Month: June 2004

The Apartment

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I put a deposit down on an application for an apartment. Everywhere else in the universe but NYC it works differently. Here you apply for an apartment, and then they see who has the best credit, is willing to pay the most, and is also willing to move in the soonest and that person gets the apartment. Not first come first serve. It is crappy, but I need a place, and it is supply and demand.

I filled out all the information they needed. This included a letter from my work, a W2 from last year, a copy of a recent pay stub, a bank statement, 2 references for credit, copy of my drivers license, and who knows what else. I offered to give them DNA for their records also. I was told all that was enough for the application. Now I am being asked to come back in for some other reason. not sure why, but if isn’t a good reason I am going to go ballistic on these people. I am not that desperate yet where I will put up with this shit forever.

Not sure if Jayson is having better luck going straight to the owners of apartments, vs my dealing with a broker.

Snapper Mail

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I just downloaded Snapper Mail 2.0 from their website. It is a beta of the latest Palm mail client. I purchased their version 1.9x back in December. it is great, but it didn’t support IMAP. The enterprise version of the new 2.0 does support this feature. I tried it out yesterday and have 60 more days on the demo. So far it looks awesome.

I switched over to the IMAP server that my company uses, versus the second POP account I setup just for my Treo. Now what I read at work will be read on my Treo, and vice versa. I can see what I am doing on both devices. It is great. I use IMAP mailbox’s at work and personal already so this was a great addition for me. Now I can use my Treo, Mac, Work laptop or anywhere and get the same mail. it is the best thing short of Exchange.

So far I am down with buying this upgrade to an already great product. I want to give it a few more weeks to see if I have any major issues. First looks, look great!!!

The Heat

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Not sure what to expect in the temperature department today at work. I am planning for the worst, and am in shorts and a light tee shirt. I hope I am cold, but I don’t think I will be.

I truly don’t remember an office environment where I was not hot. That is sad. I am prepared to take my laptop to the computer room today to escape the heat.

Back From My Trip

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I have been away. I am back now. The trip to Kingston went well. Dan and I left Tuesday afternoon. He rented a soccer mom white mini van. We piled in all the gear we needed to take with us and we drove up to the office. We got there around 7:45PM Tuesday. Dumped our cargo and went to dinner at the hotel. We stay at the Holiday Inn. People around there say it is the nicest Ho/Motel. It is ok, but not the greatest.

We ate dinner, and had a few drinks. There is nothing else to do up there. We got up early Wednesday so we could be at the office by 8AM to meet the electricians.

As far as I could tell things went over without major issue. We left at 3PM Wednesday. I was going to stay over till thursday so I could finish overseeing the cable work, but it was well under way and Kai had it under control.

It was funny Dan and I have done 3 physical moves for our company and several construction projects together. This time we were standing around going what do we do now? There wasn’t much for us to do, and we got nervous because of that. Of course in reality it meant that things were running smoothly, but it is a weird feeling if you are not used to it:)

While we were away, the AC in NYC went out again. Or shall I say the temporary AC’s went out on the hottest day of the year so far. Also problems abound on the project to fix the permanent units. It was supposed to be done by Friday, and the completion date will likely slip.

It was so hot Wednesday that Jayson and Gretchen came over and we all went into the pool after I got home from the trip. We ended up at the out back for dinner at like 10PM. I love that place, but I didn’t want to go, since I was trying to save money. Unfortunately the deli by me was closing and we couldn’t get anything there. Oh well. I wish my only problem was HAVING to goto the outback because everything else was closed. I can live with that.

Packing

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I am on my way home to pack for a trip to Kingston. Dan and I are going for a minimum of one night. I may end up there a second night. I don’t want to be there for 2 days so I will do everything in my power to leave Wednesday night with Dan. We leave tomorrow afternoon right after work.

We are shuttling up some computer equipment also, so we will need time to fill up the van with stuff.

