Life, Kids, Technology & that move to another continent
Well, I don’t. Not sure if this was just a fad, or if I am just super busy. Or if it is the traveling, or the not carrying the power book on the train anymore. Whatever it is, I just don’t write to this blog as often as I would like to or used to. The past 4 entries were on my hard drive for a while but I never got to post them.
I hope to stay on top of the entries in the future, but I make no promises.
I finally made it home. I was in Kingston from Sunday to Wednesday night. I ran out of clean clothes and I was really low on the med’s so I came home. Keith is up there today (thursday) and friday. I go back next week again. I actually have 2 days in the office this week. It is weird. I haven’t worked a full day at the office since Monday the 11th. It is the 21 now. Wow.
I got a ride home from Kingston from one of our Integrators from Expanets. I know I used to hate that company but the tech guys we are working with are all awesome. Chad our Cisco expert fixed up all our switches and call manager. I learned allot of stuff from him, but would have liked to learn allot more.
Keith is working on the desktop security profile for Kingston while he is up there. I already did 99% of the desktop ghost image for the computers we are starting with. I figured out the problem with Ghost 7.5 and our Compaq (HP) Evo 510’s. I was able to modify the disk we use with the with our older Evo 310’s.
I also got the White (voice) patch panel done Wednesday. It looks good, or as good as we can get it with the time we have. Joe will do the blue cables next.
The new office I have been working on for months is finally open. Well it is open for training at least. The first group of call center rep’s started today. We still don’t have all the phones working, the patch panel is not done, and I still don’t have a ghost image or security profiles for the users. On the other hand we had enough computers and people were able to train. In the end things are not perfect, but they are working. As we speak our tape system we took out of our NYC office is restoring applications that I could not move to the new network via my laptop.
Tomorrow I have our intergrator return to mount and finish testing on my call center software and my phone system. Things are working now, but the phone system is not mounted yet. Allmost all my data gear is mounted, and looks great. The only thing left is the patch panel. The rest of the work to be done is all virtual. Setting up users and security. I am in Kingston till tuesday evening then I am back to NYC. I need to spend some time in NYC doing other work besides this move. The move preocupies almost all my time recently. I need to spend more time in kingston, but just can’t be away. That is how I feel right now, that tons of things are getting overlooked because I am not in NYC. I will send Keith up on thursday and have him spend 2 days getting kingston in order while I clean up issues in NYC. Then next monday I am back to Kingston for our first queue move. This is when we really put the new system into production.
Today is looking like it was a record day for my company. We maxed out our 3 voice T-1’s with calls durring peak hours. We also look like we are going to make a sales record for today. This is most likely due to the black out, but it still is a record day. The new office doesn’t come fast enough.
Yes I am stressing over this move. Dan and I just got back to the hotel from work. We went to the Hotel restaurant for dinner and drinks. We stay at the luxurious Kingston Holiday Inn while we stay in Kingston. It is ok as motel’s go. What is funny is that it is supposed to be the best “hotel” in the area. Everyone we ask says it is without any argument. I guess it is ok. Nothing special. I just like my apartment. I like travel, but travel for work is old for me now. I like working up in kingston. The new site is cool, but the staying overnight sucks. I just like sleeping in my own bed at night.
I hope to get to bed early for the first time in over a week. I wanted to blog a bit before then. I haven’t been writing much recently. I have been crazy busy as I have described, but also because for some funny reason I don’t feel comfy writing on my thinkpad when I am on the train. I commute with it every day now. That is good since it is my main machine with all my work on it, but because of that I don’t go many places with the power book. That means I don’t blog as much. when I get home at night I am tired allot so I haven’t been writing. Some people don’t know why I even keep the power book if I have a company laptop, but I like it and don’t think I would use my mac any different if I sold the power book and bought an imac. Well off to bed. Hopefully tomorrow will be as productive as today.
So Joe (the new guy that works Technology in Kingston) is reading this blog. Another person at work is now reading it. That brings the total number of people reading this thing to about 4:) At first I was like, I have to watch what I say in this thing. Then I figured I speak my mind anyway so writing my thoughts on the internet is no big deal.
What else was cool about this blog is Sunday I had a problem with Ghosting Compaq Evo 510 desktop computers. I had issues with the network card and a ghost boot disk. So as any good tech would do I did a search on google for a solution. What was so funny was that the 4th result was an entry from this blog discussing that I had to take Compaq Evo 510 desktops and ghost them for work. Joe and I got a good laugh out of that one.
