Red Neck Halloween

One fall evening several years ago we went with some friends to the Speedrome to watch another friend race in a figure eight. 

For those more refined readers of mine, red necks really do go to a track and take their junk cars and race figure eights along with other drivers. In case I need to clarify further, that means you could more likely than not encounter other cars heading for the same intersection of the eight that you are. 

It's a matter of playing chicken, do you speed up to avoid the car heading for that same piece of real estate or do you slow down and let the other guy hit it and have some braver driver behind you get ahead of you?

Yes, we are in need of serious entertainment here in the flyover state. 

We sat far up in the stands and pulled our jackets tight around up to avoid the breeze. We noticed that we could look below the stands and directly below up open for all to see was the women's restrooms. We made sure not to visit the lovely accommodations given that anyone could look underneath the bleachers and get a rather gross view. 

Midway through the second race one guy was moving toward our end of the eight and just received a light glancing blow to his car as he raced through the eight. He came to a stop and the retaining wall just a few feet from us. 

Everyone in the stands could see the guy was not moving. 

At all. 

At first we thought maybe he had hit his head however when he did not move for a full minute everyone in the stands was waving down the officials in the race.   When a medic came to check on him, he summoned an ambulance and they worked on him as they hauled him away. We later learned he had a heart attack on the race field and unfortunately didn't make it. 

It was late when the races were over and we went back to the pits to see our buddy who had been in one of the races. 

As we weaved our way through the mass of junked cars we noticed a creepy looking guy with long stringy gray hair hanging around.  When he turned around, I tried not to keep my eyes from bulging out. 

Where his nose should have been was a huge open hole that appeared to go straight back. The shock of seeing him, especially that he just seemed creepy if he had had a nose was just a little too icky amongst all the other red necks in the pits. 

Our friend who was in the race explained the guy had just gotten out of prison. He had murdered his girlfriend and then attempted suicide by placing the gun in his mouth. However as can happen in those cases, he didn't have it aimed straight up to his brain, it merely shot off his nose from his face. 

It still gives me creeps just thinking about him. 

Hope you stay clear of noseless murderers this Halloween. 

Flying South

So today I did what I hate doing every fall. I took down the hummingbird feeders.  In Indiana, you typically won't see those ruby throated beauties until around late April. They are just scattered here and there in the following weeks and come August they are thick.   By early October you leave them up hoping you might be giving some late mover a drink on his way home. 

I usually set out three to four feeders and have planted several perennials that attract hummingbirds and butterflies. I place the feeders where I can see at least two of them from my kitchen. 

Last year, we also attracted one of those sucky-toed toads and found him attached to one of the sun room windows. 

Didn't see hide nor sticky toe of him this year. 

What kept striking me as odd as I was fighting off the nasty bees reclaiming my feeders was that it appears we might actually really spend the winter in Florida. We're expecting a bit of frost this week and I just despise cold weather. 

Will it really happen. Packing up as much as will fit in the SUV immediately after Christmas and driving 2 days and living in beautiful weather and eating fresh seafood for 3 months??????  

Possibly checking on last minute cruises out of Fort Lauderdale or Miami since it's only a two hour drive away.  

Nah, I'll believe it when I see it. 

And in other news.  

I decided to start a new sourdough starter yesterday. Easy really,  1/2 cup warm water and 1/2 cup bread flour in a container and stir.  Add some more each day and remove some and in a couple weeks you should have some sourdough starter. 

I picked the last of some too tiny heirloom tomatoes and a couple of poblano peppers I have growing beside the garage. 

Tonight Indy is hosting the War of 1812. I'm sure most do not care, but our beloved Peyton Manning, the former QB for the Indianapolis Colts will be playing his best season ever against the Colts as a Denver Bronco. Indy retired Peyton's #18 when they traded him and brought on a promising rookie, Andrew Luck #12. Thus the War of 1812 was born. 

