Lost Technology

I got my dad a 512meg USB memory card when he got his new computer. I warned him about loosing it since it is so small. He laughed and said don’t worry about it. Well it is lost. My mom probably threw it out with the trash, but it is gone. I just got the replacement one for him and I hope that he doesn’t loose this one. I have to go over there in a while to give him the new card, and to see what is wrong with his computer. His Treo 300 crashes his new computer when he tries to sync it. I think one of his medical programs is screwing things up. I will find out soon enough.

Then it is card buying and maybe dinner with my sister. We shall see…

This entry was written while listening to High On You from the album “Greatest Hits” by Survivor

It Was Cold, But Fun

I had a really good time in manhattan last night. It was dam cold, but it was fun. Went to a really great steak house. Keen’s. It was as good as I was told. Thanks Gus & Tori for the advise. Vindigo wasn’t too helpful about review, but Zagat’s on the Palm rocked. My Vindigo subscription is up, and I am thinking of dropping them for the Zagat’s online subscription. it is more, but I think it may be better.

We saw the tree. It was as cool as I remember it. The ice skating line was huge, so I am glad we decided not to do that. That is a day unto itself.

Went to FAO, and I found out that the store is closing. I knew they were having financial problems but I didn’t think they would close there flagship store. The everything in the store is on sale signs gave away the closing.

While at FAO I saw the really big stuffed animal I wanted to get morgan when she was born. It was awesome. It was also HUGE. My sister would have killed me if I got that thing. Glad I didn’t.

Note to self. I need new leather gloves, mittens, or any other hand covering device!!!

This entry was written while listening to The Great Beyond by REM

AT&T Wireless Is Gone

After several false starts I was finally able to cancel my AT&T Wireless account yesterday. It was just over a year so I didn’t pay the dam early termination fee. Thankfully everything worked out. I got my number over to T-Mobile, and I don’t have that dam AT&T service anymore. They asked why I was leaving and I just laughed at them. I told them for one thing the estimated 10 minute hold I was told about was 45 minutes. I am just thankful that I am not using them anymore. Now it is time to Ebay my T-68i.

Shopping In The City

I am off to spend the day in manhattan. It is cold, and I am probably stupid for doing it, but I am off anyway. Going to see the tree. If you don’t know which tree, you don’t live in NYC. Then maybe the coolest toy store in the universe, FAO. I have nightmares about the dam song they play there, but it is still really cool.

The hard part is finding parking at the LIRR…

This entry was written while listening to Long, Long Way To Go from the album “X” by Def Leppard

Friday With Friends

Friday I still felt like crap. I am getting these mild head aches. I say mild because I take the medication since I am afraid they will become full fledge migraines, and then the medication work and I just feel lousy for the rest of the day. I almost turned down plans to goto Amanda & Rich’s for dinner. Glad I didn’t. As always I had a good time. We ordered pizza and watched movies. Nice and low key. We saw 8 crazy nights and some other stuff. They are off next week to portland so they wanted to hang out.

I took a furiset at like 4:30, but didn’t really feel better until I drank a bottle of water around 7. Amanda gives great advise, even though she doesn’t listen to some herself sometimes. Amanda, if you are reading this chill about your friend. She is a freak, ignore her! Not worth your effort to worry.

Don’t know how they can drive 5+ hours to portland but they do.

I actually got out of work at 5ish also. I stopped by Gus and told him I was taking off early and he was like, yeah so am i. And we left.

Allot of people are out next week due to the holiday. I am in, but it should be a low key week since everyone else is out. Or so I keep telling myself that.

This entry was written while listening to Breakfast At Tiffanys by Deep Blue Something

Projects Updates

Finally put into service our first Windows 2003 Active Directory server. I demoted an old 2000 box and transfered its roles to the new server.

Started redirecting call center users in NYC to our new mail server we are using for our Kingston office. The end goal is to have the entire call center on that mail system. Once I get all the alias’s and accounts done I can just delete the old mail accounts and tell everyone they have a new email address. It is a slow process since I need to edit everyones profile when they are not at work. I did about 10 people in 2 days. this rate it will take me a month to get everyone cut over.

We upgrade our Pix firewalls next tuesday to enable us to use a VPN tunnel to send large amounts of VOIP calls between offices. when I mean large amounts I mean more than the 2-3 we can now. Probably like 20 at a time on a dedicated internet T-1.

