Author Archive: bfwebster

Webster is Principal and Founder at Bruce F. Webster & Associates, as well as an Adjunct Professor of Computer Science at Brigham Young University. He works with organizations to help them with troubled or failed information technology (IT) projects. He has also worked in several dozen legal cases as a consultant and as a testifying expert, both in the United States and Japan. He can be reached at bwebster@bfwa.com, or you can follow him on Twitter as @bfwebster.

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Euroarmaggedon Tour — Saturday backstory

Euroarmaggedon Tour — Saturday backstory

| December 10, 2011 | 1 Reply

OK, as mentioned below, I got a grand total of two man-on-the-street interviews today. I was probably lucky to get that, all things considered. Sometime early this morning, while thinking about my goals for this trip, I came to the conclusion that my probability of success was pretty low in doing cold approaches on strangers […]

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Euroarmageddon Tour — tension in Paris

Euroarmageddon Tour — tension in Paris

| December 10, 2011 | Reply

Holidays notwithstanding, things are not all that gay in Paree this time. Here are some of the indications: When Sandra and I went to the Christmas Market on the lower half of the Champs-Elysees last (Friday) night, we saw something that we definitely didn’t see a year ago: Army patrols, in groups of three, carrying […]

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Euroarmageddon Tour — first blood

Euroarmageddon Tour — first blood

| December 10, 2011 | 1 Reply

I did get two interviews. In two hours. Plus one bit of pungent walk-by commentary. I’ll chronicle the whole effort later, but here’s the feedback from today. Thomas — in his 30s, and looking like a classic clean-cut-with-stubble French professional — described himself as ‘not a typical Parisian’, though he never quite explained what that […]

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Euroarmageddon Tour – late night edition

Euroarmageddon Tour – late night edition

| December 9, 2011 | Reply

And I’m awake at 0400 Paris time. On the other hand, I can hardly be surprised, since I not only crashed for about 4 hours yestreday afternoon, but I went to be relatively early (2200 Paris time) last night as well. Our hotel room (acquired using some of the bazillion frequent-stayer points I’ve accumulated at […]

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Euroarmageddon Tour — the Eagle has landed

Euroarmageddon Tour — the Eagle has landed

| December 9, 2011 | Reply

Tocqueville, we have arrived! I’m not sure what Tocqueville would have made of the Euromess, but I think it’s pretty easy to guess. On the other hand, I think I may have discovered part of the core financial problem here in France. Sitting in the lobby of our hotel, waiting for a room to become […]

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Euroarmageddon Tour: questions to ask

Euroarmageddon Tour: questions to ask

| December 8, 2011 | Reply

OK, so we’re on the first leg of our flight to Paris, where I’ve found that my two French phrase books (the aptly-titled French Phrase Book as well as Just Enough French) don’t contain such handy questions as “What do you think are the possible sovereign consequences of replacing the European Financial Stability Facility with […]

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Euroarmageddon Tour: prelaunch

Euroarmageddon Tour: prelaunch

| December 8, 2011 | Reply

Important events and circumstances have combined in such a way that in a few short hours I will be boarding an airliner on my way to the Continent, to witness first-hand the turmoil of fiscal and sovereign upheaval caused by the ever-imminent collapse of the Eurozone, and to report on it here to you. OK, […]

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Life on Broadway, part II

Life on Broadway, part II

| December 1, 2011 | Reply

We saw “Anything Goes” last night — what an absolute delight. Yes, the play was light in content, and some of the jokes and lines were groaners and, I suspect, came from the original 1934 version — but it was still a pleasure, and most everyone left the theatre smiling and whistling. A large reason […]

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Life on Broadway

Life on Broadway

| November 29, 2011 | Reply

I fell in love with live theater back in college. My freshman year at BYU, I took a semester of Opera Workshop, a class whose purpose was to gather enough non-music majors with sufficient singing skills so as to fill up all the chorus positions in an opera production. We did a full production “Die […]

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National Review cruise — wrap-up

National Review cruise — wrap-up

| November 19, 2011 | Reply

I wanted to do a ‘day 7’ post last night, but I discovered that I was down to 15 minutes left on my on-ship wi-fi account, and they weren’t letting me buy any more minutes. I used those 15 minutes up just trying to change our seats for our flights home today, which should give […]

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