The Lucas Oil Stadium has a retractable roof that is rarely open. I was wondering why at 59 degrees they would open the roof tonight and come to find out Peyton hated the roof open, so apparently to try to throw him off his game they have the roof open. 

They had a moment in the stadium with a big Thanks Peyton on the jumbo tron while the crowd stood and cheered for several minutes. He removed his Bronco helmet and was clearly a little choked up at being in Indy and playing against his old team for the first time. 

I know many don't give a rip, but it isn't that he brought this town to be a football town, it was that his charity work here was a force to be reckoned with. One year giving $70 mm to a local hospital alone. 

I have to say whenever Indy is highlighted for a special game! the city looks gorgeous. It's a nice city, clean and not too large. 

But it's still no fun in the winter. 

(Oh, and I hate the token women football commentators they insist in using on the sidelines. No one I know, male or female like them. )

Mr. Keenan, Where are you?

I actually wrote this post four and a half years ago. I'm resurrecting it because of an update you'll find at the bottom. 

By the time I reached high school, I was happy to blend into the background.

It really wasn't a position I can say I strived for, but I was a classic nerd with no self-esteem. Junior High (I think they call it Middle School now) is when kids just get mean, they insult each other, they pick on each other, I can't recall anyone who I can say looked out for anyone but themselves.

The popular girls didn't like me, which was okay because I didn't like them either. What was stupid in all that, was that I still longed to be one of them. One cheerleader thought it was cute to put gum in my hair in choir, which I had to cut out of my hair with someone's nail clippers. To this day I still remember her name.

I had a few friends, but for the most part, I found the kids my age to be stupid. You know, the girls that posted Donnie Osmond and Bobby Sherman pictures on their lockers, the boys who made crude comments. I remember one idiot boy making fun of me in the lunch line and when I said something back to him he said, "Oh wow, you're a real WOMAN." I said, "Yeah, so are you."

By the time I got to high school, I was happy that I just blended into the woodwork and was not drawing any more bullying. I was never asked to the prom. I didn't go on my first date until I was 18. Waa waa waa, poor me.

Sometime in early high school, they had built a vocational school that would support several area schools. During a presentation, they talked about DECA. Distributive Education Clubs of America. Ok, can we think of a more obscure name than that?

DECA was "marketing, managing and merchandising". During your junior and senior year of high school, you would attend your normal high school classes during the first half of the day and attend Central Nine Vocational/Technical School the other half.

My vision of a career was to have a job until I got married and my husband would support me while I had the babies. That was what was expected of most women of my time. Since I didn't expect much out of a job, I chose to go to Central Nine and take the Distributive Education class.

If I remember right, it was the first year of Mr. Keenan's teaching career. He was like no other teacher I ever had.

He was fresh, young and for the first time that I could remember, took an interest in my ability. The class itself was a no brainer, but because we were there a half a day, it was much more of a class of relationships, rather than just teaching.

Sometime during my junior year, Mr. Keenan began to talk about DECA, the organization. He encouraged all of us to become part of it and participate in the competition and run for state officers.

I remember him talking with me about running for state office. Me? Not me. I'm the girl that people put gum in their hair. But he kept pushing. He said that if I was elected a state officer, I would go to Chicago for the national convention in 1976 and to Anaheim, California the next year. California? Wow.

I still remember talking with my mom about Mr. Keenan's idea.

Mom worried so much about us kids, especially if it might involve getting our hopes up and having them dashed. When I told her about flying to California the next year if I won, she was really not for it.

Mr. Keenan wanted to come and talk with our parents about running for office. I told mom that he shouldn't come talk to them because he would change their mind. I remember telling Mr. Keenan that I could not run for state office because my mom did not want me to.

Mom told me later that it was our elder neighbor that helped her see things differently.

Romanza lived across the street from us and she and her husband Ode were like my grandparents. It seems that mom's greater fear, other than me getting my hopes dashed was me getting on an airplane.

Romanza told mom to not hold me back because of HER fears. I think mom had not realized until then that that was the real reason for her not wanting me to run for the office. Although I don't recall the conversation, at some point mom and dad decided I could run for state office.

