Intercepts

HONOLULU - Thanks but no thanks. The Interceptor fly-away rig has touched down here en route to WesPac with heavy traffic coming in from my Courthouse Road stealth site. Despite strong signals earlier this month that Maj. Gen. David Kelley had been all but fitted for the DISA honcho official uniform - a seamless integrated robe - I'm now hearing reports to the contrary. If this other candidate gets the nod it will amount to a real upset. Sorry can't get more specific as I'm sworn to as much secrecy as a bureaucrat will ever get from a reporter.

* A powerful LAN. CINCPACFLT expects to complete an upgrade of its headquarters LAN here soon with true state-of-the-art gear. According to Andy Jackson CINCPACFLT's info systems operations branch chief the fiber-optic LAN will sport some 700 Dell Pentium Pro 200 workstations with equally powerful servers from Compaq.

* Fast sailors. Configuring the Dells for the LAN includes stuffing them with NIC cards and pulling the hard drives for testing and software burn-in - a task handled with blurring efficiency by DS/2 Bobby Smith and HT/3 Bernadette Beckwell. It's amazing how fast people outside the Beltway can move.

* Any icons for sale? The CINCPACFLT HQ LAN will play a key role in the Navy's IT-21 project to develop a new information architecture based on client/server - an approach forged by Adm. Archie Clemins now the Pacific fleet commander in his days as commander of the 7th Fleet. The Navy can't afford to continue to bolt stove-piped hardware onto its ships and planes so from now on Clemins believes the Navy needs to buy "icons not hardware."

* Hungry for IT-21. Industry has just started to get wind of the opportunities offered by the project and those who know have geared up big time. My suburban Herndon Va. antenna site picked up reports that EDS has thrown four veeps at the project. An exaggeration said one EDSer there are only two vice presidents chasing IT-21. I guess this means the Interceptor should cut most figures people give him in half. I've also heard that John Riddle of Cabletron upped his sales and service force in the Pacific for IT-21.

* That's hospitality. As CINCPACFLT Adm. Clemins sails in the historical wake of the most famous American admiral of this century Chester Nimitz. Not only does Clemins work in the same building on Makalapa Hill that served Nimitz as his headquarters he also works at Nimitz's desk - in his home not his office. When asked about the desk at the end of an interview last week Clemins said "It's in the house but you can go up and see it if you want." I'm glad I did not ask to see the Nimitz commode though the CINCPACFLT PAO folks tell me they have it in their Quonset hut.

* That's entertainment! For reasons the Interceptor still cannot fathom his PACAF hosts took him to lunch at a Hickham AFB NCO club that featured bingo during lunch. I hope this doesn't mean I have to go to a luncheon cockfight when I visit 13th AF on Guam.