Wow, that was an interesting 2 days without power. What were you doing when the power went out? Everyone who lived through the outage probably has a good story to tell. This is mine.
I was in Kingston NY, finishing the setup of my companies new office. When power went out the group of us thought someone had tripped a breaker or something. We were pulling cable so you never know. Our first indication that it was a bigger outage than our office was the call Dan was on with a construction contractor over an hour away. He said power was out by him also. Then we received a call from our NYC office telling us that the power was out down there as well. After like 20 minutes of speculation one guy went to his car to listen to the radio. Dan, Keith, & I went to Dan’s car for the radio also. After a little bit dan had the idea to goto the store. He wanted bread and water. He wouldn’t let Keith and I get the stuff since (in his own words) he thought we would get 1 can of soda and a candy bar. We ended up getting 4 gallons of water and 2 things of bread.
Once we realized this was going to take a while we coordinated with our contractors about what to do tomorrow (friday). I originally was going to stay in Kingston and oversee the contractors if power came back. Unfortunately the hotel room I had didn’t have an outside window, so it was completely dark. At that point Dan was like screw this, and told me to come with him. Keith and Dan were heading to Dan’s parents in Connecticut. The reasoning was it was closer to the city and a place where we knew people. I hopped in the car and we were off. It was weird, the power was out yet ezpass worked. Also there were tons of cars on the road. The NY State Throughway looked normal. We only noticed a difference when we got to CT and we had no traffic lights.
Dan’s mom and dad were very cool. His mom made us sandwiches with everything she had left in her refrigerator. We sat on their deck and hung out after we figured out how to work the fuel burning lamp. If you were wondering it took 2 tech guys and an operations guy about 20 minutes to get a lamp to work. By 10pm or so we heard that power was slowly getting restored to NYC. we decided that if it came back Thursday night or Friday morning we would want to be near the office to get stuff working. It just so happened that like 3/4 of our company’s “crisis team” or people who work in emergencies were together far away from the office. Gus was the only one who was still down in NYC. So we got in Dan’s trusty car again and headed into Manhattan. He had well over a half a tank of gas in a honda so we were set for fuel.
The drive down to the city was interesting. Some parts of Manhattan had power, others didn’t. dan missed the exit on the Tribourough bridge so we ended up in traffic in queens. We turned around and were in manhattan in no time. You could see the hospitals because they were the only places with power in manhattan. Once off the FDR drive it was eery. The busy intersections had a cop or two directing traffic, but other intersections had nothing. We parked on 21st and Park Ave near our office and once the lights were out from the car the sky had this weird green glow to it. no lights to be seen. You could look down 21st street and see nothing.
The security desk at our office was lit by candles. We ended up walking up the 10 flights of stairs to the office only to find 6 hold outs who couldn’t or didn’t want to go home. We hung out there for a while and then Dan and I left to his place for some sleep. Keith for some reason stayed at the office. He figured he could sleep on the floor in the office just as easy as he could sleep on the floor in dans place. I didn’t care since I had called dibs on Dan’s comfy couch. Dan lives right near the office, so after a quick ride we were at his place and I was fast asleep. I actually slept like a baby that night.
We woke up at around 9 to no power. dan went to the car to charge his cell phone and get breakfast. My cell phone was dead and I didn’t have a car charger. I went to the backup phone but got no signal. Verizon still has the best service, even in a disaster. Dan found bagels so we ate and hung out. We played cards for a while and then decided to see if the office had power.
Well the office didn’t have power and we had nothing else to do. I convinced dan after a few minutes that Queens would be a good destination. My parents had power so that meant that I had power. We could get lunch, fuel and some AC. We trekked to Bayside and I filled Dan’s car up at the gas station by my house. I guess power was back for a while since we actually didn’t have a huge line for gas. We ate at Applebies and ended up napping at my place for a while. That air mattress is helpful when you have last minute guests.
At around 7:30PM we got the call that the office had power. We went back into the city so we could turn everything back on. We meet Gus there and powered everything on. It looked like everything came back fine. We got lucky. We went to eat and I caught car service home.
That was the end of my experience with the black out. I actually didn’t have such a bad time. I wouldn’t like it to happen again, but at least I didn’t have to walk for hours to get home. All in all, I finish the experience with some memories that I won’t soon forget.
