The Big "Merger"

When I started doing this a few years ago, I titled it "Gary D's Take". I have some other blogs and sites that are related to businesses and things that are not entirely just me. This is just me and what I think.

As a T Mobile customer I have some concerms about the pending merger with AT&T. My main concerm is that I know those guys at AT&T pretty well. While the official story is that they plan to honor T Mobile's pricing and way of doing things (and they have to for a while) I know how they are and how they think.....they won't be able to keep from AT&Ting it up! It's just not in them!

For those of us who have invested in GSM technology ( I started with an HP IPAQ) its sad. I have been a happy T Mobile customer for years. They proved that you could keep your pricing reasonable , give excellent customer service and be sucessful. I just don't think any of that will last much longer. None of those things are part of the A companies business model. Now the Germans that run T Mobile are really really really smart guys so maybe they have some grand plan to come out on top when the dust settles. I hope so.

Meanwhile... I guess I will just watch and wait.

Patriotism isn't dead.....it's just hiding in small towns and out of the way places.

A friend of mine from high scool posted this on his facebook page:

I PLEDGE ALLEGIANCE TO THE FLAG OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA AND TO THE REPUBLIC FOR WHICH IT STANDS, ONE NATION UNDER GOD, INDIVISIBLE, WITH LIBERTY AND JUSTICE FOR ALL!

MY GENERATION GREW UP RECITING THIS EVERY MORNING IN SCHOOL WITH MY HAND ON MY HEART. THEY NO LONGER DO THAT FOR FEAR OF OFFENDING SOMEONE!

LET'S SEE HOW MANY AMERICANS WILL RE-POST THIS AND NOT CARE ABOUT OFFENDING SOMEONE

I reposted it of course. I also added this note:

I was at a fireworks show last night in Locust Fork , Alabama. Right before it started they played the National Amthem and everyone stood up with hats off and hands on hearts. Patriotism isn't dead.....it's just hiding in small towns and out of the way places.
God bless everyone and GOD BLESS THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA!

I forget sometimes that we have developed this complex about offending someone. My mother used to say , "If you are ashamed of something, maybe you shouldn't be doing it." When I stand and salute during the National Anthem or face the flag and say the Pledge of Allegiance, it never occurs to me that I might OFFEND someone. When I bow my head and say a silent blessing before I eat, I don't look around and see if I am OFFENDING someone. Neither am I offended when I see Muslim women with their heads covered in scarves or my Catholic friends cross themselves. When I was in Canada, the playing of Oh Canada didn't bother me in any way. In Saudi Arabia, prayers to Mecca didn't upset me. Tolerance is the ultimate expression of the American ideal! Its why we are here! It is what makes this country great! AND....tolerance is a two way street...... you give it and you have the right to expect it in return.

Having The Time Of My Life!

I recently restructured the way I work. For some this statement would be one way to say they are out of a job. Not true in my case. In fact I have a lot more J-O-B (or jobs) than I used to.For the past two years, I have been at the Hardy Services division of Hardy Corporation developing something called Mission-Critical Infrastructure Management. (url: http://mission-criticalservices.com) The idea is to be a Single Point of Contact (SPOC) for all things related to the support of data centers and server rooms, outside of the servers,switches,software(the IT STUFF). This covers specialized cooling, UPSs, raised floors, clean agent fire suppression (like FM200), environmental monitoring, generators and lots more. This is a great idea! Like all great ideas, it may be a little bit before its time. I have come to realize that some people don't really want a single point of contact. Well, they do but they want it to be them. I call this the DIY approach and it is quite prevalent in the IT world. For the DIYers, I am another guy selling stuff like UPSs, CRACs(Computer Room ACs) and the other stuff  I mentioned. This has brought me some success but the embracing of the whole concept has been less than what I had imagined. The principals at Hardy and I still think this is a great idea and we are continuing to pursue this type of business- THAT HASN'T CHANGED. We have just come to the conclusion that the road to get there is longer than we thought. Having come to that realization , through mutual agreement , we have scaled back my activity to match the current size of the business, to leave some time for me to pursue some other interests. I am still pursuing the Mission-Critical opportunities with Hardy, I am just not spending all my time on it.

My new venture with E Tech Communications and Ernie Daw (the owner) takes me back to the world of communications and IT. This is a familiar place for me and where I have worked most of my life. Ernie has spent the last several years (and lots of money) developing a Tier II communications facility. E Tech has redundant commercial power feeds, emergency UPS and generator power and bandwidth and voice lines from several carriers. It can provide high level support for services like communications hosting ,end pointing and network routing. We have added some unique services to our portfolio like hosted telephone service , email archiving and data backup. We are currently working to expand our services to include some unique disaster recovery implementation services and IP trunking services.I have been working with E Tech on these projects for some time now and I wanted to be able to spend more time on these and some other projects.
What has happened is I have at least four jobs now. Besides the Mission-Critical projects and customers at Hardy, I have become involved with their internal IT work. I have taken on more of a sales role at E Tech as well as developing communications products for us to market. At both Hardy and E Tech I have those "other duties as assigned" thing that is in everybodies job description. If you think I am complaining, THINK AGAIN...I'm not...I am having the time of my life!
I get to help lots of people solve lots of problems and I am playing with more cool toys than I have in a long time....it just doen't get any better than this.