I hate (hotels in) New York

Well, those are quite strong words, but Max and my trip to New York did not turn out so well at the tail end. We had 3 days in Fire Island (Max's friend's house) and 4 days in Times Square (Days Hotel) planned. When we arrived, things were great, Ken (Max's friend) was arriving just as we were at JFK and led us from the airport via car to the water taxi to the Island to the house. He had done this before, and we were lucky to have such a great guide. I was having my doubts about this being a
perennial destination spot for us however, given all the modes of transportation we had to take. I think we did everything except alpaca. Foot, MUNI, BART, airport shuttle, plane, car, water taxi. Craziness. Anyway we had a great 3 days there, a lot of resting, a lot of beach time, a lot of walking around. The island is tiny, maybe 1/2 mile wide by ballpark 3 miles long. I may be making up that last figure. But it's too small for cars, so the only way to get around is on foot by these elevated planked walkways through the pretty dense forest. It's really quite amazing, feels a little like being in an Ewok village or something. So that was fun- margaritas and beach volleyball at noon made for typical vacation activity. And 3 days was perfect timing for not getting too bored. Our second half of the trip was Times Square, we had booked a hotel about a block away from the square, on 7th Ave and 49th, which made it pretty expensive, but I really did not us to have to subway or cab everywhere. My reasoning was that the cost of our time and transportation would be more than just paying extra for the convenient hotel room. I think I was right, except we picked the wrong hotel. When we checked into the room, we noticed that the refrigerator was taped shut. That was weird, I thought they were trying to monitor whether we accessed the minibar or something. But then Max opened it and not only was it empty (except for the user manual), but not plugged in. Ok, that was weird, so we plugged it in. Now how about some reading light, whoops one of the lights doesn't work next to the bed. How about room service- nope, nothing. Bathroom clean? There were a few long hairs on the floor, mildew on the ceiling and a big hole punched out of the wall near the sink. Goddamit, ok well we wouldn't be spending much time here anyway, but it still sucks. So our 4 days consisted of tons of walking, visiting with friends, seeing some sights, but we had both already seen the major ones like Empire State Bldg and Statue of Liberty, so we focused more on little ones. Like the Apple Store Soho :). A little stressful figuring out the subway, which seemed a lot more manageable than I had feared. The last time I was in NY, I was by myself and working most of the time, so never had the chance to figure it out completely. We had a good time, Max and I have different work schedules, so it was great to finally spend some uninterrupted time together without TiVo, without computers, and without work!

Come to find out that the hotel was under an ownership change, from Days Hotel to the Hilton, or the other way around. The phones in the room said Hilton, but everything else said Days. The ice machine in the hallway was in the process of being set up, and the elevators. Oh my god the elevators. We took to taking the stairs primarily because 3 out of 4 elevators were constantly occupied by work crew. Constantly. It sucked. And we were on the 6th floor.

