scott

Day Off

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I took a personal day today. I wasn’t sure if the strike would continue and I didn’t want to deal with the commute so my plan since Tuesday was to take today off. Turns out the strike ended, and my company gave everyone in our office the day off anyway. It was nice. At least I didn’t use up my personal days.

I ended up at the office anyway. I had to ship out my sold powerbook. it is easier to do that from the office than at home. I also got some shopping done. I got cards for everyone that I needed to, and went to the bank.

I meet up with Jayson at night and we went to Compusa to get IDE disk enclosures. We both have internal drives that we can’t use now that we have laptops and use Mac’s. I got a IDE disk enclosure for like $45. It works great so far. USB 2.0. I just plugged in my drive and formatted it. Unlike the other one I got before the summer this one does not have a fan so I don’t have to worry about the bearings burning out like the old one did. I will go back next week and get another of these cases to replace the old broken one. I should say it is not broken. It does work, but when running it makes an awful sound.

Strike Notes

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Since a friend emailed me and asked how the walking due to the strike was, I decided to write my little story of what happened. On the first day of the “work stoppage” I missed my ride since I worked late the night before. I ended up trying to take a cab down to my office. I got a cab rather quick but 35 minutes later we had moved less than 20 blocks. It was a mess. When people were walking faster than we were driving I decided to get out of the cab and walk. By this time I was in the mid 70’s (or 60’s I forget). It was dam cold. I ended up walking till the mid 30’s and then I broke down and caught another cab and rode the rest of the way to work. Surprisingly the roads cleared up by grand central station so the 2nd cab got me to work really quick.

I ended up at work by 11AM. Almost no one in my group made it in. That sucked since the powers that be wanted as many people in as they could get. I ended up getting a ride home. it took us an hour and forty five minutes to drive uptown. This trip normally takes me 20-30 minutes on a normal day.

Yesterday (Wednesday) it took an hour to get in. The roads all sucked. I got another ride. I got smart and packed a bag so I could crash at a friends who lived 10 blocks or so from work. Good call since the roads sucked last night. Because of my friends bad back we took a cab to his place even-though it was so close to work. I could have gotten there faster by walking. The traffic was horrible. People giving other people rides home from my office didn’t get home till like 9PM.

I slept and my friends and walked to the office this morning. The strike was over by mid afternoon but since nothing was up and running yet I decided to attempt to walk home. 3rd Ave. was packed till 59th street (i should have stayed on park or madison). I tried catching a cab after 59 (before then wasn’t worth it since I could out-walk most traffic). I had my ipod on and it wasn’t that cold (at first). After 59th street I couldn’t catch a cab until somewhere in the 70’s. I could probably have walked the rest of the way home, but by then I was so tired I paid the $10 since I felt like I couldn’t walk another 5 feet.

I am home now resting. I need to go back to work tomorrow (even though I took off and then was given off for the day) and pick up my overnight bag I left there since I didn’t want to carry it back uptown on foot. Lets hope the rest of the holiday weekend is less eventful.

We Don’t Negotiate With Terrorists

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So the MTA workers have struck in NYC. That means the dreaded telecommute for me! Since I rely on the subway to get anywhere I am rather ticked off. But what pisses me off the most is the reasons why the union is striking. I am not the hugest fan of unions in general, and this strike reiterates my issues about them. Forget my specific issues with the unions contract. I just want to know why if you have a group of people who refuse to work for the conditions (reasonable conditions) set by the employer, that you cannot replace them with people who will? Seriously, if you were a corporate worker somewhere without a union and you said I am striking until I get a better contact you would be replaced right away. I am curious to know any non union workers who would have a job if they decided to not show up for 2 days because they wanted better benefits?

And lets talk about benefits. Back in the day (early 1900’s) unions were necessary. Without them people where exploited. Is the MTA exploiting the union members now by asking them to contribute 1% to their health benefits? I don’t know what % I contribute to my health insurance but I know it is allot more than 1%. Also where can you work that you can demand a guaranteed raise of 8% a year for 3 years for everyone? What ever happened to you do well and you get a raise?

You have a group of 30,000 people holding a city hostage. They have cost innocent people hundreds of millions of dollars because they think they are entitled to a better contract. Well wake up TWU, several other unions have been operating without a contract for a while. They don’t strike and cost others not involved in the situation money. The mayor was right, your leadership is a bunch of ignorant thugs. I feel bad for the union workers caught in the middle, because yes they too are caught in the middle of all this.

I do have to say I am thankful that the governor and mayor didn’t cave into demands. TWU, if you act like terrorists we treat you like them. We don’t negotiate with people holding cities hostage!!!

Dinner With The Family

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I hung out most of the day today. In the late afternoon I went over to my sisters and meet up with her mike, and morgan to go over to my parents neighborhood for dinner with the folks. We went to a decent italian restaurant for dinner. We had a good night, I got to see everyone (especially my most favorite only niece). She gave me a drawing (well she was kind of arm twisted into it, she wanted to give it to her nanny. I am not upset since I know my place in her world!) that now decorates my refrigerator door.

After dinner I had an uneventful trip home. A nice end to a decent weekend!

Real Checks

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Yesterday I had to deposit a real pay check. At first I didn’t know what to do! I have had direct deposit for like 4 years. Well seriously I knew what to do, but it quickly came back to me how annoying it was to goto the bank every few weeks with a check. I am switching banks (more on that later) so I needed to have 1 paper check so my employers payroll company could send a test EFT to the new bank. I will be back to the land of automatic payments in a few weeks.

