Now you're starting to get it. You just agreed that the grant team for the State failed dramatically.

There is zero plausible deniability for those truly at fault. Read the auditor's report. Politics kept the report from recommending any action against Jimmy and his group, but the report makes it clear who failed, how, and why.

Then you should look closer. The head of Homeland Security, Jimmy Gianato, was the grant administrator and this is but one of several gross abuses of the federal money. OT didn't even know about the purchase until the last second. They initially resisted then the head of the department suddenly signed off on it despite objections from the staff, meaning political pressure was brought to bear.

Read the auditor's report - they don't exist. Most of his work was based on two days of meetings. The spec was what he produced from those meetings and the state signed off on it. Why would you think it is his responsibility to maintain this, even if he had it?

If I meet with an architect, describe my dream home, then sign off on the blueprint he creates, would you later say he cheated me because he has no detailed documentation of my original request? I accepted the blueprint. I said it is what I asked him to do. I own it now.

I'm not saying I support Cisco in this, but I can't say I blame them much.

How was their quote inflated? They didn't overcharge for the equipment provided and they provided the equipment the customer wanted.

I agree completely that the equipment is oversized and inappropriate. That the money could have been better spent on a mixture of bandwidth and lower-tier equipment. That the State and the US taxpayers got a raw deal on how the money was spent. However, it was the grant administrator in the state's Homeland Security department that decided to spent $X on Cisco equipment instead of bandwidth or other things. He decided that there was no need to consult those who would know the state's needs. He decided to use Cisco and Verizon rather than go through the legal purchasing process. He decided to just get the same oversized model for every single location.

I'd love to see Cisco help improve the situation by providing the appropriate equipment and taking the other stuff back for trade-in. But before anyone considers a punitive action against them, and particularly the engineer caught up in this mess, I expect to see terminations and prosecutions of the political appointees that caused it.

No, it is exactly nothing like that. The perpetrator was the State's group charged with spending the federal stimulus money, and Jimmy Gianato specifically. The victim is the US taxpayer who's money was given to politically-connected companies (the boondoggle is much bigger than this router purchase). The State employees charged with managing the grant did not do any needs assessments or verification that the equipment they were purchasing would be useful. They went to Cisco with a dollar amount that they needed to spend and a few ideas of what they might want. They got what they wanted - money disbursed, a bunch of it going to the state CTO's previous employeer (Verizon), and some toys for the state if they can figure out what to do with them.

In this case, they have a federal stimulus grant to spend so the process was much different.

1) The state Homeland Security people do not consult the state's IT folks, instead working directly with Cisco (and perhaps consultants) to create a project that spends the money they need gone and seems defensible.
2) The equipment is sold through the VAR who used to employ the state's CTO.
3) So much money was spent on unneeded equipment, most locations have insufficient connectivity to even use it.

But when the customer comes to Cisco with a giant federal stimulus grant check and tells them they need to spend it all ASAP, is it really in their best interest to say "No, we won't take your money. Go give it to one of our competitors."? I don't disagree that this was a huge waste of money and corrupt from the core, but the corruption is on the part of the Homeland Security folks in state government.

The problem is that the citizens of the state and all US taxpayers (since this was a federal stimulus grant) were taken. The political appointees running this boondoggle got exactly what they wanted, minus the spotlight now shining on it. And the State is (successfully so, judging from media coverage) shifting the blame to a single Cisco engineer.

But you're missing the basic point - the State's goal was to spend a lot of federal grant money on technology related to homeland security. In keeping with the long-standing tradition, a huge sum of that money personally profited friends and family of those in charge. A formal specification, RFP, and review process would have opened the door to others who weren't supposed to get a piece of the pie, and risked shining light on the process. By doing it under the table with the State CTO's former employer, they were able to do what they wanted and apparently get away with it since the blame is being heaped on a Cisco engineer instead of the actual culprits.

I likewise call WV home and I've been in IT here for nearly two decades. I've worked directly with Mark Williamson, the Cisco engineer being scapegoated in this mess, many times over the years. I'll say going in that I know I may come off as a Cisco shill. You're welcome to review my post history to see otherwise. I have purchased, implemented, and managed their products at my jobs over the years and I'm fairly agnostic about brand at this point. However, a few things need to be said about this issue and how it is being presented.