The state conference was held at the French Lick Sheraton. I'm pretty sure that was the name of it at that time. My Aunt Rita lived just off the golf course and the hotel was long past it's heyday (not so much anymore, thanks to Mr. Koch, French Lick and West Baden has been restored to magnificant grandeur).

It was a weekend conference and the night before I was to give a campaign speech, while joking with the other students, my Coke-bottle glasses fell off my head and tumbed out the 4th floor of the hotel in what seemed like slow motion. We found them twisted like a pretzel with the lenses busted. I spent the rest of the weekend virtually blind.

When Mr. Keenan found out, he said, "DO NOT mention this in your speech. No excuses." I rewrote my speech in very large letters on the cards and spoke in front of around 500 other DECA students. I believe that being unable to see the crowd most likely helped me to overcome a fear of speaking in front of the public. I can still do it today if I have to, but it's not something I readily volunteer for.

My opponent was a tall, good looking popular girl from another school who, when I met her in the hallway KNEW she had the election all wrapped up. I mean, why wouldn't she win, she was up against a stringy haired, nerdy, shy ugly girl? We were to be interviewed by some of the DECA officials and I remember being dwarfed by her in the hallway. Some boys walked by and flirted with her. I don't even think any of them knew I was even there. I was used it.

A couple hours before the speech one of the other girls running from our school for a different office had rewritten her speech to be nearly identical to mine. I panicked. I hurriedly rewrote mine, again with HUGE grade school letters so I could read them without holding them 3 inches from my face.

We had dinner first and I remember I was so nervous I could barely eat. And I was funny. I mean, I had always blended into the background, but here I was sitting at our table cracking jokes and people were laughing. When did I become confident enough to be funny?

I got up to give my speech and was surprised that I could do it. When I listened to the girl who,the night before looked down at her nose at me because she knew she would win, I was a little surprised. She wasn't very good. She sounded stupid and nervous. But I still didn't believe I would win.

I did. By a landslide. This ugly nerdy blind girl won the State Secretary of the Distributive Education Clubs of America.

Yeah, yeah, I know it's not the Nobel Peace Prize. I figured that out already.

But I can honestly say, it was a defining moment in determining who I could be and who I am today. It made me realize that the stupid broad who put gum in my hair did not define me. I was capable of defining who I am and what I could do.

Would that have been possible without Mr. Keenan's encouragement and friendship?

I would have to answer that No it would not have. I would not have had the courage to run, I would not have had the confidence he helped me build.

When we graduated, I wrote Mr. Keenan a letter. He was considering moving to California and not teaching. I told him that would be a mistake for him to never teach again.

I do not know what ever happened with him. I wish I did. There are only a handful of people in your life that make a difference. He was one that changed my outlook on life and myself.

He inspired me and I want to thank him all over again.

Where are you Jim Keenan? I hope you are still inspiring young kids who think they will forever blend into the woodwork.

You made a difference. I can't imagine a more noble career.

UPDATE:  A couple years ago I got an email from the scam (ish) website classmates.com from Mr. Keenan. Of course I couldn't read the email unless I signed up for it. I decided to send a check (because I did NOT want classmates.com to have access to charge my account. A  three month subscription was $7.95.  

When they finally processed the check, I found the email.  And for some strange reason he didn't include any contact information. I think he assumed I could reply.  Of course I did through classmates, but then he would have to sign up to read it. Ugh, can't they find a better business model than this?  Facebook sure managed to find a way. 

In my reply I sent my email information and gave him an snapshot of my life since 1977.  And by then, he was gone. Nothing, nada, zip. 

Tonight I was checking an email I use mainly for my profession. I saw some cryptic message, which I was certain was some spam,   Only "hey, I'm about ready to retire and I still make it to Indy sometimes.  Next time you're in Fort Myers, give me a call. We live just an hour away.  Jim."  The email address looked odd, not like someone's name. 

