- My last day at M2 is Friday.

- Next week I want to finish our tour of Florida.

- I may end up getting a job at Raymond James working on Web Development. I want that.
- If I don't find work, I'm going to work on my website, with marketting being my goal.

- If, by January, I haven't made any money off of my sites or found work then I'm going to take a Truck Driving School. 

- We'll live either here or in Las Vegas, depending on our money situation.
- If do go into Trucking, my goal will be to own a truck, then a fleet of trucks.

Maybe its getting near time to get conveniently sick. I assume you get sick days (I don't...lol).
Well, if you're not burned out, I am. We've been doing something special every day. It gets so tiresome.
And now we've got daylight savings time, so when I leave work it's dark and gloomy.
It'll be nice when you get your class A license..

Dang...I really wanted to talk to Mike Muscato (the owner).
His resume reads exactly like mine.
All I wanted was 5 minutes of his time, but it doesn't look like I'm going to get even that.
I think I'll bust a nut to see the man.
I know if we talked about the old times with the ATM's and the switch networks, he'd place me someplace more appropriate than the change one line of code and talk about it for an hour position I've been in. There's a chance he's even heard of me. The Inn switch is probably as well know as the Star Network in Nevada (I think).

Tommorrow, I'm going to make the Classified Ad's heading data driven.
Right now, it's hard coded.

I'm hoping you get your "A" class license soon.
The more I think about it, the more truck driving sounds appealing.
If I can't make some $ selling this site, that's what I'm going to go for.
We'll be making a decision on that by the end of the year.

I guess there was supposed to be a Halloween Bash, but, maybe we came too early.
They've got lots and lots-a-bars and bars down there and they're all themed up. It was cool.
The only thing I didn't like seeing was this metally slow fellow digging threw the trash for food.
I dropped a tear and gave him some money. He wasn't begging. Anyway, he said "ooooo, fank you mister...fank you". Why do we let people starve?
A highlight was when a fellow dressed as Willy Wonka came by, and posed for my camera...he was great!!!
EVERYBODY IN FLORIDA IS WONDERFUL!!! With exception of a few people, the state is great.
Becky and I don't really want to move back to Las Vegas.
We'll eventually end up back there, but, we're not going to be in a rush.
I think...no...I know,  we've seen more of this state than anybody we've met. It's a blast!!! 

 

Bwaaaahahahahaha!

The condo was nice, but I felt like we were imposing somehow. It didn't feel right.
Plus my aunt wouldn't let us pay for anything. She insisted on paying for 2 lunches and a dinner.
It was hard to get her to smile. I was being my perky self, and Becky's always perky.
She like Becky a lot, but, I suppose all of the things she'd heard about me from my Dad and Kelly got in the way of things.
I bought her a Billy Bob Big Mouth Bass Plaque. She said her cats would like it.
She kept going on about how we were killing ourselves by smoking.
Both her and her husband had smoked. She still drinks a little. He died this year.
I kept saying that we all die from something when we get old. Old age is never listed as a cause of death.
She implied that I wanted to die. I just told her, no...I'm just not afraid of living.
Then we got on the thing about the medallion. She said her mom made a mistake by letting dad have it.
Then she said she was surprised Sonny let me take it out of his safety deposit box. My jaw dropped.

We openned the box and put it in there. It got stolen when I was documenting it. Someone broke a window to get into my house. I have a police report...sheesh!
When we talked about Kelly, I mentioned how Kelly could be dangerous.
She told everyone, including people I worked with that I dropped LSD and drove 24 hours her to Colorado Springs, which is stupid. I said, I had tried LSD, but that was long ago, and that Kelly mistook NoDose for drugs.
Kelly was badly mistaken.
My aunt got stuck on the LSD part. She asked why I did it and I said, everybody was doing it back then. She said, her kids and grand kids never did drugs, but her son might have smoked pot. I wanted to say, yea, right.
Then she got off on how poorly my Mom must have raised me.
How I must have gotten a lot of my traits from the Rogers.
I told her the Rogers were basically dull but very dependable people.
They'd get a job and work it all their lives, and they were very predictable.