• The politicians in Charleston are responsible for this. Period. The auditor's report blames Cisco for undermining the purchasing process because the government employees didn't follow the law. It isn't Cisco's responsibility to put a purchase out to bid. The state government approached them with the grant money and a request to help them spend it. This exact routine happens regularly. This one just happens to be so egregious that local newspaper reporter (Eric Eyre with the Charleston Gazette) refused to let it pass unnoticed.
• The bloggers who are personally attacking Mark (and posting his email and phone numbers with urges to tell him what you think) are allowing the state's shuffling of blame to work. In half a dozen projects that he's helped me spec over the years, he was never the least bit underhanded or disingenuous. I know my stuff and do not take well to bullshit from vendors. I occasionally had to put the local Cisco rep in his place, but I never had to do that with Mark.
• Mark is an engineer, not a salesman. He builds quotes based upon the needs of the customer. The customer's need in this case was to spend a pile of grant money on technology somehow related to homeland security. Show me the State's RFP and agreement with Cisco that contradicts what Cisco ultimately sold and I'll concede a lot of this. Until then, I fail to see how Cisco, and Mark personally, is at fault for doing exactly what they were asked to do.
• By focusing the blame on Cisco, the State is successfully deflecting attention from the countless other scandals in this grant. The state Homeland Security chief, Jimmy Gianato was the grant administrator and led the project. Despite the position taken by the auditor, he still defends the purchase as appropriate. Mr. Gianato also defended paying his 25 year old son $73,000 of grant money across four months to help design and build a dozen microwave towers. He then defended hiring his son at $37,500 per year to inspect the same towers for the State. His son worked out of his home and was provided all expenses (rental vehicles, meals, lodging, gas, and other incidentals on his personal credit card) paid out of the grant.
• One last tidbit that everyone seems to be ignoring - the equipment was specced and provided by Cisco but it was not sold to the state by Cisco. They work through their partner network for the sales. The primary VAR for that in WV is Verizon's Network Integration group. Our state CTO, Gale Givens, was a career Verizon executive, recently in charge of the territory that includes WV. VNI made a pretty penny for little effort on this deal.

This stimulus money was treated as a windfall by Jimmy Gianato and abused like every pork barrel project in WV has been for as long as anyone remembers. Allowing the State to pin the blame on one (genuinely nice) engineer at Cisco is only continuing the abuse of the system by those really guilty here.

When my dad was a kid, his uncle kept bees in hollowed out logs and used absolutely no protective gear when he worked them. I helped Dad occasionally with his when I was younger but only recently got involved again. My oldest is 12 and will have his own bee suit this year.

I don't ever see us getting by on nothing but farm income. We raise a small herd of cattle, raise chickens, grow a large garden, keep bees, and do countless other self-sufficient activities but I still have a full-time job. Last week I had some t-bone steaks from a young heifer we raised and butchered this past fall. She lived her life on pasture and was two-years old (ancient in the commercial beef market) when slaughtered. Those t-bones were, without a doubt, the most tender steaks I have ever had the pleasure to cook and eat. Yesterday's dinner was a pork roast from the pig we raised last year. Breakfast today was eggs from our chickens.

I know, with reasonable certainty, what went into the production of a good portion of my food. I know the life it lived. I am able to select varieties that are more flavorful (in the case of vegetables) or more self-sufficient themselves (in the case of animals). I know the level of antibiotics used and why.

I likewise love dark and flavorful honey. We keep about 20 hives and always grow multiple plantings of buckwheat in the end our garden. It is especially nice in late summer when few other things are blooming. The bees have something to work and the honey is almost nothing but buckwheat.

We have about 20 hives and likewise occasionally feed sugar water, particularly during periods of limited blooms, to maintain the health of the hive. However, there is a big difference between what hobby producers and large commercial producers do. You can get a lot more honey if you feed cheap HFCS instead of relying on the fickle natural blooms. Bee keepers who care about the quality of the honey do need feed during the production of honey that will be extracted because honey made from refined white sugar is not the same as honey made from the nectar of a locust or basswood tree. Bee keepers we care only about production do indeed feed year around, and use the cheapest HFCS-based syrups they can source.

Commercial tomato varieties are bred for tough red skin and blemish-free fruit. Flavor has no part in the equation. The commercial tomato industry was on the verge of collapse due to the increase in mechanization in farming but tomatoes were so fragile that there was no ability harvest them without destroying them. So the food scientists developed breeds that were firm, that were uniform in appearance, and that could be picked earlier. US producers pick their tomatoes while still completely green and subject them to 24 hours of ethylene gas to artificially ripen them. Many are refrigerated to further reduce spoilage but this also destroys nearly all of the flavor that may have accidentally remained.

Recent research has indicated that the same genes that cause the uniform coloration selected for in commercial tomatoes also cause the fruit to convert the sun's energy into sugars. It isn't just that the round, red tomato-like cardboard balls at the store lost their flavor because it wasn't a priority in the breeding program - it appears that the flavor and appearance may be mutually exclusive.

I grow many different varieties of heirloom tomatoes; my Hillbilly Potato Leaf vines often grow at least 8 feet and will be two inches in diameter. They destroy every tomato cage I've tried so now I use a heavy cage reinforced with a t-post driven beside it and wired to it for extra support. I hate dealing with the vines but the tomatoes are huge and taste wonderful.

We have about 20 hives as well but keep them purely as a hobby. They help us with our garden and fruit trees, as well as providing enough honey each year for us, our extended family, and close friends. We do not manage them for multiple extractions a year or other high production goals. The time and work is certainly not for the uninterested but neither is it a killer. I genuinely enjoy working with them and I love the honey we get.