I racked my brain who Jim was and with mentioning both Indy and Fort Myers, I felt it was likely someone I had to know. 

Then slowly I began to wonder IF this mysterious Jim, was my Mr. Keenan. 

I googled the phone number and about 6 entries down, I found a high school document that had a telephone number next to my absolutely favorite teacher's name. 

Let's see, that means he has been inspiring young people for 36 years now. 

Heard on DD

First it's 

Then it's a 

And before you know it, it's 

I'm not done

One of my Facebook friends landed in Venice this morning. She lived vicariously through our trip and now I just wish we were back right here again. 

Chilly Weather

Picked up on the west side of town. Before I added the spaghetti. 

And that IS always a point of contention throughout the country, right?  There was quite a discussion about it on a local news station Facebook page last week. 

Pasta or not in the chili. From what I've been able to determine, that's typically an Indiana thing. My mother always had macaroni in her chili, which I liked back then, now I like spaghetti, but not a LOT of spaghetti, about the same ratio as the beans. 

Yes, I realize beans are another source of controversy. 

I Went To Washington and All I Got Was

A great souvenir. 

When IT Projects Attack

By now everyone has heard about the catastrophic rollout of the Obamacare website. Everyone has an opinion, no one can figure it out why it wasn't ready.

"They had three years to figure this out"

"They've spent a half a billion dollars, why doesn't this work?"

They used a Canadian firm to create this nightmare. "

Now I'll explain just why none of that mattered. I've spent the last six years of my life as an independent consultant as an IT Project Manager (PM). I understand how this happens "politically", and I'm not referring to governmental politics. I'm talking about project politics.

First, to be fair, this was an absolutely humongous project to undertake. And no, the project team could not have possibly been working on this for three years. Think about it. The law passed, no one knew what was in it and the insurance industry people could not get answers about how things should work. Some of the states weren't participating in the exchange. Many in the industry were waiting on the fed to interpret the rulings. The law is one thing, but then there are likely tens of thousands of pages of instructions and interpretations. 

And then there would have to be time to put together a large IT team. Even if they had the full three years, there wouldn't have been enough time to pull it off. There simply isn't.  It's been reported there were 55 different outside vendors associated with the project. The simple process of just selecting the vendors takes a great deal of time.  It's also been reported that coding didn't even begin until this spring. I would estimate that's probably accurate. Which also means that left no time for the remaining project process. 

Literally every project I've worked on has had a way too aggressive deadline and was way under budget. I'm normally hired after the project has gotten approval and some CIO or other executive has made the selection of the third party contractor, given the timeline and budget to the board and suddenly they realize they need an internal PM. When I'm hired, I just nod and know that at some point that executive will be forced to make a realistic assessment when the deadline is approaching and the software is just not ready.

The first real step involves documenting the requirements of the system. This is an extremely painful, long drawn out process where you get too many people in the room and you break down the entire process step by step. You investigate each route the system might need to take. You develop flow charts to you can visually see the path any one type of decision might take.  

And the team misses something. That's just a fact of life. Everyone pretends (or God forbid actually beliefs) that every process and step will be caught. Never happens. 

In the meantime, you have people deciding the architecture, which is essentially what type of equipment you need and the methods of delivering information between other systems. From what I understand this is one of the big issues with the ACA website.

Think of it this way. It starts with a database table of records. That is virtually a big long list of information. Most likely there are millions and millions of records in one table. Let's just say this table has the name and SSN's of the primary insured. Then another table might include the list of all the dependents of the primary insured, another table will have some code link of eligible health plans. When the software is working together, there will be significant volume of traffic needing to find the connective link between those necessary tables.

If the architects are not aware of how often one table may need to link to another, they will build it inefficiently. (This happens a LOT) They will not properly index the tables so everytime the software has to provide a user information from many tables (sometimes dozens and dozens of tables) the system has to go through every record on each single table before it can display the information to you in a seamless, instantaneous manner. Now remember, unless you have a very knowledgable team who understand how the system should work this architecture work can sometimes be started in a silo before the requirements are even outlined. Of course it shouldn't but more often than not it does. They think they are saving time to meet the project deadline.

