Winter cleaning

I’m doing some clearing up around the house, and last night I decided it was time to get rid of a bunch of old reel-to-reel tapes with music recorded on them. My reel-to-reel tape deck hasn’t worked in years (I brought that to the electronics recycling center over the weekend), and, what with changes in technology, I hadn’t been missing it, and would be unlikely to listen to the tapes again anyway.

With the assumption that no one else will want them either (or, rather, that it would be too much trouble to try to find them a home), I took out some packing tape and bound them together in stacks of ten. It turns out that I have 138 of them. They’re recorded at 3¾ inches per second (not the audiophile method, but I wanted more music on each tape), making it three hours per side, 6 hours per tape. Each was recorded by hand from LPs (Remember them?), and, so, 138 tapes times 6 hours each comes to well over 800 hours spent making them.

They were packed for the trash inside of fifteen minutes.

Even though I haven’t listened to them in more than 20 years, even though I would never be listening to them again, even though it felt good to see the space they took up become empty, I still felt a little sad to think about those many hours I spent on them, and to realize that at least half were probably never listened to even once after they were made.

It makes one think a bit about what one spends one’s time on.

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P.S. It's 11:11 on 1/11/11.

Standards Manager

Starting today, I have a full-time position as Standards Manager with Huawei Technologies. In a sense, it’s a very small change: I’ve been consulting for Huawei for the past year, doing Internet standards work. So this will be a formalization of that relationship, an expansion of scope, and a full-time job with the usual benefits.

I’ve enjoyed working with my Huawei colleagues over the past year, and so I’m pleased to make the situation more permanent, and I’m looking forward to the coming years with Huawei.

For those who don’t know, Huawei is the number 2 telecommunications company worldwide, behind Ericsson. Its U.S. presence is currently relatively small, but that’s changing.

Invaders gone — an update

A week ago, I wrote about a colony of wasps that had taken over the gas grill on my deck. I invited suggestions on how to get rid of them. Apart from what were posted as comments there, I got two other suggestions.

One was to freeze them with a CO₂ fire extinguisher, an interesting idea. If I knew exactly where the nest was, under the tarp-like cover, I might have been able to pull it off. Even not knowing that, the fire extinguisher might have had a broad enough effect to work. And it’d be pretty dramatic.

The other suggestion was to put a tray containing gasoline or kerosene below the nest, allowing the vapours to waft up toward it. The vapours would, the suggestion went, kill the wasps.

The latter suggestion had two advantages over any other I’d gotten. It was something I could do with the information I had: I could easily use the broom to slide a tray under the grill from a distance, I did know the approximate area in which to put the tray, and I didn’t have to target the nest precisely. And it was easy to try, with nothing lost if it didn’t work. So I gave it a shot.

I got an aluminum take-out-food tray, poured a half inch of gasoline into it, and put it on the deck a couple of feet from the corner of the grill. I stood back and used the broom to gently nudge the tray beneath that corner of the cover. And the action didn’t disturb the wasps at all — no sentinels came out to check on things. Nice.

To test the situation, I then bashed the side of the cover again with the broom. That brought them out for investigation, as I retreated inside the sliding glass door. I put the broom away and left the tray undisturbed for several days.

Yesterday, I checked on the wasps, and in an initial check it seemed that the gasoline thing worked. There were a bunch of dead wasps in the pan, and when I smacked the side with the broom, no wasps came out at all. All was quiet.

When I was ready to clean things up for real, I went back out and bashed the grill more thoroughly, all around. Nothing. So I wheeled it back into its place, took the cover off, and found the nest. It was a hornet nest the size of a baseball, under one of the side shelves, and it was abandoned. I knocked it off and cleaned the area, and then ran the grill for ten minutes to heat it up fully.

I have the use of my grill again, and it cost nothing but a few ounces of gasoline. Neat!

Invaders!

Back when I had my 25th anniversary at IBM, I got the figurative gold watch — an item I got to pick out of a catalogue, which could have been an actual gold watch, or one of various other things: golf clubs, a grandfather clock, a television set... or, what I selected, a gas grill. I’ve always been happy with my selection, and I use the grill often.

The grill came with a tarp-like fabric cover, and over the last week or two a colony of wasps appears to have moved in under the cover. I know this because the other day, when I walked past it, I was stung on the top of my foot by one of the sentries, which perceived me as a threat.

