Got up at 3 am, flew out of RIC at 7:10, $490, Northwest.

Arrived 2 pm, via Memphis. We checked our bags this trip because of the orange alert on liquids in carry on’s. We dropped our bags off at that office and took the same van for the airport back up to the main drag, then bus to town. Then took taxi, on driver’s recommendation to Labna. Had Yucutan Tour–steak, beans, pico deguyo, guacamole, $125 pesos. Exchange rate at airport was $10.70, on street $10.60. Great place, atmosphere. Mariachis sang Cucuroo, Paloma, Grenada, Meso May, tipped $100 pesos.

Sunday, 8/13

Had doughnuts at the resort (Coral Mar) cafe and listened to the presentation–told us that we could get $150 credit for tours, plus free transportation to where ever every morning if we listened to a timeshare demo at Sunset Hotel. So, we went directly there. Got free buffet breakfast, demo took 3 hours. We took a boat through the lagoon to a sister resort near Tortuga Mmarina. They wanted about $12k, tried to convince us our timeshare wsas worth $9,700 through some bogus brokerage service.

Took van back to Sunset, hit the beach–waves were very rough.

Took bus to town, then taxi to La Parilla for dinner. KK had Chile Rellenos, too soft for her taste.

I ordered a shot of tequila, 3 mujeres for $440 pesos and spilled the tequila before I had a sip. The waiter insisted I pay for it anyway, and the manager agreed with him. So, he got no tip and we won’t be going back. The waiter was terrible and the beer was lukewarm, anyway, so no big loss.

Monday, 8/14

Took van to Iguana Wana, only to find it’s closed permanently, courtesy hurricane Wilma. We met a lady that recommended Choco and Tere for breakfast and we walked there, but they didn’t have anything Mexican for breakfast. We left after coffee and found a place practically next door, Casa Tequila. Had chiloqutes, Casa Tequila, corn tortillas, salsa, and cheese, for $69 pesos. Very good–KK loved it. I had molletos, basically grilled bread with beans, $35, also very good.

Went back to Caracol for a while, bought t-shirts, etc. Then back to Coral Mar.

Bill, Deanne, Jeanne, Nathan, and Ty got there about 3:30.

We all went to Perrico’s for dinner. I had fajitas, pretty good, and waiters were fun, as usual. Food is still over priced, though. And all the full size paper mache scenes are gone.

Tuesday, 8/15

Ate breakfast at Coral mar, toast, bacon, and coffee for $130 pesos (for 2 people).

Took van to Plaza La Isla, did some browsing, then took bus to Kukulcan Plaza. More browsing. Bill and I drank beer at a bar on the first floor–had some great jalapeno poppers there.

Took bus to town, then walked about 6 blocks (ow) to Market 28. Girls shopped and Bill and had tequila and shrimp cocktails at El Cejas.

Ate dinner at Labna–I had pork knuckles–very tender, not much flavor.

Wednesday, 8/16

Took van to town, then bus to Chichen Itza. I sat and read while others took tour. Pyramid is still impressive. You can’t climb it any more, so Nathan was a little disappointed.

Cafeteria meal afterwards as part of tour. So-so, but filling.

Got back around 9 pm. Hit the pool and had some drinks.

Thursday, 8/17

Xcaret, van all the way, more comfortable and cooler than the bus yesterday.

River float was great. Then laid out on the beach ’til evening. Saw jaguar, manatee, and spider monkeys.

The Mayan village is not part of the evening show, but is still there, as a separate exhibit. The Mayan warriors dressed for battle were on the sides of an open path leading to the new theater. They did the ball game there.

The theater was open air, but covered. They also had seating so you could have dinner ($20 US) while watching the show.

The first half was about the Mayan people and they simulated the culture, and later the arrive of the Spaniards, battle, and then, eventually, reconciliation. The music was great and the sound system was superb.

The rest of the show was Mexican, with folk dancing, excellent singers, especially great bass backup. We liked it a lot better than the old theater. You’re up higher and can see better. Also, the floor is bigger, so it allows for more elaborate scenes. You can buy a DVD on the way out, La Extravaganza de Music Xcaret.

