Month: April 2009

Thursday NJ Day

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Today was my day to goto the NJ office. It was a long day as usual. Lots of meetings. Went to Uno’s for lunch with a few guys. Then more meetings. An issue came up late in the day so there was allot of pacing in a conference room as I talked on the phone. I pace when I talk on the phone for some reason. Then there was another conference call while I was on the bus going home. I became “that guy” and was on my blackberry for about 30-40 minutes on the bus. I never like it when people do it, but it was for work. At least it wasn’t someone yammering about so petty personal thing that no one needs to hear. I actually had stuff that needed to get done. Oh man, now I am justifying being that guy!

I was planning on going to dinner or bringing something home to eat, but since I went to lunch I wasn’t that hungry. I just came home and microwaved something. What fun.

Mixed Friday

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Friday was a work from home day for me. The day would be classified in the normal category. Crazy things went on, but nothing out of what I would consider normal for a day. After work I meet up with Luke, Mike, & others at Blaggards to hang out. Unfortunately the night got cut short around 9PM when I had to go home for a problem at work. I didn’t get to bed till around 2AM because of the commotion. That is not they way I want to end a week. In the end everything was fine, but the excitement can be hectic. Even with the late night adventures at work the day and evening was mostly good. I had a good time with friends for a few hours so I can’t complain!

Unfortunately now my sleep pattern is all messed up for the weekend! I am trying to relax so the bad night of sleep doesn’t turn into a migraine.

Trip To NJ Thursday

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Today is the normal day that I have scheduled myself to goto our NJ office to spend time with the majority of my team. Now that the office they are in has been renovated they are all back in the office instead of working remotely part of the time. It isn’t practicle to have them come to NYC anymore so I goto NJ. The trip is not the most fun I have had getting to work, but it is still better than the trip I had to take to goto Kingston when I was at Partsearch. That was a crazy day.

In order to make it to NJ I do need to get up 2 hours earlier than I normally would. And the commute is long. In the morning it is about an hour and a half depending on traffic. Going home it is over 2 hours door to door. I almost didn’t make it today. The 7 train stopped running due to a mechanical problem with a train, so it stopped at 5th ave station. I had to walk to Port Authority to catch my bus. That typically would be fine, it is only a few avenues but I was on a tight schedule and if I missed the bus I was aiming for it would mess the whole day up. The whole situation aggravated me since I missed catching an earlier 7 train by 2 seconds (literally the doors closed in my face) and that train would have gotten me to Time Square since it was in front of the one that I was on that got stuck at 5th ave. But I digress. I was able to make it to the bus with minutes to spare.

The rest of the trip was uneventful. The day however was full of excitement. We had an issue during the day that kinda messed up my meeting schedule, but issues and emergencies kinda trump typical scheduled stuff. With the excitement out of the way I had a semi normal afternoon before running out to catch the bus going home. The past few return trips from NJ have been bad since I have gotten dropped of on the street far away from Port Authority. It seems if you get a bus stuck on the line into the terminal it can take an hour to go from the 30’s on 10th to the terminal. Thankfully this bus got out of the tunnel via a different exit and it only took like 20 minutes to go 2 blocks (yeah this is why I don’t like bus’s) to the terminal. I was home in around 2 hours 10 minutes door to door. Not great, but not horrible. I stayed in after that because I was just tired. Thankfully tomorrow is a work from home day.

I will say that my issues with the iPhone as a phone aside, I would probably go crazy without it on the bus. I am able to listen to music, watch some podcast’s, read the news on the internet, or just watch my location slowly move on google maps. It helps pass the time!

Lobster Tails

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Today I tried to cook up some lobster tails for the first time. I had a big pot for steaming so I decided to pick up 2 fresh tails at the store. I also picked up a small Sword Fish steak just in case the tails weren’t filling enough. I called my dad for cooking advise an after getting the steaming 101 class on the phone I was off preparing my meal. I think I started off with the flame too low since steaming up the first tail took longer than my dad said it should and it wasn’t fully cooked. I had to put it back in. I cooked one as a test and then tried the second one. In the end one of the tails was a bit over cooked and the other one was perfect. Since neither of them had the shell seamed it was an effort getting the meat out. The verdict was the lobster tails were very tasty but not worth the almost $10 a tail. I was still hungry and they weren’t filling at all. I ended up cooking the Sword Fish on the George Formal Grill. It was really good even though I had the same thing last night. I hadn’t had it in a while so it was still good!

The day was uneventful otherwise.

Xmarks

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For years I tried (and generally succeeded) to use the same computer at home and at work. At my current job I have a company laptop that is different than my home computer. This presented a problem with managing my browser bookmarks that I hadn’t had in years. I also need to use Internet Explorer for work stuff but I like to use Firefox whenever I can. Switching between the two setups was a bit frustrating. I recently downloaded Xmarks. It solved the issue of syncing bookmarks between browsers and computers. I liked how easy it was to setup and use I already have it on all my computers. I am liking web sites / applications that let me take my data with me on whatever computer I want and everything is synced up!

Security Overkill

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I love reading articles from Bruce Schneier. I have read Secrets & Lies, and I am in the process of reading Beyond Fear on my Kindle now. He explains security and security concepts for computers and in the real world in a fascinating way. He also points out the absurity of some of the security practices that we see today. I love this article he pointed to that I read tonight. This isn’t the first time I have read articles about some of the absurd rules regarding calling in suspicious activity or banning taking of photos. My personal favorite was the news regarding Amtrak Police arresting a contestant in their own photo taking contest! As someone who a) deals with real world security and b) someone who likes taking photos of trains and planes this is really disturbing.

Beer Garden Monday

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Went to the Beer Garden in Astoria last night. Mike and co bailed out at the last minute but I ended up going with Jenn. Some of her friends meet up with is later. Apparently all these people worked in the same building as me for over a year and I never meet them (or don’t remember). Jenn works with Mike and hangs out at the same bar as I do and apparently I have meet all these people before but can’t recall. Such a small world.

In any event I was happy to meet new people, and goto the Beer Garden on a fantastic night. It was truly amazing out. I had a few drinks, some food, hung out and talked with some new people. It was a great night. Too bad it was a Monday!

Technical Support

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I just read this article I saw from Digg. It discusses Why Technical Support Sucks. Having worked on a help-desk (never a call center but internal support for a company), and provided technology support and infrastructure for a Call Center, I can say that allot of the facts are dead on in the article. I have seen some games just like they described go one with regards to ghost calls, etc. It is sad but a reality of the call center world. I thought the article was dead on and entertaining! I wish it wasn’t so brutally true:(

The Day For Cleaning

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Depending on how you looked at it today was either a day of relaxing at home or a day of cleaning. On one hand I lounged around today, and didn’t go out, slept late and watched most off the remaining good crap on my Tivo. I also did some senseless updating of my iTunes library. Now most of the music I listen too now has album art!

On the flip side I spent the other part of the day doing two loads of laundry. Cleaning out part of my closet, and tidying up the apartment. So in some ways the day was actually very productive, and in others a total veg fest. To me that makes it the perfect Sunday!

Observe and Report

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Went to see Observe and Report with Danny tonight. That movie was disturbing. That being said, it was also funny so overall I liked it. After the movie we headed over to The Heartland Brewery for dinner. I stuck with one Obon scotch and no other drinks. I am still recovering from my cold.

The weather today was fantastic. I brought a jacket thinking that it would get cold at night. Leaving for the subway after dinner it was still nice enough out that I didn’t need it. Go figure. All and all a nice relaxing day, even if I didn’t do any of the shopping I had wanted to!