I don't think Becky heard a lot of this because my aunt is such a low talker.
I doubt we'll be going back up there to visit any time soon.

 

Most the people in Florida are great! You'd love Florida.
I'm still not planning on hanging around here for over a year though. It's just not home.
We stayed on Daytona Beach last weekend.
The views were fantastic from the 15th floor of my aunt's condo.
I hardly slept at all during the weekend.
Saturday morning I watched the sunrise, and it was great!
The pelican's kept swooping by. I doubt if they noticed me though.
I kept throwing them pieces of an English Muffin, and they'd just fly right by.
The muffin pieces kept landing in the pool 15 stories down so I quit doing that.

Becky and I walked 4 miles up the beach on Sunday (4 miles back too).
My legs are SO SORE TODAY! Walking up the stairs to the apartment was a killer.
Sunday, we went to the Light House for lunch.
We ate outside on a pier. Some nameless singer was singing Jim Croce songs.
The service was excellent.
I fed the gulls with some of the hush puppies. That was a hoot.
I don't think my aunt noticed me doing it though. We're smokers.

I'm sorry I missed you at lunch. I sat out back watching the frogs eat.

I reduced the code by 66% in RCBHLD. By removing cluttered logic.
In SCBHLD, I reduced the code by 41%.

And, I added functionality.

Maybe they'll finally set the clock at work...lol.
The Tandem command is: SETTIME OCT 30, 2005 02:00
At least I think it is.

He needed a little representation on this site.

We're ordering it, we pay for it and  I'm surprised I don't have to pay for all of it, since I'm the new guy.
I still haven't been introduced to everybody yet. Not even at the meeting today. wow.
Oh well.

Now if you go into log activity, you see all of the guest log, and your activity
If you go into your log, you see everything you've done in all logs.
It seems confusing to me at the moment, but I'm working on eliminating the need for email on my sites.
Eventually, an Ad viewer will be able to click on an ad, and make arrangements with the ad owner for purchase in the owners log.
I'll finish that code maybe Friday morning before work.

Tandem System's Analyst.
In 1986, Universal Reservations Services was the first airline system in the continental United States to use a Tandem Nonstop computer for hosting an airline reservations system. The system was written in Sweden for the Swedish Airline Systems (SAS). It was adapted to United States standards by Bedford Incorporated. In conjunction with a travel agent system (MERS) written by Transaction Software Incorporated (TSI), and with links to Air Inc, the system was a one of a kind for the Tandem. The system hosted the Royal West Airlines, Suncoast Airlines, an American Travelers Incorporated. I was responsible for new development and daily operations.
Caesars Palace-Programmer Analyst.
This is my favorite business card!
Caesars Palace had developed the only Hotel and Casino system in the world hosted by a Tandem system. Its services were employed at the Desert Inn, Caesars Tahoe, and Caesars Atlantic City. "Jim came on board in 1989. His reputation was proceeded by his development skills at Nevada Automated Betting Systems (Nabs). Jim gained responsibilities for new development of both PC and Tandem based system and soon became the point man for all operational problems."
I really enjoyed Caesars Palace. They gave me the freedom to create new programs and objects unseen to the world.
And then there's Valley Bank/BOA where I did the ATM Fee system.
We processed over 300 transactions a minute. I was the point guy on call! 
"Jim was the lead technician responsible for building the INN (In Nevada Network) switch supporting debit cards and credit cards in a shared environment. It was the first of its kind. Jim was responsible for engineering, database management, network engineering and planning data center operations and customer service for the In Nevada Network to primarily support Debit cards in a shared environment. He engineered the pilot system for the an acquirer based ATM fee system in 1987. After Bank of America's take over of Valley Bank, Jim and the team of Valley Bank programmers converted their systems to Base24."
"Those were the days my friend"
And now, I'm a maintenance programmer who's futzing with welfare system that mainly processes food stamps,
not Credit Cards, and not Debit Cards. They are basically government issued gift cards. I wonder if Home Depot's gift card processing consumes millions of lines of code that display "Your monitor is turned off, please press the on button".

