Philadelphia once again

Well I'm leaving once again for Phili on Sunday afternoon. So off I go into the wild blue yonder. I'll arrive 10:00 pm and be whisked off To a hotel. Wake up is 4:30 am. John & Dave arrive @ 6:00 am, and off in The Van for a 4 hour drive to a client site. Meet with The CEO, CIO & IT lead to iron out their needs & what can be done for them. Then a 4 hour drive back to Phili airport & back home by midnight. And if all goes well, I'll be coming home with a new Salary offer...

l8rs,

The Moleman

Get an inside peak into the new QRIO, Sony’s new AIBO replacement.

click here for QRIO Pics
For those who are intersted in the Sony rebot development, or for the Sci-Fi lovers of "The Day the Earth Stood Still"

Scraped from a post by Meryl on 12.22.2003 @ 06:39 PM PT of Lockergnome.com Fame
Tech News Watch - Channels - Lockergnome

Are you Disney enough?

Some see it as a place to visit, other feel they must live it...

ajc.com | Gwinnett | Disney devotee designed, lives in facsimile of Haunted Mansion

Dateline: Wednesday Night

ever almost hit a dog?  Then decided to be a good guy and find the owner?  I would almost say don't...

Following Sim home the other night she almost hit a dog.  We both stopped and got out to make sure the dog was okay.  1-2 years old blond German Shepard female.  Beautiful dog.   well behaved.  and she had a choke collar with a 8 foot leash, but not a license.  walk the neighborhood and knock on doors.  Those at answer at 9:30 at night do not know the dog.  call the local police and they take a report, but then have us call the County Sheriff and file a report, they then ask us to take the dog to the Animal Control Shelter as they only respond to hit or violent animals.  I get eh dog in my dog and start heading out.  I arrive at the local shelter... Closed on Wednesdays....  Back in the car and on the way to the County shelter, almost a minutes drive away... I'm on the phone with their answering machine when the smell hits me.  The dog is car sick and has barfed... the back seat is swimming in puke.  and the smell is deadly.  just then the answering machine voice states"we are closed after 6:00 PM, and only respond to Law Enforcement Officers"...  I stop at the Pinellas County Sheriff's Dept administration complex and ask what I do with the dog.  "There are cages out front the shelter for overnight drop offs".  Back to the shelter and in the corner of the parking lot is a small hut like brick object on  entering I see 6 cages, 2 small, 2 med, and 2 large. I get the dog into a large cage... and full the dish with water.  Its now 1:00 AM... four hours later then finding the dog.  Next stop a gas station with a vacuum unit to try to clean up the back seat.  the dog also took a dump....  scraping out what I could and vacuuming up everything I finally get home about 2:00 AM and spray down the back seat with a carpet cleaning solution.  go inside, take a shower and go to bed.  All these because I care about animals and the people paid to care so don't.....  Things need to change...

l8rs

For those if you with Case Iron stomachs...

Sassy Sauce and Spice Co.

Santa is that you?

here's a book to brighten the Christmas season!

Boing Boing: A Directory of Wonderful Things

Welcome to Monday

On Friday they Told Me that I had 48 hours of Vacation Left To use before the end of the year.So...I'm off every Monday till the end of The year. Nice ! ! !
So today Sim is doing Paperwork and I Will work on my website.Things that I don't normally have time To do.
And no...I still haven't heard anything about the money part of the Job offer So far.Hopefully,this week. But the weather up there was Rough over the weekend. lows in the teens and 18 inches of Snow.while it was cool here,lows about 44 it has been up in the 70s each day.Yuck! I need Cooler weather.

Less than an hour

thats all it took before the first Phone Call with a probelm from the office this morning. Good old Roadrunner is blocking our email at work again. If anyone on your Octal does something to get banned they ban everyone on the SubSet. Last time it took almost 2 Weeks to get them to Unblock us.

think I will Just Check Voice Mail Today and not Answer the Cell anymore. this way I don't have to hear The Crap while I am Suppose To be off and having fun... On my time not theirs!!!

