(j3.2006) Meeting schedule

[Van Snyder]

On Fri, 2013-12-06 at 15:12 -0600, Bill Long wrote:
> > Maybe you missed the "In many years" part.
> 
> No, I was just noting fact. Despite the problems at JPL, you seem to 
> almost always overcome them (except for the recent case coinciding with 
> the shutdown).  Your attendance record has been outstanding.   It's in 
> the minutes.

Cancellation of my participation at Toronto happened a year before the
shutdown, and had nothing to do with the shutdown.  It came right after
the GSA scandal, after which Congress told NASA to crack down on all
travel, and especially foreign travel.

Cancellation of my participation at 202 had nothing to do with the
shutdown.  The problem is that the meeting was two weeks after the end
of the FY, the call for directed funding for non-project-related work
didn't come until after the meeting, my boss is no longer allowed to pay
for this work out of the project budget (this change happened long
before the shutdown), and the funding I had in FY13 couldn't carry over
to FY14.

>From 1996 to 2001, I paid my own way to all the Las Vegas meetings.
That's why I missed the meeting in Terre Haute.  Ever since the GSA made
a mess of all Federally-funded travel, getting any funding for travel
that is not mission critical, especially for foreign travel, has been
very difficult.  For several years, my boss paid for my participation
out of project funds, but last year he was told he can't do that.
Getting directed funding for standards work has always been difficult,
notwithstanding there's an organization that collects information about
standards-body participation, and claims it does so because it's a JPL
and NASA priority.  They don't put their money where their mouths are.