Free Comic Book Day

There is a store locator on the site. It is Saturday. You have no excuse not to go.
The whole situation may be made more convenient with the presence of a child to drag along with you, but you can show up without one without raising any eyebrows. If you must have a child as a cover, I recommend picking one up on the way. They wander around department stores all the time and seem to have no price tags or UPC marks so I'm pretty sure you can just walk out with them. Just be sure to bring them back to where you got them before you have to pay for college.
Anyway, I've made a point of calling attention to this event every year in an attempt to drive some traffic their way. This is when publishers put out some of their best work to gain new readers. Also, there have been free toys every year! Free toys!
Okay, while you are there, pick up a few comics the host stores are selling. All that traffic is useless to them if they make no money. Also, there is a lot of good stuff crammed up in those shelves.
Since the Wolverine movie is coming out this weekend and some people still haven't seen it, this is the perfect time to catch up on your Wolverine before hitting the theatre/bittorrent site.
You must read the original Wolverine miniseries by Claremont and Miller. Wolverine heads to Japan to explore part of his history there. Also, he fights ninjas. Like thousands of ninjas. This comic is largely the source of most of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles mythology. Before they had their own movies and toys, they were a Wolverine spoof.
While not a Claremont story, Wolverine: Weapon X is pretty essential reading as it tells the story of all the things that happened to Wolverine when he was a Canadian military experiment. Also, I learned that at one time Canada had a military, so the book was educational as well. Side note: Is Canada still open? Anyone know what the hours are?
The Essential Hulk Volume Five contains the first appearance of Wolverine (in issues 180 and 181, conveniently bound into one volume with a bunch of other less awesome stuff). Back then he was already "Weapon X" but his costume was . . . different. Anyway, it's worth a read.
And while Claremont is again not responsible for this (though he's all over the Wolverine brand) the Astonishing X-Men by Joss Whedon is composed entirely of snarky dialogue, character analysis, and solid, undiluted awesome.
The major plot is completely dumb on a lot of levels, but the comic works as Whedon proves that campy sci-fi crap is not what comics are about anymore. That is the backdrop for the interactions of the characters. And Whedon seems, to me, to get Wolverine.
Okay.
So you have time to plan around it, find a store, and gather a kid (or not) to attend Free Comic Book Day. I don't want to hear any "I've got a wedding to attend" because I've given you enough notice to convincingly fake sick. None of that "the flower beds need to be weeded" nonsense either. Weeds convert CO2 into life-giving oxygen, you eco-terrorist. And don't try that "I'm not a nerd" excuse, either. You've read this far. The Geek Boat has sailed, my friend, and you are on deck.

Eight Days to Go

For the past year we've been moving towards the official audit steadily and meticulously. In the case of Government approval for information systems, we've been aiming at a moving target the whole time. Settings change in the official requirement and new updates are released with a frequency that rivals Stephen King novels.
On May 6th, the auditors are due to finally arrive.
At that point, we are unable to change anything. Our days are spent assisting with the scanning and answering extensive interrogations about processes and the work of our team.
Once they give us the results of the scan, we get to fix everything on it. Immediately and frantically. And then there is another scan and more interrogations about the stuff which showed up on the first scan, how our processes failed and which team member is responsible.
Each finding represents a line item on an Excel spreadsheet. To give you an indication of the volume, last year Excel could not display everything they found wrong. There was an actual email circulating about how things were going to be better this year, not because we were in better shape -- Just because Excel 2007 can display more data than 2003 could.
All this goes into a massive file somewhere along with pre- and post- on-site remediation efforts.
During this process, we can't leave. Food (or food-like substances) gets brought in and we remain at our desks, enduring the questioning and frantically fixing every single stupid thing.
To prepare, we've been doing our own scanning. All eyes are on us, the new group, with the full expectation that we will botch this as fully and awfully as everyone else always does.
As of this morning, our total number of unique findings is 22.
I'm pretty sure even Excel 2003 can manage that one.
My concern at this point is that if we aren't up here fixing stuff for four straight days with no break, how can I pad my hours to make up for it?
I'm sure I'll find a way.
One doesn't remain a consultant for this long without picking up an ability to bill creatively.
And mercilessly.

