Sphere of Archives

January 2, 2001

Return of the Perogy

I got in my apartment a little after two o'clock, and I did two things immediately. First, I made plans to get a cable modem from Rogers. Then I made a batch of perogies. It's the natural order of things.

So, let me summarize my holiday. This year, I had six headaches, and five of them happened in the last two weeks. From Day 1, I found the environment stressful, from my parents expecting everyone to put on an entertainment extravaganza for the annual family party (there were even plans for a stage!) to snap disdainful judgments made about other people's decisions and then to weather talk. I can forgive the first two, but the last is simply intolerable.

I had done most of my shopping on the Internet, so I didn't need to shop. Everyone else had their own schedules and needs and emergencies, so I spent the first week playing video games and hanging around coffee shops. Things didn't start going well for me until after Christmas. I saw my friends play a hockey game. I was supposed to play, too, and I had borrowed equipment from someone at the last minute, but I couldn't find the socks. After the game, I found them wrapped around the guy's skate blades. They were so dirty and torn that I had thought they were ordinary rags. And New Year's Eve was fantastic (See the pics). While my family watched videos at home, I went to a big party at the Valhalla Inn -- beer, food, wine, more beer, live music, and beer. Only the inclusion of a hot tub could have improved the evening.

January 3, 2001

"You have... no new messages."

I got into the office early. After waking up at 9 a.m. every morning during the holidays, now I'm getting out of bed at 6:30. So I was sitting in my cubicle at 7:30, ready to start on all the work I had left behind. Except I forgot my password. I searched for the slip of paper I was sure I had hidden somewhere, but gave up after a while. So I just sat and sipped my coffee until the computer support people showed up to reset my password. A little after eight, I called the support line. They asked for my phone number. "Sure, uh, it's, uh, I have it right here, uh, ..."

That was the most exciting part of my day. The rest of it was spent reading e-mail, meeting minutes, equipment spec sheets. It's good to be back.

January 5, 2001

Speed Kills

The installer from Rogers came to put in my cable modem tonight. When I opened the door, he cheerily said "Cable Guy." His real name is McCord. He was very happy with the way I had things set up. It made his job a lot easier. All he had to do was put a new connector on the wall jack, attach a 3-way splitter (TV, Video Card Input, Modem), and make three two-metre long cables. For the modem, he just put it on top of my computer, plugged it in, and turned it on. The job was done in 30 minutes. Meanwhile, we chatted about his job, and the trivialities of life. Well, it was more like he chatted. After he left, I configured everything and downloaded a 5 MB video file from TSN in what seemed like seconds. Woo hoo! Can you believe I once used a phone line to connect to the Internet?

January 14, 2001

Blood on the Skates

I didn't get to the Oldtimer's Hockey game today, but I did get to laugh at some of my friends, so it isn't all bad. Ken and his family, Jason and I went skating on the Rideau Canal this morning. Jason had never skated before. Ken is a self-described "bad skater," and his wife and his cousin don't skate much either.

We got on the ice at 11:30, after they had got their rentals on. Our plan was to skate downtown and back, but it was soon revised as their feet began to ache after a few minutes -- those leather thorns. I was having a lot of fun, mainly because I could and would skate circles around them. I tried teaching them the proper form -- bending at the knees, proper balance, pushing off with the toe; they're slow learners, I guess. From the Dow's Lake pavilion, we made it to the food shacks across the lake in about fifteen minutes, and the others were already asking, "How far now? Oh, we'll never make it." We spent another ten or fifteen minutes drinking hot chocolate.

Our next goal was the Civic Centre (Landsdowne). We never made it. At the Bank Street bridge, the party collapsed under one of the arches. We began the long trek back, a good half hour at our present speed. During this part of the skate, there were many wonderful moments: Ken's cousin tripping and becoming momentarily airborne before collapsing in a heap on the ice; a little girl shaking her head at Jason as he flailed around to keep his balance; Jason giving up skating and trudging through the snowbanks at the side of the canal; Ken and Jason and latching onto my hips to create a soul train, which made me think of a recent Mad TV sketch -- ("Richard Simmons, wearing a tutu, doing the ribbon twirl, and holding a rainbow flag would not look as gay as that boy.").