And, well, actually, I am. I aim to evict them, that I might again use the grill. The trouble is that because the nest is under the cover, I can’t see it. I can see the wasps coming and going, and if I bash the operative corner of the cover with a broom, a dozen or so wasps come out to see what’s what, looking for the attacker (who has, by then, gone into the house and closed the sliding glass door).

Normally, when I find wasps I leave them alone and simply avoid them until winter, knowing that all but the queens die off, and in the spring the queens leave their nests and build others elsewhere. I can then brush away the old nest, and life is good for both me and the wasps.

That won’t work in this case, clearly, but neither do I know how to get rid of them. Bashing with the broom manages nothing but annoying them, and, satisfying though that might be, it’s not terribly productive. I figure that I might have to call in the pros and throw money at the problem.

But first, I thought I’d post something here, and see if anyone has an idea how to get rid of a wasp nest that I can neither see nor get to. The photo shows the corner of the grill where they appear to be, with the blur of a wasp circled in red (click to enlarge). If you have suggestions, please post them in the comments.

And thanks, readers, in advance for any help you can give.

Sketch me!

I’ve been meaning to post this for a while, just as a lark. To the right is a sketch of me that was done as I had a beer (several, I’m sure, to tell the truth of it^[1]) in McSorley’s Old Ale House in 1982. Click it, as usual, to enlarge.

I didn’t know the guy was sketching it, and when he finished he showed it to me, and then offered it up; I liked it, and I took it and thanked him. I presume he was a student at nearby Cooper Union, just around the corner from McSorley’s, but he as well might have been from anywhere around New York City. One can expect artists of various sorts to pop out in Greenwich Village and SoHo.

I didn’t get his name, either. If I read the signature correctly, it’s Dan McVeigh. A Google search of that name turns up a singer/songwriter from Ontario, which is probably not the same guy. So I guess I don’t have an early sketch by a famous artist, here. It might have been worth thousands of dollars, hundreds of thousands, even — you never know. But, no, not likely.

In any case, I still like it, and I scanned it some years ago. And here it is, now shared with the world.

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^[1] McSorley’s, at the age of 156 now, is the oldest bar in New York City. Until 1970, women weren’t allowed in, and when I used to go there with my cousin and his NYU-alumni friends, there was still but one loo in the back, shared by all. Beers were two for a dollar in 1982 — they would only sell them two apiece — and we were there to drink many of them that afternoon.

I haven’t been there in years, and I wonder what the beers cost now. I should pay it a visit. I have neither the capacity nor the inclination to have as many as I did at 25, but the place has a character that I’d like to experience again.

Over the river and through the woods...

I’m attending some meetings this week, so I thought I’d just take the opportunity today to tell a personal story during a lull.

Around 1983, when I lived in the Washington, DC, area, I was in New York for a couple of days for meetings. My paternal grandparents were alive at the time, and lived in Brooklyn, so I phoned them on the first day, to see if I could stop by for a visit. Grandma answered.

Grandma was from Poland, Grandpa from Romania, and they both came to New York near the turn of the 20th century, in the nineteen-aughts or -tens; I’m not sure exactly when. They met here. Grandma’s English was always a bit spotty and heavily accented — she preferred Yiddish, when she had the option. She didn’t have that option with me, as the only complete sentence I can say in Yiddish translates to, “He should grow like an onion, with his head in the ground!”^[1]

Once Grandma understood that I was in New York and wanted to visit, she, of course, delightedly said I should come that evening. “Vit us you’ll have dinner?”, she asked, a question in form only. I said that I could do that, or I could eat first and then stop by. “Vit us you’ll have dinner,” she replied, no longer a question in any form.

Great. So I asked how I get to their apartment by subway. Ah, not Grandma’s long suit. I should call back when my grandfather was home. 4:00.

I called again at 4:05, and Grandpa answered. His English was fine, from many years of driving a cab in New York City, and his voice was strong and firm.

“Ah, Barry, it’s good to hear your voice. Your grandmother was so worried. You were going to call at 4, and so at ten minutes to 4 the phone rings once and they hang up. Your grandmother answers and there’s no one there, she thinks it was you, you got mugged in the phone booth!”

Having settled that it hadn’t, in fact, been me, and that I was fine, he gave me subway directions and I arrived around 6:30. For dinner. With them.

As it turns out, though, their habit was to eat much earlier than that, and they had already eaten. “You didn’t tell us before, so I couldn’t make special for you,” said Grandma, who then proceeded to evert the refrigerator onto the kitchen table. Polish sausage, smoked fish, beef brisket, stuffed cabbage, beets, carrots, potatoes, salads, breads... the table was covered. She didn’t have to make special for me; it was a feast, and I had a nice talk with them.

