Baseball crowds are down, but not at every ballpark

The best seats in the house are empty. The cheap seats and all-you-can-eat sections are packed. Big markets are struggling to retain attendance while small markets are enjoying prosperity.Welcome to the topsy-turvy world of Major League Baseball, where teams are battling more than ever to stay ahead of the economic recession.In Cleveland, they are giving away bedroom slippers. In Houston, young professionals are encouraged to watch an Astros game at the tequila bar while looking for Mr. or Mrs. Right. And in South Florida, being unemployed will get you four free Marlins tickets to selected games.Attendance is down 5.2% compared with the same number of home games at each park a year ago, according to Baseball-Reference.com, but not for a lack of effort from teams.TEAMS SEEK SOLUTIONS 5 FACETS"We're seeing things we've never seen before," says Pam Gardner, Astros president of business operations. "It's kind of fun now because there's such a challenge."The New York Yankees have learned that opening a $1.5 billion stadium and spending $440 million on players this offseason doesn't mean folks will pay exorbitant prices to watch them. They cut prices on selected premium seats at the end of April, and attendance remains down 11.9% compared with last year."We're not one of the horror stories you hear around baseball," says Mark Tilson, vice president of sales for the Kansas City Royals, whose attendance is up 15.1% thanks to a refurbished stadium and winning team. No market has plummeted more than Washington, D.C. Nationals attendance is down 35.2%; the team has the National League's worst record."I'm not worried about attendance," Nationals president Stan Kasten said. "Our focus is to fix the product on the field, and when we do, the attendance will be there."Contributing: Mel Antonen, Seth Livingstone ***CLUBS COPING WITH A TOUGHER SELL1 Promotions punched up for fans seeking knockout Executives cannot simply market a team these days. Fans want pizzazz. They want a deal. They want, in the words of Team Shop Premiums, "Sports-tainment."The San Francisco Giants brought in Filipino boxing champion Manny Pacquiao to throw out the first pitch on Filipino-American Heritage Night on April 21 against the San Diego Padres.The Giants, handing out Pacquiao bobbleheads, drew 39,314, which was swelled by a walk-up crowd of 11,000, flooring Giants president Larry Baer."A totally unheard-of response," Baer says.Team Shop Premiums general partners Scott Nash and Bob Nanberg and accountant executive Jason Kubik sit in their Phoenix office each day brainstorming ideas to boost attendance at sporting events.They work with eight teams in Major League Baseball, as well as selected teams in the NFL, NBA and NHL."Teams are asking us all of the time, 'Give us something new. Give us something fresh. And we want to beat everyone else doing it,' " Nanberg says."When you have 6 million people out of work, it's tough to get them to come out and pay money for tickets."The Los Angeles Angels, perhaps baseball's most innovative team, Nanberg says, have offered retro alarm clocks, with plans of handing out of salt and pepper shakers in 2010. The Houston Astros are giving out a crystal replica of their ballpark this month to commemorate its 10th anniversary. And, of course, there is always the bobblehead doll promotion, a guaranteed winner, which costs teams about $2.25 per figurine."The giveaways are old school. Some sort of entertainment to go along with the game experience is new school," Kubik says. "That's where you have sports-tainment. It's the new wave."***2 Corporate cutbacks affect premium seating They may be the best seats in baseball, but some fans are having reservations about sitting there.For the first time since the opening of new ballparks in Seattle and St. Louis, as well as in both new ballparks in New York, premium seats are going unused.Harry Sloan, chairman and chief executive officer of Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Studios (MGM), kept his tickets but declined when offered the opportunity to move behind the plate. He says he prefers staying out of the camera's way. Instead he sits several rows back on the third base side.Joe Strohm, Cardinals vice president of ticket sales, says premium seats left behind in St. Louis are from corporate sponsors looking to save money."Corporations that maybe bought bulk tickets in those areas are definitely trimming back on their spending," Strohm says. "We are marketing those on an individual basis, and we're having some success, but at the end of the day it's still going to be down."What we're seeing is all fans are looking for added value, not only in baseball, but in all of their purchasing."Most teams won't release detailed information on premium seat sales, but they are talking about the losses, which are easy to see when watching a game on TV.The Yankees slashed prices in April on selected premium locations, including cutting some tickets to $1,250 from $2,500. The Mets' prices are cheaper at Citi Field, with their top ticket selling for $595 a game, but David Howard, Mets executive vice president of business operations, concedes about 10% of seats have not been sold.The Mariners, whose overall attendance has declined by 7.1% compared to last year, also have empty seats behind home plate for the first time in the stadium's nine-year history."You just see (empty) pockets," says Mariners president Chuck Armstrong, whose team has finished in last place four out of the past five years. "Hopefully, the economy turns around, but winning helps a lot. If we win, those things will take care of themselves."***3 In Detroit, sales down; Phoenix holding steady Detroit's auto industry is in shambles, and the housing market has hit the skids in Phoenix. But the teams in those two cities are getting different results at the ballpark."We anticipated a difficult time, and we're seeing it," says Detroit Tigers President David Dombrowski, whose attendance has declined by 27%, nearly 10,000 fans a game. "Our downturn started last year. We're still not sure exactly where it's all heading."But I still believe that people in tough economies are looking for escapisms."The Arizona Diamondbacks, whose $35,000 per capita income is the lowest among the 26 metropolitan markets that have a major-league team, are holding steady though, averaging 28,205 per game, down 0.6% from last year. Not bad considering the team entered Monday with a 13-19 record and fired its manager last week. "We've got challenges and at times like this," Diamondbacks President Derrick Hall says, "you have to be creative."We're hoping too that with the economy the way it is, maybe families will stay home this summer, and let us entertain them."***4 Phillies, Rays, Brewers defy 2009 trend in stands with help of '08 success on fieldYou can schedule giveaways, throw concerts and have all the player autograph sessions you want, but the best way to get people to the ballpark hasn't changed: winning.The defending World Series champion Philadelphia Phillies have already drawn more than 725,000 fans this season, tops in baseball, and an increase of 10.2% from last season. The Tampa Bay Rays, coming off the American League pennant and their first winning season, have had their attendance soar by 61.6% to 26,413 fans a game, the biggest increase in baseball.But the Milwaukee Brewers are showing it doesn't take a World Series appearance to excite fans the following year. They reached the postseason last year for the first time since 1982, losing to the Phillies in the first round, and this season have sold out half of their home games. They are averaging 36,581 fans a game, an increase of 3.3% from last year."Just winning, getting to the playoffs," says Brewers executive vice president Rick Schlesinger, "was the best marketing tool we had all offseason. We've had a 20% jump in our season-ticket base to about 27,000, an all-time high."We know we're trending against the grain. But this team was down so long, and after people supported it all of these years emotionally and financially they're ready to embrace the team fully. And now that they got a taste of postseason, people want the whole meal."The Rays drew 1.8 million fans last season, despite their incredible last-to-first-place run. Yet, even with a 15-18 start this year, folks are still buying tickets like never before in Tampa Bay's 11-year history. "Hopefully