SPARTA News June 2001
June 2001
SPARTA Chapter President’s Corner
- by Brad Carson
First, I hope everyone enjoyed last month’s President’s corner (said with tongue firmly planted in cheek). I want to apologize to everyone for not getting the article done for last month. I’ll try to make sure it doesn’t happen again (thanks to Ed Webb and his timely reminders).
It has been a few years since I had to put out one of these little articles. A number of things have changed since I was last President of our group. The big one of course was changing jobs and moving back to Raleigh. It has been a very busy 15 months both personally and professionally. Helping to setup a parallel sysplex and migrate from OS/390 1.3 to OS/390 2.9 were large tasks that kept things very busy. Now we are working on an upgrade to UDB V7 for OS/390, CICS/TS 1.3, and a swap out of our BMC, CA, and CompuWare products. This should keep us at LabCorp busy for a while.
Well after a five-year absence, I’m back to staring at a blank page trying to come up with another President’s Corner. I can tell you that I really didn’t miss doing this every month. I want to thank Chris Blackshire for the great job he has done as our President for the last five years and I hope I can keep my articles as informative as his were.
See you all on the 26th.
Our next meeting is on Tuesday June 26th at LabCorp. BarBQ, drinks, and dessert will be provided.
Future Speakers
(subject to change)
June 26 TBA
July 31 Randall Greset of EMC
August 28 SHARE Conference Report by Ed Webb of SAS and others
We need ideas and volunteers for future speakers. Presentations don’t have to be fancy, just informative and interesting. Even a 5 or 10 minute talk can start an interesting interaction. Contact John Bryant by phone or e-mail as noted below.
2001-2002 SPARTA
Board of Directors
Brad Carson - President
LabCorp 919-572-7504
1912 Alexander Drive
Research Triangle Park, NC 27709 Brad_Carson@labcorp.com
John Bryant - Vice President
GlaxoSmithKline 919-483-9548
5 Moore Drive; D.111
RTP, NC 27709 JEB33378@gsk.com
Mike Lockey - Secretary
Guilford Co. Information Services 336-412-6235
201 N. Eugene St. 336-227-2021 (Home)
Greensboro, NC 27401 MLOCKEY@netpath.net
Duane Reaugh - Treasurer
DTS Software 919-833-8426
2913 Wake Forest Road
Raleigh, NC 27609-7841 Duane@DTSsoftware.com
Ed Webb - Communications Director
SAS Institute 919-531-4162
SAS Campus Drive 919-362-0232 (Home)
Cary, NC 27513 EDWISTUO@aol.com
Meetings
Meetings are scheduled for the last Tuesday evening of each month (except no meeting in December), with optional dinner at 6:15 p.m. and the meeting beginning at 7:00 p.m.
These monthly meetings are held at LabCorp’s Center for Molecular Biology and Pathology (CMBP) near the Research Triangle Park (see last page). Take I-40 to Miami Boulevard and go north. Turn right onto Alexander Drive. Go about a mile or so. Then turn right into LabCorp complex and turn Left to the CMBP Building. In the lobby, sign in as a visitor to see Brad Carson. Brad will escort you to the conference room.
Call for Articles
If you have any ideas for speakers, presentations, newsletter articles, or are interested in taking part in a presentation, PLEASE contact one of the Board of Directors with your suggestions.
Newsletter Mailings
The SPARTA chapter policy is to mail a copy of the monthly chapter newsletter to each SPARTA member, NaSPA national, each advertiser, persons who have requested a copy, and to other chapters who send us a copy of their newsletter. The newsletter is mailed about the 20th of each month so you can prepare for the meeting. The mailing list is maintained by Mike Lockey at (336) 412-6235; if you have corrections or problems receiving your newsletter, call Mike.
Latest CBT Tape Online
The directory and files from the latest CBT tape V436 (dated June 12, 2001) are available from www.cbttape.org.
If you need a complete tape, contact Brad Carson at LabCorp or Ed Webb at SAS (see Board of Director’s list for contact info).
Minutes of the May 22, 2001 Meeting
•Meeting was called to order at 7:00 PM by Chris Blackshire, the Chapter President.
•Eleven (11) people were present; ten (10) were members.
•Everyone in the room introduced themselves, told where they worked, and briefly described their job function.