After the skate, we took lunch at McDonald's. It's a good idea to go to McDonald's once every five years or so, so that you recognize what bad food looks like. I ordered a "Filet-o-Fish" and a "Quarter Pounder". Unwrapping the bite-sized pancake-shaped sandwiches was like opening up a disappointing and tasteless joke gift on my birthday. It renewed my appreciation for other restaurants that serve real meat. Then it was back to Ken's place, where we played "You Don't Know Jack". I did badly on the first game, not even breaking zero, but after listening and watching, I developed a good strategy that helped me win the next two.

January 15, 2001

Web Attack !

Today, I installed "Black Ice", a cyber-intruder detection program that I downloaded from a friends FTP server. It's a precaution to take now that I have a cable modem and have a constant Internet connection. Nothing much happened until 10:42 pm, when I got my first cyber attack -- a SubSeven port probe, from IP address 4.4.110.11. I went to the ARIN WhoIs, and got this output:

BBN Planet (NET-SATNET)
   150 Cambridge Park Dr.
   Cambridge, MA 02138
   US

   Netname: SATNET
   Netblock: 4.0.0.0 - 4.255.255.255
   Maintainer: BBNP

   Coordinator:
      Soulia, Cindy  (CS15-ARIN)  csoulia@genuity.net
      800-632-7638

   Domain System inverse mapping provided by:

   NIC.NEAR.NET			192.52.71.4
   VIENNA1-DNS-AUTH1.BBNPLANET.COM 4.1.16.4
   NIC3.BARRNET.NET		131.119.245.6

   ADDRESSES WITHIN THIS BLOCK ARE NON-PORTABLE

   Record last updated on 17-Feb-1999.
   Database last updated on 15-Jan-2001 18:30:16 EDT.

My cyber-cherry has been broken. Isn't it exciting?

January 18, 2001

What Do You Want the Internet To Be ?

In the midst of another round of hiring/firing and stock market fluctuations, I can still find a laugh. A couple of my co-workers were trying to program some new Palm Pilots to be used in an inventory system. They had a lot of trouble figuring out how to load the software, how to configure it, how to type in their usernames with that f*cking small pen. ("Argh! How do you delete again?") As minutes ticked by, I tried to keep their spirits up by reciting feel-good corporate slogans: Technology that helps you work at web speed. We're integrating voice, data and video... What do you want the Internet to be?

January 19, 2001

Napster Tease

I'm trading MP3s like a crack whore trades STDs. For the last three days, I've been connected to a Napster server. My user name is "MrPuckhead". Thousands of users are now enjoying free access to Ween. The most popular groups so far: Tragically Hip, Emotional Fish, Akira Soundtrack, Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds, and Bad Religion. I've downloaded mostly 80's crap (my salad days).

I had a pleasant instant conversation about hockey with a recreation player who had just moved from Toronto, and another one with a guy in Michigan who works at Stoneage. It's not all fun though. I feel bad for those people who get a "Transfer Error". I take it personally. Maybe I'm obsessing. And I've left my machine open to RPC and TCP probes that interrupt my LAN connection.

January 25, 2001

Today, The Network Administrator Was Fired

The whole department was called into the Prototype Lab for an important meeting. Well, I assumed it was the whole department, because I couldn't see everyone around the racks of equipment and circuit board supplies. But the lab proved to be an excellent venue to announce terminations. It's isolated from the cubicle area and common entrances to other parts of the building, the walls are thick cement and windowless, and it has a security lock. My C-Level manager who was going to make the announcement was 15 minutes late, typical. (Later, I found out he was delayed because he was urging the network administrator to talk to no-one about his situation, and making sure he was on another part of the campus.)

