No, not Dethany moving into her house; I'm referring to moving my blog from Serendipity over to WordPress. While we transfer everything over, I'll take a short break from blogging. In the meantime, Dethany will report on the company's doings on her Facebook page.

Wendy gave Dethany the entire day off on Monday to go to the closing on her house, which is something Ms. Trellis would never do. I can imagine that Wendy received a few withering glances from Ms. Trellis for this act of humanity, but in the end Wendy held all of the cards. After all, Dethany answers only to Wendy. The only leverage Ms. Trellis has is to fire Wendy, and at this point that’s not going to happen. So, Ms. Trellis fumes...and takes it out on me.
Of course, she can’t fire me from being her son-in-law.
Dethany’s closing went smoothly, and she emerged from the process with the keys to her new home in the funky Little Six Points area of town. She moved in that evening and threw a party for the friends who helped her haul things. I admire her restraint and foresight for not posting any of the pictures of the festivities on her Facebook page.
She reported for work the next day; on time, too. Now she’s a homeowner with all of the responsibilities that entails. I see she’s already asked her Facebook friends for suggestions on what flowers to plant on her meager lawn. I wish her well.

Ms. Trellis just hit me with an enormous project that flew in out of the blue and pinned me to the wall, so I’ll have to keep this short.
I’m not looking forward to Cookie becoming a teenager, after getting reports from her on what Patina Welding is doing. When Patina was Cookie’s current age of nine she was a bright, serious, level-headed girl. I assume she’s on her way to being a bright, serious, level-headed woman but to get to that point she has to navigate being a teenager.
With a little advice from Dethany she weathered her latest incident of Hormonal Angst, but I’m sure it won’t be the last. I think back when I was a sixteen-year-old. I was...Actually, I’d just been hired here to be in charge of the computer department.
But then, I know I’m not normal...

Of all the impacts of Wikileaks, one of the oddest was reported to me by Cookie. She’s entertained by Patina Welding’s online love life, and apparently Patina and her boyfriend Thom Tumid (the blogger) overreacted to the presence of Wikileaks, divulging the most intimate secrets about how they felt about each other. They decided to be completely transparent, since they assumed that everything in their heads was going to become public knowledge anyway.
Even someone as emotionally repressed as me could have guessed what happened next. Feelings were hurt, and a breakup occurred. Specifically, Thom terminated his connection, leaving Patina alone in their chat room.
There’s really nothing to be done, except to see how this plays out. I do note, however, that Thom was one of the judges when I was a contestant on Top Blogger last August. I was the first one booted out, and I simply point out that Thom is now the subject of my blog.

The disaster in Japan trumps all news this week. The Red Cross has set up relief efforts that can be accessed here.
Since Fastrack stores most if not all of the world’s data, we have contacts with both corporations and individuals in Japan. Thanks to Wendy’s interpersonal skills, she’s established close bonds that go beyond a client/provider relationship. Over the weekend she and her assistant have been working the phones and using social networking for updates. As I write this on Sunday evening, the news is occasionally good, and occasionally not.
Our thoughts go out to them.

Most everyone who walked by Ms. Trellis’s office on Monday did a double- and sometimes triple-take when they observed a prim, demure young woman sitting at Dethany’s desk wearing a modest sweater, a skirt, a big hair bow out of “Kiki’s Delivery Service” and no piercings whatsoever. The jarring vision was Dethany, of course, like we’d never seen her before.
She’s been house-hunting, and was rejected for a loan even though she has excellent credit. She assumed it was based entirely on her appearance, so for a meeting with another loan company she took on this alter ego. The Goth unicorn would have been less of a surprise.
Art told me later that Wendy had accompanied her out of the building, only to be accosted by Dethany’s ex-boyfriend Syd. It was he who had convinced her to dress that way in college, which she did for a period of time. She eventually realized that he was a control freak who simply liked to wield power over her, and she broke it off and went back to her “normal” way of dressing.
Seeing him, she realized she was once again ceding personal control to an outside entity. She went to the meeting in her Goth regalia, and emerged with her loan. The closing on the house is at the end of March.

I’ve never been big on social networking, whether in person or online. The caricature of the computer geek who can only communicate via a keyboard doesn’t apply to me, since both make me uncomfortable. I avoid them.
I know I’m very much in the minority on this. Even someone as unconventional as Dethany yearns for interaction, and of course she’s on Facebook and Twitter. She’s a decade younger than Chelonia and I, and that makes all the difference. While we were part of a select group that constructed the net, her cohort takes it for granted and thrives in it.
When she was first hired by Wendy I visited her Facebook wall regularly, mainly to make sure she exercised good judgment in what to upload. That wasn’t to spare her embarrassment; but someone reckless with Facebook might be just as incautious in regard to malware. Fortunately she’s demonstrated wisdom and maturity on both counts.
Her Facebook job status lists a blank logo for Fastrack; that’s because we don’t have a Facebook page. Ms. Trellis decided that only desperate entities seek out others, and that people should come to us.
Scary thought. Maybe Ms. Trellis and I have more in common that I thought.