When time came to leave, it was around 9:00... not late, but it was dark, and I think it was late from their perspective. Grandpa passed on some advice for taking the subway home, advice given in a heavy stream.

“You already know how to go to the subway station. When you’re walking there, don’t stop, don’t talk to nobody. They want the time, you don’t have a watch, they want a light, you don’t smoke, just keep walking. When you wait for the train, wait near the token booth so there’s somebody to see you, and then get in the middle car, where the conductor stays. It’s jungle out there, they killed a cop last week, nobody’s safe.”

I don’t know how things were back then, really (it was over 25 years ago, which is hard for me to imagine, as I remember it now), but I don’t remember feeling unsafe, particularly as early in the evening as 9:00. The streets were busy enough, as was the subway. Certainly, I wouldn’t worry now. 25 years ago? I don’t know.

In any case, the story amuses me when I think about it. So here it is, now shared.

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^[1] The Yiddish sentence actually appears in the Val Kilmer movie Top Secret. It’s just a throwaway line, if you don’t know what it means.

Credit card fraud

On the last day of 2009, I picked up something in a store, proffering my credit card for payment. After a moment with the machine, the cashier said, “It’s declined.”

Huh? I’d used it the day before, and there’s no reason anything should have happened since then. She tried again, with the same result.

When I got home, I logged into the account online, and there was a message for me to call the fraud department, which I did. The very pleasant and personable service representative checked for me and saw the transaction I’d just attempted. “It was also declined yesterday,” he said, “when you tried to buy gas in Freeport. But it worked when you used it at WalMart.” Ah.

No, I told him, I hadn’t been to Freeport (maybe an hour and a half from here, on Long Island), yesterday nor any other day. And I hadn’t been to WalMart recently, either.

He closed my account and opened a new one, and said that, unfortunately, it would be longer than usual before I got a replacement card, because of the new year holiday. It was Thursday, but the new card wouldn’t be mailed until Monday.

When I checked the account online again on Tuesday, I found six charges — including the one at WalMart — that were fraudulent, all at stores in Massapequa, near Freeport. The charges had been made with a card (the service rep had surmised that “they” had made a bogus card with my account number on it), and were all between $100 and $200, presumably large enough to be worthwhile, but small enough not to immediately arouse suspicion. I have no idea how the bank caught it between those six purchases and the gas station, but they did.

The new card would, I was told, come with an affidavit sheet, on which I could list any fraudulent transactions that appear on my account, and the bank would take care of it. And, indeed, this won’t cost me anything except the inconvenience of chancing my account number (making sure that automatic purchases are changed over, and so on), and the bank will just write off the $1000 loss as a cost of doing business. It’s small change, compared with what some crooks get away with.

And, yet, it leaves me angry. The people who did it will never be caught, and they’ve just gotten away with stealing almost $1000 worth of goods. The fact that they used my account number to do that makes it sit very close to home. There wasn’t any way I could have prevented it — the account number could have been recorded a couple of days earlier, or perhaps it was months ago, and was only now being used.

There’s huge money in stolen credit-card account numbers. Most are collected and used electronically, worldwide. This is a smaller-scale operation, done locally and using real, physical cards.

It’s just irritating to be reminded how many people are out there who are prepared to steal whatever they can get their hands on.

Giving thanks

Tomorrow I’ll be being thankful, as will most Americans, over plates full of far too much food, glasses too full of wine, and desserts too plentiful to contemplate.

I’ll be thankful for all the things in my life that continue to be good, year after year. I have plenty of good friends. I have a good place to live. I’m safe and sound and healthy, despite my now having to deal daily with pills for blood pressure and cholesterol — stuff happens when you pass 50, and I used to think that was just a joke. I’m able to enjoy the things that I enjoy, and that’s very much worth being thankful for.

I’ll be thankful, even, for the things that have changed this year. The economy is awful, and I lost my job, as did many others around me. But I’ve found new work that makes me happy, and I’m thankful for that.

And people sometimes ask me to whom or what I’m thankful. As an atheist, I’m not thankful to God, to a god, to gods. I don’t thank any deity or other entity for what I have (or, as many would put it, for what has been given to me). What does it mean, then, for an atheist to “be thankful,” when there’s not someone to be thankful to?

