David Soubly

Let's start this rumination with a phrase made familiar by a recent world leader: “Everybody knows” what dark matter is.

You might not. Dark matter is the vast amount of as-yet unobserved matter in the universe. It’s dark because it doesn’t interact with anything (at least, that we know of). No, you haven’t spotted it lurking in the corner of your apartment. Or have you?

You might not have a physics background. I don’t, either. I’m also not that great at mathematics, beyond the practical...

In my last entry, I discussed a rough, gruff Jim. A Jim who never made the management team, but who had integrity and pride in his work.

This Jim is both different and the same.

Jim was a stocky guy, the kind who would be comfortable tossing loads of shingles onto a roof. (There’s a roof story coming; be patient.) He had wide, open features, a boyish look, blondish hair he pulled to one side over a broad forehead. His fingers were stocky, too, probably more at home wielding a hammer...

Maybe you’ve had “Jim”s in your life, maybe not.

There are two Jims I remember from my days in the Ford Parts and Service IT organization. I’ll start with the first Jim.

The first Jim really defined “rough around the edges.” He was an old-school COBOL programmer working with IBM’s IMS (Information Management Systems) databases. He was also a man with few, if any, social graces. Not that it mattered to him. He was a stocky Black guy, craggy face set in perpetual scowl — or, at least in a...

He awoke, momentarily confused: Night? Day? Then senses kicked in, and with them, memory, awareness. A reboot. Of course. Either. Day or night. It hardly mattered. If he shut his eyes and feigned sleep, the walls would dim (if his personal sensors didn’t spot his ruse); then, if he sat bolt upright and opened his eyes wide, he might catch a glimpse of the dark olive surfaces before they flipped to pale blue.

He chuckled. That little trick hadn’t worked in quite some time. Not since the last...

This is Part Two of the Norman Conquest.

A while back, I told you all about Norm, in this reflection: The Norman Conquest, Part One. In Part One, I suggested that Norm represented a kind of common man — certainly me, if not you.

It’s time to look at the other guy.

This is Norman, never Norm, in the same way that King James isn’t, well, King Jim. You just don’t do that. (1)

Every organization has a Norman. He’s the larger-than-life individual, whose curriculum vitae transcends the mortal;...