Month: June 2005

White Castle Sunday

by

Sunday I bummed around the house most of the day. it was hot, I was still tired from vegas jet lag. Jayson didn’t need me to help move (thankfully). I went over to the new place in the evening to check it out. We ended up going to White Castle for dinner. I don’t have much “fast food” anymore so it was good. I ate the same amount of meat that both Jay and Gretchen ate combined. Not sure how I did it, but I was full afterward. I could barely walk the subway steps because I was so full. But it was good, so every once in a while it is ok to go crazy!

Their new place is allot bigger than the old one, but it is in Queens. I am over living in Queens. I am all about the easy manhattan commute and living (for now).

Outlook Extractor

by

I found a program (actually several) that allow me to extract mail from an Outlook PST file to different file formats. We had a need at work to do this, and I also had some uses for it. All the tools worked great, but I chose Outlook Extract 1.3.x. I can pull out entire messages, and attachments into txt and html files, while keeping Outlooks file structure. I can keep the attachments with the email or dump them into a folder someplace. I am now extracting mail out of bloated 2gig PST files. What is funny is that I thought lots of 1kb files would be larger on the disk than the one big PST store, but I was wrong. It looks like the individual messages take up less space on the disk!

I’m Back Home

by

I got home late last night, actually by the time I got to my apartment it was today. The flight home was uneventful. Jetblue is still aces in my book. I listened to music on my Powerbook for about 30 minutes and spent the rest of the flight watching the History & Sci-Fi channels. Mind numbing TV to calm the masses on long flights, hmm why didn’t anyone else think of that? Man it worked. I got ticked off every time the interrupted the TV to make an announcement. Who cares if we hit some chop, or a wing fell off, etc. I want to get back to my modern marvel’s, and this week in history!

I got to the airport early enough to catch some food. I like a flight when everything goes according to plan, and you have time to relax and not rush. I even caught a cab with less than 5 minutes wait to and from the airport. Why can’t all travel be like this.

I even unpacked already. That is a feat for me, since I normally leave the luggage sitting around for days (weeks) before I put it away and do laundry. I am so proud of myself!

Spa Day

by

I had time in the late morning so I got a spa appointment. I like a good Swedish massage. A real one, not one with a “happy ending” like everyone joked with me about this week. My back gets messed up sometimes, so it is good to loosen things up. I need to go more often. A bit of steam room action (inaction), a shower and a shave and I felt awesome for my flight home.

Whenever I hit Vegas I like to do at least one day at the spa. It is relaxing, especially before a 4 1/2 hour flight home. Now back to waiting for said flight to board!

Convention Close

by

Thursday was the last day of the convention. I missed one of the seminars I wanted to hit, and part of another to deal with a problem at work. I did learn a ton about DNS, and some other Cisco security tools at the seminars I made it to. Some of this stuff is so fascinating.

I hit the pool in the late afternoon. I didn’t get much sun. it was too hot. I ended up by the cafe by the pool for a quick snack, and some reading. it was very relaxing.

Thursday night we had the big Cisco convention party. It was cool. They rented out several rooms and the pool at the Palms. Hung out there with Joe for a while. We even played Halo. They were having a contest. Yes, Xbox at a convention party. it was a Cisco party!!! A bunch of tech guys and you need some sort of game. Joe was killing everyone we played. I was just getting killed. The top 18 players of the night (by highest stats of each 5 minute game played) would win an Xbox. When we left halfway through the party Joe had about 8 of the 16 slots taken up, so he should win a new Xbox to go allong with his other 2 that he has.

We met up with Karen at the Paris, and hung out at the lounge. This is where Jayson and Gretchen got really drunk at after their wedding (or so I am told). We had a few rounds and then we all went off to bed.

The New Razr

by

I bought a new Razr (Motorola V3 Razr) last week. After a week of issues with getting it shipped, the place I bought it from on eBay came through and dropped it to me via Fedex Saturday delivery. I guess they had issues getting the phone unlocked like the auction said. After a (minor) fit by me the guy got the new phone to me before my trip. I charged it up yesterday and I am now trying to use it as my main phone. The Treo is not going away just yet. Since I cannot find a palm with a good keyboard the Treo will remain at least as a PDA for a while. I also do find times where I like to put the SIM in it and use it instead of the Razr. I did that with my old Sony Ericsson T-610 for the past week and a half.