So fast-forward to our checkout. We weren't sure how to get to the airport, I had always taken a cab without worrying about the cost because of work reimbursement, but now we were on our own. There was a table at the hotel offering shuttle rides, so we were happy. $25 dollars, ok a cab would have costed about 40. Oh, each. Ok 50 bucks for a shared ride, uggh ok we had already booked before I could say no. 10 bucks extra, whatever it was the end of our vacation. Shuttle booked for 3.15 for a 6:00 flight. Seemed a reasonable time allotment, I knew JFK was about 1-1/2 hour trip, that would get us there about an hour before our flight. We checked our bags with the hotel, so we could spend the last couple of hours walking around Times Square. It was about 10am, and our shuttle was at 3.15, so we weren't totally sure how to fill up this time. Ate breakfast, walked around, and then hung out in the lobby of the hotel. Times Square was getting really boring.. We noticed tons of construction going on, replacing the radiator in the front lobby, replacing the front door windows, scaffolding outside with people climbing up and down, people grinding down metallic pieces in the front doorway. We were asked to move because we were in the way at one point. This was not what I thought I paid for. 3:00 rolled around, and we were going to get up to get our bags and all of a sudden this gentleman comes running in the door. "Shuttle, shuttle!" Uh, ok 15 minutes early. Crap we have to get our bags. All of a sudden everyone was in slow motion. Went to the front desk to get our bags, oh we had to wait for the bell hop, who was nowhere to be seen. Our bags weren't behind the bellhop station anymore, so we had to wait for him to appear. There was another woman also waiting, and with each passing minute she was getting more and more red in the face waiting for this guy. I thought she was waiting for the shuttle as well, but no. Finally the bell hop arrived after about 10 minutes, as I was reassuring the shuttle driver that I was doing as much as I could. Gave him our bag tags and watched him shuffle over to the elevators. Oh crap! Ok, now he is taking the stairs. Whew. Waited 10 more minutes, now the driver was getting REALLY anxious. Even with the fact he was 15 minutes early, we were now late, and making the 1 woman in the shuttle late as well. We had no idea where the heck the guy was in a 12 story building, what was I supposed to do?? Can we go to the storage room ourselves? No, the front desk person said, we had to wait for the bellhop. Finally he appeared after an eternity with 1 bag, and it was the woman's in front of us. She was about to explode, but just grabbed it and ran. Where were our bags!! He shuffled away up the stairs again, I thought he might have brought them down and they were around the corner. Nope, 10 more minutes go by, it's now been 30 minutes to get our bags. Max took off up the stairs, and found him on the second floor just talking to someone, with our bags on the floor, waiting for the wretched single elevator that was being used by the hundreds of others in the hotel. Dragged the bags down the stairs and ran outside, and then Max told me they were just sitting there and talking on the 2nd floor. Oh man, I almost never feel like yelling at someone, but my blood pressure started to rise. I started sputtering like you wouldn't believe, but there was no time. We piled into the shuttle, and I felt bad for the woman's delay in the seat in front of us. Her husband had appeared out of nowhere next to her. "It's about time we're moving..", she seemed to say to no one in particular. Ok I could sort of understand she was a little mad. "I'm sorry..the hotel..bags..second floor..", trying to mention to her. "I don't want to hear it", she spat. Oh man, I've also never felt like hitting someone, but all of my anger at the hotel was suddenly directed in one place, at the woman in front of me. I said sternly and loudly, "I'm sorry, but we are really PISSED OFF too!" Max grabbed my knee, and I'm sure her husband grabbed hers as well. Max said, "it's just cultural honey", which we later thought she might have thought was directed at her. Oh well. So we had to spend 90 minutes with this horrible aggressive energy swirling around the shuttle, not saying anything. And then we stopped to pick up some one else, and then we stopped to get gas, and then we picked up a group of 3 others, and then another group. The shuttle was finally packed, as we made our way to the airport. Keep in mind it's rush hour, and we are still in Times Square somehow..

Ok this is a long story, but suffice it to say that we were the last people let out of the shuttle at the airport, we missed our flight, it was the last flight to SF for the day, and the only thing they could give us was a standby flight at 8.30a the next day, no promises. We had to call a few hotels to see what was up, check prices and locations. Days wouldn't call us back. We stayed at the Ramada near JFK because I didn't want to be anywhere near the city because we had to be back at the airport at about 6.15a the next day to get a good chance for a spot on the flight. We didn't have guaranteed seats, but it turns out we could only be standby for both legs of our trip, from JFK to Dallas and then from Dallas to SFO. We could very well be stuck in Dallas if there were no seats available on our connecting flight. So, good news, there were about 60 seats available on the JFK to Dallas (Max kept calling his mom to have her check online- very helpful for our sanity!) And there was like a refugee camp flying standby as well, and they were there before us. No kidding, there were 9 people from Somalia from a refugee camp that spoke no English. I have no idea why they were flying to Dallas. But even with that, we got on the flight. We were not sitting next to each other, but no big deal, at least we were on. Arriving in Dallas, we were only 45 minutes before our connecting flight's departure time, so we were pretty worried for our chances. Running to the Dallas gate, we checked in and asked what our chances were. The disinterested gate-guy said, "Oh, it looks like we have 1 seat left". Oh crap. So we had the discussion about whether or not one should go without the other, and Max had to work at 3pm, which this flight would enable. We didn't really make a decision, but before long, we heard our names called. But no one else's. We got the last 2 seats on the plane. Couldn't believe it. I'm going to frame that boarding pass, if I can find it.. The seats were horrible, very very last row, between the engine and the bathroom. Max could reach over and take drinks right from the stewardess station, that's how close we were to the back. But we were on. Luckily I had ear plugs, because it was really loud, I can't believe they even sell those seats, that's how bad they were.

