Little Italy

Tonight I went to little italy for dinner with Gretchen, Jayson, Jayson’s cousin and her friend. It was a nice night. We didn’t get to dinner until 10:30PM, I was hungry so that was bad. We hung out at Jay’s place for a while where the women were getting ready.

We had an awesome dinner at one of the 50 italian restaurants on mulberry street. I had veil parm. I don’t eat it that often so and it was really good. Some cheese cake and espresso after dinner and I cannot sleep right now. So I am up writing about the dinner. The ladies had a part tomorrow and it was raining so we ended up going home after dinner.

We ended up waiting for the subway for 30 minutes. After it turns midnight the subway start to suck in NYC. I don’t know how they can have any more “reduced service” they talk about if they have to cut the transit budget.

To make it to dinner I did have to have a butabital. I was getting a migraine head ache in the late afternoon. The one pill made me feel better, and it made me not drink. that saved me some $$$.

Now I need to goto sleep. I am just not tired, and it is almost 2AM. Tomorrow I am going to feel this…

Bye, Bye Pix 501

I bought a pix a while ago. I blogged about it. It is fantastic. I can tunnel into work, and setup multiple tunnels. The PDM is exactly like the 515’s we have at work. Unfortunately I am selling it on ebay. I probably shouldn’t have spent the money on it when I did, but that is not why I am selling it.

I don’t have time to play with it. I got it so I could continue to explore the Pix and setup some cool functions on it. I am finding I have no time to do any of that. I spent half my day off messing around with it yesterday. I did this by choice, and had a good time doing it, but I need to have my firewall/router at home to just work. Also the lack of wifi for me sucked. I didn’t buy a separate wifi point and I couldn’t use my old linksys 802.11g point/router with the pix.

I am actually unhappy about selling it, but it makes sense, but the Pix is still so cool…

Rules To My Blog

This post has been sitting around in my drafts for a while.

A few people has talked about finding stuff out on my blog. Their is a few ground rules that I keep telling everyone when they ask me about it.

1: I never, ever use last names. Come on, I know people can read this from anywhere. Only first names.

2: Don’t put in too much detail. If you don’t work with me and you read some entries you might go “what the hell is he talking about” Due to the nature of some of the stuff I do, I write some entries in such a way that you most likely wont have a clue what I am really talking about unless you have a frame of reference. You might think I am eluding to something, but I am ambiguous. That is the idea some of the time. Deal with it. On the other hand if you are at work or are a friend of mine, and you read something and “get it”, and ask how did I put that on the internet? You have to realize that most other people won’t “get it” so it is probably ok to write about. Remember this blog is more for me than for anyone else. Half the time you may be reading this and have no clue as to what I am talking about, or think I ramble on. That is true, deal with that also!

3: I am a very direct person. If someone does something and is a total ass to me I might not just write (person X was an ass today). This is published people, I will be politically correct, or reserved with my comments to keep things civil, if possible. if something/someone was awesome or did something cool, I will say so. I try not to be too negative.

4: No pictures of me on my site. Of me at least. I remember back in the day when people had a picture of themselves on their website. Not going to happen. I may have pictures of me on my photo blog, but nothing staring out at you when you read this blog.

5. Probably more to discuss but I think I covered the main points…

Why I Am Not Blogging

I predicted it. I said when I no longer spend an hour on the rail road each day I would be blogging less. Unfortunately it is true. I haven’t wrote an entry for almost 2 weeks. I still have plenty to say. I still like blogging, but I don’t want it to take up time when I could be doing something else. that was why train time was perfect.

I am now putting several drafts of things I would like to talk about into ecto (my blogging software) and writing about them when I have a chance. I have been really busy (always say that) recently with work and settling in after my move.

More soon…

Weekly Roundup

Friday a bunch of us went to this swanky bar down town. Nelson knew people there. It was very cool. I normally don’t goto bars that tell you that they are not letting in more single guys. Miguel and I got that line since we got there later than the rest of the group, but thankfully we knew people who got us in. Plan B, was to use the single girls we were with to use as dates, but it didn’t come to that.

Everyone had too much to drink. It was fun. Saturday, Cari, Gus, and I tried to hit the frog exhibit at the natural history museum. We got there too late (most of us were hung over) and didn’t want to wait for the exhibit times we could get. We ended up going to see the Manchurian candidate. it was good. I never saw the original.

Today I had to goto work (see previous post) then I got together with rich to hang out. he saw my new place and then we went to this irish pub nearby for dinner. We rented the school of rock on DVD. it was funny, but I am glad I didn’t see it in the movies. it wasn’t worth $10 good:)

Not using my laptop on the rail road is really slowing down my blogging. I figured this would happen, but I am still sad that I don’t get to write as much as I used to. Now when I do get time to write I am trying to cram so much stuff into a single post. Allot probably gets lost in the translation. I want to set aside time a few times a week to write. I have been so busy that it is hard.

