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Ok – I just had an interaction with a “technical” support rep from Symantec that is quite simply driving me insane.

I want to thank “Shajeewin” for renewing my objection to outsourcing jobs overseas.  Yes people, it’s cheaper.  But then again you do get what you pay for.  This “person” (and I use the term loosely) had an interaction with me that doesn’t pass the Turing test.  Note to companies – if you’re going to outsource your support to a third-world country, pick one that can fucking speak *AND UNDERSTAND* the English language first.  *THEN* see if you can find one who is technically competent.

Then fuck-off for outsourcing jobs when we have 10+ million unemployed in our own country.

Background:  I am trying to set up a customer who wants to push a Disaster Recovery image of ONE computer system across the internet to my datacenter, to be used in case their building becomes a smoking hole in the ground.

Initial push of data is about 30 gig, daily updates in the megabytes range.  The hard part is this customer isn’t the type to spend a lot of money on Bandwidth, so went with Verizon DSL, with it’s whopping 128K upstream speed.  (Verizon – you suck too.  #justsaying)

My solution for this was to do the inital backup to a USB drive, hand-carry it to my system and upload it, and then push the incremental updates over the wire.  Simple, right?  (Trust me, it is)

So I look at Norton/Symantec Ghost.  First option, I’ve always liked Norton – though in retrospect I’m changing my mind about that QUICKLY.

Here is the chat that ensued (with my after-the-fact comments thrown in)

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If we want to reign in the deficit let’s start by fixing the absolutly stupid way our government spends money.  And let’s *START* with the defense contractors, not exclude them like everyone wants to.

This business of “I have to spend the money or I won’t get it next year” has got to stop.  It’s a large part of the reason we’re in this mess.

I spend a lot of my time working at a government agency and I watch it happen every time Q4 rolls around.  Suddenly everyone has money they have to spend and by gods they’re going to spend it, even if it’s on useless shit no-one is going to ever touch.

In one equipment cage someone has abandoned almost 200 SunRay2 client workstations.  They were bought with end-of-year money but there were actually no plans to ever put a virtual desktop infrastructure in place.

In another cage there are several hundred old Dell workstations that have been upgraded.  They are still in support.

You get the idea.  I dig through the floor and find cables that are run from one side of the datacenter to another, capped and terminated on both ends, with no actual use.  (This was the fault of the government contractor, not the agency itself.)

And I’ve been in defense contractors that have literally dumped millions of dollars into projects they KNEW were set to be cancelled just to get the money on their books.

Now don’t get me wrong, (full disclosure)  *I* am a government contractor.  However, I’m also the one who flat-rates a 40-hour week and then regularly works 60 hour weeks to ensure I get the job done.

We as a people could eliminate the deficit without laying off massive numbers of people by simply being smart about how we (agencies) spend our(American’s) money.

1. Find a way to provide incentive for government agencies to save money.  Offer a 10% bonus for savings, recognition, etc.

2. Stop with the “you didn’t spend it last year so you don’t get it this year.” bullshit.  Needs change from year to year and this practice does nothing but forces agencies to spend money uselessly.

3. Understand that shit happens.  Allow government agencies to apply-for and pull from discretionary funds for unforseen/emergency spending with justification and approval.

4. Motivation is key – Get the unions out of government offices.  The reason federal employees are so lethargic is because they know it’s almost impossible to fire them.  Unions just make this worse.

5. Get rid of the GS payscale system.  When a federal employee gets to Step-10 of their pay-scale, they know there are no significant future increases in their pay coming.   Therefore they have no motivation to do anything over and above “their job.”  Federal employee payscales should equal private industry payscales, to attract the best and brightest of the industry.  (As an example, if you are hired as a GS14-Step10, you take the job knowing you’re never going to get a significant pay-raise for merit.)

I’m curious as to other suggestions my 4 readers might have.

…and try to ignore the smell of your state taking a big crap on your head and everything you stood for.

I lived in Massachusetts – There was a reason I left.  There was a reason I left a *GOOD* company to work for a *SHIT* company.  It was the state of Massachusetts.  Spending one more month there would have involved me shooting from a roof-top somewhere.