Photo # NH 96566-KN picture data

thought you all might like this... the first ever computer bug

what to tell you... Tuesday the 25th was a day pushed up by 6 weeks.  I ordered up a new T-1 line 2 weeks before and was told that I may have it by the new year.  then someone, somewhere wasn't ready and I got bumped to the head of the line. So much to get done.  The Cisco router needed a new IOS  and additional memory in order to handle the bonding of the new line to the our very first line, so that I could double the bandwidth for our FTP services.  Do the router updates myself, no way, this was a not a job for me to learn on.  A call into the "A" team and a CCIE arrived hours before the line turn up for the IOS and memory.  Good thing too as because of the bump up, the paperwork was incorrect and the CCIE had to work out with the Data line tech a new scheme live on the phone... by the end of the day we were smoking the line.  Plugs out testing was done and we maxed the line at 98% out-bound and 48% inbound. 

All was well...

 

Thursday was cookie making day.  With cool snap here in Florida the windows got opened and the A/C shut off.  The tradition around my house is to make cookies on Thanksgivings Day.  and my wife went in to overtime on it.  by the end of the day there must have been 48 dozens cookies left on the counter...

 

Friday was a planned cleaning day and packing stuff for storage.  long day.....

Saturday...

I woke up to the email server at work not being available... a quick check showed the web server to be dark also.  so quick tests proved that the bonded T-1 lines where down.  In on the single T-1 and a bounce to the bonded showed them up as long as I was inside the provider's network.  Call tech support... it's 9:00 AM...  they will run tests and get back to me...  so I try to finish up the packing left over from Friday.  11:00 AM comes and I get the phone call... need you to reboot your router.  head into the office and reboot, send config file, send setup paperwork...  about 7:00 PM I get a Tier 2 tech.  the trouble... paperwork was wrong during install, modified by admin, but the mods never made it to Tier 2 so when an update was run Saturday morning it reset all the ISP configs back to the original paperwork.  We are back up and running

Sunday...

allergies kicked in and I became a couch potato...

Monday...

back to the office, its payday

 

l8rs, all

 

 

AIM Document ManagementWho, What, Where... The Answer to a question that no one really wants to ask... ;-}

Traffic.com - Tampa - Traffic Map
Just another night of going home fun... Buth then it does lead to a four day weekend ;->

Have fun all!!!

Cellphones for coffins

Cellphones for coffins
A Belgium newspaper, Gazet van Antwerpen is reporting that the family of a recently deceased motorcyclist are suing the funeral firm they chose, after the dead mans cell phone started ringing - from inside the coffin.

The paper reports that Marc Marchal, 32, was killed when his motorbike collided with a tractor near his home town of Rochefort. Mr. Marchal was so badly injured in the accident that the undertakers advised his family that the coffin should remain closed as they said their last farewells.

The night before the funeral, the family gathered at the undertakers for a final private farewell, when they heard the sound of his cellphone ringing from within the sealed coffin. Several distressed members of the family had to leave the funeral home whilst staff rushed to remove the cell phone.

The family is now suing, claiming that the undertakers were negligent in preparing their relative for burial.

testing a post from Pocket Blog

I sitting at Philadelphia Airport hooked up through the AT&T wireless out in the terminal with a flight delay of 45 minutes.  This is the only glitch today.  The flights and the interview went very well.  John picked me up at the airport after a little cellphone tag and off to a nice Irish pub next to the tall ships in the Delaware Water gap.  Dave then arrived.  This is the owner's son and a true come up through the company guy.  Dave is my kind of employer.  He knows the jobs and every part of the work process from hands on service.  John is the "go to" guy.  He is the talent scout, sales force whip and Financial organizer. He knows what needs to be done.  They are primed and ready to take the next step and I think that I can help them do it.  Now comes the hard part.  John told me that with the short week, it will be a week from tomorrow before they contact me again, but this time they will have a better idea of what to tell me is the next step.  Sounds like 7 days until I hear the job offer in detail.  These are guys who speak there minds and don't hold back.  I look forward to getting here if they want me.  This could be a real sweet job with the company going somewhere... 

