since it's national pick-on-bob-metcalfe week anyway...

Tue Jul 9 20:46:28 UTC 1996

...i'd like to put in my two cents.  the trouble with bob isn't that
he's arrogant and self centered and unable to see anybody else's point
of view.  nor is it that he's rude, insensitive to the pain he causes
others, and generally doesn't know how to act around people.

bob is all of those things, as demonstrated here.  but so am i, and so
are 90% of the folks on the nanog mailing list.  so i will not be seen
here jumping on bob for being "normal" per the NANOG specifications.

what's getting bob in trouble is that he has the attitude but the things
he did to earn it aren't relevant to this audience.  he can talk the talk
but he hasn't walked the walk.

if anybody on NANOG has ever listened to a thing i've said about anything,
and has put forth the effort needed to overcome the natural aversion to my
arrogant, self centered, rude, insensitive demeanor, it is because (and
ONLY because) i carry a pager and have stayed up all night, many nights,
working on broken routers, working on broken code for routers, and working
to keep customers happy.

bob's contribution to what we're doing here is larger than mine, and
perhaps larger than almost anybody's.  where would we be without Ethernet?
however, that is not how to earn the right to walk around with a chip on
your shoulder in the NANOG crowd.  if you don't have tire tracks over 70%
of your body and you've never worked 45 hours at a stretch renumbering an
international class A net, nobody seems to care what you have to say.  to
attract that audience ANYWAY, you have to be a lot more polite than bob
has been, or likely ever will be.