I love VAX/VMS! (Dead Thread Office)

[Chris Mitchell]

I remember a couple months back a thread on what some of the KCLUGers did for a living. I realize 
this is late but I am perpetually trying to catch up on the mail I get from kclug's mailing list. 
Anyway, I am a VAX/VMS administrator at Fort Leavenworth (I know, ha ha, VAX/VMS, probably bringing 
back a flood of memories for the elder patrons out there). My job's primary mission is travelling 
to various US Army installations, setting up a VAX/VMS network, and conduct a combat simulation 
with the units there. It gets even better. The graphical interface to this network is done through 
a Sony 24" TV Monitor, a laser disc player with laserdiscs of various maps around the world (Korea, 
Bosnia) and an AMIGA 2000 for the CPU! HA HA! They coverted to PC a long time ago but it was 
determined the PCs could not hold up to road wear and that there wouldn't be any serious investing 
in this since there was supposed to be a new simulation around the corner soon. Well it's 2001 and 
the network model is still stuck circa 1990. They have, however, ported the mainframe that ran the 
game to a Linux PC (No we didn't ship the mainframe everywhere, we have network access from the 
game site to Ft. Leavenworth). Now why the hell would I want to stick with this job considering I 
left a Sun admin job to do this? An advantage (and disadvantage) is the travel. My travel itinerary 
this last year was central Texas, Tacoma, Germany, upstate New Yawk (in January no less), 
Clarksville, Tennesee, and the Florida coast near Pensacola. I'm leaving for TX again on Labor Day, 
will go to Hawaii after that, and might be going to Korea near Christmas. Obviously there is a 
downside since we spend three weeks to almost a month at these places (although that's ok when we 
go to Hawaii, Germany, or Florida). Obviously this is straining if you have a family or a 
significant other. I mentioned here about going to Prague in an earlier thread, so there is always 
time to go places like that.

Chris Mitchell
VAX/VMS Administrator
Logicon, Inc.
Fort Leavenworth, KS