Well, Sunday has arrived.  I am ready to go.  Wife is in the shower and getting ready for her first time as an Educator for the AEFM.  We'll be leaving home in just a few minutes so that I can arrive at the airport in time for check-in and a quick browse of the magazine stands.  What am I looking for... Wired magazine, of course!  Trying to keep the mind from running to far ahead of me.  I feel like I am leaving the Matrix for the first time.  I have been accepting my place in the world for some time, but now I am breaking the mold.  There are two expressions around the office.  1. "everyone is replaceable"  This is a favorite of the owner/my boss, 2. "Richard will never leave, he is here for life".  If all goes well today , I will show them that both are not true in any way.  I also have to get pass the feeling that I am dumping on the friends that I have made at work.  This includes the Owner's son and Son-in-law.  Both have trouble doing their jobs, One is trying hard to fill the new role he is in, the other doesn't actually seem to care.  Its getting very sad.  The moral has dropped to an all time low.  It is time to get out while I can.  I can't think about the ripples that will be sent though the company as I leave.  There are so many things that I will try to teach them before I go.  So many things that no one wanted to know when I needed help doing them, so many things that cost me so many hours of my time...  O  look forward to working shorted hours.  For while I was "on the clock" about 9-10 hours a day I was working 2-4 hours each night to just keep up.  The fact that most of the other Managers and the Owner himself, never really understood how many things I do that they never had to think about.  I carry I major load in order for the office to stay up and running.  But the better do my job, the less everyone sees me as working hard.  They only see me as working when something breaks and I have to fix it.  Such is life.  But Today things are being shook up, re-sorted and organized into a future...

Back in 16 hours... with a new life?  stay tuned...

"same bat time, same bat channel"...

The stress is building, the excitement is not far behind.  This is the most major event in my life.... I could change the course of things forever.  Called and confirmed everything and they are ready and waiting for me to arrive.  Today's list of things to do: Have Saturday morning breakfast with my wife, then off to see a personal client today and got her computer up and strolling faster.  Lots of spyware onboard, but thanks to Spybot Search and Destroy, all gone now.  Next pickup a computer projector for my wife's education class tomorrow.  A quick lunch and then..   take her to her salon so a quick clean up , while I head home to do laundry...  Pick her up and make last minute runs to Bed, Bah and Beyond.. Walmart.... Kinko's... and back to the salon to teach her how to use the a projector with her laptop.  A full run through of the PowerPoint slideshow... She is now ready for tomorrow.  Back home and now I am organized enough to head for bed. 

Tomorrow is going to be more then just another day... It could be the fulcrum for the rest of my life...

See you in a little over 24 hours... happy anyway this comes out, as at least this is a move in the right direction!!!

Night all...

e-Tickets are in hand.  Lift off is Sunday at 8:40 AM.  tour the plant and then off to a local sports bar for drinks and the interview... 

okay let me get my thoughts together...  They called... we talked...  they called back...  we talked some more...  they called back.... They are flying me to NJ on Sunday for an interview!!!  I leave out of here Sunday morning and arrive around noon.  They show me the office and then drinks and more talking, then back home again.  And if all goes well, I start the move to NJ by mid December...   Holy Crap!!!

This is from Boing Boing Blog, as a Disney fan I found this interesting:

"Epcot Center had the distincition of being the first Disney park in which every single ride and pavillion was sponsored -- in the case of the World Showcase, the sponsors were the countries represented; but in the case of the Future Showcase, the sponsors were tech companies, and they built VIP lounges and conference spaces into their ride-pavillions for their bigwigs and guests. Hidden Mickeys has a ride-by-ride description of Future Showcase's VIP lounges (I found out about this through an eBay listing for a Living Seas VIP Lounge uniform jacket)

Around the right side of The Living Seas, past the Coral Reef restaurant, there is a door marked only by the United Technologies Corporation logo. Press the buzzer by the door, display your pass and you will be allowed access to the VIP lounge and the conference center beyond it. (George Bush was received in the conference center in 1990.) The conference center is on the second floor of The Living Seas and has huge windows that look into the tank. You can see these windows when you are in the attraction by looking for the restaurant windows. The second set of windows above the restaurant are those of the conference center. The conference center is currently closed but is frequently used to receive VIPs including Michael Eisner.

