Look, I really appreciate the flattery, but can the people from Hard Rock Park, stop harassing me.

Yes, I referred to the SVP of Finance, Shawn Levesque as Charlie Brown, and the CEO Steven Goodwin as King Henry, and I feel as though I need to give a bit of an explanation.

I wasn’t going to name people by name, because frankly a.) no one was reading my blog and b.) because of how the internet gets indexed, associating their names to events may or may not be beneficial for them; but seeing as how I’m putting it out now, it’ll now be part of the google record, like it was used above to find this blog. Both Shawn and Steven are good men, and frankly they get a bum rap in some circles. Those circles frankly can get bent as far as I’m concerned. While I am sure that there is plenty of blame to go around for the failure of Hard Rock Park, there is a group of about a dozen people *including myself* that were responsible for the park. Shit happens. We move on and go forth.

I didn’t come up with the name of King Henry, it just stuck, maybe because of the Tudors on Showtime, maybe because it was accurate. I don’t know. What I do know is, is that the person who came up with the name never was employed by the Park, so whatever that is worth, it’s out there now.

I chose the name of Charlie Brown for Shawn because I always admired Charlie Brown, and always have. Charlie Brown is always the underdog, and always the believer. I never thought that Shawn was a poor manager, nor that he was unqualified for his position. In fact in his own way, he tried his best on a very difficult project. I cannot begin to understand how he managed to keep all of the plates spinning for as long as he did. When I first met Shawn close to two years ago, the first impression I got from his face was “Charlie Brown” so it all fit. In no way was it meant with malice.

So, to my surprise, I am now being obsessed about by these two, for reasons that I can’t completely understand. If my blog was such a problem at the time, then I should have been fired. Were I in either one of their positions, I would have fired me that day. Hell, I had asked Shawn on no less than three occasions to let me go, so that my other ducks could remain longer, looking for new jobs - a fact that I told all of my ducks. I was told however, that I was off of the table. I was too important. Important to the company? More than likely not. I suspect that it was because I was the one who a.) knew how to update the company’s website (which to this day I still don’t understand why they don’t go to the webmaster to do what I no longer have access to… he’s a webmaster after all and b.) because I had sacrificed enough of my personal ethics already to them, that I must have been somehow thralled to them. Looking at this blog, I couldn’t even begin to understand why either one of them would be upset about anything that I’ve posted here. Any of the frustrations that I shared here were just that, mine, and they were generalized speaking to the situation as a whole, and not to individuals.

In reality, I am not that important to the company. I was the least important person on my team. I designed the team that way so that I could, as I planned, leave and let the park continue on, to the point where they’ve gone to my other website that has absolutely nothing to do with anything Park related (thedatacenterblog.com). All the good stuff however, is at the Red Leather Couch; and I would suggest that they would have more fun there, so go sign up!!!

I guess I shouldn’t be surprised to know that, even after my dealings with the Park are over, I am viewed as some important person to them. Perhaps I should take my lessons on hubris from them so that when I grow up, I can be just like them, but until then I’ll kindly ask that you not put me upon this pedestal of importance that you seem to think that I must need to be on.

• Performance on Alexandria dropped with the addition of the external hard drives to add storage. I’ve removed the drives for the time being.
• I will have to source additional memory from another system (more than likely either shockwave or tsunami Mk. 1) to add to Alexandria. With the installation of Sharepoint, I believe that system resources are being taxed too much. I’ll do some more tests later this week.
• I have also begun uploading/organizing the image collection on Alexandria’s Sharepoint.  Once I have enough of a starting point, I will be opening a Beta Test to a handful of outside users.
• One major accomplishment: Alexandria can now stream Blu-Ray movies (really they’re .mkv files)directly to the TiVo, without the need of a Blu-Ray player. W00t!!!




• Hurricane, the newest addition has been birthed. She will be tasked as a PC that will be fitted into Ronan (Amante’s Saturn VUE).

I’ve also created a new Amazon Wish List for my current Geek Projects. Christmas is coming up.

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Well, you catch up on the geek projects waiting for you at home.

Here’s what I’ve got done so far:

Alexandria:

• Alexandria is back online from Myrtle Beach, and is in its home. It’s connected to the outside Internet and is accessible to registered users.
• I’ve also got Sharepoint services up and running on Alexandria. This will be used to provide the front end for the registered users when they connect.
• I’ve also increased the total capacity of Alexandria to 1.37Tb

The Den / Twister:

• Twister has been resurrected and has been re-purposed as a computer for the Den. (I’m sure that Amante will talk about what we did in the Den in her blog)
• I’ve taken the monitor that was originally running the previous computer setup and it is now acting as a monitor for Twister, and a HDTV display for the Den.
• In the future, the cable box will be replaced with a TiVo. This will give us a total simultaneous recording ability of 4 channels. Estimated HD recording capacity of 20 hours (180 hours in standard).

Amante / Blizzard:

• Installed connector to Alexandria for Blizzard. Created user account for Amante.
• No major upgrades planned for Blizzard.