But we made it. Here are some pics of the trip: http://homepage.mac.com/chad.armstrong/PhotoAlbum3.html

My brush with City Hall

The Entertainment Commission hearing for the Badlands renewal of dance and music licenses was last night at City Hall. This, by all accounts, was the last big hurrah for the AndCastroForAll (AC4A) group, as “mediation” is supposedly set up for this Saturday, and the HRC hearing had been conducted as well as they could, and the ABC had done their own biased “investigation” and found the bar not guilty. The Board of Supervisors had issued their statement, but no event so far had held Badlands finally accountable, with penalty, for anything. A lot of words so far, but no action. No one knows what form mediation is going to take, but only that it will be done with the help of Willie Brown, who people are rightly suspicious of. Willie Brown was immensely helped into SF political power, with the help of Jack Davis, Badlands owner’s buddy and PR consultant (who helped get Brown into the mayor-ship way back when). The goals of the group were not quite clear, because first and foremost, they weren’t after any monetary benefit, they just wanted Les out of the community. That could take many forms, and that’s why it was always so hard to tell people who asked what the group wanted, why they were picketing, etc. It seemed that the group’s only hope was to contact agencies in the City that held some kind of control over the bar, go after Les’ liquor license and dance/music license.

So when I arrived at City Hall last night, 8 minutes late, I waved to Max in the main room, and then found a seat in the overflow room, as the 100 seat main room was packed full, standing room only. Channel 7 news was there and at least 2 other private videocameras. I had set TiVo to tape the hearing, but as it turned out, there were no broadcast cameras in the Commission hearing room, and all we got in the overflow was piped-in audio. The only broadcast cameras, I guess, were in the overflow that we were presently seated in, so it took me a few minutes to figure out that the TV screens on the wall were showing the empty seats at the front of my present room, and that the disembodied voice was coming from the main room. Sort of sucked that I couldn’t see people’s faces, but one could make an argument that the testimony that was soon to follow was made even more powerful by having to imagine the person standing there. Sort of like a book being better than the movie.. sort of.

All of Les’ (the Badland’s owner and perpetrator of the racism) representation was in the first 2 rows of this overflow room, totaling maybe 10-12 people at the height of it, including Jack Davis. The rest of the main room and the rest of the overflow were filled with AC4A members, complainants and supporters. The effort and the urgency that was conveyed to get people to this meeting really, really paid off. It was quite amazing to see the sincerity in everyone’s eyes, even before anyone had spoken. And the fact that all of Les’ people were here in the overflow meant that AC4A people had successfully gotten there early and grabbed seats, as requested at the last few AC4A gatherings I had been to.