Wow. I just mentioned a couple of things of buggy things I found.
I'm actually afraid to mention any errors that I find anymore.
I showed someone an error that basically said "The Tandem Transaction System isn't working".
I mentioned that since it came from the Tandem and transaction processing is mostly what the Tandem does,
that it probably wouldn't ever be displayed, because the Tandem System would be down...DUH!!!
The response was "Nah, that could happen. If the server got too many transactions."
I wanted to say "Saddam Hussein could get the Nobel Peace Prize too."

This server processes one transaction, then dies, which in itself is queer.
But in this case, the 50 (not 3) lines of code used to display that crap causes this program to be spaghetti.
I asked Mikey if I should point anything out anymore, he said he gets an att-a-boy when he does at times.
I keep getting, naaah, we need that, or we shouldn't change that.
If I stayed here, I'd end up being SO depressed.
I'm depressed now.

Check your log.

She's the dominating person I'm having troubles with here. She was carrying in a 12 pack of water.
Just to be polite I said
"I wonder if anyone in the 50's or 60's every thought that in the year 2000, people would be buying drinking water".
She didn't say a word. She just kind of half smiled and walked away.

I feel like I'm on Pluto and the Plutonians don't respond well to manners.

LOL.

It's cold outside and it's cold inside too.
I talked to the manager at this little cafe inside the building. I told her I was leaving.
She asked me who I worked for and she said, awww, those people always are so nice, so quiet.
I just told her I've been working under my own direction so long,
that it was hard to be a robot for anyone.
She agreed. She said she worked a job like that for a long time and was miserable.
Now, she's got responsibility and freedom to make decisions.
Which hit the nail right on the head.
Here I have no responsibility, I don't make decisions, I do as I'm told, and how to do it.

I suppose I'm gonna get reamed again today.
Instead of adding a ?SAVE PARAM, ASSIGN in my program I put

?SAVE ALL in the program I'm working on.
There is no local docs saying I have to do it either way.
Something will be said about it, and if I am told to change it to ?SAVE PARAM, ASSIGN,
its going to cost these guys money when they finally discover STARTUPTEXT exists!!!
I don't think they're aware of that. The only program I've seen use it is a C program...which is pathetic.
LOL

I'm sure he'd understand the significance of a decision that cost him $200.
It was just one email, one decision, and another day of management error.
Add that up over a year and you get $5,200.

It almost happened, but it didn't. Everything wend gracefully, like I'd hoped.
I knew I was pushing the line when I put down zero hours for last Friday.
Jeanne asked me if I worked Friday
I replied "If I wasted our time on this project, I can't, in all honesty, bill for it. My loss."
Now, I know damned well its their loss, probably to the tune of over $200.
She came back and said "Let's split the difference, put down 4 hours".
Jeanne is so funny. She's lost her focus.
I may have lost $120, but the company lost at least $200.
And I would call that another bad management decision. LOL.

I'd almost say it was a semi-dull weather day.
I was up most of the night watching the weather outside, and watching the weather channel.
The worst thing that happened was trash blowing around in the streets.
** YAWN **

And so did Taz....

Friends are people who offer you unconditional positive regard.
They don't take sides against you.
If they do, then they are not being your advocate, and they are not being your friend.
Good ol' Mikey told me today if I wanted to say somethings to try to improve M2 on my way out, not to expect anything.
I told him I wouldn't expect anything, I'd be leaving...but if there was some kind of suggestion I could make on my way out, let me know, and I'll voice it. That I'd like to do something good for the people at work.