The C-Level said the names of who was fired without any signs of remorse; it's a business reality. The room was silent, partly shock, partly expectations met. He said that would be the extent of the firings... for now. He's a political animal, but not a very good one. He asked if there were any questions. There were a few, but they pertained to the impact of the city-wide layoffs on the newly constructed building. It will probably be empty for the first few months. Then we went back to our cubicles. Some people stopped by the administrator's cube to say they were sorry he was leaving, and wished him luck finding a new job. Their attempts at sympathy rang hollow to my ears. He is allowed to use company resources for 30 days. After that, presumably, he will be forcibly removed by security staff. The administrator seemed to be taking it well, publicly, but I knew he was stunned and bitter.

I was taking a nap when he called me at home this evening. He said he had to talk to someone, and I am the only one he trusts. (Must... control... snicker.) He hasn't told his wife yet. He said the C-Level was out to get him, ever since that screw up over the new Demonstration Rooms (See "A Backbone Transplant"- Sept. 9, "Pawn to Bishop's Three" - Oct. 20), and our manager didn't defend him, as our previous manager presumably would have. Our manager told him there were some people in the department -- senior people -- who didn't care for him. The administrator claimed he knew his days were numbered when the new "Network Specialist" was hired. "I could have done two things. I could have tried to isolate him so he was useless, or I could have shared all my knowledge with him. I'm proud I chose the second one." (That is, after the first choice failed. Management intervened and told me to train him.)

Ironically, he had two job offers last month that he turned down because he thought his job was secure. "It's [the C-Level's] fault that I'm screwed," he whined. He asked me to train him on all of the technology he ignored for the last year because he was "too busy working on the LAN." He's going to try to get into the Optical division. Apparently, he forgot that they laid off ten percent of their staff this week, and a company-wide hiring freeze was announced last week.

All I could say was, "I'm sorry your leaving, and I wish you luck."

January 26, 2001

"I'm not bitter."

The ex-network administrator didn't come in until noon. Our manager was hosting a lunch at Don Cherry's (aka Woodline 4) for the people leaving, but he missed it on purpose. Who can blame him? The party consisted of technicians and the senior staff that helped to get him fired. But he's not bitter or spiteful. "I don't burn bridges," he said when asked. He thanked me for sending him information on new technology in the labs (links to my public directory and the department web page -- all secrets are revealed!), and he said he would be in on the weekend to start reading. Hours later, the manager's party comes reeling in. Lunch turned out to be chicken wings and a pitcher of beer each.

January 29, 2001

It's Time to Limbo

How low can a person go?

I found out today, when the ex-network administrator asked me to check his resume for spelling and grammar. On the second page, on his list of projects is one of my jobs: design and implementation of the LAN in Woodline 1. And on the third page, big surprise, full credit for another one of my projects: the successful and lucrative 1xRTT project. It stunned me. The guy is either incredibly audacious or incredibly stupid to take credit for my work on his c.v., then ask me to check the spelling.

I called him over and brought his attention to the two items. He was not apologetic at all. "I know. You know. But if you're away, then I have to support those projects. It's the s

February 2, 2001

Reflections of Past Internships

I must have been a fantastic intern. Every student the Operations Support group has had since then has proven to be lazy, slow, dull, and eager to move on. Right now, there are two students who are supposed to be working on an equipment database and the department web page. After a month, they have done very little, and what they did do was wrong. Now the full-time people are asking me, "Eric, what do you know about Cold Fusion?"

But I'm ahead of them. I already started a re-design of the web site, based on what I saw at Glassdog, and it looks good. Typically, people are impressed, but aren't interested in providing any input to make it better. My manager hasn't said anything about it. There's no reason to put much effort into it. I've decided to do it strictly in my spare time.

Sorry. I started talking about myself again. Getting back to the students, if it were my choice, I'd fire them immediately.