The Commission meeting started out interviewing a total of 3 or 4 bar owners and representatives about noise permits, putting up sound barriers, skylight sound barriers (which I didn’t even know existed), before getting to Badlands. Some of us were getting antsy and worried about how long we would have to wait through the other bar’s commission hearings, but soon enough, in the second hour, we were up. Max told me later that Channel 7 news had left already before Badlands even was on the table, and sure enough, watching the news later, all there was was a quick shot of the Commissioners at the beginning of the evening, but none of the proceedings. So it was our turn, and everyone who had wanted to speak had signed up in advance, including Max. The Commission stated that this was not a hearing per se, no vote was being taken that night, but evidence and public testimony was simply being taken for them to have material to mull over while making their decision at a later point. Don, one of the heads of the group, was asked for input on how the meeting should go, and it was decided by the C. that the complainants should go first, so that Badlands knew the case against them and could defend themselves. Don obviously wanted the Badlands people to go first (and said so initially) so that the whole latter part of the evening and the end would include our point of view, but having Badlands go second actually didn’t matter in the least just because of the vast amount of AC4A people there, and also community members came up after Badlands statements, so there was just no way Badlands could compete. First Phil, a civil rights attorney spoke, then one after another, people were telling their stories of how Les would come up to them in the bar, ask them for multiple ID’s (against the law in SF), ask to show them their money to prove they could buy a drink, say he was enforcing some “dress code” and kick them out. Story after story after story, I could not believe it. I have been involved in this group for months, and I had not heard half of these stories. People were crying, clapping after each statement, it was absolutely amazing in a gut-wrenching way.

The Commissioners were really awesome, as well. One of the male members was cracking a few jokes, one of the women caught a Badlands person in a lie, or at least a misrememberance that would have helped his story, had it fit the evidence given by someone else a few moments earlier. Oh man, it was really a coup for us. All the Badlands statements were quite weak given the power and emotionality of the AC4A stories. All they could say was “I’m a bartender there and I don’t discriminate.” I mean, great that doesn’t mean other people didn’t, or Les forced other employees to. Even Jack Davis got up and gave a statement to the effect of “Les is my friend and Badlands is my local hangout and these people are lying.” Ok, I expected a little more than that from him. I was getting a little worried about undue camaraderie when the male Commissioner started joking around with Jack and mentioned a Jack Daniels bottle, referring to an event at Davis’ birthday bash that was the talk/horror of the town a few years ago (Google it). But the buddy-buddy didn’t last more than a few more seconds. I actually think the Commissioner was trying to bring him down to size now that I think about it, after Jack got up there and stated all his accomplishments and powerful friends before giving his statement. Wow. I think the one thing I was left with after watching the Badlands people was, and I don't know if this was just my hopeful perception, but I honestly don't think they believed that any of these stories were true until last night. How many people need to say the same thing until any of them believed that what happened, actually happened? How can you say that everyone is just lying. Point on point, specific, dated, corroborated recounts. I felt really bad for the Badlands employees, having truth shown to them in such a glaring way.

There was never a good time to leave the meeting; each testimony was just as incredible as the last, but Max and I finally left City Hall, we think just before the end of the hearing. Getting word later, the Commission thanked everyone for coming, seemed really distraught and appalled at the extent of all of this, and pledged to do anything they could to help us out.

I felt a lightness today that I haven’t felt in a while, and we finally had a sunny fog-free morning to boot.

The State of the Union

[Petition Depression]
Just got off quite a rollercoaster of emotion regarding (mostly) political issues. What tipped it off was a visit to the Ferry Building last Thursday. MoveOn.org had sent out a mass action email the night before calling for a local petition drive against the new Supreme Court nominee John Roberts. Since I didn't have the time to administer a petition, I decided to search one out and at least sign it. Which led me to the Ferry Building after work. I had to look quite a bit to find anyone who was there in MoveOn's name, and just as I was about to give up, I found a table with one lone Dean supporter and petitions laying on the table. As anyone would be, she was very happy and surprised that I had actually sought her out, which led to my question of "ok, exactly how has the reception been today, if you are so happy to see me?" She went on to tell me how I wouldn't believe how conservative San Francisco is and how even Democrats were coming and up and yelling at her for her position against John Roberts. "Don't you know this is the best we are going to get from Bush!?" That kind of thing.

