Monthly Archive for March, 2007

Tuesday

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on March 27, 2007
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I had some work to do tonight for a client, so I ended up not going out. And now, it’s almost 10p and a little late to start given that I have to be up early tomorrow.

The details won’t interest you, but today was really cool. I sat in on several good presentations and learned a few new things… mostly concerning planning and conducting disaster response exercises.

And surprisingly, and this was the first time I really paid attention to it…. there are a few, very few, hot girls in my field. They’re married of course, to rich guys apparently judging by the rocks on their fingers… but not none-the-less. Hehe.

And it’s only Monday

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on March 26, 2007
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I was just emailing my mom to let her know all was well and let her know how the conference was going. It was in relaying her the updates and the plan for the rest of the week that I realized… it’s only Monday.

Yesterday, Sunday, was the official start of Spring World 2007. It’s being held at the Corondao Springs Resort at Disney World. Pictured here are two ‘mobile recovery units’; one from Sungard and one from RentSys. Basically, these are semi-trailers with carpeting, lights, desks, air-conditioning, data and telephone connections, can be fully powered by generator and can be brought onsite anywhere in the country should your business suffer any kind of “disaster” that prevents your employees from working in their normal offices.

Anyway, I spent Sunday afternoon sitting through a presentation/overview of analyzing the impact of various risks/threats to a business. After that, I spent some time walking through the vendor area to talk to people about various products and services.

Today was even more fun. I was a little late getting to the first presentation because I had trouble finding a place to park. There were 3 sessions in the morning. The first was generic and about motivation and engaging people. Ironically, it was really boring. Next, a woman spoke about past and emerging technologies in our profession. That was a big better.

The last presentation of the morning, though, was awesome. Lance Ewing, who is head of Risk Management for Harrah’s Entertainment (the casino people) gave a presentation about what his company does in terms of preparing for the unexpected and managing a crisis. Three of their casinos were destroyed (or nearly so) during hurricanes Katrina and Rita. The guy was hilarious, and did a good job of presenting what he had to deal with, and what went well and not-so-well.

There were 3 more sessions after lunch (which I’m sure you are absolutely not interested in at all because they all dealt with cost analysis and legal/regulatory requirements, so I won’t go into the details). Afterward, Sungard hosted a dinner and free drinks. I sat at a table full of people and introduced myself. It turns out the guy that I sat next to is from Whiteland, IN, which is about 30 minutes from where I live. Too weird.

Tonight is the last night where there is something planned for the evening. Tomorrow I plan to hit Downtown Disney to check out the House of Blues.

Old Town

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on March 25, 2007
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So last night I ventured not far away… to Kissimmee, FL and hung out at “Old Town”. When I first got there, I thought I had made a mistake by choosing this as my Saturday night hang-out. It’s a very family-oriented place full of shops and amusement park rides.

But it happened that on Saturday nights they have a HUGE car show… which turned out pretty cool. In fact, I saw several nice cars, and was especially jealous of one guys ‘Vette-Puter’ setup.

After visiting a little magic shop and almost convinced to by a new trick, I made my way to the Blue Max Tavern for dinner. Then I watched the ‘cruise’ where all the cars in the show drive by honking their horns and revving their engines. They also mentioned that Thursday night is the ‘bike show’, so I might find myself going back if nothing else comes up.

Blogging Orlando

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on March 24, 2007
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I left Columbus, IN around 1pm yesterday. Last night I spent the night at some little town south of Atlanta. It was really crappy. I just arrived and got settled in my “hotel” here in Orlando. I was expecting just a nice hotel room. But the SPM Blue Tree Resort is very, very nice. I could live here. It reminds me of my old apartment in LA, though just a tad smaller.

The drive down was pretty uneventful, and it was nice to have a long while by myself to just listen to music drive. I’m tired, but at the same time a bit mentally rested.

Tomorrow, and for the rest of the week, I’ll be attending “Spring World 2007″ which is an annual conference for disaster recovery/response and emergency preparedness professionals. The first part of the conference starts tomorrow (Sunday) at 1:30p, but the rest of the day is mine. I’m going to go read through all these brochures and find something to do.