•The minutes of April 2001 meeting were accepted as published in the May 2001 newsletter.
OLD BUSINESS
•Articles are needed for this newsletter. If you would like to write an article for this newsletter, please contact Ed Webb. Keep in mind that you don’t really need to write the article, it can be an article that you read that you would like to share with the membership.
•The SPARTA Web page is now available. To access the SPARTA Web page, point your Web browser to this site: www.netpath.net/~mlockey/sparta.html. Please send any comments or suggestions about the Web page to Mike Lockey (mlockey@netpath.net). Be sure to check the Web page every once in a while to see any new or changed information.
NEW BUSINESS
•Future Speakers and Topics:
June 2001 - TBA
July 2001 - TBA
August 2001 - SHARE Conference report
Other ideas:
- TDMF - Ken Frump
- WLM Goal Mode - Jim Horne
- UNIX Services for OS/390
- IBM New Announcements
- CICS Web Bridge
If you have suggestions about speakers and topics, contact John Bryant.
•Food for the June 2001 meeting will be BarBQ and sodas.
•Thanks to Brad Carson of LabCorp for hosting the May meeting.
•The business portion of the meeting ended at 7:20 PM.
•Jim Horne of Lowe’s Companies talked about his IBM 2064 (z900) installation experience. Topics he discussed were:
Things We Did
Read PSP buckets
Planned The Work
Planned IO changes
Planned new CHPID layouts
Prepared for Installation Night
Presorted cables
Prepped HCD and IOCDS
Other minor things
Installation Night
Brought 9672 down & disconnected everything
Moved 2064 in, connected up new cables
New OSA
New FICON
Same old ESCON
Changed CPENABLE(0,0)
Changed trace options in COMMNDxx
Two Weeks Later... Swapping Production Workloads
New IO Gen
Adding a new machine and deleting an old one can be tricky...
Move OSA Cards
Change VTAMLST
Move Consoles
IPL and Watch Things Fly
Is That All There Is?
Yes, For Now, Anyway
Questions
•The meeting was adjourned at 7:50 PM.
Treasurer’s Report for June 2001
contributed by Duane Reaugh
As of June 18th we have $543.90 in the bank, but I have not paid the receipts from the last meeting.
Items of Interest
SHARE in Minneapolis in July
contributed by Ed Webb
SHARE in Minneapolis, July 22-27, is less than (one month) away. Discounted advanced registration rates for SHARE in Minneapolis is available until June 29. For the latest information or to register online, visit http://www.share.org/minneapolis.
Questions? Contact SHARE Headquarters
Phone: 888.574-2735 (888.5SHARE5)
e-mail: sharehq@share.org
Web: http://www.share.org”
This Guy Had Potential
contributed by Chris Blackshire
Sir Ernest Rutherford, President of the Royal Academy, and recipient of the Nobel Prize in Physics, related the following story:
Some time ago I received a call from a colleague. He was about to give a student a zero for his answer to a physics question, while the student claimed a perfect score. The instructor and the student agreed to an impartial arbiter, and I was selected. I read the examination question:
“Show how it is possible to determine the height of a tall building with the aid of a barometer.”
The student had answered:
“Take the barometer to the top of the building, attach a long rope to it, lower it to the street, and then bring it up, measuring the length of the rope. The length of the rope is the height of the building.”
The student really had a strong case for full credit since he had really answered the question completely and correctly! On the other hand, if full credit were given, it could well contribute to a high grade in his physics course and certify competence in physics, but the answer did not confirm this. I suggested that the student have another try.
I gave the student six minutes to answer the question with the warning that the answer should show some knowledge of physics. At the end of five minutes, he hadn’t written anything. I asked if he wished to give up, but he said he had many answers to this problem; he was just thinking of the best one. I excused myself for interrupting him and asked him to please go on. In the next minute, he dashed off his answer, which read:
“Take the barometer to the top of the building and lean over the edge of the roof. Drop the barometer, timing its fall with a stopwatch. Then, using the formula x=0.5*a*t^2, calculate the height of the building.”
At this point, I asked my colleague if he would give up. He conceded, and gave the student almost full credit. While leaving my colleague’s office, I recalled that the student had said that he had other answers to the problem, so I asked him what they were.