Sean mentioned to me yesterday when I spoke to him that my website has been down for several weeks. Yes it has been down since I moved. It was up for a day then I took it down again. I don’t want to continue to self host the site. I don’t want the extra computer in my living room. I bought a hosting plan, but they didn’t offer IMAP mail service like they eluded to, so I gave up on that sweat hosting package. My friend Miguel will host my site for me but I haven’t setup the site on his server just yet. Once that is done I will move my site to that box. the only difference is that I have to watch my disk usage since his server is running low on space. For now my blog and photo blog are still up. I expect my site to be back in about a week or so.

My New Hosting Provider

I have been self hosting my website and email for several years now. I figure if I can manage websites and email servers for my company I can do it myself. Well it costs some money to make sure that my personal server at home is up and running. I pay for dynamic DNS (don’t have a static address) and I also pay to have backup mail catching (in case my mail server goes down) Both fee’s together are a bit of money, not allot but more than free.

I found a web hosting provider that gives me over a gig of storage for my site, over 400 email address’s and other great stuff all for under $10 a month. I just signed up for a 30 day trial. Paying a host may seem crazy if you do what I do, but it is only a little more than what I am paying to self host now, and I don’t have to worry about keeping my server up and running. Since I have moved, my site has been down since I have been too busy to deal with it. I got it up today, but I don’t want to leave the server plugged in.

Since my dynamic dns and mail storage contracts are up next month I figured now was the time to try out hosting again. a gig of space is double what I need right now. I think I can grow into that for a while. Also the provider I am trying out is a Cnet editors choice. I like Cnet so I will take their recommendation. Hopefully things work out. For now my blog will stay where it is.

Once I am settled into my new provider I will also clean up my site. I hope to play around with some more fireworks pages, or some flash. This is all time permitting.

The New iPod

After several months more than I had originally planned I have a new iPod to replace the one I sold way back in March/April. I got a new 40-gig model. it is nice. I was at the apple store for something else and saw they had the new models on sale earlier than I had thought so I got one. It is all charged up for the commute tomorrow.

I don’t like that it didn’t come with a case or a remote, but everything else about it is good so far. I gave it a little spin last night when I was doing my laundry, but the trip to work tomorrow will be its real test.

I also got a new 20″ Flat panel from the apple store. I needed a big screen to replace the screen I had on my iMac. I really missed the large wide screen flat screen. now that I sold the iMac I had to do something. It set me back a bit, but I had some cash from the iMac sale. So far the screen rocks. I plugged it into the powerbook and I was off. Now I need a DVI KVM so I can plug in my windows box to it. The only problem is most consumer DVI KVM’s or any KVM for that matter can only do 1600×1200 dpi. The flat panel does a little higher resolution than that. I am shopping around now.

iMac, Gone

I dropped my iMac off at the UPS store yesterday. It is on its way to its new owner cutisy of ebay. I really liked that computer but I decided I need to be mobile. So I am sticking with my Powerbook as my only Mac, and as my main computer now that the iMac is gone.

I will miss that computer but I am looking ahead to smaller more powerful portable stuff:)

First Week In Manhatten

So far I am loving living in manhattan. It has been easy to get around, and I am doing allot. The down side to that is easy getting around, and doing stuff costs allot. I need to budget my going out money.

Taking cabs will also be done on a limited basis. they are fast but costly. I am happy with my unlimited ride metro card. That should get me around most places.

Tuesday a bunch of us went to dinner at old town tavern. I cut out after dinner but everyone else went to see Faranhight 9/11. I refuse to see another Mike Moore movie. That doesn’t mean I am a republican though!

Wednsday Jayson and I hit outback. I ate so much I could barely walk to the train.

Saturday Jayson and I went shopping, and hung out at both my place and his. I went to bed bath and beyond and got some bathroom stuff and cleaning supplies. I now can take a normal shower with a new shower head. We also went to the apple store, but see a different post for that information.

Today I hung out and cleaned. Then I meet up with my family for my mom’s birthday dinner.

iMac Is Packed And Ready To Go

I am moving fast before I change my mind. I have wiped the hard drive and restored it to the factory defaults. I then boxed it up and took pictures of it for ebay. Now I have to post an auction and sell it before I have second thoughts. I am working off my Powerbook as my main computer for now. My Server and desktop PC’s are still not unpacked.

For now the plan is to sell the iMac and possibly buy a nice 20″ or 23″ flat screen and plug my Powerbook and desktop into it. Or I may just get a bigger powerbook with the 15″ screen. I know I had one 2 years ago, but I am not sure what I want. I love my little powerbook, but it does not have a DVD burner, and it is not super fast. if I am going to use it as my main machine I need more out of it. Especially the hard drive. Even with an external firewire drive, the internal 40 gig drive just wont cut it.

For now I will stay with the 12″ until I sell the iMac.