This atheist, at least, treats this kind of thankfulness as a combination of introspection and contemplation of the state of the world. I understand, as I think about all these things, that there are many who don’t have them. There are people who are alone, people who are ill, people who are hungry, jobless, homeless, oppressed. I look at what I have that makes me happy, and I think about how I can help others be happy as well.

There’s plenty to think about, there, and plenty to contemplate doing about it. It does no good to “pray” for others less fortunate, because there’s no one to hear those prayers nor to answer them. But if my contemplation moves me to contribute in some way to helping them, that will be the real blessing. And there don’t need to be any gods around for that one.

Happy Thanksgiving, everyone. I hope you all have much to be thankful for.

Congratulations to Thom and Jeff

In a few hours, Thom — an old a longtime friend, who has commented here on occasion — and his partner, Jeff, will celebrate their wedding, near their home in California. They planned this pre-prop-8, and saw no reason to change plans on account of a bunch of right-wing party poopers.

And a grand party they’ve planned! I wanted to be there, but can’t. Happily, I did get to see them just a few months ago, so that, and this post, will have to serve as my joining them in celebration.

[Raises glass.]
Congratulations, and many more years of happiness!
!מזל טוב
[Clink!]

New employment

This is one of those rare posts that’s just personal information, without redeeming matters of general interest at all: I am once again employed.

I’ve just started work as an Internet standards consultant for Huawei Technologies, a Chinese networking and software company. Huawei are very serious about participating in the development of Internet and industry standards. I’ll be representing them in my work in the IETF and other standards groups, and it was for them that I went to the OMA meeting last week. I’m working with their software research group,

It’s the part of my job that my previous employer had been backing away from for some time, and it’s particularly gratifying to see a company that’s increasing its emphasis on it — gratifying because I think it’s important to the Internet and the computing industry as a whole, as well as being a good investment for the company.

Huawei thinks so too. This is from the Technology page of their web site:

Standards
Huawei understands the significance of standards in the technology industry, thus we participate in various standards and specifications groups. Through active participation in these groups, Huawei has been making continuous contribution to the telecoms industry. We are committed to realizing the vision of network convergence, where communications and networking services are genuinely merged together.

I’m looking forward to the work and the collaboration.

Volunteer Ambulance Corps

I tried a new adventure this week: I did a ride-on shift with the Ossining [NY] Volunteer Ambulance Corps. Some background:

I play volleyball with a paramedic at the O.V.A.C., and when I was at IBM I worked with two volunteer Emergency Medical Technicians (EMTs). I’d often said that I admire people who do that sort of thing, devoting their time to helping people. When I told my volleyball teammate that I’d been laid off, she suggested that it might be an opportunity to look at something completely new... like taking EMT or Paramedic training.

The idea struck a spark, but it took a few months for me to get around to setting up a ride-on, where I’d really get to see what they do.

For those who don’t know the difference: EMTs have a relatively brief training period, and are only authorized for basic life support (BLS) tasks: CPR, giving oxygen, splinting, that sort of thing... and, of course, transport. Paramedics have significantly more training, and they can perform advanced life support (ALS) tasks, such as running IVs, giving certain medications, and using the defibrillator. Ossining has two ambulances — one with two EMTs and one with an EMT and a paramedic — and a “fly car” — an SUV that a paramedic goes alone in.

The protocol at Ossining is that whenever possible, either both ambulances or the two-EMT ambulance and the fly car go to a call. That ensures that there’s a paramedic there, so ALS is available. And if the paramedic decides that ALS isn’t necessary, the EMTs take care of the situation and, if necessary, the transport, leaving the paramedic available for the next call.

On my day, we had an extra EMT with us, one who is just finishing his paramedic training. I rode in the “bus” with my paramedic friend and two EMTs.

The shift started at 8 A.M., but it wasn’t until a little before 10 that we got our first call. After that they came pretty steadily, with just short gaps... six calls for us, all told (and a couple of calls we didn’t go to because we were busy — the fly car took those).

The calls varied in scope:

1. A worker felt strange, enough so that the crew called us. The paramedic asked some questions, did some basic exam. Blood pressure high, nothing else obvious. EMTs transported him to the hospital.
2. A woman cut her leg. EMTs cleaned and bandaged it, no transport needed.
3. A man with a history of emphysema complained of shortness of breath. Nothing immediately urgent, so EMTs gave oxygen and transported him.
4. A woman fainted at her workplace. Vitals were normal when we got there, but paramedics gave her a saline IV and we took her to the hospital. Very nice (new) emergency department. Not crowded, not hectic.
5. A woman was in an auto accident, complaining of neck/back pain. No ALS needed, but the other bus was busy, so we transported her.
6. A man thought he was having a heart attack at his workplace. He looked pale and ashen when we arrived, high blood pressure and tachycardia (rapid heartbeat). Paramedics gave him aspirin, nitroglycerin, and saline, monitored him (EKG, BP, oxygen level) in transit — his stats went back to normal.