My wife says that Massachusetts would be a nice place if it weren’t for the people.  Tonight just cemented that for me.  Massholes manage to continue to be fucking idiots.

Did you happen to forget why you kept electing Ted Kennedy?  Why you now choose to deny the rest of the country healthcare reform that you already have?

Just go away.  Nobody really likes you anyway.

The evil must be stopped.

First off – let me start by offering my condolences on the loss of someone who seems like a spectacular person.

Laura – get a fucking life.  We all know what you’re doing.  In your desperate desire for attention you attack people of doing *EXACTLY* what you are doing.  Questing for media attention at the expense of others.

Well what can we expect of someone who once claimed that she became an EMT because she liked blood and tragedy of others.

Let me put it to you this way.

You don’t allow comments on your blog.  That is a sign of cowardice.  You *KNOW* that 90% of the comments won’t go your way so you censor them.  If you truly believed in your cause you would welcome the comments of others.

Unless you are sure that they would be against you, which is why you hide.  You *KNOW* you’re wrong and as such hide from all criticism.

You can’t hide from us.  Because what I write here, and what Trisha writes on MomDot, and what a hundred other bloggers out there write, are outside of your control.

Want proof you’re a hypocrite?  Here it is:

Sitemeter is exactly what it sounds like.  A tool for measuring hit counts for a site.  Which means that our dear #thundercunt is after exactly the same thing she accuses everyone else of.  Hits.

Laura – your hypocrisy knows no bounds.  Crawl back under the rock from whence you came.

Bitch.

Isaac Newton was a genius.  That’s undisputed.  He was also wrong.

It’s  important to note that while Newton was on the right track with gravity, his logic was fundamentally flawed and as a result his theory and understanding were 100% wrong.

The flaw in newtonian physics lies in assuming that objects are attracted to each other, while in truth the fact of the matter is that matter bends space itself, the appearance of gravity is nothing but smaller objects moving within space that is bent by larger ones.

Imagine a trampoline with a bowling ball in the center of it.  The trampoline represents space, the bowling ball represents, for the sake of argument, the sun.

Roll a tennis ball around the bowling ball and you get a 2D approximation of why/how orbital mechanics works.  The bowling ball isn’t pulling the tennis ball into a semi-round orbit, but the surface the tennis ball is travelling on is curved, so the ball moves with the curve.

Matter tells space how to bend, space tells matter how to move.

Next week I’ll explain time.

#justsaying

Yes, I’m that kind of geek.

Ok, first off, like the new theme?  Good.  Moving on.

I’m compiling a list of all articles, posts, tweets, etc. referencing Madison Mcgraw, (Laura Freed, whatever) (@madisonmcgraw’s) darker side for a little SEO project..

Help me out.  Email me at jg (at) shredderfood.com.  Just cut and paste the link.  I’ll compile them and post them, once they’re up, everyone needs to COPY AND PASTE the list to their own site.

The more links to the trash the higher it goes…

Let’s relegate her book to page 12 of the search results.  And at the same time let the world know who she really is.

My god this turned out way too long, but I can’t really delete any of it and have the rest of it make sense.

For this I apologize.

Ok, I’ve said it before.  There are two basic types of people on Twitter. (and a third, blend of the two, but still two types)

First, there are those who are there for nothing but self-promotion, marketing, advertising, and chasing the almighty dollar.

Second, there are those who have found an unlikely community. People who share pain, happiness, friendship.

I’m squarely in the second.  I don’t promote myself other than linking blog-posts to twitter so that people who care enough to read my sometimes mindless blathering can.  I enjoy comments but usually don’t get any because my blog is *WAY* down on the list of “popular” blogs.  (Right up there with “Everything you wanted to know about cat litter”)  (I do have a google adsense banner for all the good it does me, I can’t remember when I saw the last check from them)

Then there are those that are just there for a profit, and for the “Marketing Potential”   People like @MadisonMcgraw.  Or Laura Freed, or whatever her name is this week.  She falls right into column two.

As most of you know, last week the worst tragedy possible happened to someone.  A boy drowned.  This is such a horrific thing in and of itself that I can’t even begin to imagine what his parents must be going through.

