Crazy Aces

Today, all I could smell was the paint from this weekend.

I guess that I had some time to think this weekend: An idea that I’ve had gestating for several months finally surfaced. This morning I wrote a menuing system for my users that replaces half a dozen separate scripts - and it’s only eight or so lines longer than any of the other individual scripts. Kind of slick, kind of simple. It’s one of those things that I’ve been meaning to get around to for a while and finally took the time this morning. It sure will make administering those various user menus a snap!

I managed to find some time this weekend to paint. Then I painted. Later I painted some more. After that, you guessed it! I painted! All friggin’ weekend long! I went through over four gallons of paint. Wow! what a difference a fresh coat of paint makes! I thought that our living room was white. Turns out it was more of a smoke induced yellow. Sure feels like a whole new house! I did the upstairs living room, the hallway, the stairwell (yeah, that was real fun!), and the hallway downstairs.

It certainly has been a busy week! Finally managed to get a piece of code working today that will allow my monitoring scripts to keep tabs on our informix database. Kind of screwy, actually. I had to eval a command and read it into an array so that it could be properly parsed, otherwise it would never test correctly. Somehow there were certain embedded control characters that I just couldn’t get at to remove. Feels good to at least have a solution (albeit somewhat kludgy!). This was actually the first chance in several weeks that I’ve taken the time to code. Sure felt good!

We went to the movies after work today. The movie? Chicken Run. Thoroughly enjoyable! Not quite Wallace & Gromit, but still well worth seeing!

Once again I worked way too late last night. Not only that but yesterday started off rather poorly to begin with. At 5:45am yesterday I received a call telling me that the Switch department had upgraded their equipment, and would I be kind enough to upgrade my part without any warning, preparation or even a backup now that you are awake? I normally take at least a full week before one of these upgrades. Boy was I steamed! Anyway, between that and working until 3:00am this morning, today didn’t have much of a chance to be much better. After a slightly rocky start however, things got better. Finally hooked up the data connections from our new switch to the RNOC (regional network operations center) so that they can monitor the system 24/7.

After trying to keep my journal for a week on my newton, all the while wishing I had invested in a keyboard, I have started to look for a new pda. I love my newton and would be hard pressed to part with it, but it has become painfully obvious that I require a bit more from my pda than what the newt can offer. I am looking at several Win CE models. PalmOS may be more politically correct, but I must have an integrated keyboard, and I have yet to see any palmOS devices configured with one. Also a backlight and net access would be nice. I have been watching Ebay for the last week or so and have found several models that I am considering. HP has a couple of models, the 320LX and the 620LX (of which the 620 is probably overkill). There are one or two Casios I would consider, as well as the LG Phenom. I would like to shy away from the “chicklets” style keyboard that seems to be omnipresent in these types of devices. Oh well, I may just stick with my trusty newt!

So much for comp time. I tried to take a half a day off today. Technically I was off, but I spent the afternoon fixing problems over the phone and on a conference call. Still no time to get to the Mercedes, which has been sitting in the garage for over two weeks just waiting to be looked at. On a brighter note, the conference call was in regards to a certain security issue that I made Lucent and SBC aware of. It looks as if they (Lucent) are actually making changes to the core architecture of one of their products based on my recommendations!

Made quite a bit of progress on the Orlando page. It’s still not ready for prime time, but it’s getting closer! I finished day three (the Magic Kingdom) and a majority of the Sea World saga so that only leaves three more days worth. I hope to have it completed in the next day or two.

Well this weekend was nothing but a blur! I worked until 8:00am Saturday morning, slept till 1:00, went out to dinner with my sister (more in a bit..) then went to my brother’s house for his son’s birthday party. When I got home at 9:30, I had to dial into the office to attempt to do what was cancelled friday night. So I was up until 3:30am Sunday morning completing that! Today I slept and played computer monopoly with Logan. I didn’t accomplish anything that I needed to around the house. Hopefully I will be able to take some comp time later this week so I can catch up on things around here.

