I finally got my appetite back from being sick. I defrosted a steak (filet of course) and am warming up the George Forman Grill. From meat to a cooked steak in 3-4 minutes, but I want it now:)
Written while listening to REM, The Great Beyond…
Month: October 2003
Old Gear & New Gear
I just got a new server in. We are building a Data Warehouse running on SQL 2000. We built one to demo and everyone liked it we have been using it for 4 months on a desktop with allot of hard drive space. The “server” finally showed its desktop limitations, so we are upgrading it to a Dual Xeon 2.4 Ghz server. We are doing IDE RAID, and threw in 2 gigs of ram. For just around 2K it is a nice little box. If you don’t need SCSI you can get server gear cheap now a days. Our dumb-ass vendor forgot to ship us a CD-ROM / Floppy Drive so I have the box open on the floor of my office with a desktop CD Drive and Floppy drive plugged in trying to get Windows 2000 installed. We have been buying Windows 2003 Server since it came out, but for most applications we are just downgrading to Windows 2000 Server. So far today I had no luck getting the OS to install. I think the USB floppy drive I used wasn’t working correctly. I need to cannibalize a floppy drive or buy one for $12 or whatever they are going for these days.
We have some older desktops that we were using as Red Hat web servers that we consolidated to one box. That means I have 2 box’s to use for testing and such. I am trying to demo Exchange 2003 on one and put Windows NT 4.0 Terminal Server Edition on the other. Terminal server will not boot off the dam CD from MSDN. The boot disks we have for it wont work either. I am continuing to work on that. I may give up on NT 4.0 and try 2000 server in application mode. I don’t need it for more than 30 days so I should have no problem with the demo mode it makes you use if you don’t have a key code.
As for Exchange 2003, we are looking to see if it is something we may want to move to. For maybe just the Technology department or for the company as a whole. Howard said good things about Outlook 2003 over HTTP. He said it was fast. I am going to look at how Idealab! did their deployment and maybe segment some users onto Exchange for a trial. Not sure yet.
I Spoke Too Soon!
I was feeling better. I tried to stay in and rest this weekend. It wasn’t that difficult. My body would not let me do much else. I caught up on some email and watched some TV yesterday. I also got to chat with my friend sean on MSN for a while. I haven’t spoken to him in a while so it was good to catch up. By the time I wanted to go out and get some dinner I could not sit up straight without getting dizzy or nauseous. I ended up going to bed like 8PM. It was that or be in lots of pain.
Because I went to bed so early I got up at 8:30AM this morning. Still felt tired, but couldn’t sleep. I got some work done before 10AM. The call center I support opens at that time on Sunday’s so it was good to get some maintenance work done.
I went over to my Dad’s to get something and to fix his palm. he couldn’t sync. I couldn’t fix it. My head wasn’t in problem solving today. I got to see Morgan. he was watching her for the afternoon. It is funny to see him on the floor playing with a 7 month old. She is still so cute. Every time I see her I can’t help but smile!!!
The walk over to my parents place took allot out of me. It isn’t even a long walk, I am still not fully recovered. That walk proved it. I went home and took an nap for 3 hours.
I just ordered in dinner since I am not trekking out anywhere today. I just hope I am up for work tomorrow. I just need to get through a full day. I don’t know how I am going to make it to Kingston tuesday. I am seriously thinking about not going or sending Keith up there. I am just tired. Monday will be the test to see if I can do it.
Treo 600
The Treo 600 is out for Sprint. My dad still say’s he is happy with his choice of the older Treo 300. I await the 600 being availible for T-Mobile. Rumor has it that will be on the 13’th or sometime next week. Not sure if that is rumor or if it is true. Either way I will get it as soon as it comes out.
I Survived My First Day Back
Well, I am tired and things were hectic for a while but I survived my first day back after being out for what felt like a long time. Keith was out sick today. Whatever I had is going around. Justin left early because he felt like crap also. I was left catching up on everything I missed since monday.