The good news is my company started recently direct deposit expense checks. My last place I worked did that. It made life really easy. No need to goto the bank for almost any deposits:).

Road Trip

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I took a work road trip today. Had to meet some people in our other office and several other people had other missions up there so we rented a van and drove up. Got allot done, and we tried to avoid the traffic from some storm that was coming up the coast. We didn’t really avoid the traffic. Got stuck in it from the GWB all the way to my house. I assume that everyone was stuck in it past that too.

After work I hopped out of the van by my house but instead of going home I hoped on the subway and went to heartland brewery to meet Jayson and John for dinner and drinks. I had fun. We talked and hung out. We need to schedule another poker night.

Powerbook 12″ Mark 4

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I now am the proud user (not really owner) of a brand new Apple Powerbook 12″. My old one cleaned up and on ebay as we speak. I was thinking about upgrading for a few months. I didn’t need to since my old one is barely 6 months old, but I was feeling the lack of hard drive space. I can fill a 60gig drive really quick. So when the opportunity to upgrade to a new Powerbook (and give up my windows laptop at the same time) came up I jumped at the chance. I was using my windows laptop less and less, and if work was willing to get me a mac (and lets face it I was using my personal laptop as my work laptop for a while) I was going to take the offer. And I saved the company a ton of money by because getting a new windows box would be hundreds of $$$ more than the powerbook cost. Win win.

The only down side was I just wiped my old powerbook and reinstalled everything like 2 weeks ago. So I had to do it twice in a month. I am gettng good at it though! And yes you read the title correctly. I have gone through 4 versions of the 12″ powerbook. I also had 1 15″ before the 12″ came out but that was way too big for me. The first 2 twelve inch powerbooks were bought by people I know and they have nice homes now. The third one is on ebay since no one I know wanted to get it. It had a bunch of people interested but no one was ready for a new machine so a stranger will be very happy with their purchase!

Man Shopping

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Today I took the day off and went man shopping with my dad. Man shopping you ask? Well you will get the picture in a minute.

I got up normal time I would for work and headed out to my parents place. My dad picked me up at the end of the 7 line. We headed over to “the dinner” for some breakfast. Nothing says lets go man shopping like eggs, greasy hash browns, sausage, bacon, buttery toast (some whole grain toast, my dads only concession), cheese, and 5 units of insulin (not for me). When we were full we headed out to the mall, Roosevelt Field if you are keeping score at home.

We were actually shopping before 11AM. Even in a holiday time like now, you can expect little or no crowds at 11AM on a Friday. We hit the Verizon store to setup 2 new cell phones for my parents and transfer numbers from their old provider, 20 minutes. I was amazed that when we walked out of the store the numbers where already ported over. It took me a week and 7 phone calls when I did it. Next we hit the Apple store to just look. I didn’t find any cases for my new iPod so we didn’t buy anything. My dad liked the 30″ cinema display.

Next we were off to Best Buy to get a new PDA for my dad. This man shopping trip was for him, not me. We have been planning on doing this for months, so we had a list. He ended up going with the Palm Tungsten E2. Nice color screen but simple since he does not need tons of frills. He loved the screen on it.

After that we went to the La-Z-Boy store. He wanted a recliner. We spent the most time in this store. Most of it was lying in several chairs. We had to test them to make sure he was picking the right one. He found a nice comfy one in black leather. We paid and we were done with everything in under two hours. Now that is what I call man shopping!

I then went back with him to his house to move him to his new “temporary” computer. That took a few hours. Then we went to eat by my sisters to see her and morgan. My mom staid home since she was not feeling well. All in all a productive day (for him). I got not much done for me, but I had fun.

iPod 60Gig

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I took the plunge. I went to the Apple store and Kai and I both got a new 60gig iPod. My old 40gig (non color) iPod is being cleaned up for resale to someone. I didn’t get the new one for the video functions, but that was a benefit. I got the new iPod because it is supposed to have great battery life, it is slimmer than the old one, and it FINALLY comes in black. And of course the main reason to upgrade is the fact that it is 60GIG’s. I actually use the thing as a portable hard drive so I was running out of space on the 40gig. The color and video are nice extra’s (maybe even the final extra little feature that got me to buy it) but they are not the main reasons.

So far I am not happy that there was 1 type of case available for this model iPod at the apple store. What gives with that apple? So I am stuck with this really pathetic case they give you. Another, what is up apple? For $399 you can give me a better case than this. A cradle would be nice, but my old cradle works so I am not happy. The only other complaint I have is the fact that my nifty wired remote no longer works since apple decided to change the physical inputs. What gives there? Did you guys sit down and ask what good feature can we take away to piss off customers?

Yes I am griping. Why? Because I spent allot of money on a portable music player, and I expect to get my moneys worth. In general I am happy so far with my new pod, but it could be better! And yes in my book it is still the best out there!

Anniversary

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Today is my 4 year (full time) anniversary at my current company. In some ways it doesn’t feel like 4 years, and in others it feels like I have been there for ages. it is weird looking back. I really have been working at the same company for 5 years coming up in July. Or 5 years in March starting off at the original company that provided support for my current place. It was a rather complicated situation. In any event it is 4 years to the date that I stopped being a contractor and started my full time stint.

On most days I am happy and don’t even think about leaving. That is a big step for me since before this place I never stayed anywhere more than 2 years (nor did I want to). I say on most days because this has been a rough week. Things are settling down, but I had high stress levels dealing with some people.