When Procedure is the Desired Result

When I started working here, there was an initiative to standardize access by job roles. On the surface, this is a fabulous idea.
It defines responsibilities and allows for smoother configuration of the accounts of new hires.
The problem is the transition.
Several people on my team have been with the company for a decade.
During that time, they have accumulated accesses they no longer need by definition but still use as a learned component of their day-to-day jobs.
My manager is one of these people, and since this whole project ties in with our groups role in the company, he has been tasked with making it happen even though it is something he does not want.
According to process, he assigned a project manager to the task and sat back.
This project manager diligently began documenting roles and responsibilities and access lists and submitting paperwork. The my manager found something else to take priority and pulled her off the access project to work on that.
He assigned another project manager to take over the access initiative. This project manager needed quite a bit of cross-training and catch-up information from the first, but once the transition was complete, he too began to document things and submit the proper forms to make this change a reality.
However, as frequently happens in large and complicated environments like this one, something came up. My manager pulled this project manager and set them against the new task, assigning another to replace him on the access standardization initiative.
Again, there was a period of cross-training and catch-up. This third project manager found some inconsistencies in the process which had existed from the start. She began the process of correcting these, starting with the beginning of the project timeline. Since some of the original requests are over a year old, they need to completely be re-submitted for review. Further, the error makes a good case for a re-evaluation of existing gathered data sets, prompting a review of those.
Closing his office door behind me, I asked my manager if he knew that the project had just been effectively rebooted, delaying the end result well past the deadline established in the project budget and calling the whole future of the effort into question over paperwork errors.
His answer to that question also clarified a few questions I've long held about corporate life:
"Oh, I know. Why do you think she is the Project Management Team Lead?"
"Does she know that is why she is the Team Lead? Because she is the preventer of progress?"
"No," he was smiling,"If it were intentional complication it would be considered sabotage. Her intent is pure, so everything is good."
It is possible, internet, to be promoted specifically for not getting things done and more for not getting things done in a spectacular manner while adhering to the letter of the corporate policy manual and ignoring its spirit.
While this fact brings a strange warmth to my heart, I suspect that is because 10+ years on the inside of this kind of place has left me a hollow shell of a person who delights in turning processes against themselves and each other in corporate policy gladiatorial death matches.
I also suspect that the standardization project has just gotten a resounding thumbs down from the crowd.

Saving The Planet

I hadn't planned anything specific for Earth Day. I generally chop up plastic six-pack rings and drop cans and bottles in the recycle bin, but Earth Day is about making an extra effort on one specific day before climbing back in the massive domestic SUV and driving out to some private land to shoot at forest creatures.
Accordingly, I decided to not use electricity for an hour last night.
I did plan to continue using my share of oxygen from the atmosphere because there is only so far I am willing to go for the planet.
I gathered a pile of candles and shut down my laptop and cellphones at 9:21EST last night and grabbed a notebook to record the process.

9:21EST -- After watching the screen go dark, I immediately wonder if anyone else is performing this ritual in honor of the planet. Before realizing it, I've typed "www.goog" on the unresponsive keyboard of my powered-down computer. Research will need to wait.

9:22EST -- I can totally do this. It's an hour, right? And I have a book.

9:24EST -- One of the character names is familiar. I turn again to the darkened screen to hit Wikipedia to find out if this character has been in another book I've read, or if I've possibly already read this book and just don't remember it. The laptop is still closed.

9:25EST -- How much power does a laptop really use? Not like I can go online and check. . .

9:31EST -- I found a magazine I haven't seen before. One of the models is scary with super dark eye makeup. She wears a wool dress to the beach for some reason. I suspect she wants to sell me something, but without being able to go to the freaking website on the ad I will likely never know.