Once again, Mikey said, sure, that's all well and fine, but don't expect anything.
And once again, I said, I don't expect anything. I'm leaving.
Then there's Jeff, saying he didn't have any trouble working on the progam I'm working on.
I didn't tell him I knew how many hours he put on the same program I'm working on.
He needed help keying in the input using the editor. I tried to help him, and finally let Mikey explain it to him.
As far as M2 goes, there is no team, and there was supposed to be.
I see a bunch of people who work together that don't communicate with each other.
The email to Phil about his coughing, sent by JoeSmith@Yahoo.com is enough to indicate that.
BTW - I like how Mikey backed up JoeSmith. That makes me think he did it.
But there is too much pressure and ambiguity for this simple application.
And I would have quit the first day, after I sized the place up. Phil knew I wanted to.Mikey didn't.
Now, all I want to do is leave. Honestly, when I said I resign on Friday, they should have let me go.
I will never understand this system because of how they are using it:
   They use params, not pathway, to control a server that has three different functions in it.
   Those three different functions having the same paragraph number in the program.
   The program has 10,000 lines of code in it.
   Documenting the program indicating each and every day a programmer worked on it...EG: * 103105 Continued
   Securing the DDL source (the heart of the file system) so no one can read it.
   Not documenting testing procedures, when thats 90% of what they do. 
   I've been told expanding a PIC 9(8) comp field to PIC 9(16) comp was out of line. That's just ridiculous.
   I worked over a day on a program that wasn't even used. It was someone elses junk.
  I've been reprimanded for not increasing a table size to 3,000. Jeanne said I didn't test the program.
  She was looking at a table that represented a small subset of the table need to be increased in size.
  BTW - That was the program that I took all of Mikey's code out of. I restarted it from scratch.
  He had no idea what he was doing. 
  Man, I sat back and took her insults.

I've got a bunch of them in there.
I need to contact the president of this small company here. I worked with him at Caesars Palace.
He may something for me.

He said it'll last through October, and it is always followed by a six month drought.
Can you place like a put on Orange futures?
Hmmm.

Hurricane Wilma is all over the news out there, so I suppose its national news. Wow...cool...

This server that I'm working on in Pathway is actually three batch programs in one. What it does is determined by by someone actually changing parameters set in pathway. Pathway's purpose, the very reason its named pathway in the first place, is because requesters are supposed to determine which program to run, not fixed parameters.
I've been so overwhelmed by how these people use pathway.
I'm not even sure why they use the Tandem to do this processing.
Almost everything I've seen so far is batch, it is not online processing.
The Tandem is an online processor, it's terrible at batch processing.
People use it for EBay, Wall Street, ATM's, 911, medical and even Airline systems.

I asked someone at work recently, what are they calling programmers theses days? Software Engineers?
This guy said, there are no such things as a programmers or software engineers any more.
They all have a degree in something else, programming is expected. lol.
I scanned Orlando's ads for programmer positions, and there seems to be a lot of them here.
One that caught my eye was an openning for a gaming programmer.
I should point out, that my interest in working here never ever had anything to do with money,
especially since my current contract sets me back 20 years in scale.
I was looking for job satisfaction. If I wanted to be a grunt, I could have worked in Las Vegas.

She lives near Daytona Beach. Anyway, she sounds exactly like someone I know...wow.
Anyway, we're coming down for the weekend...next Friday at 7pm...
Once again, Yeeehaaaaa.
Also, I was thinking about tommorrow...should we come in or not?
In my case, what are they going to do? Fire me? lol.

I'm as serious as a heart attack.
The schools and government offices are closed for tommorrow.
Local TV Channel 13  is all about the weather right now.
Well this is just as exciting as all hell.
However, its not raining, you could go outside and if you went outside and blew bubbles, they'd land on your head.
Its calm out there.

I invited Jeff over. He helped me carry a dresser up the stairs (which I gave to Mikey).
Mikey was on his way to see Neil Diamond.
We talked about work a little bit.
Now, I know, I've thought way too much about the things at work.
Seriously, all I want to do is leave.
If something sounds wrong, it probably is.
I heard a guy got fired because he didn't use his key card to get into the building on a Sunday.
Well, that didn't sound right, so for the heck of it, I went by there today.
The door was not locked. So, someone spread not only a vicious rumour, but a stupid one.
But enough about work, that's almost history, I hope
Becky and I sat on a bench next to Lake Destiny.
We talked to a guy fishing there. He was an interesting character. He said, if you salt water fish, or fish on a fresh water lake without a license, they take your boat, and hit you with $5,000 bail. So, he avoids the game wardens.
This fisherman said, said salt water fishermen have a four fish limit
I guess the ocean must be getting low on fish...haha.

