Travel

Cisco Networkers 2005

by

Today was the first full day of Cisco Networkers. Allot of cool stuff going on. Way too much for me to go into too much detail. In a recap yesterday I learned what will be happening in the new version of IPCC. Some cool stuff there. I ate not enough food at the expo Cisco threw. I wasn’t hungry for that kind of fare, but it was awesome stuff. I got some information on some products I was interested in. I got some follow up reading to do. Then I got some answers from some engineers at Cisco about some products. I also got some free software that I need to try out. I could have used it a few weeks ago, but what can you do?

After that I meet up with my friend Joe. he is also out in Vegas for the same conference. We met up with his girlfriend and parents (they all came out to hang while he did his conference thing). They wanted to do the Star Trek Experience in the Hilton, but thankfully we just browsed the gift shop. They ended up eating the buffet at the hilton instead of eating at the Star Trek Theme restaurant. I ended up at a little cafe in the Paris. I am not a Vegas buffet person. I NEVER get my moneys worth at one of those. I don’t eat enough. Money wasn’t the reason I didn’t go though. I just don’t like those things. Even the nicest ones seem skeevy to me. Maybe it is memories of the Circus Circus buffet when I was 14?

Today’s keynote by John Chambers was good. He is a really good speaker. This was the second time I got the opportunity to hear him speak.

The first session I went to was overkill for me. They were talking about really high end network design of Data Centers. Cool to be sure, but I won’t be needing to apply those theories for a while. The next 2 sessions were on IPCC. What you can do with VOIP is amazing. I already drank the cool-ade on that stuff a while ago, but it is truly amazing what you can do with VOIP. Video, Soft-phone, Call Routing, Etc.

Tomorrow hopefully I will learn some other cool network stuff. I get to do a class on SNMP. I use it a bit now, but a better understanding of it would be very helpful.

Cisco Networkers

by

I am off to the Cisco Networkers conference in Las Vegas. I plan on doing allot of reading, watching and learning of new networking “stuff”. I also plan on meeting up with with Joe and Karen for a while. Joe is out in Vegas for the same conference. And yes since it is Vegas I will be relaxing a bit also.

My first stop (even before the hotel) is to Sean’s house. I will get to see baby Scott, and hang with Sean and Kelly for a while. I think we are going to BBQ, but I am not sure.

I am staying at a new hotel (for me), the Paris. I heard it was nice, and I got a decent deal. From what I hear I can take the monorail from the hotel right to the convention center. I will see how things go tomorrow. I hope the hotel has WIFI, but from what I hear the conference will have it everywhere.

More news as the trip develops.

Civilized Travel

by

I don’t want to jinx my trip (i am currently in the air) but so far Jet Blue knows how to make air travel civilized. They had automated check in Kiosks. That isn’t new. Plenty of airlines have them. What was nice is that they have a ton of people around while you use them. Twice while I was at the machine I saw someone who could help me if I needed it. As I waited to hand in my checked luggage I saw 2 others who answered some quick questions for me. Total time at check in (including the line for handing my luggage) maybe 10 minutes. And I d mean maybe that long. Security was quick, but since I was there at 9AM on a sunday even the worst airline would be quick.

I found some breakfast, bought a book, a few magazines and some snacks and then went to the gate. As I read before I got there, they do have FREE WIFI. A big center area with power adapters and everything. I got a quick sync of my email done before I boarded. I also got the latest news feeds onto Netnewswire. It was nice. Like I said civilized. Well thought out. I am sitting here now writing on the powerbook, but I could be watching Superman on A&E, something interesting on SCIFI, MSNBC, or any other of a dozen channels. They did have some issues with the system at take off. A few resets seemed to fix it.

And no, I don’t work for the airline. I am just (finally) happy with an airline that thinks about its customers. This is a far cry from my last Delta experience.

Clean Up

by

I got a bunch of misc. items done today and yesterday in anticipation of my week in Vegas next week. I will be out at the Cisco Networkers conference. Unfortunately they hold it in Las Vegas:) So I will have to suffer.

I sat with Bob yesterday and discussed the project plan for our major new site redesign. It sounds super interesting. It will be just stressful for me and my team. I keep telling myself I will be bored if we were not as busy as we are. It is still hard having a queue of stuff to get to, and some of it won’t get worked on for months.

Kai and I are both out next week. he is on vacation and totally unavailable. I will be reachable, so that is good, but the team will be short handed by 2 next week.

James was off today so I ended up doing some grunt phone configuratin work. That meant besides working on the Definity I had to go under desks doing some wireing. Not fun, but I got everything that needed to be done taken care of. I have to repeat what I have said before, working on the Call Manager is so much easier and straight forward than working on the Avaya Definity or any other Avaya switch I have worked on.

Still Recovering

by

I thought I had recovered from my reverse (nights awake, days sleeping) schedule of last week. That was until I had to stay up late again monday night. My body clock is all screwed up. I can’t goto sleep, but then I can’t get up in the morning. Just cant win this week. For that reason and because I have had a crazy week at work I haven’t written much. I am just tired. I need to get ready for my trip to Vegas next week. I haven’t even seen if I have my luggage or if I lent it to my parents. I realized this weekend that my flight is early on Fathers Day. that means I don’t get to see dad. Of course that also means he doesn’t need to pay for me when he takes everyone out to dinner that night!