I need to make sure I have clothes and my laptop charger and misc stuff packed tonight. I originally wanted to go see the new Harry Potter movie with Jayson and Gretchen, but I can’t stay in the city for the movie and be able to pack tonight.

For that reason I and many others, I cannot wait till I can move into the city.

Still Building My Laptop

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Sunday I got the OS back on my Thinkpad. Today was spent getting all the other applications on it. Throughout the day I had people come and ask for stuff. I would say, dam I need to install that. I would spend the next 20 minutes doing an install to get 5 seconds of information for someone. Hopefully this will be done soon so I can resume my normal work schedule routine.

Most importantly I still need to put on the VPN and Wireless software on the laptop, so I can be remote when I am in Kingston tomorrow. That is on my agenda for first thing Tuesday.

Still Apartment Hunting

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I saw 3 more apartments today. I liked 2 of them. The only problem is they were both on the high side. Not too high, but if you inch higher in what you are going to pay, the next thing you know you are paying way more than you originally planned on.

Both apartments were nice. One was a big bigger than the other. But the smaller place was in a much better location. I think I am going to put in an application for the smaller place. I liked the location, and the building was nice.

The third place I went, was none of the above. it was not in a nice area, it was not a great building, and it didn’t have a 24 hour doorman like I requested.

The original buildings I wanted to see today had no openings. They filled up between the time I asked to see them, and the time we were going to go to see them. Oh well.

I am going to think over my choices tonight and call the real estate broker tomorrow. Hopefully the place I finally choose is not yet taken. That seems like it may happen. Stuff moves fast in manhattan in the summer.

Resume Normal Activity

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Today I pretty much returned to normal activities. I still am a bit stuffed up and coughing, but I went to the pool, and hung out with Jay most of the day. I was feeling well enough to goto outback. I also wasn’t afraid to get close to Morgan. Normally I am petrified to go near her when I am not feeling well, so I must be better.

Product Recovery

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I finally gave into the desire. I just got finished backing up all (i hope) of my data on my IBM Thinkpad T-40. As I write this I am running the IBM rapid restore function. Basically a hidden partition on the hard drive has all the settings and software that the machine had when it was bought. I am just returning it to the factory fresh setup.

I do this every once and a while. I may have done it once or twice before on this particular machine and I have only had it for 11 months. When I had more free time I would do this almost every 2-3 months. Now I don’t have the time, so it is a big pain in the ass to do, but it does wonders for the performance of the box.

I was having issues with the machine freezing up and then begin to work again after 30 seconds or so. I also realized how much crap I had accumulated on the machine. Now I am going to put Windows XP (pro), all the security patches and a few other pieces of software. Everything else I need I will put in a VMWare Virtual Machine. I will put VMWare workstation 4.5 on my machine. I just downloaded the free upgrade from 4.0. I want to keep this laptop as clean as possible. I know deep down that it will never happen in reality, but at least I will try.

I will spend the next week installing the main pieces of software I will need. I will spend the next month after that installing other miscellaneous pieces of software until I am finally happy with the setup.

Whenever I do this I always hope I remembered to back everything up. I almost always forget something. Sometimes important stuff, but usually something stupid, that will just take me time to get again, or I say goodbye forever to it.

Saturday Night Halo

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I went for a hair cut Saturday. I got up early since I couldn’t sleep, and went out. I ended up doing some errands, like the bank and a card for my dad’s birthday also while I was out. I then spend the rest of the day in bed trying to rest up for my dad’s birthday dinner.

By like 5PM my mom called to tell me that the dinner has been canceled. I was recovering from a cold. My mom was sick, and then it was discovered that my brother in law mike was also sick. We postponed it till next week. I was going to stay in bed for the night, then I ended up calling jayson and he came over. We went to dinner and then went over to John’s to play Halo for a while. Jay ended up going back to my place to sleep and we are planning on hitting the pool sunday. I also want to see Shrek 2. Not sure what is on the agenda.

This blog entry was written while listening to Out Of Love from the album “America Town” by Five for Fighting