The apartment

I think I got most of the major setup work on the apartment done. The furniture I have is in its final resting places. Now all I need to do is get the new furniture.

I still need to figure out how to setup a wireless network card on a linux machine.

I will clean up this weekend, and finish getting the little things from my old apartment. Then I can clean the old place up a bit so I don’t have a problem with the security deposit. Then I am done with the old place.

So far the AC in the new place has worked well. I will see how it gets when it gets really hot again.

Not all fun and games

Yesterday was not all fun and games though. I had two issues with our FTP site. Neither of which turned out to be a problem with the site per say but user’s thinking they had problems.

I am also trying to track down a missing T-1. Verizon claim’s they installed a T-1 Circuit for us in the telecom room we told them to install it in. Well Dan was up in Kingston on Tuesday and sees no smartjack. I have 2 guys today looking for it. The problem is that Verizon is coming out again today to do another T-1, and I don’t want them to screw it up also.

I have finalized our server selection for kingston. Unless something crazy goes on our file servers will be Compaq Proliant ML360’s. I was not wowed by the IBM warez, and Dell has not been great to deal with. Our Compaq vendor is eager to work with us, and Dell makes me feel like we are a waste of their time. Probably just a vibe I get, but I don’t get the best pricing right out of the box from them. I don’t like to do second guessing on my pricing.

Glenn our CEO is going to take my old Verizon V60i off my hands. He wanted a new phone since his star tac is beat up. I saw what he was going to get from someone else and told him he needed to take the V60, it was much better.

We are still hunting for a new Help-desk Manager for kingston. We think we may be close but we are not there yet.

Mobile Phone Jugleing

So I got really pissed with AT&T wireless Monday and changed my pricing plan. I cut my costs per month in half. There seems to be a problem near my house. They said they knew about it, but had no ETA on fixing it. I saw no reason for paying $100 a month for unlimited cell phone usage when I only used 400 minutes on it last month. I changed to the $50 plan with 700 minutes.

I also beefed up my verizon wireless plan to 800 min a month. I got a new promotion so I had to sign a contract for another year, but I was probibly going to stay with them anyway. The service is rock solid. I also got a deal on a new phone when I renewed. I got a Motorola T720. People at work have them and like them. As much as I want to keep using AT&T I will use verizon for a while since the service is much better.

i cannot wait until number portability in november. Then I can take my sweet and easy to remember AT&T number and switch it to verizon.

And yes I have 2 cell phone contracts. I had 3, but just canceled my T-Mobile account since I haven’t used it since April. Since I don’t have a home phone I wanted 2 phones. in case I have problems with one (like I am having). I also kept one for work and one for personal, but it is turning out that work calls me however they can if they need me. Enough technology ranting. I am off to bed.

the “official” move day

Today I officially took over my new apartment. My sister came over in the morning to help me move my wall unit. It worked out ok. The unit is perfect where it is now. I just don’t know if we can move it again. Every time I move it I fell it will fall apart and not go back together. Thank fully morgan slept through all the hammering. Man babies can sleep!

I waited all afternoon for the cable guy. It sucked, but I had company. My sister went to work out and I got to play with morgan. Watching a baby is weird. The smallest things make them happy, and the smallest problem will set them off crying. She was great until she got hungry. I had a good time. Wait, waiting for the cable guy sucked, but spending time with Morgan was good.

Finally after 4pm I had the Time Warner guy show up. At least I got a shift supervisor who knew what was going on. He was really cool, and I got a good insight to the Time Warner network operations. AKA what I can get away with and what I cannot. I figured most of it out before, but I got some good pointers from this guy. Once he was done everything worked great.

I had some problems with my wireless LAN. My mac kept dropping the network. I upgraded my Linksys router to the final 802.11g specs. it came with a new firmware update that I just ran. Now things seem ok. I am sitting in my comfy pier one chair sitting in my bed room. I am able to surf the web, and write this blog with the access point on the other side of the apartment. So far so good.

I went to dinner with my parents tonight. I was home when they went, so I went along. Recently I have not been getting home from work early enough for me to join them. I want to make time to do it at least once a week, but it hasn’t been shaping up that I am able to do that. We shall see how things go after kingston is launched.

I also did some food shopping. I needed to stock my new fridge. I got some stuff, but I want to wait to place a big order with freshdirect to get the rest of the stuff I need.

If you haven’t guessed already since my cable was down, this blog and my website was also down since friday night. It is back online and hopefully will stay that way.

Well the day off to move is about over. I am getting ready for bed. I am tired. I am back to work tomorrow.

Monday was busy

Work was busy. I did tests of our notification system. I started to get a migraine during our management meeting and took two furiset’s. Thankfully the migraine didn’t materialize. So much going on at home with the move I don’t have time to go into detail about todays work.

Apartment Layout

My apartment is laid out in such a way that I will be relying on wireless network for almost all of my computing needs. it is much slower than the 100-megabit wired solution have been using for the past 4 years. I have had wireless for my laptop for almost 3 years, but that was for 1 machine, and I would plug it into the wired network when I wanted to transfer large files. I may run a ca…

Well I got stopped in mid sentence when my mom, sister, and the baby dropped by. What I was going to say is mute now anyway. My mom and sister beat me up until I changed the layout of where I will put everything. It is going to be a big pain in the ass to move stuff. The wall unit that I had in my bedroom is going next to my desk on the opposite side of the room from where I thought the bigger wall unit will go. Instead of worrying about wiring, the cable guy will have to deal with that. I will still leave the router in the wall unit, and just run a single cad5 cable to a switch at my desk. The servers will still go wireless since they are in a closet. I hope I get reception in my bedroom now with the WiFi. I should. I will test it this week.