with our success and our World Series appearance, we'll see a significant jump," Rays President Matt Silverman says. ***5 For the frugal fan, it's BYOF: Bring your own foodEvery dollar counts in a recession. Outside the New York Mets' new Citi Field, Patti Lettieri is using an old money-saving trick: bringing her own food and drink to the ballpark."For me, to spend $7 on food and $8 on a beer is ridiculous," says the native New Yorker. "The money I save on food allows me to come to an extra game or two."Nearby, Beth O'Brien from Bay Shore, N.Y., and Claire Schmaeling from Levittown, N.Y., are toting in soft-sided coolers packed with food and water from home. "If you have a family with four kids, you have to do it," O'Brien says.Most teams don't publicize it, but at least 21 of 30 major league clubs allow fans to bring some food and drink items to ballparks, according to a review of team websites. Another eight allows fans to bring their own bottled water. One, the Houston Astros, prohibits all outside food and drink. Some such as the Oakland Athletics, San Francisco Giants and Seattle Mariners are touting their Bring-Your-Own-Food (BYOF) policies on their sections of the "Fan Value Corner" at MLB.com."Obviously, we're in business to promote our products including our food. However, we'd rather folks come to the game than not come at all," says Jim Leahey, the A's vice president of sales and marketing. "If that means bringing their own food, we're certainly OK with that."Brown-bagging rules vary from club to club. Subject to inspection, fans are generally allowed to bring food in see-through bags, single-serve water and juice boxes, baby food and soft-sided coolers. What can't you bring in? Anything hard that can be thrown at players, or each other, such as glass bottles, cans, and hard-sided coolers. All clubs ban outside beer and alcoholic beverages. Budget-conscious fans can always pack their own grub, then splurge for a few "treats," notes Washington Nationals spokeswoman Chartese Burnett. "Maybe you treat your kids to cotton candy. And bring peanut butter and jelly."Despite the economy, there are plenty of fans who consider hot dogs and Cracker Jack part of the ballpark experience, notes Tampa Bay Rays spokesman Rick Vaughn. "It's one of the most endearing things about baseball," he said in an e-mail.Thanks to the popular "Taste of the City" food court, lower prices and better quality, average fan spending on food and drink is up 40% at Citi Field compared to Shea Stadium, says Dave Howard, Mets executive vice president of business operations. "We think we're offering enough quality and value that, even if people bring things in, they'll still be attracted to what we're offering," he said. Contributing: Mike Dodd in Chicago, Seth Livingstone in Kansas City, Mo., Michael McCarthy in New York, Bob Nightengale in Phoenix, Jorge L. Ortiz in San Francisco and Mel Antonen and Paul White in McLean, Va.***Team-by-team attendance

Gonna Hit That Like Chris Brown

So, Rihanna and her boyfriend, Chris Brown, had a slugfest in a rented Lamborghini a few weeks ago on the way to an awards ceremony where Mr. Brown was set to receive an award for his music. I'm guessing you heard about it. I don't even follow news of pseudo-celebrities and I heard about it. Apparently there was some screaming and yelling, someone taking the car keys and sitting on them, followed by someone punching someone sitting on some keys, followed by someone throwing the keys down the street, followed by more punching.Sounds like a typical day in Memphis to me, but I suppose this is shocking to people in civilized parts of the world.So, let's run down a few details first. Rihanna, perhaps unbeknownst to her at the time, was pregnant, loaded up on hormones and a bit unstable. Chris Brown, loaded up on ... well, who the hell knows what Chris Brown might be loaded up on? Anyway, he can get crazy at times, too. That's one of the things his fans love about him. That's considered cool and admirable. A celebrity has to be a little on the crazy side or he ain't gettin' no respect, know wut I mean?And about the fight, apparently it started as an argument, and it just kept going, up and up, until there were fists flying and Rihanna losing the bout in a unanimous decision. She ended up going to the hospital for treatment, but was back home again shortly after.Now the first thing that pops into my mind is this: why did they need to rent a Lamborghini in the first place? Don't they have the money to buy one? Were they just wanting to make a big flashy appearance at the ceremony they were going to and their own Lamborghini was in the shop? If celebrities are showing up at these events in Lamborghinis, then it's no wonder there are so many photographs floating around of the vaginas of every single female singer in America. You can't get out of one of those cars without assuming the gynecologists' favorite position.The second thing that came to mind was a conversation I had with an older black coworker from Oakland, California a few years back. It was about as politically incorrect as it could be, but those are the sorts of conversations that actually communicate the truth, because everyone knows the truth is politically incorrect.He said to me that one of the reasons why so few black men get married is because it involves black women. Yep, chew on that for a minute. And keep in mind that he didn't believe in interracial relationships and openly said so. He didn't like seeing black people dating white people. In fact, I soon discovered that most of the black people in Memphis feel that way. Who knew?So hang on, what the hell? Why would black men avoid marriage simply because their most likely spouse is a black woman?'Because they're a pain in the ass and they always want to fight you all the damn time. They don't have no boundaries and they don't stop until somebody is dead. Who can live with that?'This is actually a combination of several conversations I had with more than one of my black coworkers. Yes, I am openly politically incorrect. And so are many black people. If you want to have black friends you need to learn to stop kissing ass and just say what you really think. Otherwise, you're just another liberal honkey fool can't comprehend the 'black experience'. And that's probably not far from the truth.Apparently the 'black experience' often includes a high degree of conflict, wild expression of emotions, and some violent confrontations that may or may not get someone into trouble with the legal system. Like it or not, you honkeys, unless you have the balls to stand up and fight whenever someone is trying to dominate you, you are gonna get your ass killed. At the very least, your life will be hell and you won't have any respect from anyone in your community, male or female. And that includes your own family, by the way. They won't respect you if you let your friends, your woman, your man, your own family members, push you around. And they will try. They will test you. They will push on you and try to bend you over and stick it up your ass just to show that they are dominant over you if you let them. But don't you dare let them.Anyway, that's what they told me. Maybe this is just true of Memphis?Oprah Winfrey is all upset that Rihanna has gotten back together with Chris Brown. In fact, all of the feministas who don't have any men in their lives are upset about it. They want Rihanna to join them in their world of no men.Orpah said: "And, if a man hits you once, he will hit you again."This is probably very true, especially in a culture where constantly testing the man is the norm. But you know what else? It's just as true of a woman. If a woman hits you once, she will hit you again. Especially if you sit there and do nothing while she beats your ass, like Chuck Finley, pro baseball player, did. He once dated former psycho drug-addict and Whitesnake video girl, Tawny Kitaen, until she began beating the shit out of him while he was driving them in their equally sporty car. It was a very similar situation to the Chris Brown/Rihanna situation, except that Chuck knew the law and decided that he loved his freedom more than he loved stoned abuser Tawny Kitaen. So he let her beat him up and then he called the police, ending his relationship with Tawny instantly.Tawny KitaenChuck Finley, like all men who call the police, was berated and taunted by fans at every baseball game for the rest of the season