Technology Certifications

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I loved this post on slashdot. The poster asks why IT certifications are good. Some very interesting points of view. I am in the industry, and I have no certifications. I am not saying that is good or bad. I have just seen tons of people with no experience and a certification (or little experience) think they know everything. As I said when I did contracting, some MCSE’s wouldn’t know a domain controller if it fell on their head. And other guys I know with no certification but years of experience would be (and often are) the first people I call for help.

I guess what I read from this is a certification is nice, but nothing beats experience. Having both is really great also.

Poker Or Not

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I missed a poker game last night due to my sleeping. I know it is kind of sad. What I am I going to do if I have a bad head ache? Jayson said he won big. That makes me think the people he played with were not that good, but he said they were decent. When we play with people from work, he usually doesn’t do that well.

I hope to play next time. Now I have to tell John why I didn’t show up. I tried to leave him a message, but I don’t think he got it. Cannot really help falling asleep due to exhaustion and a migraine, sorry. They did have 7 players so I don’t feel so bad.

Slept The Day Away

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I didn’t sleep very well. I finally went to bed around 2AM. I was tired but sleep never came. I finally took a Tylenol PM around 4 or 5AM. I then slept a bit till 1PM. I finally am up showered, and dressed now. I just dropped 3 loads of laundry in the machines. Man I always used to tell myself having laundry done was almost as much as doing it yourself, but I was just saying that to make myself feel better for shelling out a ton of money to have it done. I was wrong, it does almost pay to have it done. 3 loads of laundry will cost me like $12 (not counting my detergent or time). When I have it done I never pay more than $20 (you pay per pound). for $8 difference, I will have it done for me.

Not sure what the rest of the day has in store for me. Laundry will take like 2 hours. Then maybe off to the bank to deposit some expense checks, then maybe Best Buy. After all it is right near the bank. Hmm, decisions, decisions…

Another Overnight

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Last night Jayson and I worked really late. We call this type of work an overnight. We end up going to work a little late, and then working till 2-5AM the next morning. Some work we do can only be done late at night during quiet periods. It is too difficult to sleep really late the day of work like this so I go into the office close to normal time. Basically it is like doing 2 days in one physical day. Due to sleep requirements we end up taking off the following day to catch up on sleep and get back into a normal routine. For me it is getting harder and harder to adjust to normal sleep after work like this.

Today I woke up around 1PM and felt like crap. I did some work remotely and then watched a bit of TV. I was planning on going to John’s for poker. I IM’d him around 3:30 saying I was TBD. I still felt like crap. I went to take a nap, and the next thing you know it is almost midnight. Now I am fed, and wide awake. I hate days like this. Hopefully I can goto sleep sometime soon…

The September Wedding (Not Mine)

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I have finally finished my travel reservations to my friend Rich’s wedding. I am happy that Rich is getting married. I love his bride to be (not that way, but she is awesome so I am happy for him), but I am not such a fan of traveling to Maine. I am never the one to be all excited for great scenery and a rustic atmosphere. I think that is what I am getting on this trip. I am more a fan of resorts having large pools and WIFI. Sorry, but I am not going to change that.

I bet the wedding will be amazing. I believe Amanda is doing allot of her own decorations. You hear that and probably think cheap or crapy. The truth is neither. She is/was a set designer. She can decorate like no one else I know. I am curious how she does up the place.

I am in the wedding party. That means a tux, and rehearsal dinner lobster bake. Mmmm lobster bake! Sorry lost track thinking about liquid butter and lobster. Where was I? Oh yeah, I am in the wedding party. I think that besides the normal wedding party responsibilities, it is a rule that I must hook up with a hot single brides maid. I am told it is a rule in most states, and a law in Maine. Amanda claims it is not. I think she just feels I am too good for her friends or family! That is my theory! In any case it will be an interesting 3 day weekend, especially if work goes live with a major project that weekend that was originally scheduled for weeks ago!

A Good Day

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it was busy today, but I got allot done. I got final approval for the active directory design I wanted.

The initial AD servers are built. Or I should say the OS is built. They goto the data center tomorrow. Then they get mounted and built. Once done the real work begins.

On another project I am having danny work on some VPN setup issues. I wanted to deal with it, but as Glenn said I need to delegate more. And I really do. I am so busy I need to hand off items to others.

IPCC deployment is delayed. This is an internal decision. I never really thought the target date was achievable anyway. These new targets seem more realistic. I would rather the system be correct, than rushed out. More on that as it develops.

Approval’s

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I had a very productive day at work today. Per my previous posts about not talking directly about my current job on this blog, I will only say that I got approval to complete some big projects as proposed, and I got the ok for some more help. All good things! More details on my work blog, but no one can read that right now:) But I want to write about it anyway! it will be good, you should feel left out.

Virtual Organization

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Every once in a while I get on a cleanup binge. I don’t clean my apartment or anything like that. I cleanup my virtual life. I have been going through crap on my hard drives, and removing any unneeded data. I have also been backing up stuff that I may or may not have a recent backup of.

I do this every few months. This time I am taking old CD’s I had of backups going back years and put them onto a hard drive. Recently (within the past 2 years) I have read that CD’s & DVD’s are not the best media for long term storage. So I am putting onto a drive as many backup’s as I can. I have also re-burned much of these old CD’s onto newer DVD’s.

Other aspects of this cleanup is to post to my website any backlog of photos I have. I am working on several updated pages.

On the physical world side I also cleaned my place today. The trick is keeping it clean!

Yankee Stadium Tour

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Today I went with a bunch of friends from work to Yankee Stadium. The team was away so it wasn’t for a game. We went for the tour. I had no idea that they do a tour year round when the team is not playing at home that day. I am not a baseball fan (and if I was there is a slightly better than 50% chance that I would be a Met fan) but this tour was cool.

We went to the Press box, a sky box, the locker room, and even got to walk around on the field and in the dugout.. We couldn’t go on the grass, but it was still cool being down there. I got some great pictures that I am going to post later.

When Miguel first organized this trip I said there was no way I was going. I figured a late August Saturday would be freaking hot and nasty. But when Friday came around and he mentioned that he had a few people cancel at the last minute I reconsidered. Thanks to the weather report, and that the tour was in the afternoon I figured I would go. I just have to forget that a stadium tour cost more than cheap seats.

Virtual PC For The Mac

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I have tried Virtual PC for the Mac before. I think it was version 5.x or 6.x. I don’t remember. It is hard to imagine that I have been using a Mac long enough to have lived through 3 revisions of software but you never know.

I was on MSDN today to download Beta 1 of Windows Vista for a developer (all 2.4gig or so of it that will take 2+ hours on a 4+ megabit link) when I saw MSDN had Virtual PC for the Mac 7.01 online. I decided to try it again. I am still a skeptic, but I figured I would look at it and see if it was of value. Right now I am installing Windows XP into a new Virtual PC 7.02 install. The concept of XP on a Mac is nice, but the slow speed may not be worth it. I may just have to wait for x86 Macs.

Man this install is taking forever…