February 9, 2001

Winnipeg Jet

My brother Ian is arriving tonight. Luckily I checked my e-mail, giving me a few hours notice. I bought some food, so he couldn't complain about my empty fridge. Three things that I know will happen: he will overpack; he will bring work; he will make no decisions, and voice no opinions.

February 13, 2001

The School for People Who Don't Care

I'm teaching another course to the Operations Support department, because I'm the "expert". This one is on Passport switches. No-one cares. I spent a week preparing slides and double-checking information to make sure it was correct. I made up pretty graphics. The results were predictable. I talked too fast and too quietly. People kept answering their phones and chatting. There weren't any questions at the end of the topic sections. I assumed everyone was bored, but they thought it was a good excuse to get away from their desks.

The next class is Thursday. Should be fun.

February 14, 2001

The Weeble-Wobble

Ian left tonight. I don't know why my brother decided to come to Ottawa if all he really wanted to do was work. For the most part, it was pleasant. I took him to a 67's game at the Civic Centre. We saw "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon" and "Valentine". I kicked his ass at squash. Bonus: we didn't cook one meal -- no rice, no spagehetti, no steak. Just pizza and burgers.

February 16, 2001

Let the Buyer Beware

The ex-network administrator is keeping everyone in stitches. The things he does get more and more unbelievable. And he's starting to scare some people with little comments and questions.

The lastest round of firings provided a useful context to contrast his behaviour with that of normal people. The department hosted a lunch at Don Cherry's to mourn the recent non-renewal of another contractor. People signed a card and donated money towards a gift. Even though she had only been working for six months or so, everyone is going to miss her presence and humour. She was openly glum about her chances of finding work in the near future. She said she would clean out her office as soon as she could. A group of us stayed at the restaurant until five o'clock, drinking pitches until the management told us to move along.

Contrast this with the ex-network administrator's position, who has one week left in his grace period to use company resources for his job search. When I suggested that the department donate money for a gift, people shifted their eyes, then said I should organize it. And would we take him to lunch? Well, we already had one lunch for him, and he refused to attend because he blames the senior people for his termination. Also, he alienated a few people when he started visiting cubicles and accused people of stabbing him in the back. Then their are the private conversations he has with people, where he whines about his increasing depression, his desire to find out who his enemies are. He alarmed one co-worker by asking, "Do you think that if you do something bad, you'll be paid back for it?" Now she thinks he's going to come in to the office with a gun.

But there's fun stuff, too. He has been lying profusely in his job interviews. Suddenly he is an expert on Passport, Shasta, ClearCase and networking. Unfortunately, he's being tested. The last couple of days he has been calling me and his replacement for answers during the exams. "What is BGP? What is PSDN? What is FDDI?" I assume there is no adjudicator ("Phones down please. Phones down please.") to report him. Maybe they're using a security camera. And the funniest joke is that he still believes he was fired for political reasons. Sure I give him the right answers. The sooner he gets another job, the sooner I'll have good impersonal reasons to stop talking to him. In the best scenario, Cisco hires him.

February 18, 2001

Neglect

I downloaded a virtual flower today. I have to water it and sun it or else it will die. I'm used to neglecting real plants, so this is no big deal. I'm counting the days.

February 23, 2001

The Longest Day

It was an eventful day. I spent it troubleshooting so-called emergency problems on three systems. Plus, a department re-organization was made official yesterday. I am in a new department under a new manager, but I sit in the same cubicle and I do the same work. Somehow, I managed to get action items during the announcement. The Operations manager handed out awards, which, due to the budget woes, turned out to be freebies he got from other companies' marketing drives. They weren't even wrapped! But he did bring chocolate chip cookies, so it wasn't all bad. No, I did not get an award for anything, because I'm a slacker.

