Month: April 2004

Double Booked

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I tentatively made plans to go to dinner with my girlfriends family on Sunday. She wasn’t sure if it was going to happen or not early this week so put it in the back of my mind and left it off my calendar. Not thinking I scheduled a server move Sunday night. Jayson and I need to move this server from our office to our data center so we can do other maintenance in our NYC office next thursday.

Tonight I find out that dinner is on. Now I have plans to two things on the same night. My only saving grace is that the dinner is planned early, and we wont do anything to the call center until after 9PM. I may be able to make it, or leave the dinner early to do it. I want to stick to these plans so we can keep the maintenance cycle for thursday.

This blog entry was written while listening to Sympathy from the album “Gutterflower” by Goo Goo Dolls

On A Sad Note

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I take a van from my apartment complex to the Rail Road twice a day during the week. Usually it is the same 2 drivers every day. You get to talk to them. My morning driver Stan was fantastic. He always had a smile on his face or a joke to tell. Last week he wasn’t feeling very well and took off in the middle of the week. A few days later we were shocked to learn that his feeling ill was actually leukemia. Stan immediately went for a round of kemo therapy. His body didn’t react well to it, and Stan died this morning. My thoughts and prayers go out to his family. He was a one of a kind guy, and will be deeply missed.

I am still shocked by how quickly the whole situation unfolded. From knowing he was sick to dying was less than a week. It kind of gets you thinking when something like that can suddenly take the life of someone you know.

This blog entry was written while listening to Better Days by Five for Fighting

The Swing Of Things

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Jayson is getting the hang of everything, and we are able to bang out allot of work today. Now all I have to do is look through the several hundred resume’s I have for the full time position. I need things to quiet down enough for me to sit down and go over them all. I don’t want to jinx myself but things seemed a bit better today over Sunday through Tuesday’s multiple issues. Murphy’s law was in full effect this week.

More minor problems from today: A disk drive array we bought came with no drives installed even thought the notes said the work was done. We are short 6 drives. Getting an overnight replacement sent to us for tomorrow.

Also a network switch holding about 10 servers or so seemed to wig out and restart. Checking that out also, but all is fine now. Little stuff is fine, it is the downed circuits that freak me out. Those I cannot fix on my own.

Our new release manager is also getting his feet wet quick. They already have him scheduled to do a release later this week. We so needed someone to do that job! I am showing him the data center tomorrow. He should enjoy that.

Mmm Outback

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Now that Jayson is in NYC for a while working with me, that means only one thing. Lots of Outback and other really bad (for you) food. We went to the outback after work today. I don’t know how I walked to the Subway. I can bairly keep my eyes open let alone walk. I feel so full. We put in a decent days work and got stuffed. Just like old times. We used to goto outback like twice a week and just eat appitizers. Man was that good food.

So Busy, Haven’t Posted

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If you read the next several posts you will see why I haven’t posted in the past few days. It has been crazy! I had all this stuff queueing up on the laptop since Monday. I will hopefully go back and post date these to when i actually wrote them, instead of when i post them. FYI, i do that secretly all the time. I just write this stuff on the train, and it is hard to post right away sometimes.

That is why allot of my posts bitch about amtrak or the LIRR. Just because i write about my current observations:)

So Busy, Haven’t Posted

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If you read the next several posts you will see why I haven’t posted in the past few days. It has been crazy! I had all this stuff queueing up on the laptop since Monday. I will hopefully go back and post date these to when I actually wrote them, instead of when I post them. FYI, I do that secretly all the time. I just write this stuff on the train, and it is hard to post right away sometimes.

That is why allot of my posts bitch about amtrak or the LIRR. Just because I write about my current observations:)

The New Trains

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The LIRR (Long Island Rail Road) has new trains. They look cool. They have automated announcements, and display the next stop on LED’s. Very nice. That is where the nice stuff stops.

The trains are narrower than the older ones so the walk way is crowded. The seats seem smaller, and there are less seats per car. In order to put in handicap bathrooms in every other car, I heard that each car has 5 less seats than the older trains. Also the arm rests come up kind of high, so it makes it very difficult to type on my laptop while sitting in a cramped isle or window seat.

With all that, what I want to know is what is so much better in the “new” trains. I am not finding anything from a commuter perspective.

Train Delay

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I am on the earlier train for me. I figured I would get to work a bit early and get some stuff done before 9AM when a new hire starts. That plan may have gone out the window just now. As I was in the van going to the rail road the news said that 2 trains collided in Penn Station early this morning. Now the LIRR is saying to expect 10-20 minute delays. That means we may be stuck on the tracks near the tunnel for a while.

Sunday Shopping

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I went shopping sunday. I didn’t even need to leave my apartment. It was nice. I picked up a bunch of summer clothing from the internet. I am liking the LL Bean website recently. I got their mail catalog, marked what I liked and punched the item numbers into the website. Should have my stuff in 3-5 business days:)

I also did the laundry sunday. The shopping, laundry, and all the work I did was enough. I was borderline with getting a headache all day so I didn’t push it by going out or doing anything far from home.

The next online shopping I need to do is order some more fresh direct. I am low on dinner food.

Morgan’s Still So Cute

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Got to see Morgan and Carrie for a whole 2 minutes last night. She is so cute. Morgan that is. I need to see her more often. That is what I want, and what I am being told by every women in my family except for Morgan. Of course in Morgan’s defense she cannot talk just yet. If she could I bet she would say the same thing.

Carrie got back from Germany Friday. She looked pretty good for someone who just traveled almost 10,000 miles in 5 days. I never wrote about it but she was off to Frankfort Germany last week for work. She didn’t want to go because of the baby but she said she had a good time. She will probably have to go every so often since a new project she is on is out there. I am jealous. I wanted international travel, and never got to do it. 99% of my travel was in north america. I don’t consider going to Canada international travel! Of course I do NOT regret leaving Datastream. At the time I was done with traveling. I am 100% + happier now that I am not on the road.