Month: April 2005

Police Disturbance

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After picking up my copy of Mac OS 10.4 (see last post) I was off to my office to pic up my Mini there so I could install the new OS over the weekend. As I got out of the subway at union square I was greeted with more crazyness. Some sort of bike protest was planned (i think) and the cops were out in force to deter the people from doing it. It was the second time in 2 months that I saw that many Police bikes in one place.

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I got my mini from work and then met up with Cari, Jack, & Rajive for drinks around the corner from work. Jay & Gretchen meet up with us and J, G, Cari, & I went to dinner. It was a nice end to a very interesting day.

OS Tiger (10.4)

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I told myself I would wait, or I didn’t need it. But when Apple finally released tiger, I decided I wanted to go get it. I didn’t realize that it wasn’t available until 6pm Friday. I thought it would be available Friday. Turns out it was available just around the time I was done dropping the rental car off and able to go down to SOHO to the Apple store.

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I got to the store and I told myself I should flee right now. The place was mobbed. There was a line around the corner and halfway down the block to get in. This was probably like 6:30PM. I figured I would get on line and see how long it would take. I could always leave.

I am glad I stayed. it was weird. There were tons of people. A guy in a tiger suit (sorry no photo’s). People with video camera’s. It was an interesting spectacle. People kept walking by going I wonder what is going on at the apple store that had such a line. By waiting on line I think I may have become one of “those” Mac people.

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Thankfully I didn’t listen to myself and I stayed on line. After less than 15 minutes I was in the store, grabbed my copy of Tiger and was on my way to the line. A store employee “suggested” I go upstairs because of less of a line as he moved me towards the stairs. I am glad I listened. it was crowded upstairs but I got on line and only 1 other person was in front of me. With less than 30 minutes passed from the time I got on line, I was on my way out of the store. Not bad. I didn’t linger to look at the warez since it was crowded.

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Busy Day

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Today was at times very busy and very easy going. What do I mean? We finished our work upstate early, so we decided to head home. But as we were doing that others had problems that were ongoing. Jay and I decided to hit the Walmart on the way home. I needed food.

After loading up on food and a new watch we headed home. When we rent cars and go upstate we usually fill up with gas at the last gas station in New Jersey on the palisades parkway. Well it was closed for construction. We had no choice but to get fuel in the city. Have you seen many gas stations in Manhattan? I haven’t either.

After dropping my groceries off at my place we headed off to find fuel. Jayson knew of a place near his house (which BTW was near the rental car return place). By now it was after 4pm on a friday in NYC. traffic was horrible. it took us 40 minutes to get to the gas station. then we had issues with it being too crowded and we were unable to get a pump on the side where our truck had the gas cap. After a fit of frustration we were going to drive into queens to find a station and then come back (we were right by the 59th street bridge anyway). knowing that would take forever we doubled back and the original gas station we went too was less crowded. 20 minutes after we originally showed up to the station, we got fuel. Another 20 minutes (to go 3 avenues and 8 blocks) we dropped off the rental car.

I was then off to the Apple store. I wanted the latest OS (10.4) and it just went on sale. See next post for details.

Need To Know

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My dad always taught me information is on a “need to know’ basis.  I think he did that so he didn’t have to tell my mom all non-essential things.  It wasn’t that he was keeping things from her, but just omitting information until she needed to know.  This worked and backfired on him all the time.  Fortunately or unfortunately (depending on how you look at it) that mentality has rubbed off on me.  For personal or professional reasons I have had to selectively give out information. My friends call it being a security minded individual. I guess that is true.

Not Too Chatty

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I haven’t been too chatty recently. it is not because I don’t have anything to write. It hasn’t (this week at least) been because I have been too busy to, I have just been having wrist pain and have been refraining from typing unless it is for work. The wrists still hurt a bit as I write this but I wanted to get something on the site.

I am off upstate for work for 2 days. I will write more about the trip (i hope) on my work blog. Sorry it is password protected. I got the pictures from Jenn the other day. I have not had a chance to post any yet. Soon, I hope. I should be getting ready for bed since I have to get up early tomorrow to get the rental car, but as usual when it comes time for bed I am not tired.