Friday, 8/18

Took the skipjack tour to Isla Mujeres. Basically, a booze cruise, but the trip was a lot of fun, constant drinks with snorkeling after getting to the island. Saw lots of fish.

Not much to the town, I took a nap in a chair while others browsed. Ate lunch on North Beach, buffet. Pretty good.

On the way back, they let out a swing, hanging from a sail. Bill and Ty did it, had a ball.

Spent the rest of the day at Coral mar.

Saturday, 8/19

Ate breakfast at Coral Mar, took van to Sunset. Waves were much smaller, had a good day.

Took the bus to Punta Cancun, ate lunch about 4 at Taco Factory. Tacos were $120-500 pesos, all different kinds, all great.

Rest of the day back at Coral Mar.

Sunday, 8/20

Bill and gang left for the airport at 4 am. We took the Coral mar van ($9/person) to the airport at 11 am.

Plane was delayed leaving in Memphis because of weather, about 1 hour 45 minutes. Got in about 11:30 pm. Got Taco Bell on the way home.

But this play had been updated, so the actors used “normal” language, and even wore conventional clothes. It was kind of shocking to see Mentes, a sea captain, come onto the stage directly off his ship and appear in a suit and tie. But then again, the play was full of surprises.

And the word “tragedy” is an apt byline for this “romp.” Orestes and Electra are being judged by the townspeople for murdering their mother, who in turn, murdered their father, for being unfaithful. And that’s just for starters.

Even though I had trepidations, the reviews were all good, so we took a chance. KK and I drove up last night, and back to Richmond, after the show. Fortunately, the play started at 7:30, so we were back home by midnight.

One of the more interesting  parts of the show was the four girl “chorus” that made comments in the background about events happening on the stage. They also provided background music acapella, and a few songs here and there. They were very effective.

The acting was superb, and there were some great comedy lines, too. Like one of the actors commenting on the fact that the play is about Orestes and Electra having murdered their mother: “Not a great commentary on the relationship between parents and siblings.” Several of the actors entered the play from the theater foor, and even performed from there. It’s a small, intimate venue, so this really made you feel like you were a part of the show.

The Folger Theater is literally one block from the nation’s capitol. As you walk up to the front of the theater, you can turn west and literally one block away, you have an awesome view of the capitol building, from the rear. So, it’s not hard to find. Parking is a problem, but we got lucky–you can park on the street, but it’s tough to find a spot, and we happened to find one. Note–there is a parking lot (free), at 3rd and Asine. We saw it as we walked by. It’s posted for no parking, but only up until 6 pm. And it’s only one block away from the theater.

We’re riding down the road and Jordan asks me if I get the Disney Station on my radio.

Me: No.

Jordan: What? This car sucks.

We’re walking the dog around the high school. I stop for the dog to “go.”

Jordan: Come on, old man.

On the upswing?

I actually got two local job interviews last month. Granted they were referrals from friends, but nonetheless, things were looking up. I was fully qualified for both, but I didn’t get either position.

Could SAS work?

So. Cobol doesn’t appear to be panning out. I decided to try the SAS market, as I’ve used it quite a bit over the years, and I think I could pass muster on a technical interview. I created a SAS version of my resume and posted it on Dice. I got three emails the next day for SAS contracts, but none of them have led to anything further, yet. I haven’t given up on SAS, but I’m going with another tack in the meantime.

Never thought I’d say it…

Government work is starting to look pretty promising. As unemployment has gone up in the public sector, gov’t jobs seem to be increasing, too. And I’m only two hours from DC, the mother lode of gov’t contracts. I’ve worked in DC before, so I know I can deal with working there.

I’ve had a search agent set up on usajobs.com for months, but have been pretty much just monitoring those leads, not following up on them. Time to get serious.

Only time will tell, but I’m hopeful. Hey, at least I have a plan.

Let’s say you’ve got a simple drawing, where you have three boxes, representing three processes, connected with arrows, going from right to left, like so.

Now, you want to insert an “if” symbol between the first two boxes.

