u/Think_Leadership_91

All,

I have been in the IT business since the late 1980s. For ten years I had a side business doing CMMI Level 2 and 3 assessment preparation. I also assisted my employers in ISO preparation and assessments for another 15 years after that.

For the first few years, all the CMMC preparation and C3PAO assessment companies were scams- snake oil salesmen wayyy overcharging. I met a company who wanted to sell me a "package" of prep and assessment at $750k. Utter stupidity.

I have scoped my CMMC Level 2 at one employee- me. So I need a one seat license for everything.

I just got off the phone with a company that will provide me all the CMMC tools I need for Level 2 for $5500 per year. Then increases as I prep for Level 3. Plus that number includes a $20 per month price reduction- the company is monitoring prices to stay low. Finally, sanity in this business.

But C3PAOs still want to charge $30k. Too high for what's required. And when I talk to them, they have VERY INEFFICIENT PROCESSES which increase their time and for a seasoned Program Manager, I couldn't help but show them where they're staff are wasting money and my time.

Where can I find the "No Bullsh-t" companies who can do a one-seat CMMC assessment efficiently with costs that reflect their efficiency?

I met with a friend over the weekend who is on the board of his country club. This club has something like 60 hotel rooms that go back 80 years to when the hotel space was built. The rooms are small and there are plumbing issues and similar from various remodels. They're looking at taking half of a floor and converting the spaces into very small workspaces where members can take calls or pretty much work all day from the club, taking breaks to have lunch, etc.

I think this is a tremendous idea. I recommended this to my city club this morning and it turns out they were planning on this since the end of covid.

The main question is whether they will be overwhelmed by demand.

I am working from my club all week this week myself, but from the club library.

I just wanted to toss this out there in case your clubs have spare space, etc.

My mother's best friend from college married this guy who was always a weird problem in our lives. He was ten years younger than my parents and her friend. He was a troubled Vietnam Vet prone to outbursts and freakouts. He had a "good job" as a factory inspector that kept him in rural areas and factory towns throughout their marriage. So she was constantly calling my mother for them to go see a broadway show so that she'd get out of the rural midwest for a weekend.

While they weren't dysfunctional, it was a weird marriage where my siblings and I always thought- why is she married to this weird guy?

I was organizing my mothers correspondence a few years after her death- I found a box of this friend's letters from the 1960s and early 1970s.

The letters explain why she was marrying to this guy and very likely why she stayed married to him even though he was no catch. I think this may help some people understand why their parents stay in dysfunctional relationships.

This guy my mother's friend married was built like a horse with a footlong you know what.

and I share this because it really does mean that we have no idea why people in dysfunctional marriages stay in those marriages and sometimes the answer is not what we think- at all

It's important to learn to live with not knowing the why

[CO] I traveled to Colorado in April and drove a rented vehicle from Denver to Colorado Springs and back. I purchased a Toll Pass with my rental car and confirmed that it would cover any Toll Roads in the area. The person at the booth told me the Express Lanes save time to Colorado Springs.

I drove on the highway from Denver to Colorado Springs within my first hour of landing in Denver.

36 days later I received a ticket in the mail for something called "Entering Express Lane outside authorized access zones." Ticket is for $300 for two violations.

I kept looking for the Express Lane Exit Ramp when driving to Colorado Springs but I never saw one. Trust me, I use express lanes all the time, there were no exit ramps on this highway.

This is the first time I've ever received a ticket where I think the state is trying to scam me with a phony law and a phony ticket sent by a corporation.

There are links to their website but I see phrases like "I am liable" and "I waive my right to answer the violations." So I can't use their website which is written in a very shady way.

Can someone with knowledge of Colorado explain what this law is, why there are no signs about it, and how to respond?

Trying to describe this briefly:

After 4 years of very serious, brutal bullying from age 11-15, I spent 40 years improving myself. I'm a business owner with a Ivy League certificates (not a full graduate degree), married with two kids, wealthy.

I had a client who I was really close to in 2020-2023. However he drank heavily in the office and often surrounded himself with young women from his company as well as my younger employees. I think I can name 4 much younger women he cheated on his wife with. He was a key client, but after 2024 I just wanted to cut him off because of the drinking and the women. Another contractor, owned by a woman who was sleeping with him, started to cause trouble and drama. Blaming my company for things and then running and hiding in his office, rather than work it out.

This Spring my major project ended and I transferred my staff away, happy that I didn't have to deal with him. Now I'm prepping to work with him in the Fall, but I realized that I sort of created an enemy. I settled into an enemy relationship. Very possibly I won't be able to win that work again (his girlfriend's company doesn't have the qualifications to win it, but competitors do). If I don't win that work in October, I may have to do layoffs and I'll be down $2m for 2027.

In meeting with a business advisor he told me point blank- You're over 50, how did you not learn how to kiss a bully's ass? You need to figure this out.

Well, I would never want to kiss a bully's ass. This guy is an alcoholic screwing girls 25 years younger than he is. I want to ignore him. But this seems wrapped up in how I have internally fought back against being bullied ever again. But convincing someone that I'm their friend is part of my job. I clearly f'd up. I want that contract and that money, but I'm not prepared to kiss his ass and when I think about it, I flash back to junior high bullies.

After quite a long time researching this. I determined that my late father received the Distinguished Flying Cross as a Ribbon only and never received the full USAAF Award. Or, potentially, the award was mailed to his parents' house and destroyed in a flood.

I have validated with NARA that the award is legit. I spoke to the Army and they suggested I buy a replacement rather than wait for them to authorize a replacement.

Does anyone know what would have constituted the full formal award "package" in 1945? It looks like the Medal itself, a container box, and a USAAF certificate. Does anyone have pictures of the complete versions of these so that I can buy a replacement for the family?

We have his original ribbon. Nothing else exists.

A friend introduced me to a friend of his. That guy introduced me to another company. In talking to the other company we struck a deal and completed a TA to go after this opportunity. We've had several calls for 3 weeks now.

The guy who introduced us is getting angrier and angrier that he's not part of the deal and that we moved on without him. He brought nothing to the table.

You guys starting out- don't be like the introduction guy. Stop imagining that you have skills and abilities and useful relationships when you don't. And if you don't have an agreement beforehand, you can't hallucinate that an agreement exists or "Should" exist when none exists.

A friend of mine has a new start up business. No contracts, nothing, just wants to set it up for when his friend gets out of the Army.

I want to help him set up from the beginning to pass CMMC. Is there a CMMC guide for a brand new company with no real assets other than Microsoft 365?