Monthly Archives: February 2004

Deep inside Siebel

There’s something wonderful about the Siebel architecture. I’m pretty sure I don’t like Tom Siebel, and I’m generally hostile about his sales staff, but the product he sells is a delightful place to go (yes, I think of programming environments that way). Siebel Tools is a marvelous construction, both complicated and obvious; remarkably well thought out and well laid out. While the design approach is unexpected and very complex, the execution of the design is simply sweet.

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Memories of Suite Judy Blue Eyes

Bought a copy of the original CS&N album from iTunes yesterday, and am listening at work.  Suddenly it’s 1970, and I’m back at Fort HuachucaAmazing.

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Posted in Musicks, Veteran Testimony, Yarns and Tales | Tagged | Leave a comment

No Cafeteria

When we got to work this morning, there was a sign on the cafeteria door announcing “Closed for Inventory.” Seems the contractor-proprietors of the operation had been invited to leave. We weren’t particularly surprised, but it would have been nice if we’d been warned.

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A Short History of the Action Team

There were some changes. Robbyn was quite emphatic that the niche specialties had to go, and that teams would be assigned to work most projects. Management, meantime, had cut back our authority: We were downgraded from division to section, we were explicitly enjoined to work through management on all projects, and we were required to secure approvals for tasks we’d formerly done on our own authority. While these changes partly reflected the reality of an inexperienced analyst staff, it was also clear that the new managers wanted more control of the decision-making process.

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Sweet Dreams

My first encounter with a stereo headset was in high school; my friend (and choir seatmate) Vik Berstis insisted that there was something magical about the device, and forced me to listen to–well, I really don’t remember what. But I did agree about the magic.

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Posted in Dear Old Macalester, Life's Stories, Musicks | Leave a comment