Link
[Boing Boing Blog]  "

I received a call, message on my cell phone, from one of the places in NJ that I sent a resume to!!! While I was in my room at work were cellphones don't work so will he, the President of the company, did leave a message and his cellphone number to call him that evening.  The trouble was that I didn't see the message until late that night and I didn't call him back over the weekend, thinking that, like most of my fellow managers and the owner, likes to be bothered by work unless it an emergency over the weekend.   Sunday night as I turned the ringer back on to my Cell, silenced while seeing "Master and Commander", He had called again!!!  My bad choice for thinking that he wouldn't want his weekend interrupted... Duh!!! So I will call him back today at lunch and see what he interested in about me!!! 

more to come...

its more of the usual with Handango.com  I have an Axim X5.  For the money the best Pocket PC device I have every touched.  Both Compact Flash and Secure Digital in one device.  I have installed the new Mobile 2003 OS and runs great.  With all the freeware out there I haven't purchased that much software for it, but there have been three Apps that I consider must haves.  Flexwallet is a must for encrypting password and IDs, and two from Omegaone.com, Battery Pack and Journal Bar.  The trouble is that the company sells via Handango.  the updates are free, which is a very nice thank you for purchasing form the author, but then the trouble starts.  Handango lets you redownload twice before you get hit with prompted for more information.  The one I am getting is the credit card used to purchase.  And here in lays the trouble.  When I get a "new" card the old one gets cut up.  Handango's emailed invoice contains no CC information, not even the last 4 digits.  So you are left trying to figure out what card you used over a year ago to purchase with.  and if you still have the number around.  I not your only course of action left is to contact their customer support... The website states 1-2 business days,  last time it was more like 1-2 weeks before I heard back.  I had located the CC# before then and got the update.  Their "help" was to send the update file, so that on the next update I had to go though the same process again.  I can not be the only customer having this trouble.  I just requested an update that I do not have a # for, lets see how long it takes this time...

trying to add RSS to the blog, lets see how it works ;->

I've been to Mount Airy...  I live in the Tampa Bay area and no one here can get it together to do this kind of stuff in our Downtown.  Clearwater where I work or the "mall" in downtown Tampa would be great for this but no!!!  Some small town in the mountains does it...  And we are not talking about an area with a lot of money, for crying out loud, there is a quarry in the middle of town that dynamites three times a day and shakes the town.

-------clip from http://boingboing.net/2003_11_01_archive.html#106862399182143608 -----

Mount Airy -- the town that provided the location and the inspiration for Mayberry in The Andy Griffith Show -- is rolling out an 18-blog-wide WiFi network.

Working with Mark Spencer of 8021Link Inc., Mount Airy set up a Wi-Fi network covering 18 blocks. Several merchants already have signed as for hot spots and have added "Internet Hotspot" signs. The network augments the community's use of the web to tout business and tourism. It's web site (www.visitmayberry.com) is a treasure trove of Mayberry information. Wi-Fi was a logical next step.

"You already can see people coming downtown – not in droves but in 1s, 2s and 10s, carrying not only pocketbooks but also computers," says Bradley, who has run the Chamber since 1998. On a recent Saturday he stopped in at the Good Life Cafe. "There was a guy on one of the PCs set up in the coffee shop," he says, "and another guy was at a table with his laptop.

"This is just pretty darn cool!"