I am taking 2 of the 3 pieces of my parents couch, and 3 of the 5 pieces of their living room wall unit. That is what will fit into my apartment nicely. We think the 3rd piece of the couch may fit. I am going to take it and see. Worse comes to worse I will get rid of it. The extra wall unit pieces will not fit so I am not even taking it.

The dining room table will fit but it will be a bit tight in space for it. After arguing with my mom and sister, I took measurements of all the furniture and the apartment and did a visio of the whole place. I now have a better understanding of what I am putting where. A Visio may be overkill but I wanted to know how everything would look to scale in the space I had, so I did one. I do them all the time so it wasn’t a big deal. That is what I get for doing the entire office all 10,000 square feet of it off of a CAD drawing. You get used to doing them.

My sister is coming over Tuesday. She will help me move the 1 wall unit from my bedroom to the living room before the cable guy comes. She was pissed that I didn’t call her Saturday for her to come over and tell me I was putting it in the wrong place to begin with. I thought I had it covered. Note to self: I have no idea about interior design even though I think I know what is right for me. I will get the help I need to move the dam unit, and as an added bonus I get to hang out with morgan. I just hope she sleeps long enough for us to move the wall unit without stopping to feed or change her!

Yet more moving!!!

I didn’t want help moving because I hate moving for other people. I don’t mind favors but moving sucks. My last move my cousin wayne came and helped. I helped him move when he went from one house to another, but he just came because he is a nice guy. My friend Joe flew up from Baton Rouge to help. he is the last person I owe a moving favor too!

I figured since it was going from one building to another I could handle it. It turns out I was correct. Go figure. It took me some time but I was able to move everything except the really big stuff (thanks mover guys) myself.

I did some final moving stuff today. I still have some glasses and other breakable stuff at the old place, but I have almost all my stuff at the new place already. I threw out allot of old books that I didn’t think I would ever read again. I also got rid of other crap. You never realize how much crap you have until you need to move it. I think this is the last move that I can do myself or with friends. The next one I will have so much stuff that I will need professionals.

More Moving!!!

Today was the day to do the bulk of my moving. I got allot done before 2pm. That is when Time Warner Cable was supposed to come and do my cable and cable modem. They give you a time frame of like 4 hours. Well when 5:50 roles around and they said they would be there before 6pm I got pissed and called. Turns out they claim they attempted to visit at 5:08PM. My dad was at the new apartment waiting for them. I had my phone with me and they claimed they called. No voice mail or missed calls. Now I don’t know who screwed up time warner or the security guys at my building. I am going to assume both did and scream at both. The security people at my apartment complex suck. Everyone else is great, but they suck. Time Warner was no help either. They said the next appointment was Wednesday. I got pissed and yelled at them some more. The best they could due was tuesday afternoon. Turns out they don’t do service on sunday or Monday’s. That would be nice if someone had an outage during those days.

Because of the cable guy’s I have to take Tuesday off after all. It was shaping up that I wouldn’t have to take off, but now I will.

On the plus side the movers came and did all my stuff that they said they would take and more. They were great. They were just a bunch of maintenance guys who work in my building. I asked them about taking my parents living room set and moving it to my place for me. they said it should be no problem. I am going to have them look at the set next week and we can setup a time to do it. that will make my new apartment complete as far as furniture goes.

Moving stuff

I just took pictures from my visit to my new apartment. I need to figure out where everything will go. I may need to put a bunch of stuff on wireless. It will be cool, but will cost more, and will be slower.

I have not started to pack at all yet for this move. I am hopeful that I can just throw stuff in the moving carts that my building has and just move everything. only a small part of the stuff I have needs to be considered fragile. My sword set and Hard Rock glass’s.

One thing I noticed last night when I was at my new place was that I heard allot of background noise. I think it is from the Clearview Expressway. I am not sure, but it worries me. I am not that close to that road, and I will be 19 floors up. What was weird was that I only heard these noices from my bedroom and not the living room. Maybe the noise is coming from a vent or something? I am not sure. I will investigate further.

The new paint and carpet look awsome. I still need to pull up the crappy carpet in the bathroom but that should not be a problem. The bedroom already has wires for cable TV. All I need to do is wire for my computer stuff. I will most likely put my router near my TV so I can have less wires. Also the wall unit where the TV will go is in a more central point of the apartment. That way I will get better wireless coverage.

Work, softball, and head ache’s

Today we have another company softball game. It is supposed to be 97 degrees today. I think that I will pass on going to this game. I don’t need to kill myself in the heat when we have not one a game yet. Well, we did win 2 games by forfeit when the other team didn’t show up, but that does not count in my book.

Also today is tons of interviews. I never know what to ask people. This lot looks good though. We will see what happens after today and tomorrow.

I woke up with a small head ache, but it seems ok right now. I forgot to take my Nadolol. I am supposed to take it daily to prevent migraines. Missing it one day here and there doesn’t usually cause a problem, but I don’t like forgetting to take it.