Month: June 2003

Key’s and baby’s

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I actually left work early today. I was as amazed as the readers must be. I needed to go and get my keys for my new apartment. I am actually moving next week. It is cool and a pain. I want to move and the new place is great, but I feel like I just got everything where I like it in the current apartment. I need to go over to the new place and check out the paint job.

Being home early had an added benifit. My sister and the baby were at my parents house so I went over and we all went out to dinner. Morgan was being fussy so we didn’t get to actually eat till after 8, but we were trying from 6 PM on. She is so cute. It drives me crazy when she cries because she puts on this really cute pouty face and gets all upset. Everyone will have their hands full with her when she grows up!

Cebit, TechNY, PCExpo and whatever else it was called

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Every June I want to goto the big tech trade show in NYC. This year it is called Cebit, last year it was TechNY. It used to be called PC Expo. Last year we just moved offices and I couldn’t go. The year before that was the same problem. In 2000, and 1999 I was traveling and unable to go. I haven’t been in years and always want to go. This year I got the free invite I always get (everyone in the tech industry probably gets them) and I just didn’t feel like going. Last year I heard it wasn’t that great. I had missed the boat on the last great big expo’s in NY. Turns out I am glad I didn’t go. Howard went and said it wasn’t that good at all.

I would like to goto CES, but my position at my current job doesn’t require it. Others go, and it sounded cool the past 2 years. On the flip side, whenever I goto those shows I hate getting bombarded by sales pitches. Can nothing please me? 🙂

I will not buy a new ipod

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My ipod is less than 6 months old, and I will not buy a new one. Gus‘ ipod is awsome. And now Howard is thinking of getting one. I said that I would buy his 20 gig ipod that is like mine, but now I am having second thoughts. I may be running out of space on mine, but I can free some up by filtering what I put on it. I am trying to cut back on what I buy. I have a really new mp3 player, I don’t need another one even if I can sell mine. I am trying to be good about it!

Got the new Harry Potter book

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My new (and very heavy) copy of Harry Potter arrived today. I pre ordered it and forgot all about it. I get my books and other stuff from Amazon. They are really good. I got an overnight Saturday delivery upgrade. They did this the last time a Harry Potter book came out also. It is a smart marketing gimmick. People may not order the book online if they have to wait for it to get to them, so amazon gives you overnight shipping for the price of ground and then puts all over the box “DELIVER ON JUNE 21, DO NOT UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES DELIVER BEFORE JUNE 21!” That was a direct quote. It is kinda funny. I am going to start reading it tomorrow, or maybe start the first chapter before I goto bed.

Word of warning, be careful of Amazon’s one click pre ordering. I have already gone through like $175 of book and DVD charges this month because I pre ordered a bunch of stuff in March. I wanted everything but never did the math on getting things billed all at the same time. That Amazon.com does their job way too well…

Gus gave me a book by Vince Flynn, called the Third Option. He say’s it is like a Tom Clancy novel, and he knows I love Clancy. It has been sitting on my desk at home since I got back from vacation. it will wait a bit longer while I try to push through Harry Potter.

I have not read a new book in ages. I have been busy and most of my reading is consisting of magazines and the news. I haven’t seen anything good I have wanted to read and now I have 2 books on deck. That is always the way it happens, drought and flood!!!

New domain registrar

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This blog may turn into a free advertisement for godaddy.com. If you ever paid $35 or more on a domain name, you paid allot. I do still love register.com. They are much better than the old networksolutions, but they cost allot. They are good if you need them to do DNS for you. I still own domains through them for that reason, but if you don’t need them to do a completely customizable DNS zone for you, try godaddy.com. Godaddy costs like $9 per domain per year. It is cheap, and I honestly don’t know how they make money. A friend at work has talked about them for about a year. To cut costs I registered a bunch of work domains through them. When you get like 60 domains, the savings adds up.

This week I transfered my first personal domain to godaddy. The transfer was mostly painless, and the cost is right. They make it so cheap to buy a domain, you have no excuse to buy that customized name you came up with. I will most likely transfer most of my .com, .net, and .org domains to them when they need renewal. I still have allot of other domain names so I won’t completely switch.

On the subject of domain names I will say I am a fan of the .AC domains. I had 4 of them at one time. I still own 1 domain from the Ascension Island. They cost a bit more $50/year, but their management tool is good, and they have allot of more common names and phrases that you cannot find in COM, NET, ORG, or even BIZ, & INFO. I did get a domain name with scott in it. That rocks! It actually still rocks almost 4 years after I bought it. I have a couple of other inter-nation domain names from different countries, but my .ac one is the simplest.

Be wary of software updates!

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I had a close call yesterday with my Apple Powerbook G4 12″. I ran the airport extreme update to get the wireless device to comply with the final 802.11g spec that came out last month. So I run the update and reboot my powerbook only to find out that I can no longer get on my wireless network at home. I didn’t play with it because I was tired, but I was able to get it working at work on our regular 802.11b network. I get home and redo the network and all of sudden I get the network working. I was a bit scared for a minute. Rolling back from an update can suck or sometimes is not possible.