So I was leaving the place where get my hair cut and I was stopped by some scruffy looking guy asking how I have been doing. I drew a blank. Now, I am up front about how I cannot remember people’s names, but usually recognize faces. Until he started talking I totally drew a blank. It was an old friend’s husband (still cannot remember the name, but see previous statement). He grew a go-tie and I totally didn’t recognize him. I know his wife cindy through one of my best friends Jayson. We used to talk and hang out allot a few years ago when I just got back from Baton Rouge. We lost touch over the past 2 years, but they were both really cool. He told me she still uses IM, and I will contact her. Good friends are hard to come by after all. Of course when I say I want to contact them again it brings to mind some of the reasons why I stopped talking to Cindy in the first place. Things seem better for them, so I will contact them and see what is going on.
I have been really busy, and out of town most of this week. This will be quick since I am off to bed. I was in Kingston NY working on getting our new office ready Tuesday – Thursday. Things are coming together but still having some issues. The voice T-1’s all work. But the phone system needs some new hardware. My companies current phone system had problems tuesday night causing problems for hours. Dam windows NT 4.0. More issues on Wednesday, but not as bad. Now I have issues with requests for a redesign of how our call center is going to operate. I need to map out the changes tomorrow. I am so stressing, and tired right now. I hope I can get some sleep. Friday will be interesting. it always is when you are out for a few days. I have racked up allot of hours on the mobile phone this week.
The good news is the Cisco Voice Over IP (VOIP) phone system we put in actually works. Sounds great and everything. We are just having some issues with getting the wrong type of routers. All sorts of capacity issues now. We are having our integrator fix the problem.
More tomorrow, I hope.
So I am still playing with the new Treo 270 I got last week. I downloaded eudora internet suite for the palm. I am not a big eudora mail client user, but they have a cool palm mail client and web browser. I am comparing it to what handspring offers.
I also downloaded Landware’s Pocket Quicken 2.03. I used this software ages ago and it is awesome. it lets you sync up your quicken db with your palm. So I can figure out where all my cash goes.
I also am trying Handsprings Treo Picture Caller ID. It lets you assign a picture to display when a specific phone number rings. It is cool, but the photos take a lot of space on a palm. Also trying the demo for SilverScreen 3.0. It is a theme or skin for the palm. it is slow on the 33mhz dragon-ball processor on the Treo, but it makes stuff look nice. It probably will fly on the new Treo with the new Palm OS 5.
And of course lets not forget the old favorites Avantgo. That is the most used program for me on any PDA. Without Avantgo I wouldn’t get my fix of news every day while sitting on the train. I also have the newest version of Vindigo. That is my attempt at acting sophisticated and knowing where to go. NYC coverage on it is great.
And for the record I will not download any annoying music for a ring tone. I can’t stand them on everyone else’s cell phone. Phones are made to be put on vibrate. I may use my phone allot, but I do have some etiquette. Get a clue people on the train, railroad, etc!
In a nutshell, the apps make the Treo way cool. And the service actually working now makes it actually functional.
When your dad says you have a crappie job what would you say? Oh, let me put things into context for you. My dad is a trauma surgeon in a emergency room for the past 30 years or so. He doesn’t do much surgery anymore but I am painting a picture for you. He has had a pager since the late 70’s early 80’s. Back then you called a number and the operator beeped the person with the pager. That person would then call into the switchboard and be put in touch with the person looking for them. So when I received a phone call today regarding an issue I was trying to get keith to look into he was like, wow your job is crappier than mine. That one line sums up the on call part of my job. Getting what in my opinion is stupid calls about users not able to do things like check their email. Normally they would wait till monday, but some people are high enough up the food chain that we have to help whenever. It sucks, but I like my pay check. Don’t get me wrong, I like what I do. It is just the on call part that sucks sometimes.
This day wasn’t a total loss. I got to spend time with my dad (not enough of it, but we hung for a while). I also got to do some shopping. I got Homicide Life on The Streets on DVD. If you never saw that show while it was on TV, go out and buy it on DVD. They have Season 1 & 2 out. It is probably THE best or one of the best TV shows of all time. In my opinion anyway. Thankfully allot of people say the same thing. I also got some clothes and Daredevil on DVD.
I got home just in time to get a mild migraine. Of course no migraine is mild so I ended up sleeping for like 4 hours. I feel a bit better but now my sleep schedule is totally off again. It is 10:30 and I am not tired. I am going to try to sleep soon. After my nap I took a Bextra. That may have helped a bit also.