Life, Kids, Technology & that move to another continent
scott I am not able to sleep. I am going to try and lie down in a few minutes. I know I won’t be able to get up for work on time if I don’t get some sleep soon. I hate not being able to sleep. I have been having issues for the past week and half or more.
Must try….
I have taken the plunge. I have left my cushy free hosting provider. My friend had a problem with his linux server. I almost lost 2 months worth of posts. That was a big scare, but not the reason I moved. In the end Gus got the box up and I was able to backup my stuff. If I didn’t have a backup that was my fault anyway.
Gus now has to rebuild that box at some point. I will be down for that. That was a motivating factor in my decision. The simple fact is I have been eyeing a different solution for my blog for some time. I actually am now trying out SixApart’s (If you are from mars, they make MoveableType) Typepad. Typepad is a pay service, but they offer more functionality than the free moveabletype. Most of my website now consists of just my blog entries, so I am trying the free trial out. Then if I like it I will fork over the nine bucks or so a month for the hosting.
The one problem I have run into is the fact that I cannot get blog.Scott.ac to resolve to the new typepad site. Turns out they offer domain aliasing but only for www.sitename.com, not somethingelse.sitename.com. I am going to email them and see if they can get this to work. I don’t want to redirect my entire site to my blog. If I cannot get typepad to resolve blog.Scott.ac, then I will loose all my links and people wont find the site. Not that many people view it, but it will be annoying.
I am trying out a new look on the Typepad site. Not as out there as the yellow and black look of the old site. Let me know what you think.
I had a good time at the company picnic on Sunday. We had it in upstate NY. The company rented a bus and brought the NYC people up there. We had a good time. The place was very nice. They had a lake, a pool and lots of open land.
Our NYC softball team played the Kingston people in a game. It was fun. I got really sore from running. I didn’t even run that much, but I am out of shape. I didn’t realize how out of shape until I ran that little and could barely walk afterward.
It was a nice day. it was not too hot out. I got to jump in the bouncy gym by myself. I didn’t get egg on me from the egg toss. And I ate allot of BBQ hamburgers and hot dogs.
I got a lift home with Glenn instead of taking the bus back to the office. Got dropped off a block from my place. Not bad.
We saw Heath perform at the Inprov NY comedy club tonight. I have never seen his act before. I lived in queens and never wanted to stay in the city so late to see the act. I was missing out. He was very funny. A bit raunchy, but it was very funny. Since it was allot of up and coming comedian’s some (half or more) weren’t that good. The others like Heath were very funny. Was it worth the money I spent? Probiby, since we all had a good time. Next comedy club we hit is Dangerfields.
Earlier in the day I headed out to Macy’s in Herald Square. I needed to get some shopping done. I wanted to go before the RNC convention starts Monday. I am avoiding that area all week. Got some work clothes and some hanging out stuff.
I am hearing that Union Square will be the protest central next week. That is good news for the RNC in Madison Square Garden, but not good for me who works right by Union Square. We don’t know how bad it will be, but I heard 250,000 people protesting down there. I have been to Union Square countless times, and I don’t know where they are putting a quarter million people. it is a big place, but I don’t think it is that big. If it is bad monday, I am working from home tuesday.
I have to go pack for the Company picnic tomorrow…
A few weeks ago Jayson showed up to work with a small fish tank. He proceeded to buy a yellow clown fish and put it in the tank. he said it was to liven the office up. Fast forward 2-3 weeks and we now have a 10 gallon tank sitting on the dresser behind my desk. We have a shrimp we call Ralph. We have Krusty the clown fish. our never named green fish didn’t make it, but we don’t speak of him.
We are trying to get a lobster, but Petco keeps being out of stock on them. Jay is calling Gretchen’s cousin who can ship us a purple lobster. We are still learning the perils of a salt water tank. It is the talk of the office. People keep coming over to look at the fish. it is really funny. Gus wants to get a tray of butter and put it next to the tank to show the shrimp his fate if he doesn’t behave.
So no last minute vacation for me. It just didn’t seem in the cards. My traveling companion and I never got to a consensus on where to go or what to do. I think he is going anyway, but it was just too last minute for me to eak out a vacation.
I am now looking to do something short in the middle of September. Hopefully with a week off somewhere in October or November.
More news about that as it develops.
Air conditioning issues seem to follow me. My AC in my bedroom has been flaking for several weeks. It works, but barely. Then it makes loud noises, and just run’s loud. That was until last week. I called for the second time to have it serviced. Now it seems to keep the room nice and cold. I am happy.
Now all I need to do is get my living room unit to get the place a bit cooler. That may be asking too much.
At least work is cool, and comfy now. It hasn’t been really hot recently but the AC is at least working. 3 years of hardship may actually be over, but I am not an optimist most of the time!!!
I spent most of the day today with my niece Morgan. My sister had tickets to a concert so I baby sat and my parents came over. We all went to dinner and then I watched her till my sister and brother in law got back from the concert. That kid is so much fun to be with. She just finds new ways to crack me up.
I am not so happy about being alone with Morgan. I am always afraid I will break her in some way. What if she cries and I can’t make her stop crying? What if I don’t understand what she is asking for? If she was older it would be easer. I am just being nervous, I know. Either way I still have fun with her, but I am just nervous when no one else is around that she will be ok. She went to bed relatively quick. She was not happy about sleep time, but once she was down she fell right to sleep.
Mike and my sister just came to get her. I am now off to sleep myself. Man it is getting late…
It is ironic that I wrote good things about T-Mobile customer service the other day. Gizmodo wrote very negative things about the same group of T-Mobile Customer Service people. I read that site all the time, and I can totally see what he wrote about happening. I have had bad experiences with plenty of companies. It just goes to show you that two people can have totally different experiences with the same company. It is and will always be the people that make a company good or bad.
I for one had a billing problem for 3 months early this year. After several calls they finally fixed the issue. Twice T-Mobile said it was fixed, and then was not. To my credit I keep dates, customer service rep id #’s and one line summaries of what we discuss. I know it sounds like over kill, but at work I have had problems I was working through and if I didn’t have data like that I would have been screwed. I take that lesson learned and have applied it for personal use. it has worked for me. But even then it took months to fix the problem. The difference was the problem I had was in fact fixed, and during the period of time the billing issue went on, I got credits each month for the mistake.
Last night I went out and checked out the NYC bar scene. I met up with Gus & Vjay. We went to several places in SOHO, and the meat packing district. I honestly don’t remember the name of any of the places we went to. I normally don’t do the late night bar scene. It is fun, but I usually can’t stay awake on an 8 hour bar hopping binge. I have a good time, but I hurt the next day. I need my sleep. I normally get afraid that I will get a migraine if I stay up till 4 or 5AM. Today that fear rang true. I had to take 2 butabital’s throughout the day, but at least I was able to function.
The bar’s were cool. We went to a mix of places. From the nice old fashioned pub that was relatively quiet, to the swanky and busy club/bar’s. I am more a pub kind of guy, but I appreciate the fact that there are plenty of beautiful women at the clubs.
I got home at like 3AM, but realized I had voice mail from work regarding a problem. I ended up on the phone till 4AM with remote hands restarting a server. I slept till noon today.
All in all a fun night, but not something I would do every weekend.