I am using a Linksys WRT54G 802.11G Wireless Route/4 Port Switch. I love linksys. This is my second router from them. When I got my powerbook I figured I would get an all in one router/wireless point that does 802.11g since the powerbook could do the faster G. I still need to ebay my old router and Lucent/Agere AP-1000 point. I still have to wait for the linksys wireless point I have to have the firmware update to comply with the 802.11g standard.

I love wireless and use it for tons of stuff around the house and work, but I will take this time to say that if you need to copy tons of stuff from one machine to another, get a 100 megabit wired switched connection. You will save yourself hours of waiting. 802.11g rocks (in my house I get double the speed from 802.11b while my laptop sits on the desk above my wireless point) but it is still not that fast for corporate use. At home with 1 computer on a network going to the internet, it is fast enough. Of course in that situation 802.11b is fast enough since the limiting factor is your internet connection. Just my two cents.

All in all I had some issues and I got some luck back today so it almost fixed itself overnight! How about that for Mojo?

The traditional friday evening of drinking

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A bunch of us ended up going out after work. We ussually goto a bar by my office called No Idea? It is cool. We are creatures of habbit. Today I bumped into a few friends from when I was working at Y&R / BM. Dave and Nick were out playing pool. I didn’t speak to them much today. I need to hang out with them more. People out and about were Keith, Jenn, Rajive, Sam, Matt, & Vijay. We had a good time, but we cut out early. Jenn had plans, kieth was tired, and rajive had a train to catch and Vijay went to some sweedish party (no joke). I was exhausted from the week. We are looking to meet up on Saturday to goto some club Vijay knows about. Gus was MIA due to a long day of travel. Others were also MIA. Not sure what was up with Mark. He was in the office, and then didn’t end up out at the bar. I guess that is what happens when you have a new born baby at home.

What I need to do most this weekend is get a good night sleep. I used to get good long sleeps over the weekend. I am not recently. I can’t seem to get up in the morning during the week, but the weekend comes along and I get up at 10-am. When I mean sleep late, I am talking about 1pm or so. I used to love doing that in college. I even could do that for years after college. Maybe I am getting older?

Its Friday and things improved, finally!!!

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Thank goodness things got better today. I was having a bad week, and today turned things around a bit. My new linux admin started today. I spent allot of time bringing him up to speed on stuff. He seems cool. I also got some decent resume’s for our kingston office. Finally!!!! I have some interviews setup for next week. I also got some other misc stuff out of the way today. It is always good to close out some lower priority issues and keep the task list down.

We took the new guy out to eat today. We went to Dukes. It is a bar / restaurant across the street from our office. It has good (but greasy) food. And the waitress’s are usually really hot. Hey we tip well so I can say that! One thing I don’t do that often recently is go out for lunch with people. Keith has been starting to go out with some of the dev staff but they usually goto indian food and I am not into that. I am a more steak or burger kind of guy. Of course we need to try the seafood place across the street from my office. I have worked in this area for a combined total of 3-4 years and I never ate there. Go figure.

I still stress because I need to continue to push our kingston project along. Everything seems to take so long to do. I know that is just the way things are, but I hate waiting around for crap. I am just dealing!!!

Management

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Starting friday I have a Linux Admin starting. It sunk in today that he reports to me and I have to make sure he is successful at my company. Then it hit me that I will have 3 people reporting to me. Then I realized I was still not counting the guy we get for Kinston. That makes 4 people that I am responsible for. I proceeded to hyperventilate after I realized that. Well, no I didn’t do that, but it hit me hard today. It is a big responsibility, and it has a bad side to it. But it is also challenging. I just hope I do a good job.

I started to think about how I ended up doing this. it sort of just happened, and the group keeps growing. In a way it is kind of cool, but very stressful. I think I find it harder to let someone do a project than me go and do it myself. I guess that is an important rule. Letting go and allowing others to do the work. Doesn’t make it any easier.

I just need to remember that I need to keep my technical skills up, because for now I am an engineer first. Or that is how I saw myself last year. Now I am not sure!

Personal stuff, not as bad as work

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Even after all I said about work sucking today, I actually feel ok. And I haven’t yet started to drink my frosted shot of godiva liquor. It actually tastes good before bed. Pause, slow sip… Yup tastes good.

I did some research online tonight. I found a few places that offer the PADI SCUBA class. I guess PADI is the certification you need to dive almost everywhere. it works out to like $300 for the classes. the open water dives are more and you need to buy some gear. My luck to pick an expensive and potentially dangerous hobby! But it is dam cool… One place offers a crash course over a weekend. They offer it this weekend. I am going to call tomorrow and find out it I can still get in the class and buy the gear in time. I post more information when I get it.

On the broken computer side, I don’t think the dam thing is broken, or if it is I got it working consistently today and last night. Since I don’t want to be without my laptop for a week, I am not going to send it back and see what happens. Not sure what apple will do with the open ticket, nor do I care if the thing works.

Have I mentioned how awesome my powerbook is? I just wish it was a bit faster, and didn’t get so hot when I leave it plugged in. But it rocks!!!

A few people from work are thinking of going to see the Hulk friday. I am down for it as long as I don’t have to get up really early for SCUBA class. I will find more information out friday.