Month: September 2004

New PDA

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I want a new PDA. I know I have my Treo, but I cannot read ebooks on it, and the camera sucks. as a PDA phone it is good, but for other multimedia functions I need something else. I currently have an HP iPaq 1945, but for the life of me I cannot get the wifi card from Sandisk that I bought to work with it. I can’t sync the via bluetooth either. I think it is just Pocket PC being buggy. The wifi card works. it see’s wifi networks, but never authenticates right, or gets ip’s from open networks. the screen is great so I keep it for now and read ebooks on it.

I was all ready to buy a new PalmOne Zire 72, but realized that Palm ussually refreshes their product line in October. I figured I can wait and see what they come out with before I buy. If anything I can get the 72 for a cheaper price.

I figure if I sell the iPaq on Ebay and buy something else it wont cost me that much more. I got the ipaq as a present so it was free for me.

Blogging on My PC

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I normally blog while on my Powerbook. For this trip I took my thinkpad because of the extra battery life I have on it compared with the Powerbook. When in transit I like to blog. What to do? They now make a version of the blog software I use on my Mac for the PC, but I don’t want to shell out another $15 on ecto for the PC. I downloaded w.bloggar for the PC. I used it before, but last year when I had it, it was very buggy and I never used it due to problems. Now I have a newer version and it seems OK. the one thing it doesn’t do that ecto does is save several blog posts offline to be posted later. I have to export posts to txt files if I want to work on several at a time when offline. this is annoying, but otherwise I like the software.

While on the topic of blogging itself I think I will keep Typepad past the 30 day demo. So far I have not had a problem with it, and I like their management features. It is all around a cool service. it is allot compared to my free hosting by Gus, but the MOB and list features make it worth it for me to stick with them.

While in the air I also did some Moblogging. I got several pictures of the airplane cabin. Due to the shitty camera on my Treo most of them are blurry. I will post them when I get a chance.

EMT Prep Test

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I went to apply for an EMT class today. A bit of background, I was an EMT for 6 years and a CFR for about 1 1/2 years. I did volunteering when I was in college. Since then I have not had time or motivation to really take the class again. I finally found someone willing to take the class with me, and I found a course that starts in a few weeks. Unfortunately they require a test, and interview. I took the test today. It was a basic reading comprehension test. I got a 96 on it. I only got 4% off because I rushed to finish the test. I wanted to get the interview over quick and they did it in order of who finished the tests first. When I tell you my 11 year old cousin could pass this test I would not be stretching the truth. That said it looked like people failed the test anyway.

The interview was not even 10 minutes. They said the decision boils down to first come first serve on the applications, and who passed the test. I put my application in late, but I think that is a line they tell people. I have done this before, and got high marks on the test that they value. I will find out friday if I am in or not. If I am in, the class is expensive. I never paid for one before. My squad in school always took care of the cost of the class. I think it is worth it, so I will do it if I get in.

I will have to give up 3 nights a week of my life (4 nights, 5 weeks out of the course) life until mid january. I hope work understands. This is something I want to do, and other people take classes. I figure I will end up working late other nights to catch up.

Now I wait until I hear if I got in or not. Rationally I should get in the class. My irrational part of me is worried that I wont get in. I think I just worry too much sometimes.

The Backlog

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Since I am feeling fine today, and I am not in DC (like I planned on) I decided to make a dent in the backlog of work I have piling up. Right now I am taking a break (while my printer is working for me) from going over resume’s. I am still looking for a helpdesk person in NYC. It is a grueling process to go over hundreds of resume’s. I just printed out like 40 for someone else to look at before we call some of these people up.

I am also trying to do some updates to my companies domains. We own way too many of them. The amount of changes I have gotten are piling up. I need someone to do some data entry and make all the changes. It will take days. For now I am doing the most urgent stuff when I have time (like now).

I just finished cleaning out my inbox. I had a few hundred emails to go through and sort. I also went back and cleared out a ton of automated messages I get every day. I am a slave to mail…

September 11

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It is September 11. Of course you can’t forget that. Everyone is trying to remember what happened. I think we should remember all who died on that day, but sometimes I try not to remember the actual day. Maybe it is different for those who don’t live in NYC, or for those who didn’t watch everything in person. I was a very safe distance from everything, but we had a great view from our office window. Man it was a good view of southern manhattan. The one time you didn’t really want a view. Dam, a quick mention of the importance of today, and I am now thinking all about that day. I remember most of it in detail. People are right when they say you don’t forget what you were doing when something major happens. I don’t remember my morning commute or what I was doing before I heard a plane hit, but I remember everything from after breakfast on from that fateful day. Like I said, sometimes I don’t want to remember that well.