Amante / Tsunami:

• Moved all data to Alexandria and began preparations to rebirth Tsunami for a future role.

Me / Shockwave:

• Prepare to move all data to Alexandria. Plans to rebirth Shockwave as possible weather station / house surveilance & automation station.

Master Bedroom:

• Replaced cable box with HDTV box. Plans will include a TiVo for this room in order to use the Multi-Room Viewing.

Kitchen 2.0 / Typhoid:

• Typhoid is ready with a dual display and will be placed at the island when the cabinets come online (which is currently obviously on hold)
• I have begun the framework for a kitchen database, and have acquired a UPC database which has millions of products to source from. The initial design will track groceries and costs.

Family Room:

• This has been the biggest bit of work in the house. We have replaced the television with the one that I had up in Myrtle Beach, and installed the TiVo and extended storage.
• I’ve hooked up the X-Box Gen. 1 to the television.
• In order to properly configure the TiVo, X-Box and Television, I will need to bring a network drop to it, which means crawling in the roof amongst the insulation to pull the cable. I did some preliminary work this afternoon, and should have that roughed in tomorrow.
• The cable company comes tomorrow to give me the Cable CARD. After that, we can return to the Family Room.

Raider Duck knows that it is only a matter of days, if not hours before his time is finished.

One thing I am glad I was able to do while I was up on my last trip (20 hours of driving within 39 hours) this past Tuesday was to tell them all that while it may seem that Charlie Brown and King Henry are pulling these strings, it really isn’t up to them. There is a person assigned to a Chapter 11 company to oversee all of the finances day to day operations, and the future. This person pulls all of the (purse)strings, and makes all of the decisions. For once in their lives, Charlie Brown and King Henry don’t have too much say in their company’s future, which I am sure must be killing them. Explaining this to the ducks seemed to help things some, but in reality, how can anything help this situation?

I spoke with Raider Duck this evening, and ran some things by him. I am sure that they will all find their ways to new ponds quickly.

Well… that and the fact that the CEO (King Henry) found the blog. I think that he didn’t like what I had said, and my comments on hubris.

I’m currently up in Myrtle Beach, tying up loose ends, and I’ll be out of here in the morning, back to the house tomorrow night.

I may post some more about things in the coming days, we’ll see.

“When I say ‘Capitalism,’ I mean a full, pure, uncontrolled, unregulated laissez-faire capitalism - with a seperation of state and economics, in the same way and for the same reasons as the separation of state and church”

- Ayn Rand

While I usually limit my political discussions and pontifications to the Bully Pulpit of my website (plug, plug, but you must be a member of the site to see it), this current issue is moving me to no end.

I’m hoping that the measure fails in the Senate tonight.

Back in August of 1864, there was this little thing that was called the “Battle of Mobile Bay”. Imagine the scene, This was one of the final stands for the Confederate Navy; their Thermopylae if you will.

The Union fleet was led by an  Admiral David Farragut, literally a lifetime navy man (entering it when he was ten years of age….. Ten.) At age twelve, he was given his first command, bringing the USS Essex back to port from battle. While not really liberating Paris, or organizing the Surge, a lot to deal with for a child. Throughout the rest of his career, Farragut was known throughout the Fleet as a dependable, devoted commander, who was quite aggressive but not always one to fall right in line.

Sense a pattern as to where this is going?

So let’s skip back to Alabama. The Confederacy needed to keep Mobile Bay open to continue support for the war, and was one of the last three ports held by the Confederacy. Farragut’s mission was to take Mobile Bay for the Union with his fleet of 18 ships vs. 4 and cannon from Confederate positions. Between the cannon, or the guns from Confederates any assault would be difficult at best, but the addition of mines (called torpedoes at the time) made the whole attempt perilous at best. With the job presented to him, Farragut knew what he must do.

It was the monitor USS Tecumseh which struck the minefield first. By all accounts, it sunk within minutes claiming close to 100. The Fleet began to move about in disarray and would soon be lost if action was not taken. Farragut, onboard the USS Hartford (lashed to the ship mind you) was witness to all of the events, and the battle soon to be lost. He asked out why the ships were retreating.

“Torpedoes!”

His response has become historical. 

“Damn the torpedoes! Four bells. Captain Drayton, go ahead! Jouett, full speed!”

The Fleet manged their way through the minefield, and quickly took care of the Confederate cannon. End of Story. Make it a special on the History Channel.

But there is a lesson in this, for another man, who has a similar lineage to Farragut. This man is also running for President now, and has been charged by the residents of Arizona to represent them in the United States Senate, and now by proxy the Republican Party, and if successful, the citizens of the United States.

What is going on now is the economic version of the Battle of Mobile Bay, and it is McCain that is the commander of this Fleet. McCain has had a proven track record of voting against stupid spending for stupid projects, and this Bill that is being voted on tonight is full of these torpedoes in that the political implications for voting against this.  McCain needs to damn these torpedoes and do what is right for this country, and what is right for the concept of capitalism.

Four Bells Captain McCain. Full speed!