And that was the day. No traumas, nothing very challenging,[1] but a variety of things that let me see these folks in action.

Two things struck me, in particular. The one I completely expected is that the paramedics and EMTs are well trained, competent, and effective. The area covered is small enough that we were just a few minutes from every call. Everyone knew just what to do, and did it with confidence.

The other thing was less obvious: they have a practiced, easy “bedside manner”. One of the most important parts of what they have to do is to make the patients feel calm, safe, and relaxed. Think about it: you’ve collapsed at work and the ambulance has come for you! You’d have to be agitated, frightened. And the EMT talks with you calmly, the paramedic has a soothing manner with you. It’s OK. We’ll get you to the doctor, and you don’t need to worry. I could see the difference that made.

I’ve asked my volleyball teammate to let me know when the next EMT class is. I’m going to learn to do this, as part of giving back to the world.
 

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[1] I actually felt a little odd at the start of the day, in that I knew that if we didn’t get any calls I’d wind up spending the day watching dumb stuff on TV... but that it was kind of weird to hope that a few people would get sick or injured so that my day would be more interesting.

Professor Ralph Selfridge, 1927-2008

One of my mentors has shuffled off this mortal coil. I’ve only just learnt of it, but Ralph Selfridge (see a reference to him in these pages here, and pronounce it “rafe”, please) died about ten months ago. He was one of my computer science professors at University of Florida, and a friend at the time, but one with whom I, sadly, did not stay in touch with. I have, though, in the Internet age, periodically “googled” him, to check in. And so I knew that he’d retired from UF in 2002.

I once again searched for him on Friday, and found his obituary. With sadness, I went to the “guest book” link there, read the entries, and then added my own.

Here’s what I said:

I’ve only just found this through a Google search, casually looking for where my favourite professor is now. I’m sad, this time, to find the answer.

In 1974 thru 1977, I was finishing my mathematics degree at University of Florida, and studying computer science — I went on to a career at IBM, where the latter served me much more than the former. I met Dr Selfridge early in that time, and loved him immediately for his quirky style, his quick wit, and his easy rapport with the students who could appreciate him.

Dr Selfridge taught me the finer details of the APL programming language, as well as many aspects of being a first-class computer scientist. I’m grateful to him for his role in where my life and career went.

Some of that learning happened in class, and some of it happened at the Rathskellar or the Orange and Brew on Friday afternoons, in what he called the Alcoholic Programmers’ League. We, the students who joined him, felt rather like accolytes accompanying Plato or Socrates.

Over the years, I’ve wished I’d kept in touch with Dr S, but settled for the occasional Google search. I’ll search no more, now, but I’ll always remember Ralph Selfridge with very, very much fondness.

John Sybalsky, 1953–2009

One of my favourite square-dance callers, and one of my dearest friends from square dancing, John Sybalsky, died on Monday, Memorial Day, at the age of 56.

I first met John in the early 1990s, at what was then the National Advanced and Challenge Convention in Virginia Beach. I got to know him more when another (alas, also departed) square-dance friend suggested that I go to a dance where, as he put it, John “Check Your Right Hand at the Door” Sybalsky was calling. Over the years since then, we’d become friends, getting together for things other than square dancing. I’ve wine-hopped in Napa Valley with him twice, and talked late into the night at square-dance weekends, long after the dancing ended.

John was known as an eccentric caller, in a fun sense. Modern Western Square Dancing usually uses what we call “right-handed” formations, where the primary turns are to the right... and dancers are more used to those. But John was known for heavy use of left-handed formations, challenging those not accustomed to that, and keeping everyone alert and thinking. He would call something that might have seemed run-of-the-mill, and a dancer would avert a breakdown by alerting his square, “It’s left!” John would quietly respond, “Of course it’s left.”

