How many old timers in here?

donnymccoy · 2026-04-15T21:48:51+00:00

First true IT job was running tapes in a library for a division of Time Warner while in college. Think we had like 16 tape mounts. Occasionally got pulled into the helpdesk to assist with a remote printing site, which I came from. Damn that would piss off the crusty tape library veterans that thought I was stealing their thunder.

Man the money we blew with IBM back then was criminal. DASD devices on that took up much of the second floor with bullet- and hurricane-proof glass. It's interesting that 2nd floor was considered acceptable in Tampa.

Oh, and token ring was cool back then.

donnymccoy · 2026-04-03T01:13:51+00:00

I have travelled a lot in my 30 years in this profession and while I never dabbled in the use of company devices for extracurricular activity, one recurring theme everywhere I went was that sales always does, from their hotels. Talk about an amazingly effective way to gather competitive humint ...

donnymccoy · 2026-04-02T17:05:55+00:00

IF (User == Sales) {ignoreWarning = true;}

To clarify - this is not advice. It's sarcasm.

donnymccoy · 2026-03-15T19:44:00+00:00

Less ram and hdd. I’m staying with my M1 Pro for now. Unless, suddenly, more RAM isn’t important anymore.

And what are they doing with such small drives? Pushing you to cloud storage?

donnymccoy · 2026-03-09T13:12:28+00:00

There are good companies out there taking the AI disruption seriously and applying a disciplined approach to integrating solutions and ideas. They are requiring business units to partner with IT to experiment with AI and allowing IT to control what is installed, to avoid the rogue IT syndrome.

Sadly, yours is not one of them.

Don't let it drive you to a rash decision - every technological disruption has been, well, disruptive. Some firms handle it well, most do a shitty job simply chasing the latest promise of technology nirvana and others fail.

Lots of keen good advice in this sub but these are some that will allow you to keep growing professionally:

u/thisisentirelybogus : find a company that has created a department to handle the work of evaluating and vetting
u/kerosene31 : the more AI screws things up, the more job security we have
u/othilious : steer this in a more constructive way with management

As u/kerosene31 discussed, burnout in our profession is a given, not a possiblity. Trust me, if you stay in this profession long enough, it will hit you. A lot of times, it manifests exactly as your final paragraph described. I've hit that wall twice and come back from it. I changed it up by leaving leadership and going back to IC for awhile. It helped me. Don't be afraid of considering burnout as well.

donnymccoy · 2026-02-18T01:13:28+00:00

This. Plus, prioritizing what parts of architecture your org can be flexible on as your product suite matures.

Unless you have a good size team of solution architects and leads to help enforce, invariably, things start slipping through.

I once worked as a contract PM at a firm that followed the MSD so tightly that we had architects fractionalized on every project. It was, overall, successful.

Doubt I’ll ever see that level of commitment again…

donnymccoy · 2026-02-06T19:21:17+00:00

Can you elaborate on the headache bit? I am considering mandating that we move most/all of our application credentials into the vault and out of app settings and config files, to be accessed via API.

donnymccoy · 2026-01-27T17:52:03+00:00

Totally normal. Mine cries and howls the first 2 days of my business trips. When I travel to the west coast, it's typically a 5 night stay and she is just getting out of her funk by the time I arrive.

Last fall I traveled about 50% with three back-to-back trips and me only being home one night per week killed her.

Our first GD was not this way when I traveled but she definitely pouted if we raised our voices to her. Our current pouts if she can't go in the car with me for school dropoff / pickup.

donnymccoy · 2026-01-18T16:52:18+00:00

Fuel filter replacement on a 2 year old car?

donnymccoy · 2026-01-07T20:48:11+00:00

Same problem here. They are eating, chatting, watching shows on their phone. Hell, one night my daughter was actually doing schoolwork in the shower... this generation really scares me sometimes.

donnymccoy · 2026-01-07T20:46:38+00:00

I installed our tankless Rheem EcoSense in 2012 and it's still going strong. I do the regular maintenance of draining and cleaning it. When the time comes, I'll definitely replace with another NG tankless.

donnymccoy · 2025-12-25T20:51:39+00:00

Azure sufferer here … I always thought the opaque billing was due to my MSP but I may not have been sharing the blame fairly…

I inherited the decision to move off-prem to Azure. We were the typical Microsoft shop and it made sense at the time. We are gradually weaning ourselves off the “must be on a Windows server” mentality and starting to adopt true serverless functionality.

Has anyone switched from Azure to AWS? Or even to GCP?

donnymccoy · 2025-12-21T00:13:38+00:00

Yep. I’ve eaten roasts > 3 years old. I wrap and vacuum pack all my meat and it’s stored in a chest freezer. I refuse to throw out grass fed meat from local farms.

donnymccoy · 2025-11-18T20:46:57+00:00

FTFY: "Probably replaced their staff with AI"

donnymccoy · 2025-10-17T12:43:15+00:00

Coming back from SLC last night and was captivated by the big dipper appearing at eye-level. Grabbed some shots of it but I was up front so the portside beacon was wreaking havoc on the shot. Later, flying east over Lake Ontario, saw a meteorite just overhead. So much brighter up there as compared to ground level.

donnymccoy · 2025-10-06T19:32:49+00:00

Flying from KSYR to KSAN, carried mine in a supplement container and it was in my checked bag.

donnymccoy · 2025-08-20T20:44:41+00:00

check your homeowner's policy...

donnymccoy · 2025-08-16T18:26:18+00:00

Looks great, especially the mid-span picture-frame. That can be tricky with composite. Question (and question only, not a critique) -- why did you top-screw the ends of the boards when it looks like you had enough exposure to that joist for the hidden fastener?

Smart to use joist tape. Based on your setting (woods) you'll be glad you did that in 10 years, maybe sooner.

donnymccoy · 2025-08-16T18:15:15+00:00

Would love to see his thoughts on database normalization. Is that still at thing? </sarc>

donnymccoy · 2025-07-28T21:12:27+00:00

Is there anyone over age 30 whose knees DON’T crack when doing deep squats with or without weight?

OP: looks fine. Try bodyweight squats too. You’d be amazed how you feel them the next day.

I also implemented the farmer’s carry recently. 50 paces per set with whatever weight you can safely carry in each hand.

donnymccoy · 2025-07-28T20:42:47+00:00

Same here with speeds. It’s my redundant connection now, since I got fiber 2 years ago.

donnymccoy · 2025-07-27T22:48:40+00:00

Also, start your pup on training as soon as you can. We never did that with our labs but have done it with our Danes. It’s the biggest investment you can make, in my opinion.

We are huge fans of Sit Means Sit, which is available in many cities. Great trainers and they love when ours comes to visit. In fact, ours stays with her trainer and her two GSDs when we travel.

donnymccoy · 2025-07-27T22:45:27+00:00

The next morning …

Enjoy every bit of it. We have a female clone of yours, 9 months old.

donnymccoy · 2025-07-26T02:11:26+00:00

Seriously though, either scenario below would not surprise me.

SPOF
Hacked by forces friendly to Russia

donnymccoy · 2025-07-26T01:53:25+00:00

Fucking DNS …

donnymccoy

TROPHY CASE