17. March 2008 by Dr. Steve.

On March 6th Brett Favre retired. Those of you who know me well know I grew up in the Milwaukee, WI area and that I have been a lifelong Green Bay Packer fan. March 6th, 2008 was a sad day in the Guendert household. Sunday football will never be the same in our house. For every single Green Pay Packer game since 1992, there was only one quarterback. Brett Favre. My 15 year old son has never seen a Green Bay Packer game where #4 was not the QB. Nor has any other Green Bay Packer fan his age.

Brett Favre was a throwback to a different era, and he brought the Packers out of the NFL wasteland and helped lead our team back to the top of the NFL. Fans my age who grew up in the 1970s and 1980s never got to experience what our parents did when the Packers dominated the NFL in the 1960s. Brett Favre let us experience that, and he let our parents and grandparents relive their past experiences as fans. I’ve worn the same old #4 Brett Favre jersey when watching Packer games since 1992. When we moved to Ohio after I left the Navy, we got Direc TV so we could watch every Packer game.

Brett Favre epitomized the unselfish team player. He was the type of athlete that seemed like an “everyman”. He was one of us normal people. He did not think of hismelf as better than his fans. It was not about money or fame or records. He loved what he did. He put everything he could into it. When it got to the point that he could no longer do that, he decided to hang up the cleats.

I knew this day would come at some point. I think all Packer fans hoped he’d come back again. Maybe Troy Aikman is right and maybe Brett will decide to change his mind. I hope so.

I know that if not, I will be in Canton, Ohio to see his induction ceremony in 2013.

There are three famous people I have always wanted to meet, and two of them I never will get to: Ronald Reagan, and William F. Buckley Jr.

Brett Favre is the third. Maybe someday.

.

Posted in Uncategorized | No Comments »

12. March 2008 by Dr. Steve.

As many of you know, SHARE held its winter 2008 conference in Orlando Feb 24-29th.  It was a very successful conference with approximately 2100 attendees.  Being on the SHARE Board of Directors has given me a much different perspective on SHARE.  SHARE is really much more than conferences.  True, the conferences are a big part of SHARE, but there’s a lot more.  SHARE has been extremely active in partnering with IBM on trying to renew the interest in the mainframe as a career option.  SHARE is very active in the IBM Academic Initiative, and zNext Generation (zNextGen).  zNextGen has grown tremendously in size the past three years since it started at SHARE Boston in summer 2005.  I believe the number of zNextGenners is now over 350.  Kristine Harper, Iris Rivera, Mike Todd,  Reg Harbeck and all the other zNextGenners have really worked hard to create a successful SHARE Project in zNextGen.

One of the highlights the past several SHARE conferences has been the zNextGen project kickoff.  Past keynote speakers have been Dr. Pat Artis, Cheryl Watson, and Michael Stack.  Of the sessions I attended at SHARE Orlando, Tom Harper’s zNextGen project kickoff presentation was one of the best sessions I attended this time.  I have never seen Mr. Harper speak before, but I know I will in the future.  Besides, I need to expand my horizons beyond the FICON and EWCP sessions.

The other big highlight at this SHARE was the unveiling of the new mainframe: the Z10.  It was a great deal of fun to be part of history in the making as IBM did their simultaenous announcements at several cities, and had the z10 actually on the tradeshow floor at SHARE.  Watching IBM move the z9 out Monday night and put the new z10 in was a logistical wonder.

I hope IBM and other vendors will consider similar “unveilings” for other major new products at SHARE in the future.  It was the icing on the cake for a wonderful conference.

Dr. Steve

Posted in Uncategorized | No Comments »

11. March 2008 by Dr. Steve.

Welcome to my new blog! It took awhile to get this up and running and integrated into my new website after I changed web hosting providers, but here we go. I hope you will come back to visit frequently. I hail from Gahanna, Ohio (a suburb of Columbus) and just finished digging out from our blizzard. We received 20.4 inches of snow this past weekend.

Things you can expect to see on this blog are a discussion/viewpoint on things happening in the mainframe/mainframe stroage industry, links to articles I have published, recaps of travel, and what I will call “other miscellaneous ramblings”.

Posted in Uncategorized | No Comments »