation other than a motor vehicle or walking to commute to work. They boasted that this was a 14% increase over the previous decade but I really doesn't mean much without all the other numbers.

So, I looked it up. According to the 2000 census, 141,844 people commute to work on a daily basis. 93,918 drive (66%), 29,062 take the bus (20%), 13,870 walk (10%) and 1,635 user "other means" (1%) which one might assume means at least some bicycles. And that only accounts for City residents. Nearly as many commute from outside the city, and all of them are coming by either car or bus. (The total commuters is 270,000)

Total the numbers and vehicles make up 95% of the traffic, leaving only 5% for cyclists and pedestrians and "others". The vehicle is king of the road and it shows.

The film "Contested Streets" presents several cities around the world that have drastically changed that ratio. Copenhagen has has changes the ratios to an even division between cars, buses and bicycles. Every time I bring this up I hear the same opposition by automobilists that what works in Copenhagen or Paris or London, or even Seattle, Denver or San Francisco won't work here. They blame the rivers, the hills, the 250 year old street plan, any number of things as to why streets can't be made pedestrian only or lanes can't be dedicated to bicycles.

But the lessons that should come from "Contested Streets" are not the specifics of how lanes are divided up. It's a matter of political will. At some point, the leadership of all those cities decided that they were going to rebuild their city into something that accommodates all traffic, automobiles, buses, bicycles and pedestrians, equally. Political will. . . and money.

Richard Meritzer, a senior city planner and the host of the Tuesday meeting, said in a Trib article "The city has no money for bicycling projects." And yet, the Port Authority is building a subway under the Allegheny River. That tels me that there is money somewhere but not the political will to put it where it needs to go to accommodate everyone equally. So, again we're bback to political will. And I don't believe the leadership of this City has what it takes to go up against the automobile commuters, businesses or Port Authority.

The city's plans will not work because they are half-hearted attempts.

Sulky McLaidoff

Move it on over

Today was the big move from our one office space to the new location. Most everything was packed and ready to go by the end of my shift at 4:30 so it took less than half an hour for me to break down the workstation, label everything and have it ready to go. Then it was an hour waiting for the movers to arrive, exacerbated by the fact that some moron turned off the air conditioning at lunch time. Normally my cube is a chilly 60 degrees but the temperature climbed all afternoon into the 70s.

Once the movers arrived and starting loading stuff up, it was a walk over to the new building and then another hour wait for the equipment to actually arrive. At least the temperature was reasonable. While I was waiting in the cube with my iPod filling the time, the Operations Manager came by and asked what I thought.

"It looks like a call center, and even more so once they get the lights on."

"I think it looks like a professional Help Desk."

"I've seen professional Help Desks and every one I've seen has subdued lighting and full cubes. It's going to be too bright in here and I don't like the glass-walls on the half-cubes." She gave me a pained look. "If you didn't want to hear my opinion, you shouldn't have come over here to ask."

"No. We want your opinion."

"For all the good it will do."



In addition, I was told that the building had lockers and a shower. This sounded like a good thing but I found that to use the lockers I had to go to the front desk and leave some sort of collateral for a key. Then go downstairs to use the facilities, back up to exit the building or retrieve my collateral. I suppose for someone taking a break once in a while to jog during lunch this is not an onerous requirement but for me commuting every day to have to beg for a key twice a day, every day, it's inconvenient to the point of uselessness.

I'm sure I'll have all sorts of more detailed comments to make once I actually start working in the environment but, for now, I'm under-impressed.

And I have tomorrow off so I can go get my root canal.

Canal

Several years ago, one of my molars was filled to the point where it's mostly a big chunk of metal that has since painfully transferred cold directly to the nerve. Actually, just about all of my teeth have been drilled and filled in one form or another, but this was the only one that was sensitive in that way. About two weeks ago, the tooth started to ache a bit. It wasn't much but I immediately knew that the time was fast approaching for the inevitable root canal. This past week, the ache had increased. Not to the point that I would call it "painful" but enough that if I am not distracted by something, I notice the irritation. Say, when I'm trying to sleep. As such, I haven't been sleeping well.

The dentist gave me two options; extraction and root canal. I immediately chose root canal because I want teeth to chew with. I've got a prescription to counter the infection that's causing the pain and have to make an appointment with another specialist to have the actual digging done.

Some fun, eh?

Deathrace 2007

On Thursday, A truck coming out of Home Depot parking lot struck a woman and three children walking across Highland Avenue in East Liberty. This made all the news reports (Post Gazette, WTAE, WPXI, KDKA, etc). And while this is certainly newsworthy, a much more terrifying story from the day before was covered only by the Bike-Pgh message boards. Here's an excerpt; a Letter to the Editor concerning a Post Gazette article:

My name is Shaun, and I am one of the coordinators with the Free Ride project that Michael participated in and wrote about. Sadly, one of our volunteers who is featured in this article, Elijah, was violently and intentionally struck by a vehicle at Baum and Liberty Avenue on Wednesday, the same day Michael's article was published.

After exchanging words with Elijah at an intersection, exclaiming that he needed to get off the street, the driver accelerated as the light turned green in an effort to chase Elijah down. Realizing he was in danger, our friend rode his bike up onto the sidewalk to escape - only to be followed by the car onto the sidewalk and struck violently. The "gray sedan" stopped just short of hitting a utility pole before reversing quickly into oncoming traffic and speeding off. Nobody who witnessed this assault, which amounts to an attempt at murder with a motor vehicle, stopped or was able to provide any information about the driver. This happened at around 4pm in the afternoon.

To be clear, Elijah suffered minimal injury given the circumstances - a broken wrist, badly burned leg, and a destroyed rear wheel. Given that all of this happened on his 25th birthday, he's remained in great spirits, never one to let something like this wipe the perennial smile from his face.

Unfortunately there is a tacit assumption by members of the cycling community that the police will not follow up a situation like this past the initial report that is filed, and further that the local media will not give a terrible story like this - an attempt at murder with a motor vehicle in broad daylight - the proper attention and follow through it deserves. It is all too typical that cyclists are blamed in situations where they are attacked, as though each of us on a bike in Pittsburgh is asking to be treated with disdain.

I hope you will consider a follow-up to Michael's story regarding this situation. At the least, please print this letter in the hopes that anyone with any information about this assault will come forward and help. Elijah does not have medical insurance to cover his injuries, and the people who attacked him should not be allowed to get away with it. Please contact Free Ride at freeride@bike-pgh.org or 412-731-4094 with any information.
Thank you...

So, a stupid driver who makes a turn blind and hits a family gets headlines and film crews while a homicidal madman who goes up on the sidewalk to run down a bicyclist gets away clean. No headlines. No reporters. No investigation. Not even any witnesses.

Does Pittsburgh hate cyclists so much?

New gloves

The Trek Waterloo Classic Crochet Gloves I ordered to replace the Trico Handshock 1000 Gloves that have worn out aren't working. The padding is insufficient to keep my fingers from going numb on even my short commute into work. And since the Trico gloves aren't being manufactured anymore I'm pretty much out of luck looking for a crochet-back glove that will serve my purposes. I picked up a $30 pair of Trek Moby Gel Gloves hoping that they will work. I don't like the way they feel on my hands but if they solve the numbness problems I suppose I'll just have to live with it.

If not, the next step is the replacement of my grips and shifters. I'm thinking of Ergon GR2 Comfort Grips and SRAM Gripshifters (or something similar). What I've been reading highly recommends the Ergon grips. I'm just disappointed that I may need to spend over $100 for lack of an $18 pair of gloves.