I fixed some call center issues. Did some sysadmin work that I don’t normally do. AKA tapes, and updating software versions for some applications we use. I don’t like having to do that all the time. Others are supposed to, but I do like doing it so I keep up on what is happening on my network. I learned that updating IPL’s (software we use to search for stuff) is still not hard, but you need to verify that it works before everyone can use it. I also learned that our new SDLT tape drive is still very cool, but very slow in loading and spitting out tapes.
I also configured Office 2003 Pro to autoinstall with paramiters I set. It is nice. Now if we upgrade (we can thanks to software assurance from Microsoft) I can easliy deploy it to my desktops. The real reason I was playing with the configuration was to get outlook 2003 to work with Exchange 2003 over HTTPS. Not there yet, but I am getting familure with the tools I need to do it correctly.
A bunch of people went out to No Idea for drinks after work. I went and had a coke. I was not ready to resume drinking after being so sick. I saw David P, and Jeff from my Y&R days. We were all pissed at each other since we work around the corner from one and other and I never see either of them. I really do want to see them, so I am trying to setup lunch with Jeff next week.
I am tired and going home. I caught the 7:29PM train out of Penn and hope to get lucky and catch a cab without waiting too long at the train station. It is hit or miss with the car service company, so we shall see.
My plan is to rest this weekend and be normal for next week.
Feeling Human Again
After 3 days of what felt like agony I am feeling just about human again. I have been sick since Monday night. What started off as a really bad migraine headache now most likely was the flu and a migraine. I left work early tuesday because I felt like crap. Feeling like crap for me is unable to keep my head up due to intense pain and or the feeling that I will puke at any given moment. Tuesday was both. I won’t go into graphic details of how bad it was, but use your imagination.
I made it home tuesday only to realize my cleaning lady was there vacuuming and stuff. I went down to my parents place and slept there till late Monday. By then I had enough strength to get back to my place. I figured I would sleep what I figured was just a bad migraine off and be fine in the morning. That is what normally happens. Well my body didn’t agree to those terms. I woke up Wednesday feeling just as bad as I did tuesday. The entire day was that intense discomfort I get when I have a migraine. So I took all the migraine medication I could. There are maximum amounts of these drugs you can take in any given day / week / month and I don’t want to find out what happens if I don’t follow the directions. By mid Wednesday my dad and my doctor both thought that it was more than the migraine. My inability to keep food down was one sign. Stomach issues are common in migraines, but not common for me. I get it sometimes, the really bad ones. But 2 days in a row was weird. So I switched drugs to Tylenol and some migraine stuff just in case. I was finally able to sleep sometime late Wednesday. I cannot remember when.
I felt a bit better thursday, but in the morning I was still a bit out of it so decided to stay home from work and get it out of my system. I was sitting up watching tv by the afternoon, but still felt sick. By thursday night I felt allot better, but tired. I tried to sleep and here I am friday morning going into work.
My dad didn’t want me to go in today. He felt I should rest through the weekend and be 100% for monday. I promised I would stay in this weekend and take it easy at work today. I hate being home sick. Usually I am bored, but this time I was in too much pain to care most of the time. I just don’t like being cooped up inside that long. Hopefully everything works out ok today.
An Attempt At Poker
So I still feel crappy from yesterday. I am still attempting to do poker with Dan and his friends tonight at his place. I missed the last poker session so I don’t want to be left out of this one. Missing too many may mean not being invited in the future. And I don’t want that. I will get some breakfast and see if I can turn this day around and feel a bit better.
Gus is away with Glenn in San FranCisco for 2 days. He sent a whole big email to everyone regarding attendance and then took off for work. He was not to happy about the lateness and people working from home. I cannot blame him. it is sort of out of control. People just email the group that they will be out sick. That is just not the way it is done. Changes are in the works, or so it seems.