for not being manly and letting her pound him into a bloody pile of bones and organs while he sat and did nothing to defend himself. The fans and the press freely expressed their view that it was his fault, that he was a homo for calling the police, and especially for separating from Tawny rather than getting back with Miss Whitesnake Video Star/psycho drug addict/abuser.Ending the relationship with that call to the police is generally how it works, you know. Calling the police on the one you're with tends to be the supreme 'fuck you'. It's a sort of final shot, the sort of thing you only do when you have no intention of ever seeing them again. Because The Law is going to tell them, especially if they are male, that they can never see you again. The restraining order is automatic.I don't recall reading that Rihanna called the police. I believe it was a witness who called. Rihanna simply went to the hospital, but I have not heard that she sought out the police or asked them to do anything to Chris Brown. And now she's back together with him, over the screaming objections of huge numbers of uninvolved people. It's funny because no one has asked her what she wants and no one seems to care. People are mad at her. Let me repeat that - people are mad at her. Donald Trump even jumped in, calling her a loser and declaring that he hopes she never has any success again in the future.That's a bit extreme, don't you think?I wasn't especially surprised when I heard about the fight. And I wasn't surprised when I heard that it was a witness and not Rihanna who called the police. I don't know if that's accurate, but if it is, it's not shocking to me at all.I wasn't surprised when I heard that she went back to him. I don't believe I ever heard her make any statement to the effect that she was especially angry with him, afraid of him, or even surprised by what happened. I think I heard that she said something along the lines of having pushed his buttons and then she was immediately attacked for having said it. Again, I'm not certain of that, either.I can't say that the fight between them, or her returning to him, has anything to do with black culture, or the hip hop culture, or the celebrity culture. I don't know what's going on behind closed doors in their world. I only know what I learned from talking to various people in Memphis who just happened to be black, but it was because of these conversations that this incident didn't shock me at all.I once had a long phone message left on my machine at work by a black woman who thought she was calling another black woman I worked with. She ended up leaving the message with me by mistake. It was funny at first, but become more and more heart-breaking the more I listened to it. She was upset. She had just broken up with her boyfriend. Apparently he was just one of many black men she had dated and broken up with, ending in an emotional explosion that may or may not involve physical expressions of frustration. The woman she was trying to call was recently divorced and had a child. She was only about 26 or so, tall and good-looking. I could tell from the message that the two of them had talked extensively about their difficulties in maintaining relationships with the black men they dated. The woman ended her call by saying, "I've finally figured out what I've been doing wrong. I've been dating nuthin' but n!ggers. That's all it is. I been datin' g*dd@mn muthaf*cking n!ggers. That's all they are." At that point it sounded as if she was about to cry. And then she hung up.It was a revealing conversation that would never have occurred in front of me. If not for the accident, I would never have heard any of this. If not for my time working with a handful of people who were willing to talk to me, I would never have known how frustrated so many black men are with black women, or how equally frustrated many black women are with black men. I suppose it's really none of my business, but I heard about it all the same.Everyone wants to jump in on this Chris Brown/Rihanna thing and tell them what to do. Everyone wants to hit them both with oh-so-very-white politically correct bullshit, which requires no real thought on our part and no sacrifice from us, either. It's easy to say "she should leave him and never look back. A man who hits her once will hit her again." It's easy to slam on her for ignoring our bumper sticker advice and going back to this man that she apparently actually loves. We're all so fond of snappy feminist slogans that make for excellent bumper stickers, but don't usually work in the real world. We don't feel any pain at all if she leaves him. But she does.RihannaWhy do we slam on her for going back? If we're so pro-choice and all that then why do we not allow her to make an adult decision and choose for herself whether to leave him or return? Isn't it supposedly the mark of the mythical "Patriarchy" that we all presume to tell a grown woman what she can and cannot do with her own life, yet we never say the same thing to any man who is similarly victimized by a woman? It seems to me that the feminists ARE this invisible "Patriarchy". They are the ones telling women what they can and cannot do, without any regard to the actual desires of those same women. That's not pro-choice at all. That's Big Sister enslaving all the little sisters and bullying them. And that's saying nothing of how they treat their little brothers.What's the reality of this situation? It's sad, right? It's tragic. But the chances are actually slim, despite falsified feminist statistics, that she is going to die by his hand. It is likely that they are going to have more physical fights, though. That seems pretty clear. There is a distinct possibility that at some point she is going to beat Chris Brown's ass. Because women never forget. They may forget when you bring them flowers, but they never forget the bad shit. Rihanna will never forget that he beat her up. And she will get him for it. We may never hear about it. We will probably never know. But you mark my words, if they stay together for any length of time, she will get him.Oprah says that Rihanna is going to die if she goes back to Chris. Donald Trump says that she is a loser and an idiot. Perhaps. But I say that Chris Brown must be just as much of an idiot, because one of these days, when he least expects it, when he's sitting down with his back to her or sleeping soundly in their bed, she is going to go off on his ass, and he may or may not survive the experience.White women kill their husbands when they go crazy. They shoot them in the backs while they are sleeping. Sometimes these women were abused. Many times they were the abusers, which is why they treated their husbands in this manner to begin with, murdering him after he has indicated that he intends to file for divorce and leave her abusive ass.Latino women cut off their husbands genitals and throw them into the street. Lorena Bobbitt, a Hispanic woman from Ecuador, did this. She had bragged to all her friends several months in advance that she would do this to her husband, John, if he ever cheated on her. Then she did it. Only after obtaining a lawyer did she claim any abuse or rape.Black women, they beat their men senseless. What happens after that is hard to know, because the men are rarely ever found. The police come looking for the men, but don't find a trace. They ask the black women, "where is your man?" And the black women reply, "I don't know where he is. I don't even care. I don't care if he never comes back." Then the police shrug and leave. They never look under the floorboards or in her trunk or dig up the yard.Some say Rihanna is a fool. She has returned to the man who beat her up. I say Chris is the fool. He's old enough to know what's going to happen to him one of these days. But apparently they are in love, hooked on each other like crack.Chris BrownFoolI have a brother-in-law who was previously married to a violent, abusive woman. He had to leave her in order to save himself and the kids. I am e-married* to a beautiful Australian woman who once loved a very stupid man that apparently realized she was too good for him and would one day wake up and leave his ass, so he rejected her first by beating her more and more until he nearly killed her. If I ever meet this very stupid man I will hurt him and throw his body into the ocean and probably go to jail for it. I'm not making a joke of this. I just don't think the answers are nearly as simple as Oprah and others like to make out. What about you? What do you think?* e-marriage - not an actual, legally binding marriage. Married on the internet only, sometimes for the purpose of helping an American man obtain Australian citizenship more easily. Highly theoretical. May or may not involve e-love or e-sex.Welcome to Memphis - the ass of Tennessee