“Well,” said the student, “there are many ways of getting the height of a tall building with the aid of a barometer. For example, you could take the barometer out on a sunny day and measure the height of the barometer, the length of its shadow, and the length of the shadow of the building, and by the use of simple proportion, determine the height of the building.”
“Fine,” I said, “and others?”
“Yes,” said the student, “there is a very basic measurement method you will like. In this method, you take the barometer and begin to walk up the stairs. As you climb the stairs, you mark off the length of the barometer along the wall. You then count the number of marks, and this will give you the height of the building in barometer units. A very direct method.”
“Of course. If you want a more sophisticated method, you can tie the barometer to the end of a string, swing it as a pendulum, and determine the value of g [gravity] at the street level and at the top of the building. From the difference between the two values of g, the height of the building, in principle, can be calculated.”
“On this same tack, you could take the barometer to the top of the building, attach a long rope to it, lower it to just above the street, and then swing it as a pendulum. You could then calculate the height of the building by the period of the precession”.
“Finally,” he concluded, “there are many other ways of solving the problem. Probably the best,” he said, “is to take the barometer to the basement and knock on the superintendent’s door. When the superintendent answers, you speak to him as follows: ‘Mr. Superintendent, here is a fine barometer. If you will tell me the height of the building, I will give you this barometer.’”
At this point, I asked the student if he really did not know the conventional answer to this question. He admitted that he did, but said that he was fed up with high school and college instructors trying to teach him how to think.
The name of the student was Niels Bohr. (1885-1962) Danish Physicist; Nobel Prize 1922; best known for proposing the first ‘model’ of the atom with protons & neutrons, and various energy state of the surrounding electrons - the familiar icon of the small nucleus circled by three elliptical orbits... but more significantly, an innovator in Quantum Theory.
Humor
A Few of My Favorite Things
contributed by Chris Blackshire
New words for an old song from The Sound of Music:
Maalox and nosedrops and needles for knittin’,
Walkers and handrails and new dental fittin’s,
Bundles of magazines tied up with string,
These are a few of my favorite things.
Cadillacs, cataracts, hearing aids, glasses,
Polident, Fixodent, false teeth in glasses,
Pacemakers, golf carts and porches with swings,
These are a few of my favorite things.
When the pipes leak, When the bones creak, When the knees go bad,
Then I remember my favorite things And then I don’t feel so bad.
Hot tea and crumpets, and corn pads for bunions,
No spicy hot food nor food cook’d with onions,
Bathrobes and heat pads and hot meals they bring,
These are a few of my favorite things.
Back pains, confused brains, and no fear of sinnin’,
Thin bones and fractures and hair that is thinnin’.
And we won’t mention our short shrunken frames
When we remember our favorite things.
When the joints ache, when the hips break, When the eyes grow dim,
Then I remember the great life I’ve had, And then I don’t feel so bad.
THEN I REMEMBER THE GREAT LIFE I’VE HAD AND THEN I DON’T FEEL SOOOO BAAAAD.
Top 10 Signs of Job Burn Out
contributed by Chris Blackshire
10. You’re so tired, you now answer the phone with “Go to Hell.”
9. Your friends call to ask how you’ve been, and you immediately scream, “Stop asking me all these damn questions!”
8. Your garbage can IS your “In” box.
7. You wake up to discover your house is on fire, but go back to sleep because you just don’t care.
6. You consider a 40 hour week a vacation.
5. Visions of the upcoming weekend help you make it through to Monday.
4. You don’t set your alarm anymore because you know your pager will go off before your alarm does.
3. You leave for a party and instinctively bring your ID badge.
2. Your Day Timer / Work Planner exploded a week ago.
And the NUMBER ONE sign that you are burned out because of work:
1. You think about how relaxing it would be if you were in jail right now!
Don’t Forget the Next SPARTA Meeting
Tuesday, June 26, 2001
Location: LabCorp in the RTP
Take I-40 to Miami Boulevard and go north. Turn right onto Alexander Drive. Go about a mile or so. Then turn right into LabCorp complex and turn left to the CMBP Building. In the lobby, sign in as a visitor to see Brad Carson. Brad will escort you to the conference room.
Free Food: BarBQ, Drinks, Dessert
Program:
TBA
Speakers:
???
SPARTA News
P.O. Box 13194
Research Triangle Park, NC 27709-3194
Phillips Software