Link (via WiFi Net News)
[Boing Boing Blog]

for the fans of the original radio shows... New shows on the last three books!!!  Douglas Adams lives on!!!

http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/68/33819.html

after yesterday's mistake, can I make it through the day without a major controversy?  Maybe.  The worse that can happen is that I get called into the office for a talk.  But this is exactly what they have been avoiding for years.  Will they can me... doubtful as I am the only IT guy in the office.  And as the proof from the last couple of days shows, there are only a few people in the office that can figure out what is going wrong and and fix it.  But that aside it's "Foamy's Friday"  For those of you who don't know me.... I like food.  Foamy's (http://www.foamysbarandgrill.com) is a great burger place, and on Friday's its there special of the day, 1/2 pound burger, fries (change out for the tubular onions) and a coke for $4.50.  It has become an office tradition since around May to go there on Fridays.  So Friday is not just Hawaiian shirt day anymore.

R.

Heard from my boss this morning via email...  "so you think that I am a brickwall"...  just great!  What this this about.  Then I get IMed by my out of office programmer, :"how you doing?"  "not bad, where have you been? I sent you email and you never responded"  there should have been a loud ding and a bulb going off over my head.  the email I sent to the programmer about a change the boss wanted, and how I knew that it would be a pain to recode, and attached a comic of Dilbert talking to his boss who is turning into a brickwall as he speaks... when to the boss and not the programmer.   I must have really needed sleep...  just another fun day....

R.

Newsgator is the best.  not only does it bring me the news that I want, but the blogging feature is so easy.  I'll be trying to post at least once a day. 

Things have been crazy since getting back from vacation.  at this moment there is at least 1 terabyte of data flying around the office network onto 6 drives attached to 3 computer systems that comprise my desktop computers.  all this data must be on the drives and ready to ship by Friday 15:00.  this is all for 2 customers that are major accounts, and I am the last contact for the data before it leaves the office.  And it was made possible by a simple technology that I brought into the office.  What was tech was that?  It started with a thumb drive that could hold 3 albums in MP3...  often after getting to the office the choice of music on the drive wasn't what I needed.... so what is better... an USB/Firewire enclosure and a 300 GB drive.  Now I can carry my entire MP3 collection and all my files, so that I have nothing left behind.  The best part...  the enclosure was $30 and the drive $80.  I will never get this great a deal again. 

time to head off and read all the RSS feeds, but in reality I may just drop everything and go directly to http://www.wilwheaton.net and enjoy.  Check out the photo albums.  He may have been Wesley Crusher on TV, but he is really just another geek, like us.

l8rs...

 

off and at work by 7:30 this morning, trying desperately to cover everyone's butts.  The thoughts of moving to NJ are growing...  need to find a corner of sanity.  My song of the last month since being back from vacation is "Fountains of Wayne - Hey Julia"  great song about the pointy haired boss and getting home to the love of a good woman.  Trying to get my act together and see "Matrix: Revolutions" tonight.  Hopeful but not sure if its possible. 

T-Minus 32 Days till 97X's Next Big Thing: http://97xonline.com/ads/nbt03/bandlist.html

Almost 40 year old with the mind of a 20 year old.... I'll be the oldest guy there, but who cares if the music is good...

l8rs,

R.

well the purchase of Newsgator looks real good right now.  I'm working with he 14 day trial and finding it quite nice.  the Blogging add-in should help me get more out... and sooner. 

l8rs,  R.

does it work as professed?

 

R.

After a day on the road and 1000 miles in one day I arrived in Manassas, VA. to meet my wife. She flew out on Sunday morning to teach classes in the VA / DC area. She is an educator for a manicure/pedicure line, and she teaches nail techs how to use them correctly. So Tuesday morning about 5:00 AM I hit I-4 out of Tampa Bay and over to I-95 north bound. Arrived Manassas about 8:00 PM. I was really glad to be out of the car by then. She then took me out to what I must say was the best BBQ I have had in a while in a place called "Red, Hot and Blue". Great sauces. If you can, you must try the vinegar and the Sweet sauce together.

Wednesday morning we both were officially off work. Sim had already scouted the area for things I might like to see. While Washington DC was only across the river, it was just too much for me to deal with the traffic and she knew it. So just about a 1/4 mile from the hotel was the Manassas battle field. What is it? This is where the first battle of the civil war was fought in a place called Bull Run. There's a flash back from history class.