Zouk Out '08

There are many reasons why I’ve never been fond of Zouk Out and my attendance, other than fundamental commitments, is kept buoyant by one indispensible bracket; babes in bikini.And I use them inextricably because and one can turn up in a bikini but yet not contribute positively to my visual indulgence. I know this because I saw half of Ocean World turn up in bikinis. There was this one particular Whale who was so fat, her left breast weighed more than a Nissan March. I was pretty sure her bikini qualified as a hammock.Then there was that group of ladyboys who were walking about in their bikini top with half their areola exposed. And only ladyboys can be so proud of it under all that convivial disposition. You just got to love them.That aside, here are the other things I hate.1. Finding friends.There is never an event where you might actually consider having everyone be bound together by a rope. Nothing beats trying to find your friend in the midst of 26,000 people. You might actually have a better chance of finding that hammock Whale's asshole with a compass.Then imagine you did manage to contact them and they tell you that they are at bar 12and you are stuck at bar 1. By the time you walk over, you might just be in time for the Siloso beach new year countdown party.Which brings me to the next point.2. Walking distanceDo you know how fucking far you have to walk? It’s like a cross country training session every time you decide to move from one stage to the other. And if you were at this Zouk Out and you love Trance, you will severe all ties with anyone who likes Hip Hop, unless of course you are prepared to have 2 inches of pure muscles added to your calves.3. ToiletsIt’s not that I have issues with portable toilets because God bless them when you are having out-field military exercises, but like 50 units for 26,000 is just about the same ratio as running shoes to Kenyans. And this ultimately equates to a 20 minute waiting time to use the toilet. Who the fuck anticipates peeing 20 minutes later?Those aside, this year’s Zouk Out had been relatively pleasant, largely because I didn’t have to worry about running out of drinks, or queuing up for that matter. And yet even those came at a price of fatigue.8.20pm: Pappy, CK, RedBug and I start drinking at the Singtel tent. The lure of an open bar is too hard to resist for lesser humans like us.8.35pm: RedBug introduces me to her Caucasian male friend who takes well to my jokes. He thinks I’m hilarious and proceeds to proclaim his love for me, in the best way he knew how.Him: “I love this guy!” (to RedBug)8.40pm: Half convinced that I will be able to find a female to love me instead, I start drinking faster.8.50pm: 5 vodka Red Bulls in me later. I decide to put the journey to inebriation on hold and slot in other trivialities like responsible drinking and work commitments.9.40pm: I have not taken a drop of alcohol for almost an hour. I am not happy. Instead, I am riding around in the Buggy.9.45pm: I bump into Jun and she tells me MissFebruary is at Zouk Out. This is the best news I’ve heard all night.10.40pm: CokeWhore and Muthu arrive. We do two quick rounds of vodka Red Bull.10.50pm: I tell the very cute bar maid at bar 4 that she only needs to pour me one consistent drink of vodka Red Bull all night for all my orders. I no longer need to queue for drinks. I am the envy of thirsty men.11.30pm: My proficiency in binge drinking now puts me 13 cups. I start eyeing my slippers with contempt. Another 10 more and I will be accusing sand of trying to give me blisters.Somewhere along the way Eve showed up with Yua. Reznor gestured for someone to come over with his hands and I said,Me: “That doesn’t always work..”Reznor: “Cos I’m not you right? Hahaha.”Yua: “…”Me: [to Yua] “You are not allowed to comment, because that worked on you.”Apparently, 13 cups is sufficient to bring assholism out into contention for dominant character trait of the night.12.40am: I need to pee. The toilet queue looks like the audition day for American Idol. My feet is protesting against walking out of the beach to the hotel to pee, so I poke my bladder once to see if I might survive the wait.12.42am: Nisa offers to accompany me while I wait. I have a true friend.12.43am: Sherri offers to help me jump to the front of the queue. I have a better friend in Sherri. I no longer need Nisa.12.44am: Sherri goes to talk to the girl at the front of the queue and waves for me to come over as soon as the girl agrees.12.45am: The girl starts kicking up a fuss about having two people jump her queue. I reassure that calculative bitch that only one person is doing the peeing. She shuts up and the Indian man behind her picks up from where she left.Guy: “Hey man, dat is nort cool. You get aye girl to cut queue for you. Dat is nort cool I tell you.”And he repeated this over and over again, it was like a Subaru radio ad. He kept going on and on about being -in his thick Indian accent - ‘not cool’ because I got some girl to jump the queue for me and it was well, ‘not cool’ too.I tried to ignore him because I was primarily focused on holding the bladder, but he was relentless in policing the ‘cool’ factor to me. It eventually bothered him so much that he stepped out of the queue to nag in my ear.Me: “Whatever.”Guy: “Young man. You do nort tell me whatever. It is nort cool I tell you.”I didn’t know whether to laugh or pee in my pants, because I knew that for the duration that I was going to be waiting for the cubicle, Mama Cool was not going to let it rest and it was amusing to see someone get so worked up over waiting 30 seconds more to pee.When I finally got in to pee, I was so fast that I came out even before anyone else did and there stood the Indian guy, still staring at me in contempt. So I did what I presumed cool people like him would do; I smiled at him. And he waved his finger at me,Guy: “That is nort cool.”I can’t imagine what would happen if I stole his parking lot.1.35am: J comes to find me. I am on my 20th cup of vodka Red Bull. Not a good idea.Me: “Do you have a light?”J: “My sis doesn’t know I smoke.”Me: “What?! I hope she knows you’ve had pre-marital sex.”J: “Shut up!”I remembered meeting a bunch of you guys, and I remembered only because you guys called me, Butterfly. And majority of you have the same opening line.XXX: “Butterfly! I know you! You are Butterfly!”No shit Sherlock. And I don’t know why most of you have a pre-conceived notion that my conversational prowess is limited only to crude and mean remarks, because at least one of you said, “are you going to say something mean?”Like seriously people..2.10am: I finally find LB, who is still sober. I turn to see the line of drinks awaiting them and secretly make a quick prayer for him.2.20am: I do another 2 round of binge drinking with Iko. I don’t know if it’s the long intervals between drinks or that all the walking is keeping me sober. I tell the barmaid to make mine a double shot from here on out.2.40am: I see two men making out behind the tents while trying to find a spot to rest. I tell the random guy next to me, “How much have those two been drinking? I hope they know it’s a guy”. He ignores me anyway.By the time it got to 5am, I was more tired from the full day’s activities than I was even remotely high and this was despite the 29 cups of vodka in me. I also had so many drinks spilled on my arm that I was convinced it qualified as a flammable product.There was nothing comparatively interesting this time around because last year I witnessed a girl tripping and crashing head first into the toilet cubicle and getting knocked out cold as a result, and that’s a hard thing to top.The only thing I was looking forward to was Above and Beyond, but barely a half hour into their set, I surrendered myself to fatigue. It was a submission I quite gladly bowed to even before the trio had any chance to play their famed Trance anthems.I looked to LB and we both knew that the night was done. Somewhere, some place, some other time, another party will be conquered, but this one would just have to be spared.

