Tone Parsons

We’ve been trying to renew a license for Weblogic. Sadly, it appears that the person who handles our account isn’t on the same page as we are.

Today, after our purchasing agent roasted him in an email for wasting the time of several people, our Weblogic rep sent the following reply:

From: Shawn xxxxxxx [mailto:xxxxxxx@bea-renewals.com]
Sent: Monday, March 26, 2007 2:06 PM
To: xxxxxxx
Cc: xxxxxxx; Parsons, Tone; xxxxxxx
Subject: Re: BEA Support Renewal for xxxxxxx.

Hello,

I am sorry for the incontinence. The form which was sent to me last Friday did not have the Billing Contact name filled in. I submitted it to Order Management and they sent it back asking that the name be filled in before they process the order.

Again, I am sorry for the incontinence and I will process this updated order right away.

Thank you for your help.

Regards,

Shawn xxxxxx
BEA Systems
Service Sales Representative
Ph: xxx-xxx-xxxx
Fax: xxx-xxx-xxxx
Email: xxxxxxx@bea-renewals.com

Oh man… “incontinence”?!? I’m not sure if he meant “inconvenience” or “incompetence”, but I’m pretty sure he didn’t mean what he typed (twice!!)

I almost wet myself!

My eldest turned 18 last Saturday.

We had a very low-key event, just us with cake and ice cream.  He seemed unimpressed with the milestone, but then again, it takes a lot to impress him.  He did, however, like our gift to him.  We have been bugging him, asking him what he wanted for his birthday.  His reply every time was “um…. I don’t know”.

So… we gave him two crisp $100 bills.  He can buy whatever his heart desires.

In a somewhat related note,  I may have found him a job today.  One of the contractors here at work approached me with an opening they have at his company: beta testing computer games.  This is right up my sons alley, and it pays $15 an hour plus benefits.  The contractor is sending me the information and I’ll help my son apply (read: write up a resume and cover letter).

Other news: my in-laws will be here around the end of the week.  They sold their house in Tucson and are moving back to Spokane.  They’ll be staying with us for the next month or so while they search for and purchase a new house.  Yay, me!

And finally…. the Spokane Shock season kicks off on Saturday the 31st!!!   We have season tickets this year and plan on hitting all the home games and possibly a couple of away games (Seattle or Tri-Cities).  It’s crazy fun… even for a computer geek like myself (and no…. I don’t do sports, but the Shock are tons of fun to go watch).

Imagine if you will, a car with zero emissions, goes 68 mph, has a range of up to 186 miles, and doesn’t use a drop of gasoline.

Moteur Developpment International is about to go into production with just such a vehicle. Sadly, it won’t be available in the USA any time soon.

You can read all about it’s amazing engine on the website. It runs on compressed air and uses 1 liter of vegetable oil as a lubricant, which needs only be changed once every 31,000 miles.

They’re also talking about building a hybrid engine that has the ability to also burn gasoline (or diesel, ethanol, etc), , so you can go further distances (the on board computer will automatically switch from air to gas when needed).

While it probably wouldn’t be your first choice in vehicles to drive across the country in, it makes perfect sense for a metro commuter (I drive 34 miles a day to and from work… a tank of air would last me a week, the same as a tank of gas does now).

They expect the price to be about $11,000 (which is stupid cheap, since you don’t need to pay for much else after you buy it).

Yes indeed… I want one!

Here’s a photo gallery of some of the models they’re proposing to sell in India.

Since our Government, in their divine wisdom, decided to change when Daylight Saving Time starts and ends, my life has become hell.

While most things went off without a hitch, we’ve run into a few issues that defy correction.

Currently, the thing which is the bane of my existence is the system I flew to Boston last year to set up (you can read it’s multi part drama here). Somewhere in the system, it appears that the dates for DST have been hard coded, and finding it has been difficult.

I had found something in the database for the application and, after modifying it, thought that the issue was fixed:

CUST_TZ_CD	ISO_8601_TZ_CD
——————————	——————————
America/Anchorage	AKST+9AKDT,M4.1.0/2,M10.5.0/2
America/Chicago	CST+6CDT,M4.1.0/2,M10.5.0/2
America/Dawson_Creek	MST+7
America/Denver	MST+7MDT,M4.1.0/2,M10.5.0/2
America/Edmonton	MST+7MDT,M4.1.0/2,M10.5.0/2
America/Halifax	AST+4ADT,M4.1.0/2,M10.5.0/2
America/Indianapolis	EST+5
America/Montreal	EST+5EDT,M4.1.0/2,M10.5.0/2
America/Phoenix	MST+7
America/Vancouver	PST+8PDT,M4.1.0/2,M10.5.0/2
America/Winnipeg	CST+6CDT,M4.1.0/2,M10.5.0/2
America/Los_Angeles	PST+8PDT,M4.1.0/2,M10.5.0/2
America/New_York	EST+5EDT,M4.1.0/2,M10.5.0/2

If you don’t understand what that all means, you can read this.

After making the modifications (changing it to read xxxxxxxx,M3.2.0/2,M11.1.0/2) I had hoped that it would propagate the correct offset down to the endpoints.

I thought wrong.

We’ve updated Weblogic, Java, and the servers, but to no avail.

So…. it’s still off by an hour, and the end users are getting grumbly because their schedules are off.

*sigh*

It would be nice if the company that wrote the application, designed and configured the hardware, etc., was still in business… but they’re not. So, we’re on our own, supporting that which has no other support, and blindly plowing our way through it. It’s not that we (and when I say “we”, I mean “I”) don’t know anything about the system in question, it’s just that I’m unsure as to where the issue might be.

Of course, none of this would be an issue if they hadn’t changed DST (or if they had changed it next year, when this program has ended and the system was shut down).