And too often, the right people are not in the room when the requirements are being gathered. You will always have someone who acts like they know the process and will insist on putting things in the requirements that are simply wrong. You have others who think things are very simple and cannot see that their simplistic view does not address a real process. The code word they use is "just". "Well, you can just....." Beware of those people and there is always at least one in every project and they have too much authority for their position.  Rarely does logic and evidence change their belief they have full knowledge of the process.  They are too stupid to realize how stupid they are. Dangerous combination. 

Once everything comes together, you should be able to take the requirements and develop very specific tests to be performed in the software. This includes attempting at least to mimic the amount of network traffic so you can test the efficiency of the software.  

One of my clients had developed a great amount of documentation for the requirements. And then due to an imaginary deadline the executives had promised they rolled out a very large, integrated project with NO testing. By the time I left, only just a few minor processes had been delivered. And about a dozen tests out of several thousands that couldn't be performed were conducted with several issues which were not resolved.  

I realized early on that no one on the team had EVER had any project experience. That was unfathamable to me. It was a very large project and every attempt I made to get the management to understand they could not go live was a failure. They ignored the years I had spent involved with the exact type of project they were dealing with and listened to the lies of some of the internal employees who had no experience for the job they were hired to do. I finally gave up and realized I wasn't going to be around to help them clean up the mess. When I left, two weeks before the go live date I was sure someone would make the last minute decision to extend the go live date.  

They didn't. And the system came crashing down around them. They were unable to make payments to their customers and ended up calculating thousands of payments manually and late and incorrect. They are still digging out of the mess and I can tell you they will be finding errors for years to come. It was the most egregious episode of mismanagement of any project I was involved with.  One of my last conversations with the project sponsor included, "This isn't my first rodeo". It was definitely his first and yet he said I was only being negative.  I would love to be unprofessional and send him an email to ask him how that worked out for him, but I learned early on not to make too many enemies in this town. And he's his own worse enemy anyway. 

Back to our issues with the ACA website October 1st deadline, hardcoded if you will, the big-mouth-know-nothing's in Washington.

Every project has a dance with the deadlines. They are set by people who do not understand the systems or the requirements. Some better project sponsors (the executive) will push the date farther out than they actually think will be needed. And it's always not enough time. Poor sponsors try to get their project approved by shrinking that timeline and giving an impossible deadline.

Some PM's believe in participating in the dance while the floor is falling out from under them. Usually these are PM's who have no real world experience and they limit their activities to looking at the project plan and emailing people for updates. They don't get down and dirty with the details because they can't understand them. Then they go before executives and lie about what the team has been telling them, painting a rosy picture of the project fires.

I've never understood that method and hate working with PM's who operate in that manner. They play politics over appropriately informing the project sponsors of the risks.  And this is what happens when they do. 

I've always considered it my job to make sure the sponsor is fully aware of the risks and it's their job to decide if the risk is worth taking. I've seen some gutsy moves that make me nervous, but if you have a good sponsor then normally the risk was worth the reward. I've also witnessed idiots who insist on going live when they have not mitigated any of the risks. It's their call, it's their job. And it's theirs to live with.

I know this probably bored every one here, but listening to all these discussions in the news regarding this rollout of the ACA website I can just imagine exactly what happened behind the scenes.

If Obama and the Democrats understood anything about IT projects, they should jump on the offer to delay this by at least a year.

The project simply wasn't ready. And I don't have to be their hired PM to tell them why.

First person to guess this location wins.

No googling. 

What? No comments about the early release of the family pics

That I posted a couple days ago?  

Didn't anyone catch the eye catching shirt someone wore to a family photo shoot?

I realize I live in hick country, but did everyone really think this was MY family photo?  