Places I've Got to See

Three years ago I wrote about Places I'm Dying to See where I listed exotic locales that I'm determined to see at some future date. But a funny thing has happened the older I get . . . while I still want to see Giza and Petra I'm more interested in ever before in my own country.Andrew and I traveled a bit before we had children--goodness, our honeymoon alone involved nine separate plane rides--and we took our little red car and drove from Utah to California then back again and then from Utah to Washington D.C. then back again. A year later we went north and drove as far Winnipeg, Manitoba up through Montana and North Dakota then back south through South Dakota and Wyoming. A total of forty states, six countries and counting.I guess I've finally grown an appreciation for some of the amazing sights America has to offer and I've been keeping a list of places I'm determined to visit. Here's the list I'm saving for when the kids leave home and I can tap Andrew on the shoulder and say, "Wanna go for a drive?"1. The Outer Banks. I've never been to North Carolina but three years ago some friends of ours had a family reunion on the Outer Banks and listening to their description of the area was the only taste I needed to decide that I must see this place some time.Beaches are my very favorite thing--mountains and lakes and valleys are great but something about the sound of the waves on the shore and the slightly decayed salty smell of low tide completely relaxes me. I can't get enough and if I had my choice I'd live on a beach somewhere. Anywhere. But this particular beach is appealing because I've never been to this part of the world and it seems spread out, airy and wide open rather than the narrow, crowded California beaches I'm used to. If you know differently please don't ruin my vision, I'm enjoying it way too much.2. Death Valley. Yup, you read that right. If I live in a place that boasts the highest point above sea level in North America then it makes sense that I'd like to visit the lowest point.Actually, I'd like to go to Death Valley not just for the chance to say that I've been there and the fact that it has a menacing, uber-cool name I want to go for the wildflowers.I've read that somehow the desert gets some years of heavier rainfall which produce amazing wildflower displays. This doesn't happen every year, just some times and when I read about the phenomenon several years ago they were saying that the heavy rainfall of 2005 produced wildflowers that you'd rarely ever see again. Sigh. I would have loved to have seen it.3. Prince Edward Island. Okay I'm totally cheating here and I know this isn't even in America but I'm going to fudge just this once because I've wanted to visit ever since (you guessed it) I fell in love with Anne of Green Gables.Since then I've seen pictures of the real Avonlea and the real island and it appears every bit as picturesque and beautiful as described in the famous book though I bet they get a lot of us dorky tourists all coming to see the places Anne lived as if she was a real person or something.Ah well. It would be fun.Nearby Nova Scotia too has always held a fascination--my father went there in the 90s and ran into former President George Bush (the elder) who was also enjoying some fishing. Small world huh? I found this site that lists the best camping places in Canada which probably deserves a post on its own.4. Redwood National Forest. I've been to California a million times but mostly stuck to the southern part of the state. Something about being able to see a tree so big you can drive a car through it appeals to the kid in me I guess. It seems like I might have actually been to the forest when I was too young to remember but what good does that do me?I was listening to NPR last week and there was a program where the host goes on these excursions and narrates his trips, describing everything he sees and hears and experiences. Last week he was in northwestern Australia in the middle of a jungle and was describing the bats that were coming out as dusk fell. I was driving in my car in Alaska during break up but in my mind I could see the bats overhead and feel the steamy heat of of the forest as if I was right there with him.The only thing is, he described the trees he saw and it was completely beyond me to see them too. The description was so fantastic I just couldn't get it--he talked about tentacle-link roots descending to the forest floor and trunks and branches that looked like dragon tails and I haven't a clue what they look like. So that's another forest I'd like to see but that's hardly a qualifier for this week's list.5. Charleston, South Carolina. I'm afraid my list is rather heavily based in the south because that's the part of the country I haven't seen much of. I've been all over Florida and to the Dallas/Ft. Worth airport (ditto Atlanta) but that hardly counts.This city, however, has held my interest for years. My father went there for a business trip years ago and I still remember the gorgeous pictures he brought back of the Georgian mansions on the water and the wrought-iron work everywhere. So old and historic I couldn't help falling in love. The people I've known from Charleston have such a soft, gentile-sounding, aristocratic southern sound to their voices that it just reinforces my certainty that should I ever make it to this town I'd be helplessly in love.6. Savannah, Georgia. The same can be said for Savannah. Before Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil came along to make the city famous I was already longing to see it for myself.To me most cities tend to be very much the same. Stick me in the middle of Chicago, Houston, Minneapolis or Atlanta and I doubt I could guess which city I was in. There are a few though that have such personality: Boston, New Orleans, Nashville, Washington D.C. . . . to see them isn't just big buildings and fancy restaurants it's a cultural event.So I put Savannah on the list too. It's not that far from Charleston, relatively speaking--I'll make it there someday.7. Chincoteague Island, Virginia. Confession time: I've never read Misty of Chincoteague but . . . I have a daughter who did. Grace went through a huge horse-loving phase where she read every horse book she could get her hands on and I was forced by motherly love to live vicariously through her.More than anything she wanted to visit Chincoteague Island where the wild horses live (though she informed me they're not really true wild horses but have turned feral). Apparently each June they have "Pony Penning Day" where some of the wild ponies are rounded up and sold at auction and Grace wanted to be there to get her own pony.Now I'm not quite the sucker for horses that she is but after all the talk about the island and the plans she had to get there I would like to see it myself. My brother and sister in law were there and sent me a box of conch shells like you see here and so far that's the closest I've had to going.8. Niagara Falls. I know this is probably cliche but I've heard that the falls are so much more impressive than can be imagined or photographed. One of those things that you have to see for yourself and though I've been to New York