My two cents. I know I won’t forget anytime soon. In many ways that is a good thing, and a bad one. Maybe today being 9/11 is partly related to my lack of sleep. I know I couldn’t sleep for most of September 2001 either. I remember my dad was worried then. Hopefully I am just reading too much into the situation. Either way I just read a bit about some memorials that happened on MSNBC, and I got a bit upset. I will try sleeping now. Hopefully it will be a peaceful sleep. Tomorrow is another (hopefully better) day.

EMT Class, Well Maybe

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This week Jayson and I decided to research where EMT (Emergency Medical Technician) class’s are given in NYC. I want to get re-certified, and Jayson always wanted to take a class. While I was in an endless meeting yesterday Jay found the only place that is still taking applicants for the class. it is in Queens but right off the subway. It will cost some $$, but if we go and pay an application fee (rip off in my opinion) and sit for a comprehension test and an interview we might get in the class.

All these hoops to get into an EMT class is funny to me. I haven’t been on a call as an EMT in a while, but I was one for 6 years plus like 1 or 2 years as a CFR. I taught (as a practical skills instructor) in my last EMT class. I don’t know what they want out of an interview, but if I don’t get into the class, I don’t know who they will be having in the dam thing.

This is something that I have wanted to do for a while, so I hope we get into the class. it will be 3 nights a week. Which seems like allot since both other EMT classes and my CFR class was twice a week for like 3 hours each night. I am willing to put in the time. I just want the certification again. As crazy as volunteering as an EMT was, I enjoyed it. More news next week.

Self Fulfilling Prophecies

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I was all set to go to Baltimore & DC this weekend with a bunch of friends. That was until I got up this morning. Well it wasn’t really getting up. My alarm went off, but since I wasn’t able to sleep it doesn’t count as getting up. that was the problem. I haven’t been able to sleep allot recently. As a bit of background information I get migraine headaches. I usually get them from eye strain or lack of sleep. That brings me to this morning and me not sleeping. I got out of bed and I already had a head ache. That happens sometimes, so I decided to go through my normal routine. A shower and something to drink usually can clear my head enough that I am fine. Well today it didn’t. This caused me a dilemma. Do I try to take some medication and hope for the best on a 4 hour car drive away from home, or do I cancel my plans? Waking up feeling like a full blown migraine is about to start does not set the stage for a perfect day. A long car drive and then sitting in the sun at a baseball game also is not the perfect situation for a migraine. I decided to not go on my trip. I was too worried to take the chance, and be that far from home with an impending migraine on my hands.

The scenario I just pictured happened today, but it is also part of one of my worst fears. To be away from home, or not able to stop and rest and handle a full blown migraine is a fear that I live with. Whenever make plans I worry that something like that will happen. Was this time a self fulfilling prophecy? I don’t think so, but it gets me wondering. I have lived through this fear before, so to me it is very real. When given the chance I won’t (and didn’t) take the risk of venturing out when I was not feeling 100%. It pisses me off. It probably pisses my friends off also, but I need to take care of myself.

Instead of venturing off to DC, I crawled back into bed and waited for what felt like (and probably was) hours till sleep came to me. I originally got up around 5:30AM. I crawled back to bed around 6:30. I don’t know when I actually slept. I just remember I got out of bed and got dressed probably around 3PM today. I didn’t venture outside until 4PM or so. I went on some quick errands and headed home. I was tired after that.

Now of course I am wide awake. It feels like my entire sleep schedule is reversed. I can’t sleep at night, but I am so tired during the day. When I called to tell Jayson I was bailing out of the trip he said I should take something to help me sleep. I only do that when I have a cold. I don’t want to get used to or addicted on some sleeping aide. But tonight I might take the plunge and try something. I just want a good night sleep. My dad will attribute the lack of sleep to stress. I tell him, yeah so. I need to find a way to deal with work stress better. It is the only thing that I can think of that is causing this.

On the bright side because of the extra nap I eked out this morning the full migraine I was afraid of never came to pass. Would it have happened if I had gone on the trip? My personal history tells me tha there was a good chance. Am I upset I missed the fun? Of course I am. Will I get shit from everyone from bailing out? Of course. I already got a voice mail from Gus, and 3 SMS messages from people. All I can say is what I said to Dari, “I don’t wish this on anyone”.