After that we headed for Brick, NJ to see some old friends. Having a great time with them. However Terri's cat had to make an emergency trip to the vet's office and we are waiting not so patiently for test results. Tomorrow we are off for north NJ to see my nephew and his parents. The little guy is about 5 and smart as they come. I haven't ever had more then an hour or two with him since he was less then 1, so I am really looking forward to spending a few weeks with him. I also understand there are bears in the area so I brought along all the camera equipment. I will post pics later on my website. That's all for now. Nothing like a vacation to brighten things up. And too my surprise... no phone calls from the office yet, so that is the greatest gift yet.

l8rs all...

Meeting with the Boss?
after yesterday I am trying to get a meeting with the boss. I need to talk to him about yesterday and just what it is that he is expecting me to do. I am the IT manager with the boss/owners entire family working here in manager positions. I am the only IT person in the office and therefore technically a manager myself. But now he is calling and asking me about the other managers who are family as if I know what their projects are and the status of each one. Am I now their manager? Did I some how become responsible for the whole office? This and much more needs to be addressed with him. 2 year ago, when I got my last raise, the network was 12 compares and a server running Microsoft Small Business server. Today it is 7 RAID servers for a total storage of 9 there abouts, exchange server, web servers, terminal servers, Cisco routers, 2 T-1 lines, Ftp servers, etc... All this in just 2 years, and all with out training, other then me reading up on things as I grow. Yet no raise, and no "thank you"s. I have become the dark office at the end of the hallway. Something that you pass by on the way to the breakroom. An article that I read the other day stated that tech's are the forgotten if all is running well. But if we are needed to troulbeshoot, then we are the hated as we often have to tell the user that the trouble is them and not the computer, and just how could that be... Users never make mistakes. Just more of the morning ranting. Hopefully I will get in to see him today and throw some of the stress off my shoulders. I may be unemployed by day's end. Who knows, who cares... Either way the stress will be relieved some...

It's Wednesday and guess what?
A bird or squirrel gave up its life to screw mw over again. the new phone system is dead. Something fried itself on the power pole outside and caused a short. this lead to a induced static stike on the building to building line link. The biggest problem turned out to be a break in the building grounding cable. this means that all the surge protectors had no where to bleed off the over voltage. this means that the power spike entered the office via the phone lines and killed the PBX again. Thankfully our phone tech happened to think to check this while the power comapny was doing repairs. So all is well there. However a phone call from my booss during this time, in which I was berated has made me think seriously about leaving the company very soon. I mean I was ready this morning to leave. And if it wasn't for the need of a paycheck they would have been looking for a new network admin. I have 20 years in at the company and I get treated like the newbie whenever there is a crisis, yet some how I end up being the responsible one. How I get this over the boss's son or son-in-law is a mystery to me. maybe you can't blame family...

But enough of that for now. T-Minus 6 days and counting till vacation. its looking good too. the high was 68 there today witha low of 38. I am ready for that....

and welcome to Monday.
I arrived to a dead phone system. the PBX appearantly didn't survive the power outage. so the solution... call our phone service company and...
1) un-wire the lines out of the PBX and have people get cordless phones form home and bring in. This leads to my room not only being loud from the fans blowing in cool air, the servers drives spinning, but now I also have the ringing of the base units.
2) get a new PBX and have installed... this arrives about 12:30 PM and installation beginning
to give teh guy access I have to dismantle the comm corner so that he can get to the wall.
3) installation complete, now the programming of the system begins... 3:00 PM
4) testing of the programming and the signing of the agreement to pay...
5) go home to a few rum and cokes.

Mondays and good times....

Sunday is for sleeping... and I am learning to do it well... my wife is the greatest of teachers in this....

what can I say.. I'm not at work and all is well. Wife out getting her hair done and running errants. I'm in doors and cleaning house. not the perfect day , but not bad either.

did I mention that the now infamous Airborne package arrived with my Windows Mobile 2003 software... only 8 days late.. fo Airborne and 2nd day delivery...