Today, the "new" department and some techs from the "old" one went to lunch at Don Cherry's. We had two celebrations: another good-bye lunch for one of the contract workers ("You're still here?"), and a toast to the re-org ("To terminations! Pink slips for everyone!"). Then it was back to work. The ex-network administrator was clearing out his cubicle for the third day in a row. Mostly, he was talking on the phone to his "useless" friends, useless because they couldn't find him a job.

At the end of the day, the fired contract worker went around sabotaging certain cubicles. I helped, too. While she put passwords on computer BIOSes, changed screen saver text, and left threatening notes, I hung a colourful string of pens suspended by paper clips. She left a nice farewell card, too, because deep down she's a sweetie (but on the surface she's still darkest evil).

February 24, 2001

"Anything worth winning is worth cheating for."

I caved and got "Baldur's Gate II: Shadows of Amn". It's a great game, with lots of cool 3D graphics, melancholic storylines, and plot choices of the "two roads you can go by (but they lead to the same place)" variety. It's quite enjoyable, and I'm hardly cheating at all.

But first, I had to finish BG1. That's a tough game. I wasn't good at it right away, and changing CDs every half-hour became vexatious, so I quit early on. Then I got the walkthrough, the cheats, and the hex editor, and created super characters and made it all the way to Chapter 5 of 7 before I lost interest. But I can't leave a job unfinished, so I dedicated several days to reach the final battle scene. Then the game crashed.

This time it's different. I'm not following the walk-through line by line, and I'm not fiddling with the character statistics (yet). In fact, I've missed lots of side adventures. But at least the game is faster paced and more engaging. After three days, I'm on Chapter 5 of seven. Finishing this game will be an important milestone.

March 3, 2001

Al Hackner's Number One Fan

My brother Jeff arrived today. I picked him up at the airport this afternoon. We spent the next few hours buying supplies: beer, cigarettes, chocolate. Curling updates were being read over the radio. He's here to watch the Brier, being held at the Civic Centre. Al Hackner will be there! Shania Twain will sing! It's a big event.

March 4, 2001

I Walk The Path of Evil

Tonight my friends and I decided to forgo our weekly poker match and play Risk instead. To spice it up, we played with mission cards (e.g. destroy blue, conquer North America and Africa, etc.). By the third round, I had the ex-army guys thoroughly confused, and half the fun came from figuring out what I would do next.

Sadly, I lost. I got my revenge on "You Don't Know Jack."

March 6, 2001

The Price Club of Fame

It's rare that I don't get a 15-minute break for lunch, but today was such a day. I'm not sure if all of these support calls mean I'm doing a bad job and everything is falling apart, or I'm doing a great job and everyone thinks I'm the guru. In the midst of trying to get a whole bunch of systems up and running, I took calls from India, and Calgary. I took calls on the way home from work. I made promises to send documentation that I have yet to write. Yeech. It's all about time management; if I can manage to work 48 hours straight, I might meet all of the deadlines.

March 7, 2001

Don't Throw Me In The Brier Patch

And now, a summary of my brother's visit. No, the other brother.

Food of the Gods

After lunch at Montana's, we spent the a few hours buying supplies -- beer (alcoholic and non-alcoholic), cigarettes, chocolate, etc. We skipped supper, and went straight for the chocolate and beer. My guest kept tossing chocolate balls at me, so that there wouldn't be leftovers. He brought some Roman miniatures to paint, too. It's understandable, because there really isn't a lot to do in a city like Ottawa.

Any Given Sunday

After sleeping in, we went for breakfast. Like the rest of my family, my guest refused to make a decision ("I don't care where we eat. I'll go wherever you want to. It's up to you. No, not here.") We ended up at Rockwell's, a cheap place in Merivale Mall with Norman Rockwell prints on the walls.

