(j3.2006) Meeting schedule

[Van Snyder]

On Thu, 2013-12-05 at 17:58 -0600, Bill Long wrote:
> 
> On 12/4/13 2:54 PM, Van Snyder wrote:
> > That we have a meeting during the week of the second Monday in October
> > has proven to be a problem for me.  It might be or become a similar
> > problem for delegates from Sandia or Los Alamos, or other Federal
> > contractors.
> >
> > The Federal Government fiscal year ends on 30 September.
> >
> > In many years, I have difficulty getting funding for the next fiscal
> > year to start when the fiscal year does.  For example, this year, I had
> > no funding to attend meeting 202.
> 
> This seems more related to the shutdown silliness, which I don't expect 
> to be frequent.  I don't recall you missing meetings in Las Vegas very 
> often - maybe 2  in 10+ years.

Maybe you missed the "In many years" part.

It wasn't the shutdown silliness.  It has always been difficult to
justify using project funds for standards work, and it has always been
difficult to get directed non-project funds, at all.  The big change was
Congress's reaction to the silliness of GSA having a party in Las Vegas
and spending $2,700 per person per day, and bragging in their videos how
they were screwing the taxpayers, which resulted in canceling funding
for my attendance at the Toronto meeting.  I spend about $800 for the
whole week of a Fortran committee meeting in Las Vegas, not counting
whatever the JPL motor pool charges my boss for the car, which I never
see.  My frugality doesn't count.  It's still travel, and GSA's
silliness put Congress's nickers in a twist.  That reaction is ongoing.
Travel using project funds for other than mission-critical purposes has
become very tightly restricted, and shows all signs of continuing to be
tightly restricted.  It has become essentially impossible for my boss to
argue that standards activities are mission critical, so using project
funds for standards activities has become essentially impossible.
Getting directed non-project funds in a timely fashion at the beginning
of a fiscal year is difficult, notwithstanding that my assistant
division manager (two levels up the ladder) is very sympathetic to
standards work, and tries to get me funds for it.

> Going to September raises a different risk : There is no money left in 
> this year's budget!

That's a problem that is entirely different from "I haven't even been
allowed to propose for this year's budget, and we're already two weeks
into the fiscal year."  It's my own damn fault if I don't request enough
funds, for my own private standards-activities account, to cover my
INCITS fee and my meeting expenses.  These accounts cannot carry over to
the next fiscal year.  They disappear on September 30.  The problem is
getting the account re-created and funded at all before January or so.

> Going into November has always been problematic because of the SC 
> conference.

So changing to September seems like a good thing.

> The symmetric meeting months puts the summer meeting in June which is 
> often a WG5 meeting. June seems to be a favored month for WG5 meetings 
> because of academic year schedule constraints.

Whether we move the November meeting forward to September can be
considered independently from calendar symmetry.

> Overall, I think we are better off sticking with the current schedule. 
> I'm confident you will properly educate the powers at JPL.

I have no real problem at JPL.  My assistant division manager tries to
get me funding every year.  The problem is that funding for tasks not
directly related to a project are now (thank you, GSA jerks) very
difficult to use for standards activities.  For standards activities in
particular, the call for proposals never seems to arrive until the last
week of September, and sometimes not until the last week of November.
This call emanates from NASA HQ, not from JPL.  Then proposals have to
go before a committee at JPL to prioritize the requests.  Then the ones
that pass muster at JPL have to go before a committee at NASA to
prioritize the requests.  Then, maybe by January if I'm lucky, funds
arrive at JPL.  The problems are at NASA HQ.  Even the JPL director,
five levels higher in the JPL heirarchy tham I am, has trouble educating
the bureaucrats at NASA HQ.  I have no idea which bureaucrat is
responsible for this mess, or whether it's the same one every year.
When I noticed a NASA bureaucrat's name on the e-mail that informed me
that funding for the Toronto meeting had been withdrawn (thank you, GSA
jerks), I complained to her about second-guessing my boss.  That
resulted in my boss getting a reprimand from NASA HQ, which put my tit
in the wringer.  So I don't try to influence NASA HQ at all any more.

You can't make this shit up.

> Cheers,
> Bill
> 
> >
> > Can we change the fall meeting to the week of the third Monday in
> > September?  If we insist on being symmetric, we could change the entire
> > schedule to the weeks of the third Mondays in January, May, and
> > September.
> >
> > It's already past November, and I still don't have any funding for
> > Fortran work.  So changing the meeting to November probably wouldn't
> > help me.  I just last week got a letter inviting me to submit a request.
> > I hope to have funds in hand by February.
> >
> >
> > _______________________________________________
> > J3 mailing list
> > J3 at mailman.j3-fortran.org
> > http://mailman.j3-fortran.org/mailman/listinfo/j3
> >
>