Hotspots

by

Yesterday Jayson, Danny, & I took off to Starbucks to study (tech books), talk about work, etc. We have wanted to try that for a while but have been busy. We finally made it out. James joined us for a bit, but was busy and had to go. First, the starbucks in Union Square was noisy. Yes there are actually 2 Starbucks in Union Square but I assume the other one was as noisy as this one. Jayson says the one by his house is not as bad and he has gone to read and drink coffee for hours without problems. I felt like I was back in High School with two tables of extremly loud high school girls sitting rite by us. The place was packed. 4 of us sat at a table made for 2. Totally not the laid back experience we were looking for. not sure if I will suggest that again.

We did make productive use of our time while we were there. I tried out the T-Mobile Hotspots. I used it in Delta crown rooms before but I wanted to give it a shot at Starbucks. There were 3 free networks in range (or so the laptop said), but I couldn’t connect to any of them. So I paid. it is not cheap, but it works great. We ended up shopping for an LCD TV online. as I said in my post yesterday the specs I want are just too pricey right now.

The Long Travel Day

by

I woke up at 6AM today.  Almost a good 2 hours earlier than normal.  Am I stupid you may be asking?  Well, yes in a way.  I went up to our Kingston office today.  I had 4 things to take care of.  As with any Kingston trip I am lucky to get anything I plan on doing done, since other stuff always comes up.  This trip I wanted to get 2 interviews done.  I wanted to sit with Kai and Brian about DNS modifications.  Then I wanted to work out some on call paging issues.  Lastly I wanted to meet with Craig and Kai about some email issues.  Actually when I look at all the stuff I needed to do I got 3 out of 4 of them done.  I cannot really count meeting with Craig since when I was in Kingston he was in NYC.  The other tasks were actually completed.  So I feel good that I had a productive day, even though I don‚Äôt feel productive.

The trip up was longer than expected.  Track work slowed the train trip down.  Then I got to the station and there was no taxi‚Äôs.  Kai had to come get me.  At least I rate enough to have someone come get me

I am offline now writing this entry on my way back home.  This trip is going slow also.  I assume track work.  To guarantee a seat I paid the extra $9 for a business class seat.  I got lucky.  This train has newly renovated seats.  These seats rock.  They have leg and foot rests.  Almost as nice as the automatic seats on Delta Biz elite.   If my treo could take low light photos I would have gotten a shot of them.

The interviews went well.  I was (still am) looking for a good support candidate in Kingston.  Both guys I spoke with seemed smart, but had very limited experience.  Now I find out that someone I know very well is looking to relocate and is very interested in the position.  I think this person would be perfect for the job.  The only problem is he would not be able to start till January.  I need to have Kai tech him out and see how smart he thinks he is.  This is another case of someone I would never believe would be willing to move, stand up and say I would do that.  Hey I want to move.  If jayson can surprise me, why can‚Äôt other people?  I want to be impartial so I will send Kai the resume and see if things work out.

Another Week, Another Trip To Boston

by

I am back on the Acela Express up to Boston today. Gus and I are on the 8:03 again. Dan couldn’t make it, so he bailed on us. David, and Kai are both driving and meeting us once we get up to the site. Today we are visiting the Cisco Customer Briefing Center. I have never been. I hear it is nice. 2 of our Cisco engineer’s are also on the train. I stopped and said hi to one of them.

I have been trying to (with mixed results) use my T610’s bluetooth connection to download email on my Powerbook. Not very reliable today. At least I have my blackberry with me. I got no movie watching done on the train. I just did work, and followed up on email. I have no life…

Delta Airlines Sucks

by

I hope they go bankrupt. I dare any Delta Airlines executive to email me and want to know why I dislike them. They hide behind their dumb-ass rules and even if there are extenuating circumstances they continue to screw the passengers. When did the customer become cattle, and no one care?

I got a response to my generally angry, but civilized email to them. They told me in the nicest way possible to go F myself. My account of the ordeal is here. If my company treated customers like I was treated (by supervisors and everything) we would be out of business. I am going to upload the letter I wrote (minus the date and flight number) and you tell me if situation I endured was not out of the ordinary enough to warrant some compensation.

I even had one moron of a rep tell me that it was my fault for not looking at the weather report before I went to the airport. This is after I told him that I asked the delta ticket agent at the airport if everything was fine. I even volunteered to not fly if the weather was questionable. I was assured things looked fine. Their response was weather shifts and things change minute by minute. How the hell do you go from no real delays to massive hurricane closing airport in 2 hours with out anyone realizing that it will happen?

My goal of getting back the points and / or getting a free ticket to compensate me for my messed up ticket is looking bleak right now. My last resort is to write to the corporate office, and plead my case. They will most likely be assholes like the rest of their company and say nothing, but it is worth a try.