I never made it that far north.When Andrew and I lived in Washington D.C. before we had kids we were scheduled to drive back west to Utah after our semester was over. Our money was gone, we needed to get on to the next task of earning more money to support ourselves so while our friends decided to take the leisurely drive back through upstate New York we opted for the more efficient way of straight through. I don't know how many times over the years we'd wished we'd taken our time and taken the detour with them.Oh well. Woulda coulda shoulda. We'll just have to save Niagara for another time.9. The Grand Canyon. I've been around Arizona several times but have never seen the biggest natural tourist attraction ever.And while I would never have turned down a trip to the canyon it wasn't until some friends of ours went on a hiking trip there last summer that I realized what I'd been missing. I lapped up the details of their trip and pictured myself hiking through Sedona and Red Rock and seeing the Painted Dessert and the Superstition Mountains (best name EVER) and it all just clicked. I wanted to go very badly.I think what really did it was their description of the hike they took to the confluence of the Little Colorado and Colorado rivers. They said that very close to where they camped is the Hopi Sipapu--or the place where the Hopi people believe that man emerged into the world. It's a natural spring covered by a dome of rock that has been shaped by the water over the millenia and the place is supposedly sacred to the Hopi even today as the birthplace of mankind.Our friends tried to hike to the spot and find the spring themselves but the location is kept as a bit of a secret (the picture above is the only picture I could find and it's from a book--I don't know if it's even legitimate). It's so difficult to find they never got there.Something about their narrative made me want to go backpacking along the river to see if I couldn't find it myself. What a trip it would be.10. Mammoth National Park, Kentucky. I can't remember where I heard about this place, it must have been years ago, but I read that Kentucky has these underground caves and rivers that are really amazing. I've never been spelunking before--never been in a cave of any kind--and I find them fascinating.I don't know if you've seen the series of BBC videos called Planet Earth but one of the discs is devoted entirely to caves and it's my favorite of the series. I've watched it four or five times now and every time I get this feeling that's a mixture of horror at being in a dark, damp, spooky place and excitement at the exploration of it all.So a place with caves would definitely have to be on my list.11. The Oregon Vortex. Okay you're going to think I'm just silly on this one but stick with me here. Supposedly there is this place in Oregon that claims there's some kind of a bubble or warp in the gravitational field of the area such that the laws of physics and gravity do not apply the way they do to the rest of us. It's become a roadside tourist attraction where the buildings on the site lean in odd ways, producing optical illusions.I know this doesn't make much sense but as best I can deduce there are many places around the world where the slant or the line of the environment produces an illusion on the brain, forcing it to think that it's seeing something that it's not really seeing and I'd like to see it for myself.For example, a road may appear to run uphill when in fact it's running downhill so that a car left in neutral will appear to roll uphill. Likewise will a tennis ball on the floor appear to roll uphill when it's in fact rolling downhill just as it should be. You can see a hoaky but fun video demonstration here.I don't think that there are any laws of physics being broken here, no alien force fields, no warps in the space-time continuum--just a fun optical illusion and I'd like to see it. Shoot there are plenty of things I'd like to see in Oregon, starting with the coast, so I figure as long as I'm there I'd pay a visit to the Vortex and see if it's as the pictures make it out to be.Probably not. It reminds me of how as a kid I wanted to see Madam Tousseau's Wax Museum when we went to London. Forget the cultural icons like the Tower of London or Parliament, I wanted to see the wax museum. Go figure.12. Tennessee. I'm a little vague here because I'm not entirely sure which parts I want to visit, I just know that after studying the Civil War I want to see the plantations and mansions that I've heard are still standing. Tennessee sent more soldiers into the Civil War than any other state (so I've been told) hence the nickname "the Volunteer State" and I've heard it's just amazingly beautiful. Besides the mansions I'd also want to visit the Civil War battlefields--more battles took place in this state than in any other. Shiloh, Murfreesboro, Chattanooga, Johnsonville--I'd love to tour the battlefields and make my way east to west across the state.Whose with me?Photos courtesy of National Geographic, Western Colorado Publishing, Prince Edward Island National Parks and Mammoth Cave National ParkSponsored by Wedding Paper Divas for wedding invitations.

Your Voices Blossom Me

Photo by Bob Dreizler, SacramentoFor info and more photos, go to http://photo.net/photos/bdreizler PRESTER JOHN OF THE WINDOW—Tom Goff, CarmichaelPraise be to clouds assembled like skyey grumbles.Grey eminences flood the air with bitters,monks muttering odes and chants peculiarto their unbreakable order. And the will,though sun seems to want to assert the otherwise,is to be the blackening rack, bananas oldshriveling to a dry and seedlike song.The cloud-wish to breed rain attentuatesto grey dandelions of gloom and lower and brood.All this over the under, and the underis trees of blackforest green through which houses poke.An artificial Tuscany of rooftile,and if the red outtops a sere outcroppingof pastel nouveau mansions mansard-headed,the scene is doing worse what’s been done better:where are the Firenze olive trees in place of black oak,olive suited to surround or crown a savior’s headlaid forehead crosswise to forearms, praying in conflict?Into such scenes epiphanies ache to thrust,to open like a pronged opener a can,that is, brilliantly laser into the tough bodyof dis- or non-belief, as in film cliché.But isn’t the decadence of the scene mostly me,looker from well ensconced behind a window?Isn’t mine one decaying voice within the immortalvocalise, all unison finished linear perfection?Then I must be Prester John of this high window,dead but outwitting death in fleshlife pulses,centuries lapping and lapping at a friable edge…__________________Thanks to Bob Dreizler for the photo and to Tom Goff and our other poets who sent in poems today, including haiku, our Seed of the Week [see yesterday's rant on Medusa's Kitchen]. Tom will be releasing a new chapbook from Rattlesnake Press on May 13: Sinfonietta. Join us at The Book Collector, 1008 24th St., Sacramento, 7:30 PM. Tom is also our Historian-in-Residence for Rattlesnake Review; watch for his wonderful articles about California poets of the past in each issue.Tom says: Last week was the birthday of Edward de Vere, seventeenth Earl of Oxford, claimant to the Shakespeare plays (1550-1604). That's right: one day different from the traditional Stratford Shakespeare, he was born on April 12th (old style), April 22nd (new style)...FOR EDWARD DE VERE, SEVENTEENTH EARL OF OXFORD(who renounced all title to the authorship of the Shakespeare plays)—Tom Goff“Sometimes the title is the last to come.”