With Word, you have to select the three rightmost objects, Prog B, Prog C, and the arrow in between, then”group” them, and then you can drag the group to the right to make room for the new box. If you later decide you want to insert a new box between Prog B and Prog C, you have to un-group the group, and then group the Prog C and the arrrow, to move them around. What a pain.

In Visio, it’s a little easier, because you can simply draw a box around everything you want to move, and it automatically creates a group on the fly that you can move around. Easy enough for a simple diagram, but this creates a lot of clicking and drawing to make room inside a complex drawing.

Excel to the rescue

Surprisingly enough, the answer comes in a tool that I never would have guessed could be useful for flowcharting–MS Excel. Here’s an excellent article that shows how to do it.

And the best part is in how to make room for inserting new objects into the drawing. You simply drag your mouse over a partial row or column adjacent to where you want to add space, and insert new cells. The article referenced shows a nice diagram and full instructions on how to do it.

The elegance of this simple capability, for me, overrides the abundance of advanced capabilities in say, Visio. And, you can even link one flowchart to another, using tabs, with a hyperlink to another tab.

Easy text boxes

And another bonus. In other programs, like Word and Visio, in order to insert a text box, you have to go through a series of steps to define the text box. With Excel, you just select a cell and start typing. How easy is that?

These two features, combined with the other basic tools that Excel gives you for flowcharting, make it my tool of choice from now on. Even outside the mainframe world.

Usually, one just copies the code from a similar program, but there are still many details to take care of. The join parameter of sort, however, can make this process much easier. Let sort (either Syncsort or DFSort–they both work the same) take care of all the messy details, and you just code what happens after all the matching has taken place.

Let’s take an example: you have file A and file B, and you want to replace a field in A with a field from B only if the records match.

1. Create a sort step in front of your Cobol program. Code the sort parm like this:

SORT FIELDS=COPY                  �
JOINKEYS FILES=F1,FIELDS=(358,10,A)
JOINKEYS FILES=F2,FIELDS=(145,10,A)
REFORMAT FIELDS(F1:1,600,         �
                F2:1,200),FILL=C’X’

F1 is file A, with a DD card in the sort of SORTJNF1, and file B is F2, with a DD card as SORTJNF2. The FIELDS parm defines the field to match on: position 358, for 10 characters in file A, and position 145 for file B.

The reformat parm defines the output record: the 600 bytes from file A, and 200 from file B. It can be part of the record or the whole records, just as in an outrec or inrec parm.

Note the fill character–X. I use it here, but you can also use something “safer,” like high values, if you’re worried that multiple X’s could be confused with valid data.

Now, the output record will consist of an 800 byte record, made up of record A joined with record B, and will only be done for those records that have matching fields from file A and file B.

So, the hard part is done. You don’t need to worry about any of that messy logic in your cobol program. Define the input file in your Cobol program like this:

01  IN-A-B.
    03  RECA PIC X(600).
    03  RECB PIC X(200).

And you’re done. There are more complicated conditions, where you also want to work with unmatched conditions, where you want to process all records from file A that are not matched on file B. In that case, you use an extract parm card in the sort:

This will still give you joined records of 800 bytes, but the unmatched record will be all X’s. So, you can easily check for that condition in your Cobol program. If RECA = all ‘X”, then you have an unmatched condition for RECB. And vice-versa.

And, you can use this same sort processing to match up 3 files. I’m sure you can see the possibilities. I always use this technique now when I have to match up two files. Try it, and I think you’ll agree that it will make your coding not only faster, but easier to test.

After trying to find something on the company web site, I finally just called a guy that had helped me recently with an unrelated problem, but at least he had a connection to CICS. I got the answer with a simple email, “newc.” Sure enough, that was the transaction that I needed to get it done.

Why is this so hard?

Companies have set up intranets to make things easy to find. But, they never are. Sure, I can always find the cafeteria menu, but I can’t find any reference to a CICS expert. It would be so easy to do.