9:36EST -- I shut off some stray lights in other parts of the house. There is still some light from glowing LEDs and flashing "power off" indicator lights.

9:45EST -- Is it cheating if I just go to sleep? Again, the impulse hits to ask the internet if there are rules about this kind of thing.

9:54EST -- Okay, seriously. I recycle. I drive responsibly. What has the planet ever done for me?

10:02EST -- If the ice was already made, is it cheating for me to put some in a glass? Also, how "green" is the vodka production process?

10:05EST -- I found food coloring. Candlelight sucks. Vodka is now definitely "green".

10:10EST -- You know what the problem is? It's dark outside. Today was so beautiful. Tiny white puffy clouds, temperatures in the mid seventies, a light breeze. It was hard to stay cooped up at work. All I wanted to do all afternoon was skip out, head home, fire up the laptop and browse the internet for adorable kitten pictures. I wasn't done with that until dark.

10:14EST -- If I were actually going insane, would I know? What would that feel like? I miss you, WebMD.

10:20EST -- I can go a minute without looking at the clock. Sixty seconds. No big deal.

10:20EST -- One, Two, Three, Four . . .

10:21EST -- Begin transcribing my notes into this post. Still shaking a little, though. Stupid planet.

Guilt Brownies

I asked a co-worker what his plans were for Tuesday. He said he had off-site training. Something about moving cheeses, but I wasn't really paying attention.
The point is that I figured it was a cover.
I just knew that he was going to go to "off-site training" just before the big surprise party celebrating my first full year with the company (and, it must be noted, the second longest stretch with a single employer since I entered the weird world of Information Technology). It was almost too easy to guess, but I told him that he was good and that I wouldn't tell anyone that I knew and that I was fully capable of acting surprised.
I even demonstrated:

"Oh! I had no idea! You shouldn't have!"

"What are you talking about, Garrick?"

"For me? I thought everyone had forgotten?"

"Seriously, man. What?"

"Presents? And cash? How did you know my favorite things?"

"I'm going to go back to my cubicle now, Garrick. Are you okay?"

"Oh, I'm okay. And now you know it is no big deal that I know about the party."

"What party?"

"Exactly."

A few minutes later he came back. "This is bothering me. Did I forget something? Is it your birthday? I can see you circled the date on the group calendar but there is no label. Just a picture of a kitten. What does that even mean?"

"Don't worry, Dave. I'm cool. I don't know anything about any surprise party and you totally didn't give it away."

"Seriously. What the hell are you talking about?"

At this point I began to suspect that he wasn't playing the surprise party game. "Tomorrow is the one year anniversary of my start date. Did you really schedule an off-site cheese meeting and completely forget to plan a massive party in my honor with cake and pie and balloon animals but no clowns because they creep me out?"

"Um. Yes?"

And with that, I knew he was telling the sad truth.
I showed up to work on Tuesday anyway, because I'm paid by the hour.
However, Dave stopped by my desk on the way to his cheese thing. He gave me a big box of brownies (which I shared with the row of people participating in some weight-loss contest) and fresh cut flowers (which I took home and placed on the mantle out of the reach of the cats who are horrible and eat plants and the cables for brand-new noise-canceling headphones).
And you know what? It was even better than a party for one simple reason:
I got to bill my time for it.