—observation often stated by James MerrillSometimes the title is the last to come.What need have you of title? Every daywith lightning lines you gave us our ears hum:think, “to the manner born,” “husband, I come.”Snatches, like “things nothing worth”; “give o’er the play.”Sometimes the title is the last to come,but come it must, as truth will enter, stunpryingly open to sun the dungeoned brain.Our ears with the lightning lines you gave us hum.Your rod can reach still darker, deeper to plumbthan Earth exists to be thrust through, or time remains.Sometimes the title is the last to come,sometimes the first to go. Not simply dumb,you dispensed with lands and power as one sells plate,but you gave us those lightning lines, and our ears humstill. King Lear with mad self-knowledge numb,or that busybody by the Dane’s sword slain:with lightning lines you gave us our ears humand buzz. The foremost title taken fromyou, we would restore—but that, you did convey.Though with lightning lines of yours our ears still hum,sometimes the title is the last to come.__________________Flower, then leaf-bud.Green…why stop here, on this brink?What ice browns your stem?—Tom Goff__________________squeezing the joy from the hoursas from a ripe orangethis tastes too sweet to lastmy womba tight pink rosebudyour voice blossoms meI trace my tongueover all your scars—tasting your pain.—Cynthia Linville, Sacramento__________________Storm clouds in April—clay wind-chimes clash and clatter.Gopherweed dances.—Taylor Graham, Placerville__________________Today's LittleNip:Poetry is any page from a sketchbook of outlines of a doorknob with thumb-prints of dust, blood, dreams.—Carl Sandburg__________________—MedusaSnakeWatch: What's New from Rattlesnake Press:Rattlesnake Review: The latest Snake (RR21) is now available (free) at The Book Collector, or send me four bux and I'll mail you one. Next deadline is May 15 for RR22: send 3-5 poems, smallish art pieces and/or photos (no bio, no cover letter, no simultaneous submissions or previously-published poems) to kathykieth@hotmail.com or P.O. Box 762, Pollock Pines, CA 95726. E-mail attachments are preferred, but be sure to include all contact info, including snail address. Meanwhile, the snakes of Medusa are always hungry; let us know if your submission is for the Review or for Medusa, or for either one, and please—only one submission per issue.Also available (free): littlesnake broadside #46: Snake Secrets: Getting Your Poetry Published in Rattlesnake Press (and lots of other places, besides!): A compendium of ideas for brushing up on your submissions process so as to make editors everywhere more happy, thereby increasing the likelihood of getting your poetry published. Pick up a copy at The Book Collector or write to me and I'll send you one. Free!NEW FOR APRIL: A SpiralChap of poetry and photos from Laverne Frith (Celebrations: Images and Texts); a (free!) littlesnake broadside from Taylor Graham (Edge of Wildwood); and Musings3: An English Affair, a new blank journal of photos and writing prompts from Katy Brown. Now available from the authors, or The Book Collector, or (soon) rattlesnakepress.com/.WTF!: Join us on Thursday, May 21 at Luna's Cafe, 1414 16th St., Sacramento for the unveiling of the second issue of WTF, the free quarterly journal from Poetry Unplugged at Luna's Cafe that is edited by frank andrick. Next deadline, for issue #3, is July 15. Submission guidelines are the same as for the Snake, but send your poems, photos, smallish art or prose pieces (500 words or less) to fandrickfabpub@hotmail.com (attachments preferred) or, if you’re snailing, to P.O. Box 762, Pollock Pines, CA 95726. And be forewarned: this publication is for adults only, so you must be over 18 years of age to submit. Copies of the first issue are at The Book Collector, or send me two bux and I'll mail you one.ALSO COMING IN MAY: Join us Weds., May 13 for a new rattlechap, Sinfonietta, from Tom Goff; Vol. 5 of Conversations, the Rattlesnake Interview Series by B.L. Kennedy; and the inauguration of a new series, Rattlesnake LittleBooks, with Shorts: Quatrains and Epigrams by Iven Lourie. That’s at The Book Collector, 1008 24th St., Sacramento, 7:30 PM. Free!Medusa's Weekly Menu:(Contributors are welcome to cook up something for any and all of these!)Monday: Weekly NorCal poetry calendarTuesday: Seed of the Week: Tuesday is Medusa's day to post poetry triggers such as quotes, forms, photos, memories, jokes—whatever might tickle somebody's muse. Pick up the gauntlet and send in your poetic results; and don't be shy about sending in your own triggers, too! All poems will be posted and a few of them will go into Medusa's Corner of each Rattlesnake Review. Send your work to kathykieth@hotmail.com or P.O. Box 762, Pollock Pines, CA 95726. No deadline for SOWs; respond today, tomorrow, or whenever the muse arrives. (Print 'em out, maybe, save 'em for a dry spell?) When you send us work, though, just let us know which "seed" it was that inspired you.Wednesday (sometimes, or any other day!): HandyStuff Quickies: Resources for the poet, including whatever helps ease the pain of writing and/or publishing: favorite journals to read and/or submit to; books, etc., about writing; organizational tools—you know—HandyStuff! Tell us about your favorite tools.Thursday: B.L.'s Drive-Bys: Micro-reviews by our irreverent Reviewer-in-Residence, B.L. Kennedy. Send books, CDs, DVDs, etc. to him for possible review (either as a Drive-By or in future issues of Rattlesnake Review) at P.O. Box 160664, Sacramento, CA 95816.Friday: NorCal weekend poetry calendar Daily (except Sunday): LittleNips: SnakeFood for the Poetic Soul: Daily munchables for poetic thought, including short paragraphs, quotes, wonky words, silliness, little-known poetry/poet facts, and other inspiration—yet another way to feed our ravenous poetic souls.And poetry! Every day, poetry from writers near and far and in-between! The Snakes of Medusa are always hungry.......!_________________Medusa encourages poets of all ilk and ages to send their POETRY, PHOTOS and ART, as well as announcements of Northern California poetry events, to kathykieth@hotmail.com (or snail ‘em to P.O. Box 762, Pollock Pines, CA 95726) for posting on this daily Snake blog. Rights remain with the poets. Previously-published poems are okay for Medusa’s Kitchen, as long as you own the rights. (Please cite publication.) Medusa cannot vouch for the moral fiber of other publications, contests, etc. that she lists, however, so submit to them at your own risk. For more info about the Snake Empire, including guidelines for submitting to or obtaining our publications, click on the link to the right of this column: Rattlesnake Press (rattlesnakepress.com). And be sure to sign up for Snakebytes, our monthly e-newsletter that will keep you up-to-date on all our ophidian chicanery.