[Badlands]
So riding home from that, my thoughts turned to the current City politics that I am currently semi-embroiled in- the Badlands situation. This is the Castro bar whose owner is currently facing discrimination charges in hiring and in people that he would allow into the bar. That may be fine in LA exclusive nightclubs but it happens to be against the San Francisco human rights laws. And he was brash enough to try and buy the only traditionally African American bar in the Castro, right across the street from Badlands. There have been marches, City Resolutions, Human Rights Coalition findings, articles in the Advocate and several international publications, and ongoing pickets, and none of this has been enough, so far, to get his liquor and dancing licenses revoked. We thought we had a win when, just 2 days earlier, he agreed to sell the Pendulum. Now, the owner has a history of closing things down and either not reopening them, or reopening them drastically different than the way they were. So of course, we were afraid of this happening to the Pendulum given the character of this particular individual. When we found out he had sold, it was cause for rejoicing. Then just one day later we found out that the Pendulum had been closed anyway and all the employees had been let go. WTF!?! So this situation was in my mind, and had provided a subtle backdrop to the depression I was already feeling about this "conservative San Francisco" that seemed to be appearing. What was happening to my city?

[Debi and American Despair]
That was Thursday. On Saturday, I had an acupuncture appointment, which always tend to be introspective times. Funny that, laying on a table in a darkened room for an hour ;) In the beginning of my visit, I was telling Debi (my acupuncturist) all about the depression I had been feeling and the events that precipitated them, and she had some interesting things to say. First of all, don't watch too much news. Liberals are losing in this day and age, it's a very dark time, and unless you are in politics and need to know everything about everything, don't watch too much news. Which I do, whether it be in the form of blogs, online papers or TV news. The Daily Show keeps me sane though. Second thing she said was that this darkness, this despair as she called it, is a very American thing right now. Since I haven't traveled in a while, I'm very America-myopic, and it seems as if this darkness is global. But it's not. She said even in Africa, in Uganda, with their own set of political and economic problems, in India, things are not as dark as they are here. She had just gotten back from an international trip and was struck by the despair that is hanging over America right now. Quite profound, and it left me feeling that there was hope. Sometimes the most beautiful sunlight is that one lone ray that comes peeping through the clouds after a week of rain. If the whole rest of the world remains somewhat sane, that means that this despair truly is born of this administration, and is not to do with the state of the world, modern alienation, terrorism or any of the other boogymen that Bush tries to scare us with. It's the man behind the curtain. (I think I am going to put that on a t-shirt).

All is well on the home front

After a month at my new job, I can finally settle down and write a
post. It's been pretty tough, but I guess that's what I signed up for.
After 6-1/2 years of writing VB Code, I was definitely ready to move
on and away from Microsoft. Embark/The Princeton Review, way back
when, was actually set up to be a MS sort of prototype company. I
think they even gave us a grant or something to set up absolutely
everything MS to see how it would all behave together- VB components,
scripted with ASP, with a SQL Server backend, manipulated by nightly
jobs run with MS Transaction server, etc etc. I was quite sick of the
philosophy of "make it really hard to learn so you have to pay for our
classes" type of mentality on MS's part. It is quite evident, and not
just an illusion or bias that I have. I have my experience working in
that environment, and have read many accounts of that thought process
driving MS's development arena. So, when I say "I hate Microsoft", I
have my reasons.
My goal with new employment after TPR was to work with open source
languages, Java, and things that I generally think will not lock me
into one company's tools, and will instead allow me to learn universal
concepts and new ways of doing things. And have an excited knowledgable community that I can go to for help. My problem however, was that
companies, of course, tend to hire people WITH skills and not those
that WANT skills. Somehow, even given that, I found a position with an
ex-coworker from Embark days (before TPR bought it), with a very small
staff of 15 people, working with Java, C++, SQL Server, Linux. I'm
pretty happy- my first project (and only project up until today) was
writing an ant script to replace an antscript/Makefile combo that
automated a C++/Java build that would also run on Windows or Linux.
Problems were: the source code is slightly different between Windows
and Linux and only the Windows version is checked into VSS, the Linux
version is just on this one linux box; the code was not entirely
working yet, and I had to successfully compile on Windows and Linux;
the company is so small, that not all changes even get checked into
VSS on a regular basis; the app that I was automating the build for is
comprised of 8 smaller projects with hundreds of C++ files. Quite a
good first project eh? Each day I would feel overwhelmed but would
take it one step at a time. And also given the size of the company,
there are not too many people available for me to ask questions, so
that was a big problem as well. Developers on average aren't very good
at communicating, and I found this to be definitely the case, at least
me being a brand new employee and my one goto guy being a senior
developer who seems to have been involved in every product here.
So there is my recap of the last month. Lots of other stuff going on,
but will write about later..