We returned to my apartment, where I got a call from the ex-network administrator. I had been waiting and planning for this call. Again, he wondered aloud why he was fired, so I started to tell him, listing events starting last February to the present. I got half way through my list of clues he had missed, when my guest handed me a paper asking me to hang up. I thought it was important, but he was afraid this loser was going to sue the company for wrongful dismissal. Obviously, somebody isn't reading "The Fishbowl," and I lost an excellent chance to say "good riddance" to the parasite.

Then we went downtown to walk around the Byward Market. He didn't want to shop. We admired the fortress-like U.S. Embassy with it's high fence, bullet-proof guard posts, barred windows, and double-barricaded driveway. Next, we took a tour of Parliament with a bunch of Mexicans. The tour guide smugly declared Canadians were lucky to live in a democracy (her word), unlike other countries (her words again). By the time the tour finished, it was mid-afternoon. For supper, we went to Jack Feany's, a large but quiet sports bar. The food is good, but the bathrooms are filthy. My guest had chili, which made me pause. Didn't his last host complain about methane overflow? That was the other guy, he said.

We played two games of chess. I was not defeated, but my guest claimed moral victories. The farting began a little after eight in the evening, and continued the next morning. As I was leaving for work, mindful of keeping quiet so as not to wake my slumbering guest, he released another noxious cloud into my sofa-bed, the bastard.

Monday is Gray

Not much happened this day. I was at work until about five, so he went to watch the Brier. We went to the Australian Outback restaurant, which is just like Montana's, except darker and more expensive. We played some more chess. My guest took a jog to the beer store, and then we visited Starbucks.

War, Canadian-style

Another brutal day at work for me, so my guest went to the War Museum before going to the Brier. He looked at guns and a poor mock-up of a muddy trench in Ypres -- no rats, no body parts, no explosions, not even fake mud. How disappointing. Our last supper was gnocchi at a little pasta restaurant on Elgin, then a few more demoralizing games of chess.

The End of the Tour

I took an hour off work to drop him off at the airport and have lunch (the food selection at the company cafeteria has become increasingly disappointing since the firings began). He liked Ottawa, and suggested I get a hobby such as needlepoint to get me away from the computer.

March 22, 2001

I Thought We Were Friends

And then they try to evict me. My last rent cheque bounced, and suddenly I had nine days to come up with two month's rent. "Oh, Eric. How will you get yourself out of this one?"

First, I plotted revenge on the manager, who put the eviction notice in my mailbox. And none to subtly either. That bitch! She just stuffed it in at the front, so it hung out for anyone to grab and peruse. I imagined an elaborate argument where I toss off a few sharp comments before throwing the money and a notice of departure on her desk, and then I buy a huge house from a desperate seller at half the market value, and I fill it with Ikea furniture. The thing that made me most angry was the manner in which the notice was done. According to the contract, I have to give the company two month's notice before I leave, or else I face a penalty. The company doesn't even have to give me two weeks before kicking me out into the street.

I went to Starbuck's to plot my revenge. Suddenly I felt akin to those angry "renter's rights" groups that claim poverty shouldn't be a obstacle to food and shelter. But the soothing coffee caused my mind to wander to more practical thoughts of acquiring the money. The manager is just a tool of the Toronto corporation. To the corporation, I'm just a value included in 'Accounts Receivable,' and probably not a very big one. I revised my plan to just hand in the money, and never say again 'hi' to the manager when I pass her in the lobby. After the coffee, my apartment seemed more than ever like a concrete cave. I called the manager's office, and got the machine. She was already advertising my apartment! That's cold. But I found out they were offering it for a hundred dollars more than I was paying now. No wonder they gave me such short notice.

The manager called the next day. She sounded compassionate. "It's just the company. They just think about the balance sheet, not the people," she said. I almost got sucked in. She was hired to execute the company's orders. Why take a job that clashes with your ethics on a daily basis? But although I disagreed with the method, I understood the profit motive. Believing in the inevitability of the free market makes it difficult to claim exceptionality. We quickly negotiated the payments, and it was done. I hope I never get in that situation again. Now I'm looking for a house.