Berkeley: ?, 1994 - March 21, 2007

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on March 21, 2007
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Berkeley was named after the Irish idealist, Bishop George Berkeley. Like his namesake, it’s pronounced “bark-lee”.

I’ve had him since he was a puppy. And he wasn’t just a puppy… he was a little teddy bear. If you’ve never held a baby Chow Chow, you can’t understand. And this one… he was the runt and I think we sorta’ felt sorry for him.

About the same time we got Berkeley, we (my ex-wife and I) also got a German Shepherd/Border Collie mix puppy. They didn’t get along so well. In fact, they fought. They fought a lot. Berks still has a crumpled up left ear as a result of one of their incursions.

A few years later, Shannon and I were moving from the house we were renting into the mobile home we just bought. She was at work and I was moving stuff. As we had done often, since we lived in the country, I just let Berks out to do his thing and get some exercise. Long story short, he was shot about 12 times with a .22. Apparently, some farmer thought he was a coyote messing with his cattle and really let him have it.

After suffering multiple bullet wounds to his muzzle and shattered fore-limbs, surgery and splints and pins, he pulled through. My friends called him the ‘Six Million Dollar Dog’.

So now… it’s 2007. I think we got him the summer of 1994. That makes him about 13 years old, right?

Long story short, after a pretty bad winter dealing with his arthritis, and senility causing him to sometimes forget who even I was, but more troublesome, causing him to be unpredictably aggressive toward me and visitors, well… today I finally had him put to sleep.

My friend Sharon suggested I have it done at home. But I had already talked to the vet yesterday and it made sense to do it at his office. I stayed home with Berkeley this morning and we took advantage of the beautiful, sunny day to have one last romp in the yard and a short walk up and down the road. When we came back in, he was ready for a nap, so I let him sleep for an hour or so.

The doctor was expecting me, so I didn’t have to wait at all. Of course, along the way to the exam room, I had to pull him back because he was snarling and growling at the other dogs and cats in the waiting room. He gave Berkeley a sedative and left us alone for his last 15 conscious minutes. I petted him and talked to him about all the good times we had as his legs slowly grew weaker and he couldn’t stand up anymore. He looked up at me while I scratched his ears until he finally fell asleep.

At that point, he was gone. The vet gave him another shot and within a few minutes, while I watched, his heart stopped.

Coming home from work today was a little weird. I mean, Berkeley stopped being excited for me to come home a long time ago. So there was no dog greeting me at the door as there hasn’t been for a long while now. I think that’s the hardest part. I really lost him several months ago when his age finally got the best of him and he became something other than my Berkeley. Today was just a technicality.

Bong Hits 4 Jesus

Published
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on March 19, 2007
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For all those Christians who thought the Muslims should ‘lighten up’ over the Mohammed cartoons… consider this the Christian version of the same. And most newspapers didn’t avoid reprinting those cartoons out of respect for Muslims. They did so out of fear that their offices would be burned down, or their advertisers (fearing the same for supporting it) would pull out. People aren’t afraid to caricature Jesus Christ because no one fears that Christians will issue a fatwa and call for their heads for doing so. Not yet, anyway.

As for the issue at hand, Morse was in a position of authority and responsible for her students. Whether or not Frederick attended school that day and whether or not the incident took place on school grounds, I think Morse, right or wrong, was at least justified in taking the actions she did and ordering the banner down. Even if Frederick’s intentions were not to promote drug use, I think it is reasonable to believe that a public school administrator might immediately read that message into it.

On the other hand, the subsequent suspensions were over-the-top. She had plenty of time to think about it in context, consult with her peers, etc and realize that perhaps she had infringed on this kid’s rights. She should have immediately apologized to Frederick and his parents, then gone back to the school board to tighten up their policies on expression and their definition of a ’school-sanctioned event’ (if she was concerned this would happen again).

So, while not at fault for her immediate response/reaction, I think Morse should be held accountable for allowing it to escalate and owes compensatory damages to the kid and his family.