The storm is over, for now

No, I'm not talking about this freaking rain we have been having (actually not that bad), but my job at the Princeton Review is finally over. My last day of work was last Friday, and it was a little bittersweet. Our division manager Young had scheduled a company meeting from 3-5 on that last day and I was almost going to skip it in favor of cleaning up my email, etc. Luckily, I didn't, as it turned out to be a meeting/party for Wendy and I. She teared up quite a bit when it was her chance to speak, and it sort of set the tone.. (Wendy has also been there for ~6 years, like me) The day turned pretty dreary after that, and with the beer and drinks (oh did I mention the meeting was at a pub around the corner ;) ), it got sort of depressing and emotional. Max had stopped by the previous day to help me take my books and stuff home, so I just had a little bit, stuffed animals, etc to take home. Anyway, so my 6-year start up job ended on a sort of quiet note.
NOW, I have a few things ahead of me to make a decision about. People are amazed that I don't want to take more time off, but I just wouldn't be able to relax if I didn't have a job lined up. So I will bite it and just start working almost immediately. On what, you say? Well, my last resort job came through, this is with the health services company that I mentioned in my last post. There are some pretty big negatives about it though. First of all, it's a little far. I may be spoiled by the last 6 years (well, my entire time in SF), but I have never had more than a bike ride to work. With this place, I would have to ride 15 minutes to the train, 15 minutes on the train, then another 20 minutes, I think to the building. And it's in South SF, which all the fog tends to start in before it rolls over the City. So it's always foggy. And depressing. And I would have to make an effort to get there. So it's not my ideal situation, but they would be paying me slightly more than what I was making at TPR, and there is the option of telecommuting after a few months. The technology is older and I wouldn't be learning much new. So that's that option, pluses and minuses.
My other option isn't quite hashed out yet, but is a combination of 2 part-time jobs, both of which offer their pluses, and minuses. The National Parks Council, which I also mentioned in my last post, is ready to offer me a position, which would be great, get me connected to the politically connected and into at least an awareness of City politics, which I have wanted for years now. (The World Environment Summit is here on June 1, which NPC has a part in, so I may even come into contact with the world leaders who will be here then..) I would be their web guy, all purpose person, cleaning up databases, rebuilding their structure, etc. It would be lots of low-level, but at a design level that I am usually not exposed to, because I'm usually plugged into already-working operations in a corporate environment. With this I would be building stuff that would probably persist for years to come. So that's that - the second position is with a co-worker at a financial company that I think does risk analysis for insurance companies or something. A group of really smart people, the position would be doing some database work to start out, and then java exposure and coding later, if it works out that way, they are still coming up with a list of projects they have. Exactly what I am looking for, someone who hires me for my skills and then learning new stuff that I wasn't able to through Princeton Review..
So, that's my position now, I was hoping to hear back from the financial company today or tomorrow, will meet with the parks people tomorrow to fill them in, and then have to tell the healthcare place my decision on Thursday. So this week is pretty heavy.. Money, security and boredom, vs. a little less money, a little less security but a lot of potential. At least I haven't used my severance yet :)