I don’t have all of the information, but it seems to me that mom was doing what moms do, going about her daily business, twittering, cooking, cleaning, putting the kids on their chores, etc, same as we all do.  (I’m a dad, but believe it or not, the concept is pretty much the same, just less makeup)

A two-year old boy slipped into the pool and drowned.  My god *I* cried for an hour when I’d heard the news.  My first thoughts with the family and surviving children…  I have three kids and couldn’t in my worst nightmare picture what Shellie was going through.

On Twitter The outpouring of support was amazing, and is why I continue to think that twitter-parents are some of the best people around.  They rally when most people would just pass by.

And rally they did.

All except one person.  Laura Freed, A.K.A. Madison Mcgraw, A.K.A. godknowswhatelse.  A self-proclamed, self-published “author” who, when the whole fiasco started had a relatively brand-new twitter account and less than 50 followers.  For some reason, she forgot the basic tenant of human decency (or her parents never taught her).  She saw her opportunity and seized it like someone who hasn’t eaten in two weeks jumps on a bowl of dog-food.  Her first tweets were asking for verification, suspiciously all directed at media outlets.

Here’s the lesson your parents didn’t care enough to teach you.

“Always err on the side of compassion – you may be wrong sometimes, but you will always have a clear conscience”

My parents were raging assholes and *STILL* they managed to teach me that lesson.

So my questions for Ms. Freed are as follows:

Question-1:  Why would you ask the local news-paper if a story is true?  They are usually the last to know.  Maybe a call to the local sherrif’s office to confirm an incident? (they can’t tell you *WHAT* is going on, but will confirm if they are there)

Question-2: What kind of fucking ghoul asks for proof when someone says their child has passed away?  If you don’t believe her, fine, you say I’m sorry and move on without making a donation.  (Though thankfully, thanks to you, Shellie’s fund has probably been receiving record donations – bet that burns – I know I donated 5x what I was going to because of the additional pain YOU caused her)

Question-3: Why would you start telling people to hold donations for the family until you verified the story?  Of course when proof was supplied (by me, probably among others) the tone changed from “she’s a fraud” to “she’s a negligent mother who was tweeting while her child died”

Question-4: Why did you use your pen-name on MSNBC instead of your real name?  As a former EMT your real name might have enjoyed a little respectability (until you opened your mouth of course) but as a failed author you came across as nothing but a self-promoting bitch who would capitalize on the DEATH OF A CHILD to get your name into the media.

Listen Laura (because *THAT* is your real name) let me explain something to you that may have gone unnoticed in your otherwise perfect life.

Accidents happen.  Whether mom was twittering, reading a book, cooking, or going to the bathroom, tending to another child, or just taking five seconds to collect her thoughts makes no difference.  Unless you are willing to tie your child to you every minute of every day, they get away from you.  (They’re slippery that way)  As you have more this becomes an even bigger problem, because they have a habit of running in different directions.

Now I’m going to assume that you don’t have kids, #1 because if you do you were totally willing to dump them off on someone else to go get made up with about 40 lbs. of pancake makeup to go on national TV and spread your name and hatred around.  You also used to be an EMT before you turned hack-author.   Unless the reason you are no longer an EMT is because you in some way failed at the task, you must have cared about people on some level.

Parting thoughts.

Shellie & Family – if you’re reading this.  I’m *SO* sorry for your loss, doubly so that it had to happen at such a young age, and triply so that it had to be followed by the pain that #madcow has added to the mix.  If you need anything, you know where to find me.

To the folks at MSNBC – You allowed someone to manipulate you into free publicity.  That’s fine, happens all the time.  But they made *YOU* look bad and engendered a *LOT* of hatred within the online community that Shellie is a major part of.  FamilyBloggers, MommyBloggers, etc, number in the tens of thousands, and as such make up a market share of our own, trust me.  If the producer who booked Laura hasn’t been fired by now I’d like to know why.  I’d also like to know why you saw fit to allow someone on one of your “news” programs to offer an uneducated opinion on a subject she knows nothing about, and to top it all off using a fictitious name.  Obvious miscalculation on your part.