The Fastrack, Inc. computer system is protected by a firewall constructed by the preternaturally gifted Samantha Argus. It still takes my breath away each time I break down the inner workings of its code, as it’s staggering in its elegance and adaptability. She updates it weekly, leaving Chelonia and I able to focus on managing the system without worrying about threats from outside. I guess I should be glad that she’s not planning a career in programming, but in scientific research! (Her father Donald tells me she’s working in genetics, so I can only imagine what she’ll come up with when she applies her genius to that field.)
An impenetrable firewall, however, doesn’t mean the information stored in our servers is totally protected. That’s due to one thing beyond our control: our fellow humans. One disgruntled employee can turn even the best safeguards into a Maginot Line. Wendy, Chelonia and I keep telling this to Ms. Trellis, but she can’t wrap her head around the concept of ruling through something besides intimidation. Thus, the threat persists.
Dethany tried to get though to her by leaving a single shoe in her office. When Ms. Trellis asked what it was, Dethany said it was The Other Shoe That’s Going To Drop. Ms. Trellis didn’t get it.

Okay, so Dethany isn’t really looking for a permanent storage facility, despite what Ms. Trellis insinuated. She is house hunting, however, and sees this as the perfect time...provided she can qualify for a loan.
She has excellent credit, but the trouble is that she’s just three years out of college so she doesn’t yet have a long credit history. That will work against her. Still, there are deals on the market right now that will never come again so she’s diving in. I think it will all depend on how much of a down payment she’s able to make. Considering her outward appearance, some companies might hike the amount she has to fork over.
The good new for her is that she isn’t having to sell a house in this market. She currently has a private apartment in the artsy section of the city; about a mile east of downtown.
The first question is, condo, townhouse or stand-alone structure? While I can’t see Dethany doing yard work (especially with the pale skin), I also don’t see her sharing walls with others.
For her to be considering this, I imagine that Wendy has given her the signal that her job is secure. I know Wendy, and she wouldn’t let Dethany make such a commitment if her position was still probationary. So, I guess Dethany really is going to be part of our little family for some time.

I’ve been here at Fastrack a long, long time, even though I’m only in my thirties. I was hired in my teens by Ms. Trellis after I’d gained a bit of hacker notoriety in computer circles that today would land me in a federal penitentiary. She dangled just enough money in front of me to turn to the Good Side of the Force, where I’ve resided ever since. Little did I know that one day Ms. Trellis would be my mother-in-law. (Yes, she still insists that I call her Ms. Trellis.)
My lovely wife Chelonia calls her Mother, but aside from her everyone else has to address her as Ms. Trellis, except for Wendy. At Fastrack, Wendy alone is given the honor of calling her Rose. They’ve reached some kind of level of mutual respect that is a mystery to the rest of us.
Like me, Wendy was once a young hotshot at the company, hired in her mid-twenties to be Fastrack’s P.R. director. She was quite the ball of fire, and adopted a fiercely intimidating persona. She was eventually let go, but was rehired as Donald Argus’s secretary. After she proved herself in that role Ms. Trellis took her for her own executive assistant, and they’ve been a team ever since.
Now Wendy has her own young hotshot to contend with. She hired Dethany, it seems, because she saw her younger self beneath the Gothic accessories. It was a smart hire, but now it’s triggered some insecurity in Wendy. For the first time she’s encountered someone just as smart and savvy as she is, but with less mileage. At 40, Wendy’s no longer the young hotshot.

We found out why the Computer Bug had gone missing for the past month; during The Black Hat’s invasion of our system in December he enslaved the Bug to his will. After Dethany defeated him, the cyber-villain took over the Bug’s body, leaving his empty suit for us to find.
The Black Hat was then in possession of not only the Bug but also his powers. As we know, Percy (as we call him because he hates that name) has abilities far beyond that of the normal malware that infests cyberspace. He’s immortal, and has been around for millennia breaking simple machines and just waiting for computers to be invented. He’s learned much in that time.
My theory is that when The Black Hat merged with the Bug he didn’t know exactly how to use those powers. Mammals and insects are wired completely differently, and it’s likely that it took a while to adjust. He didn’t even have an owner’s manual.
I think we dodged an extremely dangerous bullet. It wouldn’t have been long before he did master the powers at his disposal, to our ruin. Percy, while meddlesome, simply enjoys screwing up our work. Global domination isn’t on his agenda, since enslaving mankind would just get in the way of creating FailBlog material. The Black Hat, on the other hand...
This time it was Patina who tricked him, causing him to molt. This had the effect of hitting the body’s Restart button, and Percy was back to normal. I went over every single line of his code to confirm that.
He pledged eternal gratitude to Patina, who cleverly found a way to enforce his promise. We’ll have to see what that means, and also what The Black Hat’s next move will be.