I am going to write a bit more, and then I will try sleeping again…

Today + Poker + Scott = $

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Today we had a poker game. Dan had 10 people over and we had a nice round of Texas Hold em. I can’t spell the game (or anything else for that matter), but I can sort of play it. We had a good game. It started early so it finished up early. I started out strong with a few hands, then I got beaten down a bit, especially by Miguel. Then I ended up staying in and coming in 2nd. Not bad out of 10 players. I got a nice chuck of the pot. Miguel played loud, and intense. he took a bunch of my money. Jack took some of his money and dan took both of their money. John never had a decent hand and got blown away. Alyssa and Joseph also got out early on. Heather and Igor fell in the middle. Gus and jack ended up both going out on the same hand and tied for 3rd and it came down to Jack having a better high card in order to take 3rd and make his money back.

It was down to Dan and I for 1st & 2nd place. Everyone thought I had a chance, but dan had more than triple the amount of chips that I had. I got out in like 3-4 hands. I was happy to make a bit of cash and not loosing anything.

I learned allot from tonight’s game. I learned that Joseph, and Heather are new, but decent players. John may or may not be a good player, but luck was not on his side tonight. Jack is good, and conservative. He had some chances to go head to head with some people and he backed down. Other times he got into the mix and came out on top. To me he was the one to watch tonight. Dan was good as always. Gus also is hit or miss. Looks like luck was not on his side tonight, but he still made 4th place.

It was a fun game. It turns out there was some contention regarding this game tonight. Dan could not host more than 10 people. he couldn’t have 2 tables, so 10 was the max he could do. Their was about 20 or so people who wanted to play. he couldn’t even invite friends from out of work like he normally does. Their was so many people who wanted to play at least 2 people got upset about not being invited. One of who I didn’t even know liked to play poker. Honestly I didn’t want her to play either. She probably wouldn’t be quiet during the game. Their were others who ended up getting left out, but didn’t seem to take it badly, or didn’t know that a game was on. That just shows you that you can’t please everyone all the time, and adults can act like children if given the chance. Of course this is from someone who was at the game and never even “officially” asked to play. It was just assumed I would play until Dan asked me on tuesday. I don’t play allot but I am always down for a good fun poker game.

Now I hope my luck lasts until I get back from Vegas. And no I do not plan on playing poker while in Vegas. Sean and I are going to try our luck with Craps…

Server Crash

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Yesterday Jay and I had to deal with a domain controller crash. it is never good when a box crash’s, but it is even worse when it doesn’t come back after a crash. A rather important domain controller (they all are important I guess) totally died yesterday. We ended up spending 3 hours at our lovely (and very cold) data center bringing online a replacement. The good news is we sort of know what we are doing, so we had alternate DC’s online, but we still acted quick to get a replacement server up. I never like running with less DC’s (Windows Domain Controller) than normally. If you loose all of them, no one can log into the servers.

Due to that yesterday was kind of stressful. To users, nothing really was down, but we were busy. Along with the DC being gone we have to re-setup 2 applications that will take a while to get exactly like we had setup before. I just love having more work.

Today was taken up by meetings. I maybe had 1 1/2 hours of no meetings today. Have I mentioned I don’t like meetings? These meetings were actually productive, but I still don’t like meetings.

I should have gone home right away after I heard the Subway flooded. It rained allot last night. I waited while at least 3 subway trains went by totally full. I was dripping with sweat from the heat in the station. By the 4th or so train I just pushed into one, like everyone else. I got luck and room opened up further into the train and I was not too bad off. that is why people do push into trains people. Because it is crowded by the door and opens up a bit further inside the train. Lesson is move into the middle of the train. I ended up even getting a seat halfway through my trip. The down side was it took me almost 3 times as long to get to work as it normally does. That should have been the sign to go home and get back into bed! Speaking of bed. It is time for me to turn in. I got little sleep last night, and I have a poker game tomorrow night that may go late. Sleep is a premium recently!

iPaq Vs. Treo 600

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As I mentioned earlier this week I got a look at the new HP iPaq phone. After playing with AJ’s for a while yesterday I decided that I will wait till the new Treo comes out. The HP is just way to big compared to the Treo 600 I have now. The screen was nice, but size is an issue, and the HP is bigger than my old Treo 270. check out the comparison in size between my Treo and the iPaq.