The Holy Day
Yesterday was the Jewish high holy day. I worked. I probably didn’t have to work, but Keith was out and Justin was in Kingston so I went to work. I never really felt guilty or cared about working on that day, but yesterday I did a little. I am not religious. I never goto temple, not even on major holidays. That does not mean I don’t believe. I have friends who just don’t believe in religion or what not. I believe, but I just don’t think I have to go somewhere every week to prove I believe.
I decided yesterday on the way home from work that I will take off next year on that day. I probably won’t goto temple. I am not deluding myself to think I will do that, but at least I will stay home and reflect.
I didn’t fast either. But I didn’t eat very much. I tried not to eat, but got hungry and had a candy bar. Now this is where I am stupid. I know when I don’t eat allot of the time I get a MIGRAINE. Well I didn’t eat much and got a migraine yesterday. It was a particularly bad one too. I took two butabital’s, and tried to rest. I after about forty minutes I was able to get up long enough to make some dinner. Going to the break fast with my family was out by then so I cooked some food. I ate, and still felt like crap. I ended up lying down around 7:30PM. I know the migraine was a bad one because the drugs didn’t really work that well. I felt the affects of them but they didn’t stop the migraine. Also I almost threw up. Not pleasant I know, but it is what happened. Puking is a sign of a rather nasty migraine for me. I ended up sleeping till 1AM and then got some water and tried to sleep again. I couldn’t and probably fell asleep again around 2:30-3AM.
If I was superstitious (which I am sometimes) I would say that this was the big guy’s way of saying “he you did bad today”, but it really was just me being stupid and not eating. According to my dad (whose only religious claim to fame is understanding this day and the such) if I need to eat for medical reasons or am sick I am allowed to do so. Who knew? Next year I will stay home and eat.
The family Technology Consultant
So since I work with computers for a living I am the familys technology consultant. No one remembers my sister works with computers also, but I guess programing doesn’t count! I mentioned last week that I got my dad a new Treo 300 for Sprint PCS. I finally got it to sync to his computer at home. He had problems for months with his home computer and his old Palm 505. After trying 3 versions of the palm desktop, deleting the USB drivers (and killing his mouse in the process) I finally got the Treo to sync to his computer. He was very happy to get rid of his Palm 505. The screen was very dim. he also has to carry 1 PDA/Phone instead of a phone and a PDA. I tried to convince him to wait 2 weeks and get the Treo 600, but he said that it was too small. As long as he is happy, I won’t force him to buy the latest and greatest. The Treo fits into his scrubs pocket easily so he was very pleased.
While I was sick this week I spent some time taking some old videos and converting them to MPEG-1 files to be put on Video CD’s (VCD). I use Elgato systems EyeTV. It is a USB device that makes your mac into a Tivo like DVR. You can export the files to MPEG-1 format to burn onto a VCD. I also played around with exporting the files to imovie, but it was time consuming and the files were huge. I didn’t need to edit the files so I just burned the MPEG-1’s to VCD. The quality wasn’t so bad. What you would expect from a VCR. The better the source, the better the results.
Doing the video extraction made me realize that I need more hard drive space on my mac. The Powerbook I have only has 40 Gigs on the hard drive. 10 of which are taken up by my music. I need to get a Firewire external drive. I am pricing them out now.
My Hybernation Is Over
Well I did what I always do when I get sick. I take lots of cold meds that make me tired and sleep the entire thing off. It works for me most of the time. It is the “24 hours of Nyquil” regiment that my friend sean came up with in college. Well this time I went a bit longer than 24 hours, but the theory is the same. I zoned out most of friday. I did the same yesterday, but I was up at night. All that sleeping makes you not tired. I got up at like 11-am today and feel somewhat human. My throat is still a bit soar and my noise is still a little stuffed up, but I feel much better. After a shower and a shave I am wide awake. I need to be. I am off to my parents house for the first night of the holidays.
Before I go out I am expecting a delivery from Freshdirect. They still rock so I buy food from them. There arrive is perfectly timed since I have absolutely no food left in my apartment. I have been putting off the order for a week and then I got sick.