I found it on some website featuring horrible family photos.  I loved the blue hulk shirt next to the little kid. If you were the photographer, wouldn't you have thought to place "that guy" on the other side to hide the big blue face on his shirt?

And I thought the hulk was green. 

God didn't make little green apples

And it don't rain in Indianapolis. 

But I bet He did make Michigan Crisps. 

First Pics Are In

What do you think?

Ask a Cool Question.

Get a cool answer. 

H/T Fox News and bluefamilies.org

Only In Indiana

Taken from Evansville's police scanner watch on Facebook.

#ewatch 2600 Mt Vernon Ave. Caller states that she arrived home to find her ex boyfriend had broken in her house. He is no longer there but he left a female there that the caller does not know and that subject is wearing the caller's clothes. EPD en route. IJ61

Only One Surprise

Bob turned 65 last Thursday.

He is nearly impossible to surprise because I can never count on him being home at a certain time unless we make plans. And we really don't go out that often. So I finally had to tell him that we were going to dinner with the kids and grandkids. No big surprise party, just a nice evening out which is something we never do.

He had been talking in the last few months about wanting to get some family pics, real pics, not just snapshots at get togethers. I told him we would never be able to get everyone together.

So I plotted with his girls and a great photographer that I knew took some fabulous pictures. Then came the problem of getting him to be at the house at 1:30 yesterday. He's usually out either buying or selling cars and other "piddlefarting" around that he does all the time. So I told him the grandkids wanted to have a little party for him.

Even with that he managed to get home just after the kids all got here but luckily about 5 minutes before the photographer did.

I brought her in through the garage door and when I went to introduce her yoi would have sworn he knew about the surprise.

He's not a fan of surprises, he seems to think that he will be unprepared or something.

I had managed to convince him that he needed to buy some new jeans just told everyone to wear some fall colors.

Unfortunately it rained most of the day, so most of the pics were indoors. We did get some on our front porch and the swing on our deck that my dad had built.

We then had time to relax awhile, then headed to an expensive dinner downtown at Fogo Di Chao. It was a nice time and a good dinner, however I certainly wouldn't review it as one of the best restaurants. That didn't take away from us having a great day.

Bob's first comments this morning was this his best birthday ever. It may sound like a normal birthday for most, but we are finally at a point where there is no extraordinary drama. Normal is such a relief after years of not normal.

Can't wait for the pics.

Great Day

Pics and details to follow.

Leave those kids alone

 

Why yes. The grass is always greener

I mean literally.

 

Remember my late night rant when I was wrapped up in the heaviness of living in a Tuscan farmhouse and dreaming of being an Expat?

Just a couple days later we sat with our wonderful hostess on a rainy afternoon and she began to explain exactly what is was really like living in Italy.

Like her FIFTY-SEVEN PERCENT income tax on top of the hotel tax she has to collect from her guests.

And that the government decided that anyone using a tractor must have a drivers license and attend a driving course paying around 500 euro. They had an 80 year old farm hand that had driven tractors all his life and did not have a drivers license. Suddenly Italy decided he needed to pay them 500 euro for them to teach him how to drive a tractor that he's driven for 7 decades.

Our upstairs neighbor in Fort Myers actually lives most of the year in Rome.

We had a long discussion one day at the pool. Apparently Italy requires her to prove the amount of property taxes she pays in the state of Florida. And it's not enough, so they have to pay property tax in Italy for the property they own in Fort Myers Florida, United States of America. You realize of course that's on top of the income tax they pay in Italy.

So yes. The grass is always greener.

Some Italians are suggesting a revolution unfolding. A deliberate revolt against the oppressive rules and taxes they are burdened with.

I have always maintained I couldn't live in Italy because I'm too used to our conveniences. But it appears that some of the inconveniences actually have nothing to do with physically moving about the country.

I wouldn't mind staying a couple months though.

 

Tired of all the political nonsense?

 

If this didn't stop them

In June of 1944

Why did anyone think these would stop them today?

And apparently the Park Security decided to be no match for these heroes.