www.m2-corp.com

(407) 551-1300
850 Trafalgar Ct #100, Maitland, FL 32751
JamesCutlar@m2-corp.com

Dave McCloud - VP
Bryan - Asst IT Manager
Jean - IT Manager
Kevin Callanan - Stj Inc
Mike Scasny - Stj Inc, business manager
Kevin Short - Kentucky guy, was consultant, now5 years emp.
Linda - Office Manager, HR
Jeff - Mike's friend. Consultant
Mike - Consultant

Robert (702) 604-1318
Joy (702) 604-1319

XP Pro MM788 F6FMW GCG6D 2VGXQ 3GHCB
XP Upgrade BVBQM 4VVVM 3QTW4 XT4RT THVG2

Our Phone: 321.558.5059
818 Renaissance, 32714
Camden Renaissance 407.294.5755
www.camden.com

818 Renaissance Pointe #301
Altamonte Springs, FL 32714-3504
Fax (407) 294-8639. 
Progress Energy 800.700.8744
www.progress-energy.com

Service will start 9/30.
Acct: #7375241103
Bright House 407.461.8098. $135/mo
www.mybrighthouse.com
Will come out 10/1 11~2pm
Phone-digital modem
Main phone should be wired, not cordless.
We'll know our phone # 9/19/2005
Unlisted #, other phones work normally.
ISP-Earthlink
we do our own wireless
TV-1 Digital box/recorder
All rooms will work w/o box.
I got the only package w/phone/cable/isp.
Autopay available after 1st month.
Other Bills
Water/Garbage - $30 to Utility Co
Washer/Dryer - $40 to Camden
Rental Insurance - $20 to Insurance Co
Move In Rent - $966.17 + $87.50 split.
Move in Sept 30th. Bldg 818 (20) .
Need $1,000/2.
$40 rent wd,
$30 water/garb, discount on cable.
$20 renters insurance for $20,000.
DMV-940 W Canton Ave, FL 32789

I'd rate it a little lower than Universal Studios, Ca, but, these parks are always fun.
Among the rides, we liked the ET ride best of all. It wasn't a lot of spills, chills and thrills, but it was very visual.
I'm still very happy about the decision I made to quit.
Life is good.
Oh, we ate at a Whistle Stop restaurant/buffet on the way home. They have GREAT food.
Fried Green Tomatos, Killer Spanish sauce with tomatoes/okra/onions, GREAT mashed potatos and gravy
and a very very nice Chicken and Dumplings dish.
YUM!!!

I probably shouldn't waste time hoping to be introduced.
I don't know what kind of man he is, and frankly I don't really care.
And I'd have rather had 5 minutes of his time before I walked in the door, than when I'm walking out.
But my summary might be something like this:
    Since testing is a major portion of M2's business, develop test procedures. Word of mouth is terrible documentation.
    Documenting programs like you would a car, is fine. But for most people, they just need to know how to drive it.
    Get test data from a QA database. They are the experts on testing. Use them like you would any other asset.
God, how I'd love to intimidate Jeanne, using her techniques. She likes to put people on the spot with silly questions.
I'd say something like:
- Why did you waste 30 man hours putting Jeff, Mike and I on simular projects. To compare us?
- Why did you tell me to learn this program? Then when I said I documented testing it, you said I was wasting time.
But ya know, I don't care enough to do that. It would be fun, but it wouldn't accomplish anything useful.

But when something seems wrong, I have to know why.
I always ask the question "WHY?".
When Pepcon blew up and the ceiling was falling in at Bank of America,
Everybody was leaving the building through the turnstyle, standing in line, waitng to swipe their cards to get out.
I went out the emergency exit next to the turnstyle and the line followed me.
I thought about this for a long time.
I wondered why people were standing in line, when an emergency existed.
It was because they weren't thinking. Without question, they were doing what they had been told to do.
By my action, I told them to use the Emergency Exit.
There were probably 50 people standing in that line.
I was the first one to think of using the emergency exit.
In a worse emergency, they would have died.
The difference between me and them was, I'm a leader and they were followers.