Installed the new mobile 2003 on the Axim and then begin installing programs again as the mobile 2003 like any OS install on a Pocket PC erases the ROM and replaces it with the new. there does seem to be an increase in speed. soft reboots are much faster. I did have a glitch with Omega One, Journal Bar's interent access. I quick look at the default settings and I find an option unchecked... "do not disconnect after syncronizing". seems the Activesync disconnects the PPC after syncing with outlook, and this is the time that Journal Bar starts getting data. So now all is well.

what did I very do with out an Axim....

BTW: don;t even start playing Jawbreaker... you just can't quit playing....

TGIF my butt. Okay I had made it through the day and was out to dinner with my lovely wife when... My cell phone rings...
7:30 PM EST...
Security company calling, you have a power outage at your office... CRAP!!! I am third in line on the call list. This means that the owner and his son have been called at home and on cell phones and could not be reached. If they got me on the cell then they have called me at the condo already. My server will be toast before I get there. And as I hang up the cell the the food arrives... The Owner's son-in-law is put on the task of sorting out the power problem as he was an electrician before getting married and working for us... He calls the power company to check things out.. Hours pass... I call to see what is happening...
9:00 PM EST..
nothing from the power company...
10:00 PM EST
nothing from the power company...
11:00 PM
he calls back the power company and they say they where out at 9:30 but forgot to call him back. Everything to up to the power meter checks out, so the trouble must be inside...
11:30 PM...
in the car on the way to the office... My room is full of UPS units bleeping the tones of death. most of the servers had already crashed before the first phone got to me. I start shutting down the UPSs.
12:00
The son-in-law arrives.. We start checking out all the obvious causes... Nothing. Flip the main breaker off and on.. Nothing. Some outlets have full power, some no power, and worse, some have half power. The light glow an eerie low orange. Finally outside to the meter... Its digital and does not have a reading... Call the power company.. No this is not normal, the driver we sent out should have checked all the way to the meter, we'll send out another truck.
1:15 AM EST - Saturday morning....
the truck arrives the guy looks at the meter and then fires up the bucket truck and starts inspecting the transformer on the power.. Then the fuse links on serveral powers, then drives down the road using a spotlight to trace the wires... And finds the problem.. A palm tree two blocks away shorted one of the phases coming into the building., we are getting only two of three phases, hence the strange power in the building. He replaces the fuses and the power fully comes back on...
2:00 AM...
spin all the servers back up one by one. DC first and the the RAID servers, all 7 of them. Next the exchange server... And it will not boot. It has a config error and can only be fixed by going into the BIOS... But is will not see the KVM. Pull it from tea rack and fix. This time is boots and we have email again...
2:30 AM...
go home and die...

and that's how we have an IT night on the town...

TGIF to all reading this. Thankfully this week is drawing quickly to an end. Upside... The new RAID hardware design works nicely. Doing a RAID 5 build as I am writing this. Downside... Airborne still has not arrived with my package containing Mobile 2003 for my Axim... It now shipped 8 days ago via 2nd day air... Go Airborne...
So tonight a little rum, a little hypnotiq and a good meal with the wife. I've been married now for almost 8 years and still can't get enough of her. She's a very special girl to put up with a geek like me.

Build just finished so I must get onto the next phase. In two hours of formatting 2 terabyes will be added to the network. That should hold me for another 6 weeks...

Did I tell you that my Mom works where I do... She was hired here about 3 months ago. While she had been out of work for about 6 months, when asked if it was okay, I said "sure". Thinking that it would be this or her moving onto my couch in the near future, that this was the lesser of two evils. That was then, this is now. She arrived in my office as I was spinning up the network status scans. More of the in-office gossip..., more of the family gossip..., more of who passed her condo window..., she's been single far to long. To quote an 70/80s band Styx "Too much time on her hands". She's been single since the divorce back in 1973. Not that she would let her "control freak" personality down long enough to let a man get near her. Just another day in paradise... Florida = pay in sunshine not money. So in short, its going to be 90 again today and I may earn enough to afford a Big Mac... ;->

And lastly this morning,

For those of you that are wondering about the name "the MoleHole". My senior year I had one half a credit needed to Graduate. And that was the year they decided not one could graduate early... so I took my first not extra credit elective... Graphic Arts. I was already in love with photography, and this just made it worse. spent all my time in teh darkroom skipping any class that I did not need to graduate. after serveral hours in teh dark I would come out with squinted eyes and earned the nickname "MoleMan" and the darkroom became the "The MoleHole". and it has stuck to this day... though photography has taken a back seat to computers. more on where to see some of my photos on the web later. Right now the site is full of family shots and not "real" pics.