First impressions on the Razr is NICE! Besides the address book, I find the phone very nice. Slim, good sound quaility, nice screen, etc. It was trivial to sync with my Powerbook.

Like I said the only issue I have is the address book. I don’t like that it doesn’t have 1 contact for each person, with a sub section for each phone number. Instead it has a different entry for every phone number for every contact.

Setting up the Razr to be a wireless modem for my Powerbook was also simple. I found the scripts for the phone allong with some nice tips off of some guys blog and he was dead on.

A Good Steak

by

Wednesday night I went to a meet and greet for Cisco people interested in (or using) IPCC. I met some cool high level tech guys on the team from Cisco, the product manager, etc. I also had some important questions answered for me.

I met up with Pankaj, and we cut out of the meet and greet and hit Morton’s for dinner. I love a good steak. I also love a good steak 2 nights in a row. We had a few drinks waiting for some other people we were meeting up with. It was a good time. I even got to try the Godiva desert I missed the last time I was at Morton’s with Alison. It was fantastic.

I ended up back at the Paris and met up with Joe, Karen and Joe’s folks for drinks at the lounge. I didn’t drink more (i was pretty well off from the Morton’s alcohol) but I hung out with them for a while.

Poker Last Thursday

by

Thursday we played poker. I got luck (man did I make dangerous moves) and ended up winning big (for me). Dan won more than i. In the first hand I took all of Jon’s & Miguels money. We all went all in on the second dealt hand.

In the end I took allot from Jon and Miguel. Dan took some of his brothers money back from me, and I ended up quadrupling my investment in the game.

I did talk some smack. I am sorry for those affected, but it was mainly aimed at Jon, Dan & Miguel. Dan & Miguel is ok to talk smack to, and Jon is related to Dan so I guess it is ok too. Everyone else I was nice to! We had a good time. We didn’t’ play tournament style like we did last time. It was just cash in and cash out when you wanted.

Jon, & Miguel lost big. Dan won big. Cari, barely broke even. Danny said he drank his losses in beer. Jay lost a bit, and Manor didn’t do so well. Joey lost a bit, but not too bad. I think we all had a good time. There were some interesting hands, that is for sure.

Remote Problems

by

Tuesday I had to deal with problems while I was 2000+ miles and 3 time zones away. First we are having lingering issues with a mail server. No one can log into it locally but the email services are running. so for now we are in a wait and see state with it. we are making sure we have good backups of everything on the box before we mess with it more. Also Kai and I being away isn’t helping.

A reporting function of Zeacom failed again. The only solution is to reboot the system. This is what the brain trust at Zeacom support tells us. Rebooting that system is not without its own risks. Kai and I are the only ones who have rebooted it before. Brian will do it tonight, but it will be his first time. He has seen Kai do it so hopefully we have no issues.

We also had performance issues with Jabber and some other minor crap. I had to juggle this, Dan complaining of site performance issues and 4 lectures. it was a busy day. The problem with the site performance issues is we see nothing wrong on our end. Dan is just frustrated. Not sure what else we can do (from my end) right now. it is not like the local director is acting up again (thank goodness), that I can make a change and magically it is all better. that is what he is hoping for.

After Hours (for me) In Vegas

by

For dinner tonight I ended up back at the Paris to meet my friend Sean & his wife Kelly for dinner. I have mentioned Sean before (sunday for starters) but I don’t know if I every gave any history on him and Kelly. I went to college with Sean, and whenever I goto vegas it is good to see him. Don’t know Kelly as well as Sean, but she is really cool. We went to this french resteraunt in the Paris (go figure) that she likes. We all had fantastic steaks. All the deserts were also great. I had this flowerless chocolate cake. It was pricey, but good. I am now wired on the cappichino that I had. I almost never get desert, and even less frequently do I get coffee. And no I cannot spell Cappichino, and I hacked it so bad that the spell checker can’t even make a suggestion.

I had a great time, and I think they had fun too. We had to cut the night short since Kellys mom was watching their baby and had to get up early tomorrow. We might hook up again this week, but my schedule is getting kind of tight. I am supposed to do this user conferece and meet up with a Cisco engineer that I know for dinner tomorrow. Then thursday is the big closing party.

I made my spa appointment for friday. I decided that I am taking my poker winnings from last week and I am going to the spa. I will relax in the morning and early afternoon and then go right to the airport for my flight home. Hopefully the day will be as nice as I have planned it to be.