July 12, 2012

There were 5 posts published on July 12, 2012 (this is page 1 of 1).

Letters from Grandma: 5 Nov 1989

[Note: Read this post first for an introduction.]

This letter to Grandma came near the tail end of my 3 month deployment for PACEX 89. That was the first of my three deployments and included Japan as the sole port visit. Long after that deployment I marveled at how my ship seemed to leave a series of major earthquakes in its wake as it sailed counter-clockwise around the Northern Pacific.

The visit to Nagasaki, where the world’s second atomic bomb was used in anger, was heartbreaking. More recently I’ve come to understand just how fanatical many Japanese were during the war and that the invasion of the Japanese mainland surely would’ve resulted in a million or more deaths. There is no doubt in my mind about the insanity of nuclear war, but I don’t know if I were President Truman that I would not have made the same choice.

This deployment gave me a really good taste of sea life and I think I took to it. I would have two, six-month WestPac deployments ahead of me before I left the Navy.

Oh, and fortunately my shipmates were wrong about me being UNC or Duke material!
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Great coverage of the Duke Energy – Progress coup

I’ve really been impressed with the coverage of the Duke Energy merger fiasco done by the N&O’s John Murawski, such as today’s story on Jim Rogers’s talk with Progress employees. Murawski’s been churning out story after story on this and has even managed to write an especially colorful feature on the Eno River festival in between.

I also enjoyed today’s commentary by N&O editor Dan Barkin, who all-but-laughs at the lame excuses Duke CEO Jim Rogers gave to the N.C. Utilities Commission on Tuesday. If after all the merger’s due diligence Duke was somehow surprised by Bill Johnson’s leadership style and the sad shape of the Crystal River plant then it ain’t Johnson who needs to needs to be shown the door. No, the only ones who got taken for a ride here are the ratepayers and the justifiably-angry commissioners at the NCUC.

This is why I still subscribe to newspapers. Keep it up, boys!

KVM upheaval continues

Back in May, I got an unsolicited email from a consulting firm who had been hired by the main competitor of a company I used to work for in “the KVM space,” as business dweebs like to say. The consultant had been hired to “understand the current KVM market” and my post from 2007 predicting the death of KVM had caught his eye. The consultant wanted to pick my brain about the post and whether I had any other insights to share.

Being that he was working on behalf of a former competitor, initially I was reluctant to respond. I blame that competitor’s long-running lawsuit against my former employer for me getting laid off from the best job I ever had. Eventually, though, I decided to chat for a bit as it had been 5 years since I had written that and five years since I’d worked for that company.

I didn’t have much more to add to what I had written in 2007. I have worked in large datacenters in the meantime and my prediction has held up in every instance. The KVM market is dying if not already dead.

Earlier this week I received news that one of the employees I hired at my former employer just lost his job. While I don’t know all the details I have to wonder if that shrinking KVM market is to blame. Sad.