Ms. Trellis sent Wendy and Dethany on an overnight business trip this week and, true to form, she made them share a room instead of springing for two rooms. I think it’s her way of telling Wendy that paying for the two plane tickets was bad enough.
Wendy, in turn, made the point that Dethany has become indispensable to her. I hope that Dethany doesn’t find herself caught in a tug of war between those two strong personalities; I wouldn’t wish that fate on anybody.
With that in the background Wendy and Dethany left on Wednesday afternoon. The flight was uneventful, with Dethany reading Gothic Beauty magazine. They landed in Dallas around 6:00 p.m. and spent the evening preparing to visit a certain video game company in the morning. They turned off their laptops around 10:30. (I know this since I have remote access.)
The next morning the meeting went well. Dethany, it seems, was especially helpful in speaking the language of the gamers. By noon the contract was signed, and Fastrack will be the company’s official backup storage site. Sweet. It’s a multi-million dollar account, and Ms. Trellis couldn’t pop for an extra room. Someday that attitude is going to bite her on the butt.
They were at DFW about to fly home on Thursday when they were approached by Dethany’s old college boyfriend Syd in the departure lounge. After a brief and awkward conversation he was sent away, but from the way Wendy told the story no one thinks that will be the end of it. He seems to think Dethany still loves him. Wendy thought that she caught Dethany blushing, but it was just her pale skin reflecting the red exit sign over the door.

A brutal winter storm brought the entire area to a standstill this week, hitting Sunday evening and dumping six inches of snow by morning. Yes, I know; you folks up north are laughing at the impact of only six inches, but we don’t have equipment or experience to deal with it. Worse, the cycles of freezing and refreezing quickly turned that six inches of friendly powder into a two-inch thick sheet of solid ice that covered everything.
For us, the power stayed on so we weren’t in any discomfort, and since Chelonia and I do our regular grocery shopping on Saturdays we had everything we needed to last a week. What that also meant was that we were still on the job.
We were able to keep the Fastrack, Inc. servers maintained from our home because we had the good fortune not to encounter problems that required hands-on attention. Only a few employees were able to physically travel in to the office, which does make me wonder if most of the usual crises we deal with are of the “between the monitor and the chair” variety. But I digress.
Our main challenge was keeping Cookie entertained. She’s very much a social creature and needs the stimulation of human contact (unlike her parents). We supervised her Facebook time, which was her connection to the outside world. She also stayed in touch with her grandmother who, after the storm ended Monday night, was able to commute to the office via helicopter.
The roads were thawed by Friday, and we were finally able to get out of the driveway. The ice, it seems, had the same effect on real life as a denial of service attack has on the company’s website.

When Art came into work this morning he told me his daughter Patina was facing a crisis: her online boyfriend wanted to meet her face to face. Ironically, I’ve already met him in person. He’s Thom Tumid, who was one of the judges on Top Blogger when I appeared on that show last August. (He wasn’t kind.)
Admittedly, I’m not the target audience for his blog which centers on the cultural mores of teens. It’s light on tech info, and from what Patina tells us he’s not a geek like us. He knows enough to upload his thoughts and respond to his readers, but when it comes to backstage coding he has to rely on...well, her. I’ll give him credit, though; he doesn’t pretend to know more than he does, and his blog features a lot of self-deprecating humor.
I don’t hold anything against him from my Top Blogger experience. It was the audience that voted me off, not him, and the main reason was the choice of topics. I was dead the minute the producers made us all blog about kitties.
But I’m not bitter.
Anyway, he’s going to travel here this summer and meet Patina. I hope they each live up to the other’s expectations.
Finally, welcome to everyone who’s now accessing this from the new “Fastrack” website. Comments are encouraged!

With the excitement of The Black Hat over, along with the holidays, things were mercifully slow this week so Ms. Trellis asked me to do the long-awaited redesign of the company website.
She gave me a list of parameters that turned out to be simply a list of the latest management buzzwords so I knew I had free rein to do whatever I wanted. It went live last night with a host of new interactive elements (of which this blog is one).
As usual, Chelonia and I spent New Year’s Eve online, as so many computer geeks do. (This was indeed the binary holiday: 01/01/11.) We kept cyberspace running, so that those who had hangovers could do online searches for home remedies. Our nine-year-old daughter wonders why we don’t go out to parties and take advantage of networking opportunities, but in my case it probably helps my career if nobody sees the level of my social skills.
Have a happy 2011, everybody. I hope the year is a good one.