I Find Your Standards Unacceptably Low

We have a set of servers which must be kept up to Department of Defense standards at all times.
If compliance slips, horrible things happen. The details of this horribleness have never been spoken aloud. Nor should they be.
The threat is omnipresent regardless of details.
We have another set of servers with security requirements not spelled out by the government. We can do what we want there, within reason. This was the first group of servers we built to replace the most disgustingly screwed up bunch of broken servers when I started.
Since we had no directive from the Department of Defense, I put them in according to my own ideas of security.
Users have no rights to the local drives. They cannot view the registry. They cannot open a command window. They cannot right-click.
These specific guidelines do not exist in the Department of Defense guidelines. As a result, they are not configured on those servers, even though security is technically tighter.
This company is big. Officially it is the largest employer in the state. The data center is the largest in the state and in the top 2% globally.
There are also many, many levels of management. The CIO is so far removed from my group that only one guy I work with has ever even seen him. To say that there is no direct line between my group (or any I.T. group here) and the CIO is not exactly true. It is just that the line in question crosses half a dozen firewalls and a DMZ.
This is why I was surprised on Monday when my team lead burst into my cubicle before coffee and said my manager needed me in his office immediately since the CIO had an issue with me, personally.
See, once upon a time the CIO didn't like having individual applications published to him. In the old servers, he got a published desktop which looked just like his own.
When the applications were migrated, so was that published desktop.
The issue turned up when he logged in and couldn't do anything with that desktop because of the security measures I had put in place just because I liked them.
The first words I ever heard the CIO say were over my boss's speakerphone: "You said that self-important jerk who took away my rights on the server was here -- Where is he?"
My manager said, "He just walked in."
Oh. So I'm a jerk right from the start. To the CIO. Where do I go from there?
I got a "Shush" gesture from my team lead as I was starting to ask exactly what access he was missing, even though I had guessed exactly what the access was already.
I was asked exactly why I had over-hardened servers people needed to do work on.
I was able to reply that the servers were hardened according to industry standard best practices. I also offered to set up his own server somewhere where he could do what he wanted. I'm all about security, but the government doesn't care about the network I'm putting that server in and I enjoy getting paid.
The CIO seemed satisfied and hung up, leaving just a Director on the phone with my manager.
"I'm going to see if I can get that Post-It note off his desk now," the Director said.
"Post-It note?" I have no idea why I asked. I wasn't even sure it had actually been out loud until I saw my team lead gesture wildly about something. It was actually a full-body flail.
"Yes, Garrick," the Director explained,"When he asked who was responsible for the security on his server the CIO was given your name. Traditionally, he writes down names he collects on Post-It notes which he sticks to his desk for follow up. You do not want to be on one of his Post-It notes."
"Can I have it?" Before coffee, I have less than no impulse control, internet.
The Director, to his credit, laughed as he said,"If you want to get into his office and get it yourself you are welcome to it."
I turned to my manager, who ended the call and gave me a look.
"No, I will not give you a PC repair kit and send you into the CIO's office to collect a Post-It note with your name on it in his handwriting after you engineer some kind of issue with his machine. Please just set up his access and make sure he doesn't call again."
As my team lead and I walked back to my desk, I asked him how my manager knew what I was going to ask for.
"You're starting to get a reputation around here."

Poor Planning

You asked for it. Here is another way awesome World of Warcraft post:

