Ipod is drained

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I went to grab my trusty iPod when I booted up my powerbook so I could listen to some music while I did this blog. To my dismay I found it drained of power. Turns out I really need a case for that thing. After a drunk night getting home from the bar I lost the case while on the LIRR listening to music. Without the case the keys get pressed and the iPod runs and drains its power. I know there is that lock switch but if you forget to press it you have an iPod without power. Thankfully for now I am using the powerbook to listen to music. I found headphones that work in the bottom of my luggage. Oh, thanks apple for making the iPod headphones not work in regular headphone jacks.

I am on Amtrak right now. Like I always say I do allot of my best writing on the train. I just passed the Tapanzee bridge on the way to Kingston. This trip is always relaxing, as long as you don’t get all wound up about traveling like I do sometimes. So far this has been a restful trip. As Gus would say, I am getting rid of all my negative energy and centering my Chi. Eh, something like that.

Not sure how hot it is today, but it looks beautiful outside right now. Being so busy recently I am trying to stop and take notice of stuff like that.

Website Down

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My website is down for a few days. It has been down since at least last Thursday. I didn’t get to look at it this weekend, so it is down until I am back in town. I think it is something to do with the wifi, but I am not sure. I keep my server in a closet without a monitor so I cannot look at the screen and see what is up without moving it or getting a monitor on it. Thankfully my blog is hosted by my friend on his linux box at home so I can keep posting.

I actually had to shut off my desktop also last night. it was making funny sounds so I wanted to turn it off for a bit so I can look at it. I forgot to turn it on, so I hope I don’t need to remote in anytime this week. I think the power supply may be going. I hope not since the supply and the case are very new.

The Last Big Kingston Trip, Hopefully!

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I am off to Kingston NY again for a few days. This week we officially activate this office. Tuesday we turn on the phone system and begin taking calls. I am going up today so I can do any last minute changes. Keith got allot done for me last week, but I need to finish up any loose ends. Joe is feeling better and will also get make sure we are good to go. I am scheduling myself to be “upstate” as we NYC people call it for 3 days, but if all goes well I may be back tuesday night.

Hopefully once the call center starts taking calls I can limit my trips to one and two day stints up there. that way I can catch up on issues in NYC.

Golf Sunday

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I went to play golf again today. It was fun, but it is a long day. I headed out at 9:30AM to meet Dan and his friend Ed at Dan’s place at 10:45. The LIRR only has hourly trains on the weekend so it sucks. We then meet Gus, Alyssa, & Miguel in the other rental car. If you live in Manhattan and you are not rich you don’t keep cars. Dan and alyssa both just realized this and sold there cars, so we rented to for this outing. We then drove to Jersey to meet Ravi at the course.

I have to say it was probably the nicest day I can remember this summer. It wasn’t too hot or humid. it was a perfect day to spend on a golf course.

I played like crap again. I had no good Tee offs, but I did have a few decent shots on the fairways. Ed and Ravi walked the course, but dan and I weren’t crazy so we rented a golf cart.

We left before dinner because Ed had to get back to the city and I had to pack for my Kingston trip tomorrow. The ride home was “interesting”. Dan and I didn’t know where we were going and dan was driving. Ed was in the back on the cell phone and Dan asked if he remembered where to go to get back to the interstate. The guy ignored him for a few minutes so dan kept asking for help. Ed freaked out and was like hey I am on the phone. I kept my mouth shut, because the guy isn’t my friend. But I have to say, DUDE get over it. We are trying to take your sorry ass home early and we are getting lost. Hang up the dam phone or tell whoever it is you are going to call them back. Don’t be an asshole about it. Man I use a cell phone allot, but if I ever acted like that shoot me. Even if I had an emergency at work I would reply that I heard someone asking me for help. The remaining hour of the car ride, Ed was totally quiet. Dan said Ed didn’t say a word even after they dropped me at Penn Station. Weird.

The Train’s were on my side, I got to Penn station with enough time to grab dinner and catch my train. I also caught a cab with no problem and was home a little past 8PM.

All in all, a good day. I had to take 2 doses of bextra. That was not good, but at least they worked and I didn’t get a full fledge migraine. I don’t like the fact that every time I golf I end up taking migraine medication. I think it is the heat.

A Wasted Day

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I was totally incapacitated today. I woke up around noon and had a migraine from the beginning. I tried to fight it. I try on the weekends because I really hate the drugs, and if I am home I can at least try to sleep it off. It became apparent right away that I wasn’t going to make it, so I took to furiset (aka, Butabital). Let me tell you they knocked me down, but didn’t kill the migraine. I felt the headache but didn’t care anymore. It was weird because during the blackout I took some because the heat was causing a migraine and I didn’t feel the side affects, but I didn’t feel the migraine either. Not sure why it affected me differently today. I finally woke up a little while ago and am trying to do the laundry. I have no clothes left so hopefully I finish.

I am aiming for some golf with guys (and girl) from work tomorrow so I want to be well rested and head ache free tomorrow.

I Don’t Write As Much As I Used To

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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.

Home At Last

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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 Is Open, Well Sort Of

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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.

Stress And More Stress

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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.

This Blog

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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.