Other things going on are the guys in Kingston are working on Cisco Softphone setup’s to allow remote agents for our call center. Or to allow us to use the phones from outside the office on our laptops. Also in the works is the ability to move your phone number between desk phones if you need to.

The Company Holiday Party

Yesterday was my companies holiday party. I unfortunately didn’t go. I wasn’t feeling well yesterday and migraines don’t care that a party is planned. That was 2 days in row for migraines for me. not good.

It was suggested that I need to be at the party, but I just couldn’t make it. I ended up leaving work at 4PM. I figured I was up for one of the company awards they do at these events. I was up for one last year, but didn’t win. I figured if Gus was telling me it was a good idea to show up, that I was going to win something. I won the award for most savings to the company. To us that is a big thing. it is one of 3 or 4 awards. I got some Champaign. Supposed to be really good champaign, but I don’t drink the bubbly. My sister already offered to take it off my hands. I will save it for a special occasion.

I await the video to see how everyone acted crazy at the party. The didn’t allow hard booze this party since one we had in June had allot of people getting really drunk off of many shots.

From what I hear many people bailed on the party this year. Keith had to pack and didn’t go. Glenn our CEO was a no show because he threw his back out earlier in the day.

In any event it was supposed to be a load of fun. We do know how to have a good time when work stops…

This entry was written while listening to American Girl by Everclear

iTunes Rocks

So I bought some more music on the iTunes store. I am not a huge fan of buying music, but getting it online from apple is flexible (i can burn to disk and use the files anywhere I want, unlike other services) and it is cheaper than buying a CD. I got Barenaked Ladies latest CD. You may have seen some of the songs listed as what I was listening to when writing this blog. It is a decent album. I found 2 songs I liked, but I think there last one (or was it 2 albums ago) was better. They are a band I would like to see in concert. Their music is funny, and they make good music.

This entry was written while listening to California from the album “Rip It Off” by Stroke 9

Lazy Day And Hardware Upgrades

Today was a lazy day. I caught up on what I had on the Tivo. I also did some email and just hung out. I did some food shopping since they say it may snow tomorrow. I had no food left, so I figured it was a good time to do that.

I also installed 512 more megs in my new 20″ iMac. Now I have 768 megs in it. I can put a full gig in it, but apple decided to only include 256 with them machine. If I want to get a full gig, I need to remove that 256 and put a 512 meg chip in its place. The only problem is you cannot get to that memory without going to an authorized repair center. It is sealed within the machine. The other slot is not. So for now I am at 768 megs, it should be enough for now. I also put my airport extreme card into the mac. I don’t have the laptop anymore so I figured I would use it. Since my server is in the closet on wireless, I get no extra speed by leaving the mac wired to my 100megabit switch. I cannot transfer files between the desktop and server any faster than the wifi anyway. Now I just have 1 less wire plugged into the iMac.

In my free time I also imported most of my online photo album into iPhoto. Photos imported allot faster on the iMac then they did on either of my Powerbooks. I need to get photos from my parents to scan and increase my album a bit.

Also today I watched some DVD’s. I just got 2 more shows on DVD. I got Firefly on DVD. It was a scifi show that didn’t last too long on tv. It was actually very good, and I was surprised when it came out on DVD. I didn’t watch too many of them, so I decided to buy it. I also got Buffy season 5. I mocked that show for years, and then Rich gave me season 1 to watch and I actually liked it. Go figure.

This entry was written while listening to Maybe Katie from the album “Everything to Everyone” by Barenaked Ladies

Friday

Friday was a good day. Work was crazy since justin isn’t around, but Keith and I got by. We had to move 5 people’s desks to get ready for a new guy starting monday. We got 3 of them done, and will do the rest Monday. Keith got the brunt of the grunt work. I had to deal with some Kingston issues, 2 meetings, admin work, and I had to free up disk space on our main file server. All while trying to build a new desktop for the new hire and help keith with some of the moves. It was a busy day.

Friday night the president of our company had a holiday party at his house in Jersey. I didn’t go. It is a really long trip, and I had other plans. Last year I got stuck setting up a wireless network in his house.

I ended up going to a pretty decent italian restaurant for dinner. It was nice. Didn’t know what to do after dinner, so we ended up bowling of all things. It turned out to be a load of fun.