Switch Move

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Jayson and I are off to Kingston Thursday. We are bringing up some gear and covering for chris and kai who will be doing a move of our Core switch to its new home on the first floor. We christen the 1st floor telco room Thursday night with moving the core downstairs. Besides acting as the core for the entire office it will act as the switch for all users on the first floor.

Hopefully nothing goes wrong since it is (dare I say just) a hardware move. Of course when you are dealing with large, complex, & expensive hardware nothing is simple.

Jay and I will stay overnight and cover the Friday day shift to also ensure that no problems ocure after the move. Lets hope all is well…

T-Mobile Coverage Maps

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I have found another reason to still be happy with T-Mobile as my mobile provider. They may not be the biggest carrier in the US but they are coming up with nifty things that shouldn’t be innovative, but they are. Check out the street level coverage map. Punch in your address and it tells you how the signal strength should be. The accuracy seems correct for outside coverage. I punched up Jaysons address and it says he should have perfect coverage. he does when he is outside his place, but gets no signal in his apartment. I then punched up my companies office upstate and it accurately showed me where good signal would be and where it won’t. now I understand why there is no good signal at the train station. there is no tower nearby. Like google maps it was very fascinating to just punch up an address and see the coverage.

I don’t understand why Cingular and Verizon don’t stop treating their customers (in my opinion) like criminals and give them information like this? or allow unlocked phones, or changing price plans without signing new contracts, etc. Kudos to T-Mobile for another reason why I am still a customer even if they don’t have plans for a faster data network for a few years.

Last Night

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More people showed up last night than I thought would. my brother in law’s sister and new family showed up. The new twins (6 weeks old) slept most of the time. They are cute! Morgan was not in a happy mood early on and had nothing to do with me, but she got better after she recovered from her nap. Then she was very playful. That kid is too cute for her own good.

I hitched a ride home with my brother in laws sister and husband. They live a few (like 20) blocks from me so it was on the way. I think all in all I had a good night. I have a ton of take home desert!!!

The Holiday’s

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I am off to my parents for the holiday’s. Not a big observer of anything religious, but I go to see the family. This will be a small gathering. I will get to see my parents, Carrie and Morgan. not even sure if Mike will be there.

it is just “bla” out today. no other word for it. I have to go soon to look for some flowers or something to bring my mom. I feel so comfortable right now sitting here in the AC right out of the shower dressed to go and feeling great. Unfortunately I foresee a hot sticky trip on the subway ahead of me. it is not hot out, but it is humid enough for me to want the AC to get rid of the mugginess.

Tourist Day

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Jennifer and Steve came down today for the day. Met up with them early and we headed to Time Square. They wanted to catch a matinee show, so we hit the discount ticket place (TKTS) in the middle of broadway and 7th ave at 47st. The line looked really bad. Turns out it only took us about an hour to get tickets. We ended up seeing Moving Out. We all like Billy Joel, so it sounded like a good choice. I am not the first person to say lets go see a broadway show. I probably will be the last to suggest it, but it was a good show. Not totally into the whole the story is told by the music (aka no dialog at all), but since I liked the music it turned out good. Not too much into dance numbers, but the performers were great. Will I just at the chance to see another show, I don’t know. I did have a good time.

We ended up walking up to central park. We walked around there for a while. It was a beautiful day. I bit too hot for my taste but it wasn’t super hot to make the day uncomfortable. It was great being outside in the park during the weekday. After that we headed down to the Empire State building. Jennifer had never been up it, so we took the trip. The lines were not great, but they could have been ALLOT worse. The view was fantastic as always. The fog started coming in, so we couldn’t see as far as I have in the past, but it was still awesome seeing the whole city below us like that.

The day went by so fast. I have to remember to go back to a Virgin Megastore. They had tons of $10 DVD’s that I liked, but I didn’t want to buy anything and then carry it around the rest of the day. I didn’t have my Treo since I had shorts on. That means no pictures. I only had my T610 with me. That camera sucks, so Jennifer will send me photos she took from the top of the Empire State building.

It was good to see old friends. I need to make a trip up to their neck of the woods. The visit was too short, but they always are when you are meeting up with friends you don’t see that often. Now back to work for me tomorrow.