Have a good day all. We've made it pass the hump and are on teh slide down to the weekend.
besides it T-minus 14 days till vacation... the office is already sweating it, as I am the only IT person in teh building...

l8rs,

Moleman

now for some good news....

Today I the construction of my newest rackmount RAID design. 2 TeraBytes of RAID 5 in a 2U case. for those of you not familiar with TeraBytes... thats 1000 Gigs per Tera. The ystem itself is being built with 2 Xeon 2.66 GHz processors, 533 FSB and a 1 GB of DDR RAM. It will be the newest of 7 RAIDs in my rack at work. As of last Friday I have 140 million public records documents for the State of Florida housed on them. If there are not more major problems, like yesteday, got greet upon arrvial at work to a smoke filled building. An AC unit have shorted and the fan motor had smoked and died, I should hav ehte system up, Windows 2003 Server installed an the RAID formatting. the end result will be 2 TB in RAID 5 with a hot spare. SWEET!!!

The pain of just getting Mobile 2003 delivered

First Sorry but I have to rant somewhere. After ordering and waiting fo rmonths for Dell to ship, I was surprised by a phone call telling me it was on its way. I eagerly logged into my account and there was an airbill number ... and on the Airborne site a notice that there had been a delivery attempt (no one home to sign). A quick phone call.. Dell truncated my address and dropped my Apt #. Corrected via the phone call. I got home.. quick distress, no we missed you slip on the door. hit the Airborne website... Delivered? It's not here, but there was package from UPS... Back on phone with Airborne. Yes they delivered it to the front door of the house..? I live in a condo... to what address.. why 123..., mine is 213... we will pickup and redelivery on Monday... again the website said delivered again... and still no package. One driver picked it up and another deliveried back again. Another phone call to Airborne.. now I have my own personal account rep helping. Ahh the real troulbe, in teh process of updating for the missing Apt #, the "tech support" altered my address from 213 to 123. Correction accomplished... Tuesday.. no package... call again, couldn't find anyone at home to get package back from, Wednesday and still no package... Airborne suggests that since I live close, maybe I could go get it... And I paid for 2nd day air... Now its Thursday morning and I have the feeling that the package will still not be here. I have a few side jobs to do today before getting home so I will not be able to make my daily phone call to Airborne today.

between Dell and Airborne I am starting to like PPC 2002

Did a backup again last night... maybe I'll have it today... could have had it shipped ground and saved the money, 2nd day has now slipped to 7 day...

SO a little about what I hope to accomplish with this Blog and maybe a little about me.

1) my spelling is horrible. just ask those I IM daily. But I will try to work on it.
2) just turned 39... large laugh from my wife as she counts down the days until I awake with lillys on my chest at 40
3) I am an a major fan of the Dell Axim X5 PPC ( see http://www.aximsite.com )
4) I am every company employee's nightmare... The Network Administrator, not Nick Burns, but more along the line of "Three Dead Trolls in a Baggie". You just won't believe the things that users will do and try to hide.
5) Music.. Jimmy Eat World, Norah Jones, Nerf Herder, Sarah McLachlan , Catch 22 and the current favorite... Streetlight Manifesto
6) Movies... Matrix = great, Matrix Reloaded = average, Spiderman = fantastic, Daredevil = what were they thinking... more later

And tomorrow, if all goes well, I 'll post the long tired story of an Axim X5, Mobile 2003 for PPC, Dell patches and repatches, Airborne 2nd day delivery and hopefully the final delivery 7 days later...

this is just a test.. for the moment