And to Laura – the best thing you could do right now is apologize and tell the world you were wrong.  I’m a very firm believer in karma and guarantee you that nothing will be right in your life until this is done.  If you had any sense of common decency you would have initially used the opportunity and your position as a former EMT to remind people how to safely secure a pool when you have toddlers.  You know what? *THAT* might have even gotten you on the news, and the goodwill of thousands.

Also – I’ve read just enough of your book to induce vomit.  (Thank god kindle lets you download the first chapter of a book for free, if I had paid for that tripe I would have been PISSED)  Hire a decent ghost-writer if you want to have any chance of becoming a real author.  It’s obvious that the public school system let you down in a big way.  Maybe Sarah Palin will recomend hers.

And finally to the rest of my Twitter friends…  *YOU* are as much my community as any could be.  I would rather talk to you than 90% of the people I meet “IRL”  Thank you for being there for me when *I* have needed you.

Now, real bloggers (NOT Laura)  accept, encourage, and welcome comments.

Wow – I’ve got a blog.  Checking back it seems I’ve not posted in going on three weeks.

But I heard something on the radio that make me bark, and once again, that idiot Dick Cheney was talking.

He said that the Obama administration (actually he said that Obama specifically) was guilty of treason.

Really DICK?

Well let me explain something to you:

Under international law we can’t execute prisoners of war…

Under the New York state penal system, we can kill them deader than hell.

Now which of those options is more appealing?

I’m no hawk, and I’m not a big fan of the death penalty, but here’s my take on it.  If they are proven guilty under the same set of laws we judge ourselves by, we’re justified in turning them into beef jerkey for their actions.

If we don’t trust our legal system to work in this instance, we don’t trust it in ANY instance, and *THEN* we’ve indeed lost everything.

Just my .02 cents.

Panic didn’t want to go to cub-scouts tonight because he didn’t want to leave his “favorite toy car” at home.

No amount of cajoling, prodding, poking, bribing, etc. would change his mind.  No amount of explaining that tonight we’re going to go and be with his friends and learn about the flag ceremony and this is something you are going to need to know when you grow up and be a boy-scout.

BWAHHHHHHH!!!!!

The shit hit the proverbial fan.  So I told my wife, who is the den-leader, to go on with out him and that I’d try to get to the bottom of what’s going on.

What it comes down to is this.  He doesn’t want to grow up because growing up means being a big kid and being a bid kid means being an adult and being an adult means you never get to see your family again.

WTF???

Not sure where this came from but it took me almost an hour of talking to the poor kid to explain to him that we’ll never be “gone” as long as he’s thinking of us and loves us.

It’s a great example of the way in a child with Autism, or Aspergers (as we suspect is closer to on-target for Panic) little things spiral out of control until they become big things.  He takes the smallest kernel of worry and it becomes a full on…well…panic…before you know it.

Lots of hugs and a little-debbie christmas-tree cake and all is ok – for the time being.

Now *I* have that little kernel of fear – is this my fault?  Do I re-enforce this “I’m going to be alone” every day I got to work and can’t get back before bedtime?

Probably.

Can I do anything about it?  Well since I forgot to be born Warren Buffet’s kid I don’t have a choice. 

I work. 

I also am lucky enough to have a job that allows me to be home when it’s really important.  Conferences, soccer games, scouting events, etc. 

I’m lucky enough to have a job that pays enough so that my wife has the option of staying home to raise our children.  (not that I would have any problem had she chosen to go back to work, it’s *HER* choice, not mine)

I go in to work late just about every morning so that I can see him off at the bus and give him a big hug, and I break many speed laws (and a few of the laws of physics sometimes) getting home at night hoping to be here before bedtime.

I never let an hour go by without telling him what a great kid he is and how much I love him.  I help him with his homework in the morning and I make everyone pancakes every Sunday, making sure to make enough for breakfasts throughout the week.  (The Bisquick folks *LOVE* us)

It does make me think twice before taking a job that might keep me away more though.  But even if I was forced to I think we could manage.

We’d have to.

We’re a family.  And your Family is *ALL* you’ve really got.