I meet a lot of people when I play WoW. Most of them I'd be perfectly happy never meeting again. Those that are not complete and utter jerks make my "friends" list, and there are enough of those that the in-game list frequently fills and must be purged of people who haven't logged in in a while.
Knowing nice people is good, but not having faces to associate with names (faces other than the generic orc or elf mug) they tend to get forgotten as individuals from time to time.
These aren't the people I play with every week. Those people I know by their real-world, meat space names.
The people on my friends list are in another category. These are not "friends", they are people that annoy me less than everyone else on the server.
Anyway, a few days ago I got a message in game from someone I didn't immediately recognize. I checked my friends list and they were not on it. Since the message was more than the standard "lol fag", I guessed that at some point I had annoyed this person less than everyone else on the server and made their in-game friends list.
We chatted back and forth for a little while. I had a raid to attend and this person was running a few quests.
They were nice enough. Not nice enough to make my own friends list, but nice. Space is at a premium on that thing.
I attended my raid and went about my virtual life for a couple of days before hearing from this person again.
Then they sent me another message while I was gathering some babies from one tribe to deliver them to another (long story there, but it may have been the right thing to do) just to say hello and find out how I was doing.
Again, we chatted for a few moments before I had another raid to attend (fully 80% of my time in-game is spent in raids now, with the other 20% spent preparing for raids).
I was getting a little creeped out by now, cursor hovering over the "ignore" button on this guy. People can work their way off my friends list, but ignore is eternal.
He sent me a message while I was actually in a raid, ignoring the auto-responder which should have told him I was in the middle of something with no time to chat.
"Guess what?"
I switched Webinara over to auto-attack and (against my better judgement) responded with a "what?"
"Guess!"
Internet, I play games online. A lot, to be honest. "Guess" is not the game I pay $15 a month to play.
"Um . . . You got a flying mount?" I'll admit, I've lost touch with what lower level people do.
"No!"
"Exalted reputation with someone?"
"No! Well, kind of."
I switched targets and cursed in meat space about n00bs. "How do you get kind of Exalted?"
"I'm getting married!"
Oh no. I was completely afraid that this conversation was going to head somewhere which would make me uncomfortable. Again, I hovered over "ignore".
"Congratulations." I said. Because that is what you say.
"Not in real life. In game!"
Aw, crap. With that, this officially crossed over into a couple of areas I find weird.
"That's awesome," I lied, switching my attention back to killing a very frightening giant spider-beast.
"I want you to attend, Webinara, because you are one of the nicest people I've met."
Shit.
"I'd love to attend. Just tell me where."
The giant spider-beast died. There was cheering around me.
"I have to buy a ring first and find some Tailor who can make a tux and wedding dress."
lol fag
"That's too cool. Talk to my friends Mairick and Moatte. They can make the clothes you need." I mostly wanted to fling this attention at my real-world friends Darrell and Todd. To this day, I have no idea if either can sew an in-game wedding dress.
Side note: I miss you guys more than this story indicates.
I had hoped he'd spend some time doing that. My hopes were crushed when he sent,"I know where I want the wedding to be."
"Oh?" Webinara was concentrating on loot at this point. Of the 80% of in-game time I spend raiding, 99% of that is spent worrying over loot.
"Scarlet Monastery Cathedral."
This guy needed someone to lead the way into Scarlet Monastery Cathedral, kill all the monsters which would try oh-so-hard to end his newbish life and that of his bride, wait for the corpses to vanish, then hang out by the alter to pick off any stragglers who show up during the ceremony.
Now this is a wedding I can get into.
"That sounds lovely." I was really running out of encouraging things to say.
"I need a cake."
If everyone in my guild was not already logged onto a character I know, I would swear someone was attempting to punk me.
However, being the repository of in-game trivia, I told him about the cakes sold by one of the vendors in Dalaran.
"I'm not high enough level to get to Dalaran." He seemed so sad.
"I can mail you one," I offered, thinking it might soothe the burn of my waiting for him to log off and putting him on ignore.
"Thanks! Just bring it with you. I want you to plan the wedding."
WTF?
"I'm a horrible planner of anything," and I am,"You'd be better off hiring one of the professionals in Orgrimaar."
"I haven't seen those." he answered.
I haven't either,"Oh sure, you see them in trade chat all the time. Very reasonable rates."
"But I like you and I want you to be a part of this. Look at the ring."
He linked the ring to me. It was a [Wedding Ring]. No armor bonus, no agility buff, no attack power. Just an expression of nerd-love.
"Just let me know where to be." Webinara is a sucker for romance. And n00b jewelry.
Please remember that I still have no idea who this person is and how I might know them.
The following day I got another message. Apparently, he had assembled his guild outside the gates of Scarlet Monastery Cathedral and they were waiting for me.
I had no notice. I hadn't picked up a cake and those things show up at the vendor on a timer.
"Now?" I asked.
"Yes. We decided to elope."

/ignore
/logoff