Today started early with a network circuit outage, and closed the day with another network circuit outage. All told i think we had three distinct circuits go on the fritz. We had backups, but one needed to be manually switched and the outages caused us to stop everything and work on the problems. It was a long tiring day. I passed up going out for my dad’s birthday because i was so tired and i had a minor head ache.
Please Pass The Crazy Pills!
I received my lease renewal paperwork in the mail this week. I knew my rent was going to go up, but someone must be on some really happy pills if they think that i will pay a 14% increase in my already overpriced rent for another year. I couldn’t stop laughing because someone was serious when they mailed this paper to me. I like my apartment, and i like my neighborhood, but it isn’t worth the price anymore. Especially now that i have a new job and it is no where as easy to get to work as it used to be.
I have already begun looking for apartments in Queens for significantly less money. I am trolling Craigslist for ad’s. Hopefully i will find something soon.
Technorati Tags: apartment hunting, NYC Rent
Shrek #3
Other than selling my extra monitor today, I went to see the 3rd Shrek movie with Danny and Starr. It was really funny. Not sure if it was better than the other 2 but it was well worth the money, and walking home in the rain. Now i am cleaning up my apartment and trying to relax before the work week starts again tomorrow.
The Old 20″ Display
After puttering around for a while I finally put my Apple 20″ Cinema display up on Craigslist to be sold. I have been lazy about selling it, and frankly it would have sold on ebay in no time but i didn’t want to deal with all the shipping and fees, etc. So i tried Craig’s list. I was about to give up hope, when after a few days someone replied to the posting, and the awesome flat panel now has a new home. I mean it was awesome. I just wanted even bigger, so I have my 23″.
Technorati Tags: apple, apple cinema display, Mac
Zach’s Birthday Party
My nephew had his first birthday party today. It was an interesting event. I mean he didn’t really care what was going on. He had cake, got to run around with his little helper walker thing, and got held allot. It was a great day for him, but he had no idea it was a special day. Overall I think everyone had fun. It was a one year olds birthday party, so it wasn’t total fun for adults with no kids, but the kids had fun.
I got to see my grandmother who flew up from florida to see Zach for the first time. I also saw a bunch of friends of the family that i don’t see that often.
After the party i meet up with Jayson and we headed to John’s for some poker. I lost, so did Jayson. It was a relatively early night! All in all a good Saturday.
Apartment Hunting, or Not?
It is that time of year again. Yes, summer time but that is not what i meant. It is time for me to renew my lease. I have been eagerly awaiting the paperwork from my current building to see how outrageous the rent increase will be. I have read that the average increase in NYC is 9-13% this year. That is of course crazy. I love my apartment, and my neighborhood but I don’t think i will want to pay that much to live here if the rent goes up. I am looking into alternatives, but everything is a trade off. My current apartments trade off is the cost. I have been pondering this issue for a while, and i still don’t have a final decision, but i know deep down that the rent increase is going to be so great that i won’t want to pay it. Can i afford it, maybe. The point is do I want to shell out that amount of money per month when I could get someplace nice for significantly less? If I do move the location might not be as nice. Of course that last statement isn’t true from some peoples points of view. So for now i just ponder my choices, and hope the right decision comes to me, eventually!
Technorati Tags: apartment hunting
The Curve
I have only had the Blackberry Pearl for a short time, but it is now out! I now have a Blackberry Curve from work, and I am very happy. Yes the Pearl is really small, but the Curve is not much bigger. It is only slightly wider. The rest of the dimensions are the same, and it has a full keyboard. That makes all the difference to me. That means my Pearl goes up on Ebay!
Technorati Tags: Blackberry Curve, Blackberry Pearl
Now My Mac Knows its Location
My Macbook is getting smarter every day. With the help of some nifty new free software it now knows where it is. What is even better is now I can program rules based off of where the Macbook is. It is all because i tried out MarcoPolo. I have seen other products that do similar things, but this one is just so simple and cool. Based off of what IP, IP range, USB devices, available Airport or Bluetooth networks, etc MarcoPolo decides what location you are in. Once you train it to figure that out you can tell it to do things when you switch location. I for one have my default printer switch from my work printer to my home printer. I also have different applications i almost always open when i get home and when i get to work. Now i have MarcoPolo do it. That works out well when for example i have a different Skype USB phone at home than i do at work and each one has its own application that needs to run in order for the phone to work. Now based on the location the correct device launches.
This is some really cool software that just makes my computer experience easier. Isn’t that what software is supposed to do?
X-33 Discontinued?
Apparently my Omega Speedmaster X-33 has been discontinued from sale to the public. I love this watch, and when I traded up from a used one to a new one i was kind of ticked off that i had to wait 2 weeks for them to get it to me. At the time Tourneau did tell me that they only saw about 9 or so of them in Omega’s world wide inventory. Now that makes sense, since I am seeing people posted noticing that it had been discontinued about a month after i got mine. The final tip off was that Omega does not have it up on their website anymore. I guess that NASA still can order them, but the general public can’t. Lets hope that means i can still get parts for it beyond the typical amount of time for a discontinued model since they will still be making them for the government.
For me this is the perfect watch. it is a nice real grown up watch, but it has digital features also. I think it looks allot nicer than the comparable model from Breitling. Now that Omega isn’t making the X-33 any more I just need to be sure i take good care of mine.
Technorati Tags: Omega Speedmaster X-33, Moon Watch, Space Watch
Blackberry Pearl Hard Reset Update
Apparently RIM is not as smart as other hardware vendors. When you do a hard reset of a Pearl you don’t actually get all the programs refreshed to the factory default. I would argue that it isn’t a hard reset, but whatever. It boils down to the fact that when you mess up an install you can’t fix it. It took me a while, but i was able to get the lost applications back after following the instructions from this forum post.
My issue isn’t even 100% resolved since i lost the new AT&T phone theme i had with my Pearl and instead have the older not as nice looking Cingular theme on the phone since the software I was able to get the restore to work from must have been older than what was on my phone. In any case I am all better for now.
Technorati Tags: Blackberry, Blackberry Pearl, Blackberry Pearl hard reset, AT&T Wireless