The once-a-month blog

Ok, well hopefully not all the time. I'm in the midst of a job search, as I stated in another post below. Things are going pretty well, I've interviewed with a few quite different companies, from Al Gore's new TV Station to a financial company to a healthcare company. The news today was that my old co-worker Jeff, who works for a high-profile environmental organization here in SF, emailed me in hopes that it was still my email address, and said he had a question for me. Now I really respect Jeff, the last time we saw each other was at Critical Mass, the monthly bike-riding protest, and he was telling me about this great job that he had, and how much he loved being in the midst of city decision-makers. I was telling him how much I would love to get involved in that type of thing too. So today, when he emailed me back, his question was if I knew of any web developers that might need a job! Long story short, they are looking for a part time, 24 hour a week, person who would also do a little graphics work, and site development. After speaking to him, and sending my resume, he said that his IT person took a look at it and was floored. "Why would this person want to come work for US?" I guess that means I am over-qualified, but this might be my big-step out of corporate and into city government, which I have thought about for at least a few years.

Broadcast flag dying?

As the proud owner of a TiVo for better part of 4 years now (which also is apparently dying but whatever.. I am concerned about any attempt to block copying of whatever is on my coaxial. I pay my damn Comcast bill, so they can shove it if I don't want to be home on Friday night to watch SG-1. The TV industry's reaction to people having too much freedom over TV content, fastforwarding commercials, etc, has been to lobby for a "broadcast flag", which would require all hardware devices bought after July 1 to implement. My understanding is that the local TV stations could choose whether or not to toggle the broadcast flag, which your hardware would then recognize and then prevent you from copying, fastforwarding, etc. This is very icky.
So USA Today reported on Wednesday that:

U.S. Circuit Judge Harry Edwards told the Federal Communications Commission it "crossed the line" requiring the new anti-piracy technology in next-generation television devices.

This is good news, and prompted several good quotes on a slashdot thread:

Ckwop :
The broadcast flag isn't quite dead yet, but at least it's in trouble

This is by no means dead. When the entertainment industry can't foist something on you by the backdoor they use plan B: Ask the senate for a nice bit of special interest legislation.

tji :
> This is by no means dead. When the entertainment industry can't foist something on you by the backdoor they use plan B: Ask the senate for a nice bit of special interest legislation.

Actually, this was the back door.
Congress told them to fuck off when they went looking for legislation.
Then, they went to the FCC, and Michael Powell was more than willing to bend over for big business. But, that seems to be standard operating procedure for the current administration. They talk "free markets", but in practice there are way too many gifts to big business. (letting polluters out of environmental enforcements, letting Microsoft out of antitrust enforcements, etc.) Locking the little guys out of the market and perpetuating the market for the big guys.

Martin Blank :
You don't have authority to require people to pay fines, and that is enshrined in law. The government does, and unless you're part of the government, even by extension (deputized, for example), you don't have such a power, and you are explicitly barred from collecting such fines.

Congress is usually pretty specific on the powers it grants to the FCC. There have been several occasions when the FCC has found a loophole, and Congress has closed it rapidly. If they don't have legal authority here, Congress will have to explicitly give them such authority, which will probably get bogged down in debate. Many members of Congress are not particularly keen on these kinds of powers.

sanityspeech :
From the article:

  He [U.S. Circuit Judge Harry Edwards] said the FCC "crossed the line" beyond its authority approved by Congress. "You've gone too far," he said. "Are washing machines next?"

...Another circuit judge, David Sentelle, agreed...

"You can't regulate washing machines. You can't rule the world.

Anonymous Coward :
Cute, but to the extent you're serious, you're missing the point. The FCC has no authority to regulate communications equipment in this way. Congress did not authorize them to do so. The FCC admits that. The FCC argues that since Congress did not prohibit them from making this kind of regulation, they are allowed to do it. The judge is pointing out that if they are allowed to regulate something as long as it's not explicitly prohibited to them, then logically they can regulate almost everything. They can regulate washing machines, as long as there's no law stating "The FCC may not regulate washing machines."

It goes on and on but you get the idea.