The eccentricity went to his selection of music, as well. Many callers have come far from the old fiddle-and-banjo music, using disco, show tunes, current pop music, even techno and hip-hop. John did all of that and more, and actively sought funny, unusual, and just downright weird music to use. We would groan when he’d put on the “Chipmunk song”, or the Teletubbies theme, knowing that they would make us laugh while we danced, but get stuck in our brains hopelessly afterward. My favourite of his odd selections was Sue Keller’s excellent ragtime arrangement of Beethoven’s “Für Elise”, which she calls “Furry Lisa” (the tune starts about a minute into the video).

And what he’d say on the microphone....

Challenge dancers often record the sessions, to bring home and review later with groups of dancers in basements. We still call it “taping”, and the groups of dancers “tape groups”, even though most are using laptops, minidisk recorders, and other technology these days. And if a caller, on the microphone, corrects an error you’ve made, you’re said to be “on the tape.” “Bill, you should be behind Jane.” “Turn around, Karen.” “No, Roger, the other left.” That sort of thing is common.

With John, nearly everyone was on the tape at one time or another, often not because of mistakes, but for other reasons — John always had something to say. He was one of those callers who didn’t just give instructions from the stage, but became part of every square, in a way. Our interactions were recorded often — most frequently with my taking the good-natured bad end of it. John was sarcastic in just the right manner, and had a quick wit and a great sense of humour that I particularly appreciated.

Our conversations outside of dancing went from food and wine to politics (we agreed on much, but not on everything) to technology and computers to travel to... well, to any subject we could devise. On a 1997 trip to Napa Valley, he introduced me to Prager Winery and Port Works, an excellent little (very, very little) place that makes some nice stuff. I tasted a wonderful, oaky chardonnay while we were there, and brought home some of their 1991 “Royal Escort” port. We visited Prager again last June, and that was the last time I saw John. I still have a bottle of the ’91 port, and I think that now is a good time to open it and remember all the years past.

I’ll close with a tune I’m dedicating to John: I once suggested that he might try Walter Murphy’s disco adaptation of Beethoven’s 5th Symphony, “A Fifth of Beethoven”, and he checked it out. He liked it, adjusted the speed a little to match up with square-dance tempo (120 to 128 beats per minute), and used it. And I enjoyed dancing to it a number of times.

I’ll always miss the music, the dancing, the left-handed formations, the wit, the sarcasm... and the wine and the friendship. Goodbye, John.

4 July 1977 – 26 February 2009

Everyone is doing it, or nearly everyone.

Starbucks, Macy’s, and Toyota are doing it.

Boeing and Hertz are doing it.

BT and Disney and Viacom and NBC Universal are doing it.

Panasonic and Sony are doing it.

Lenovo and Microsoft and Intel are doing it.

And despite this outlook, IBM is doing it too: cutting jobs.

Yip-yip-yip-yip-yip-yip-yip-yip,
Boom-boom-boom-boom-boom-boom,
Get a job.

Unlike the other companies above, IBM isn’t saying how many jobs are cut. But what I know is that IBM Research eliminated almost 200 positions in the US. Including mine. Yesterday was my last day at IBM, after almost 32 years.[1] Yesterday afternoon I turned in my keys and left the building for the last time.

We had a month from when we were notified to find other positions within the company; this was a “workforce reduction” — a “resource action”, as IBM calls it — and didn’t have to do with performance, or seniority, or any such... just about what projects they decided to keep, and which to cut. But, of course, with cuts in every part of the company within the US, it was essentially impossible to find any place that could add staff, so yesterday was the last day for nearly 200 of my Research colleagues, as well, and thousands more in the rest of the company have gone or will go soon.

It seems funny that the day coincides exactly with the Times article I cite above, which says this:

International Business Machines affirmed its full-year profit outlook on Thursday and forecast growth in its services business in the first quarter, in contrast to many technology companies that have scaled back expectations.

Shares of I.B.M. rose 3.7 percent, after the chief financial officer, Mark Loughridge, said at a Goldman Sachs technology conference that January’s results were consistent with the company’s forecast for at least $9.20 in earnings a share for 2009.

Nevertheless, I still have good things to say about the company. IBM was good to me for almost 32 years, and I’d been happy there. I got a lot from them, and I like to think that they got a lot from me. That time is over, and I’m looking for what’s next. And I’m glad for the many years I spent at IBM, and for the people I’ve known and worked with over that time.

Now, it’s on to something new.

 
I’ll leave you, today, with this video from the Silhouettes:

 

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[1] Yes, my official start date was the 4th of July. My first two days with IBM were holidays, and I actually reported to work on the 6th. I liked to quip that they liked me so much, they made my start date a permanent holiday.