Backup Service Catalog

Backup Service Catalog My previous post Is a Copy a Backup? was written after I got to thinking about a backup services catalog. What is a backup services catalog? Basically it is two things. First, it is an admission that we have a... My previous post Is a Copy a Backup? was written after I got to thinking about a backup services catalog. What is a backup services catalog? Basically it is two things. First, it is an admission that we have a lot more choices in terms of what technologies to use to provision backup services than ever before. 10 years ago, the backup technologies was really backup technology: tape. It was pretty easy to design a such a catalog, because you really only had one choice: tape. And it didn't really matter how rich, thin, or beautiful you were, you still only had one choice: tape. Second, it is a recognition than different applications have different levels of importance to the business, and that given we have an array of technology choices with which to backup them up and recover them, we should probably choose different technologies for the different applications. Let me put that a different way: your SAP/Oracle application which runs AP, AR, and inventory is probably way more important than a miscellaneous SQL server some user threw up for ad hoc reporting, or an edge web server that is one of a few dozen others just like it. So if you have different tiers of applications, shouldn't you have different tiers of backup and recovery? You bet you should. The first table below attempts to describe what the various technology choices are today in the world of backup and recovery. They are listed on the top row. The columns detail what I think are the most important characteristics of these technologies: what Recovery Point Objective (RPO) can they provide? What Recovery Time Objective (RTO) can they meet? How long is data normally retained on them? What level of performance and reliability do they provide? If we glance at the table, we can see that, very roughly speaking, the technologies are ranked in terms of capability left to right: most technical capabilities decline as we move to the right. Incidentally, costs per TB tend to decline in the same order (meaning that CDP technologies carry a higher cost per TB than Archive technologies for example). I have not however provided firm costs per TB of each of these. I didn't give specific pricing because clearly that would depend on what vendor implementation you decide to go with, and how effective your negotiations are with them. I also didn't give specific prices because this is actually a lot harder question to answer than it might first appear. Cost of acquisition may be easy to figure out, but cost is really only interesting in this contect if it is Total Cost of Ownership (TCO). So I don't really care that virtual tape costs me $5/TB to buy (and for arguments sake, lets stipulate that includes 3 years of maintenance). What I really care about is that $5 plus my costs to managed, cool, provision bandwidth, save me in other areas, reduce my risk, and so on. Everything that goes into a comprehensive TCO study. So I am going to stipulate the technologies are roughly positioned in terms of cost (although I do think the last 3 are very close in cost per TB, and that tape really only appears to be cheaper when you are talking about using it for monthly archival images that you intend to retain for years... any more demanding requirement in terms of performance or capacity, and it is likely as expensive or more so than deduplicated disk.) I am also going to stipulate that the average business probably can identify 3 tiers of applications. I know that some businesses have more (five, or six) and some have less. However, to avoid a bunch of complexity, lets just assume we have 3. Tier one applications would likely include SAP/Oracle production applications and email. Tier 2 might be large file servers. Tier 3 might be edge systems, small database servers, and so on. My contention is that it is probably pretty obvious to most people what applications should go in what tiers. It may be really hard to justify those intuitions and suspicions, especially if the application owners are cranky and insist that they "need" a higher tier of service. But most of the time if you just have 3 tiers, what goes where is pretty obvious. Given all that, the next chart attempts to describe what I think are probably a cost justifiable set of backup and recovery services for the average enterprise and the three tiers of applications. Again, your mileage may vary as you assign specific TCOs to each of the technical offerings. But I think that many businesses would likely land on a model pretty similar to this. What does the chart mean? The top row is the three tiers of application service. The left column contains the different technical choices. And the intersections are how long data would be retained within each technology before being disposed of (or, in some cases migrated to the next offering). That is to say that a Tier 1 application would get 7 days of CDP, have backups retained on VTL for 7 days, on deduplicated disk for 6 months, and long term archives retained on either disk or tape for 7 years. This would constitute a service catalog for backup and recovery. Assuming that you did the TCO exercise and assigned a specific $/TB to each technical offering, you could then offer the business 3 tiers of backup and recovery service to match the three tiers of application service. And you would be able to say to a given business unit or application owner: "Here are your costs for each of the tiers of service. Pick the one that meets your business requirements, and that you are prepared to pay for." Another useful outcome of this exercise, incidentally, is that you can force business and technical users to think about how much services cost. In my experience, businesses universally want the very best service you can provide them, unless they are forced to pay for it. Everybody wants gold service with lots of snaps/clones, lots of backup copies, kept forever, on fast disk, and replicated everywhere. Until they figure out the price tag. Then... OK, maybe just regular backup to deduplicated disk and remotely replicated is good enough. (An amusing anecdote: right after 9/11 an infrastructure company asked us to determine how much it would be to provide a complete disaster recovery capability for their data center. After a couple of months of study, we concluded that it would be $12m to $15m in infrastructure only. Not including software, services, skills, or time. The board of directors took one look at the figure and told them to make do with what they had. The same board that asked for full DR months earlier. Everybody wants a Ferrari. Not everybody wants to pay for a Ferrari.) All this is a pretty grotesque simplification of the actual process. In particular, determining the TCO of the different technical offerings is a non-trivial task. And getting business owners to admit that their applications may not actually be tier 1 is often no easy task either. But by offering them a rational set of choices, with reasonable costs associated with each, you can deliver the quality of service that makes sense for any given application. And hopefully you can deliver a better service overall: at roughly the same cost point as it would be to deliver a single, generic backup and recovery service to every application, it should be possible to offer a higher quality service to those applications which require it, and a lower quality of service to those that do not. Update your feed preferences

Weather headlines: Winds increase fire threat in West

Low pressure in the High Plains will be the main weather maker today, bringing a threat for severe thunderstorms today from West Texas to the Dakotas and eastward into Iowa and Missouri tonight.Fire weather On the backside of the storm in the Plains, strong winds will develop across parts of the central and southern Rockies. Red flag fire warnings are in effect today for parts of western Colorado, northeastern Arizona, the far western Oklahoma Panhandle, and the northwestern portion of the North Texas Panhandle.In Southern California, strong west winds are expected to set up today, with a turn toward a northerly round of "sundowner" winds tonight. Sustained winds of 15 to 25 mph can be expected, with gusts to 45 through the mountains and canyons. The same scenario sets up for Wednesday, with slightly stronger sundowner winds expected by Wednesday night. Critical fire weather conditions will persist until at least Thursday for Santa Barbara, Ventura and Los Angeles Counties.Severe thunderstorm threat The developing low in the High Plains will draw Gulf air northward, setting the stage for severe thunderstorms this afternoon and this evening. There is a slight risk for severe thunderstorms for parts of West Texas, as well a separate area that includes much of Iowa, Missouri, South Dakota, eastern Kansas, eastern and northern Nebraska, southeastern Montana, northeastern Wyoming and southern North Dakota. Primary threats from these storms will be damaging winds and large hail.As the storm system intensifies and moves eastward tonight and Wednesday, the severe thunderstorm threat will stretch from the southern Plains to the Great Lakes states. There will be a moderate risk of severe thunderstorms for eastern Missouri (including St. Louis) and central Illinois. An outbreak of tornadoes will be possible Wednesday afternoon and evening in the middle and upper Mississippi Valley.Showers for Sunshine State While not enough to break the ongoing drought, showers and thunderstorms will be possible across much of Florida today. Another round of afternoon showers and storms will be possible on Wednesday before generally dry weather settles in for the end of the week.Bookend highs Scattered rain and mountain snow will linger over the Northwest today. Winter weather advisories are in effect for the mountains of northern Idaho and western Montana. Likewise, a few showers and thunderstorms will be possible in southern New England. However, high pressure will build into the Northwest and Northeast on Wednesday.