Saturday night, my sister Karen took us (that would be her daughter Melissa, Faith, Logan and me)out to dinner. This was a milestone! When Karen went into real estate, we made a deal that she would buy dinner after she sold her first house. well, success has found her! By the time we got around to going out to dinner, she actually closed on two separate houses! (one actually sold the same day she put it on the market!) I think she has finally found her calling! So if anyone is in need of a realtor, just let me know and I will get you in touch with my sister!

Once again I am at work. It’s 4:30 in the morning, again, technically this is the 22nd. <sarcasm> This is fun. </sarcasm>

I did manage to scan a bunch of pictures earlier today from our trip to Orlando. I even have them arranged in a little gallery! (I’ll add a link after it’s been cleaned up a bit). I guess I can try to get more of the Orlando page completed now that I’ve ftp’ed the thumbnails up.

Parenting is the most amazing and wonderful experience! I was gone for a day (to Kansas City- more on that in a bit) and I just can’t get over just how fast my little boy is growing up! You should see him running around our (his) neighborhood with all of his friends. I can’t tell you what kind of joy that brings…

I haven’t had a chance to work on my Orlando page in a couple days. Hopefully tomorrow. I am back at work at the moment (12:40am -technically the 21st) doing a software upgrade on one of my systems. Yesterday Joe and I drove out to Kansas to do an upgrade there only to find out that the people that scheduled the upgrade (It’s a two part procedure of which I am responsible for half) didn’t plan very well. The only person they had capable of doing the upgrade was fired about twenty minutes after we got there. Suddenly everyone there assumed that we would take care of the whole procedure. After talking with two managers and a regional, I convinced them that it would not be in the company’s best interest to dive into a full upgrade without any thought or advanced planning. We did manage to accomplish several other minor feats of wonder while we were there, so the trip wasn’t a total loss. So, last night was Kansas, tonight is the BWM (broadcast warning message- telephone talk for an O/S patch) at the Duncan switch and tomorrow night we attempt (again) to retrofit (that’s telephone talk for upgrading to a new O/S version ) the Woodsmill switch. Kind of a busy week.

***today is the one month anniversary of my journal!***
This has gotten to be a much more rewarding experience than I expected. I look forward to re-reading this in a year. I hope that I can keep up with this. I guess I should start thinking about an archive process to keep this page loading quickly.

Just a quick entry- I need to get to sleep. I will be traveling to KC tomorrow for several work related issues. I am still totally swamped, but one project I am getting involved with is very cool! Think “Wireless Data”

Made some changes and updates to the Orlando page. Not nearly complete! I hope to finish it sometime this weekend (including pictures and possibly a break down of our spending habits just as a reference). I’ll post a note when it’s complete.

Installed Mandrake 7.1 on my laptop. Very smooth and clean installation process! It even configured my dial-up with my pcmcia modem! (it still won’t resolve DNS for some reason…)

Back from vacation, and back into the maelstrom of work! First things first! I did manage to keep up with the journal while we were in Orlando. I have formatted the trip on a page of it’s own here. I will finish it up by adding some pictures (hopefully later this week). Needless to say, we had an absolutely great time! Ah yes, back to the subject of work- good news (finally) I am now the first (and at the moment the only) Senior Systems Administrator for SBC Wireless! I haven’t really had any time to relish this new title because as soon as I accepted, I got hit with all sorts of new projects (including the fact that my co-sysadmin will now be reporting to me) sheesh! A bit more than I bargained for!

I finally succumbed to temptation and purchased a game for my home pc. As you may know, I am not by nature a player of pc games. This one is different. Diablo II. I enjoy being able to enjoy a bit of gameplay with an intuitive interface. I don’t want to learn some cryptic hand gestures reminiscent of a necromancer aising the dead just to be able to play a game ( ala’ Half-Life. It shouldn’t require seven out of ten fingers and an above human dexterity just to play a friggin’ game!) Diablo II has a very easy interface. In fact, I can easily play the game with my mouse and occasionally two buttons on the keyboard. I applaud the developers at Blizzard for the wonderful interface. It makes the game so much easier to enjoy!