If you were a trucking company, and you had three units to deliver to one place.
Would you:
1-Have one truck driver deliver all three units to that place.
2-Have three truck drivers each driving different types of trucks, deliver one unit a piece to that place

Obviously, you'd pick option 1, if you wanted to get the job done.
You'd pick option 2 if you wanted to find you most efficient driver.
However, your experiment would have failed, because they were each driving different types of trucks.
In Mike, Jeffs and my case, the our truck type, was who told us how to test our program.
I couldn't have just known to run RSBNVAL, where as Mike and Jeff were probably told to do that.
I was told that, of course, the record has to validated, which I'd think would happen in the program I was working on.

I want to go to sleep, but everything seems to be coming out now.

On the first day of work, after I'd invested $1,500 just to get the job.
I think I would have to sign it...wouldn't anybody?
That kind of thing should have been signed before taking the job, not after. So if there was any problem, it could be worked out as part of the consultants contract.
That makes me wonder what else I'd have to sign to keep my job, if I decided to stay there.
Like I said, none of this makes sense to me. Who does business like this?

A fellow programmer (contractor) got an email from JoeSmith@yahoo.com.
It had to come from someone at work, because you could guess an M2-Corp address.
They had to know it. It said:

Please, control your coughing. It's very annoying and I can't concentrate at work because of it.
Seek medical attention for it, or do what ever you have to do, but stop it.
The break area (where the coffee and refrigerator are) has a sign on the wall. It says:

Please be quiet, there are people working.
The front door is locked. Someone always has to let people in.
Its probably the only office in the building with a locked front office door.
Unlike the IRS, there are no live data systems there. If anything, they're across the hallway, in a different area.
Besides, every place I've worked has an auto logoff set on Tacl.
I'm told if I were to enter Linda, the office manager's, office and she's not there, 
I'll be fired. uh...ok.
I'm told Jeanne at work fired a guy for saying he worked on Saturday,

 

because the key card system for the building didn't show him entering the building.
#1 That's just a very ill thought lie, if someone actually did say it.
#2 Why would someone check and depend on a system they know nothing about, when they're Tandem experts?

#3 Why wouldn't they check the Tandem system that they are supposed to be experts on?
#4 Why would someone spread that kind of rumour if it were true, anyway?
#5 If work had fired him for that, and they wrote it down, they could be liable for a lot of money if sued and they couldn't prove it. At the very least, they could be sued for slander. And that would just make them stupid.
Anyone should know that. I think they teach that in Management 101.
What else do you get in trouble for?
If you come in early, you have to prove it with an email (that could easily be fudged, check out who spams you sometime)
If you work late, you have to prove it with an email.
If you take a longer lunch than normal, you will get reprimanded for it.
If you need to take off early, you should put it on the calendar.
If you don't send an email with TIME SHEET W/E 100505 as the heading with your time sheet attached, you will get reprimanded.

If you work on a program for two days, you must enter that in the code (in a comment). 

If you accidentally change your program's source date (not the code) the day after you've finished it,

you have to document it. But you don't have to recompile it, which seems strange.
Does any of this make any sense?

If you receive a project on Friday and accept it just before you take off, it will be two days late on Monday, and they say that to you. (Mine was a program I'd accepted on Friday before a three day weekend). On Monday, it was 4 days late. I got reprimanded for that.

I was making more money than I am currently, IN 1984.
In 1984, I was making $40 an hour consulting.
So, in keeping with my rule:
The least amount of work for the most amount of money
I've fallen backwards 2 decades.
I wrote a more complicated system than this one in 1983 (a sports book system).
A high school grad could write a card swipe program. sheesh.
Take the stupidity out of this system and it would be simple.
My goal is to make $100 an hour in a year.

I can do that.

If I succeed, it will make any time I took off a necessary step.

Tommorrow, my crap is going to smell like a ROSE GARDEN !!!
I did the right thing, and I'm a better person because of it.