The answer

1. A forum (or wiki). You could post a question, and everyone could benefit from the answer, by doing a search on whether someone had posted it before.
2. A list of subject matter experts. Duh. Like someone who does a lot of CICS programing. And someone who’s a systems programmer.
3. An area in the company directory where people could list their areas of expertise.

Another example

Here’s another example that fits in this category that I thought was pretty funny. I was trying to find a sort option that would let me replace a character, x’20′, with a blank. After searching on the internet, I found the solution–a parm card called findrep (find and replace). I tried it. Abend. Huh? Oh yeah, my installation hasn’t upgraded Syncsort to that level. We might have it, but who would I call to ask? No clue.
Yes, I could try the Help Desk, and I might actually get to the right person, but you know how that goes–”Tell me what Syncsort is, again?”
I’ve even tried, when I was an employee, to elevate ideas like this to upper management. I never got a response. I think they think I’m just trying to get them to look at a social network implementation. I can’t seem to get my point across.

Take this freebie

So, if any IT management execs are reading this, you have a green light to bring up this brilliant suggestion as if it were your own. You’ll get a guaranteed good response from my peers.

Reality sinks in

At first, I saw lots of job postings in Dice, etc., even though I would apply and never hear anything back.  Then, about three months ago, even those meager tidbits dried up completely. I could bore you with more details, but let me get to the point of this article–here’s what I found worked, and what didn’t work.

Here’s the meat

1. Answering job postings on Dice.com. Not one ever panned out, all 70+ responses. 99% of the time, I never heard anything back.
2. Networking through friends. I have gotten jobs this way in the past, but no luck this time. I do recommend this route though. It works, and I’ve gotten my last three out of four positions through friends.
3. Professional organizations, like AITP. This will definitely help you keep the pulse of local activity, but I’ve never gotten a job this way. It will keep you out of trouble, and you’ll find others to commiserate with, though.
4. Networking through recruiters. Bingo. This is how I got this latest gig.
5. Tweak your resume. This is much more important than it used to be. In times past, all you did was load up your resume with your skills, and sit back and wait for the phone to ring. No more. Recruiters are flooded with resumes, and they’re just not going to sit down and read every word. Here’s what I think makes sense:

• Make sure you have a section for Experience Highlights, near the top of your resume. Have about 8 bullets that demonstrate things you’re really proud of. With metrics, if possible.
• For every position you apply for, omit the other bullets, and include just the ones that fit that position. For instance, if you’re going for a SAS position, include the bullet that shows how you created a SAS report that showed a slowdown in system response time, and that led the DBA’s to eliminate the problem, saving the company $4,000 in processing time per day. Delete the bullet that shows Easytrieve experience.
• Write a cover letter for every position you apply for, showing two columns, one column for the requirements, and the other column showing how your skill set  and experience matches up with each listed requirement.

You want to pay me what?

I also toyed with going into another career, starting my own business, retiring early, etc. But, unfortunately, programming is what I’m really good at, and everything else would have been a force fit. If you’ve had a secret desire to be a cook, this is the time to go for it.

There’s no place like home, there’s no place…

I was also fortunate that I was able to work out of town (even out of state). I don’t have young kids, or a sick spouse to worry about. My wife is very supportive, and while this isn’t fun, the name of the game right now is buy time until the economy gets better.

Let me know what works for you and we’ll compare notes, maybe help each other get through the next few years. It can be done–have faith.

Here’s an example, from Oct. 11, 2009. It was “Financial Fiasco: How America’s Infatuation with Home Ownership and Easy Money Created the Economic Crisis,” by Johan Norberg, of the Cato Institute.

The author basically showed how the monetary meltdown of 2008-2009 occurred. There were many contributors–the government, home owners, banks, and regulators. And, much as I hate to admit it, the Bush administration was just as guilty as Barney Frank. And the thing that stuck in my mind the most was this–added regulations are not going to help, because there were many watchdogs on guard that completely missed the event while it was happening. How can we trust the same regulators who screwed up the first time to do it right this time?

Anyway, you can see the upcoming schedule at booktv.org. Set an Outlook reminder to check it out on Friday evening or Saturday morning, so you can set your DVR to record an interesting title.