Mac Setup and more on Flickr - Photo Sharing!

Oh my freaking lord! Check out this dude's setup. This should make Chewie and his lovely wife drool.

Mac Setup and more on Flickr - Photo Sharing!

A solution to life's problems

My worst fears have come true. The joy that was to be my final day in class will now be marred by Qwest and a data center move. They have wanted us to move for several months. The couldn't get the data center work completed before Christmas, and I told them that I would move during the first part of January '06. I didn't hear from them upon my return from the break. I shouldn't have called them on it, but I was concerned that they would tell me that they wanted me to move right in the middle of our buildout at work.

Luckily, we won't be deploying our 100Mb/s Metro-Ethernet circuit. That means I don't have to worry about router configurations and new VLANs for at least another month. While I'm relatively comfortable with doing them, Cisco has changed the OS on their Catalyst switches enough that I can't fall back on my 6509 for guidance. Dammit.

Of course, I was hoping to not have to work this weekend. But, that is not to be. I'm not happy about it. Not at all. While looking through my e-mail, I found this note from Fez and it seemed appropriate. Thanks Fez!

Today marks the first day of my freedom from newsgroup postings as part of my degree program. Huzzah!!!! Actually, I can't believe I just put that down. I guess I'm letting my geek show a little too much. I'm on a countdown to the end of my degree program. I have one presentation to do and part of a team project. That's it! I'm done after that. I have but to order my diploma and walk at the graduation ceremony in June.

I'm really looking forward to this individual assignment. I am supposed to reflect on the person I was when I started the program, the things I learned while in the program, and then the person I am now. It should be fun. I've got some good ideas for the actual presentation, but I want to mull them over a bit before I get started.

I don't have a problem...

I have been outed by Fez. A few weeks ago, we found a site and made South Park characters. He's put them up on his site, and methinks I'm going to beat him. I was planning on using mine later and I cant' now. Ah well. I can't blame Fez. He's finally doing a blog, and I get to harass him in yet another way. What could be better?

It never fails.. Dell 30" monitor?

I don't this to become a technology blog, but I just happened to look at a link on Slashdot that blew me a way. Dell is now selling a 30" wide-aspect LCD display. Kinda makes my new 24" LCD look puny. Although I don't think that I could fit it on my desk. My new one takes up almost all of the space my 2 18" inchers took before. Good god.

Dell Monitor 3007WFP Product Details

and then, there was peace

I figured out the "blanking" problem with my monitor. It turns out that my kick ass video card doesn't support 1920X1200 on DVI. It almost does, which is why it blanked. I switched cables back to analog and I haven't had a lick of trouble since.

On a good note, my father-in-law wants to buy one of my old NEC 18" LCD's. Maybe I can put that money from that toward a new video card. :-)

The ball is rolling

The last couple of days have been both busy and not busy. With the new year comes all of the IT projects that we've put off. I'm just beginning the process of outlining our goals for the year and fleshing out the who's, what's and where's of them all. It's looking to be a busy 6 months.

On the personal side, I received my new monitor on Tuesday and have been up waaaay too late playing. It works great, except for one issue. Randomly, my screen will blank and come back. I'm afraid that it's my video card, but it may just be DVI support on my card. I'm going to try switching it back to analog to see if it performs better. If not, I'll need to decide what to do.

Sun, glorious sun

My buddy just sent this to me. This picture, I think, summarizes why I love living in the Northwest. A beautiful sunrise on January 3rd, 2006. The skies are clear and it's just cold enough to make you want to drink something warm.

The image was taken from his office window, which overlooks downtown Seattle. He told me that he was blinded by that sun about 5 minutes after the picture was taken and that he had to shut his blinds. It was worth it though.

In with the new...

The first day for 2006 proved to be both relaxing and enjoyable. The little shindig was quite fun, although Aaron bugged out at about 11:30PM. I hope he got busy. At this very moment, I'm trying to log into World of Warcraft. I started off by sitting in queue. I don't think I've ever seen the server full. I then sat through the character loading screen. Now, I'm sitting at the login screen, which has been the same for what seems like 10 minutes. What a load... wait.. I'm in. Bye!

Gorgeous Close-Up Photos of the F-117 "Nighthawk" Stealth Fighter

I found this on Digg, via my customized Google home page..

The best set of F-117 Photos I've found. These are Truly some of the best photos showing the F-117 from Display, Take-off, In-Flight, and Landing. High enough resolution to make into screen savers or Desktop pics...

This is, perhaps, the most gruesome yet effective aircraft to date. While not good for the average aerial battle, it is a superb surgical strike bomber.

read more | digg story

Out with the old, in with the new

Today marks the end of my self-imposed hell that I call "the early shift." I've proven, to myself, that I really don't do well on 8 hours of sleep any more. I went to bed at 9:45PM last night, and feel better today than I have in the last 2 weeks. If I had to do this long term, I reasonably sure that I could safely hit the sack at 9PM and do pretty well on 6.5 hours sleep.

Today also marks the end of the work year for me. I won't be back in the office until 1/2/2006. With that starts a very busy 2 months of office remodeling, networking and phone switch installations, with a break in the middle to go to Mexico with my wife. We're celebrating my graduation from the University of Phoenix and a successful completion of the B.S in Information Technology program.

The contracting gig that I took up will also pick up, it seems. They are putting together a large list of items for me to do and putting completion dates on them. It looks like I might trade some of my newly found free time for some consulting work. The extra cash will be nice.

As for plans, tomorrow is the day that I've invited Aaron's and Jason's families over a somewhat quiet New Year's Eve get together. These are two of my closest friends, and it will be good to spend some time with them and their families.

Bleary-eyed and Cranky

This is the 3rd day that I've had to work "the early shift" for Aaron, my SQL DBA and right hand man. When I say early, I mean early. The early shift starts at 5AM PST. Since Tuesday, I've been getting up at 3:30AM in order to get out of the house by 4AM. My average commute is about 50 minutes to work, which puts me at the office a little early and give enough leeway that I can be a little late and still get to work on time.

All of this is because I agreed to support a wider window working hours for the business. While I am more than willing to support the wider range of hours, this getting up at 3:30AM is for the birds. I figure that it takes me about a week to fully adjust to the new schedule. I'm almost there. I'll be adjusted just in time to go back to my regular schedule. Ah well.. the joys of managment, I guess. I get to cover when my employees go on vacation.

In a completey unrelated area, I ordered my new monitor for my home setup today. I can't wait for it to arrive! I think the image says it all, however.

Vacation: Day 7

The last day of my Glorious Holiday Vacation was a good one. We went to my mother's house for dinner and gifts. We had a good time, but some strange things were apparent to me after spending some time there.

My mother has been dating, off and on, a guy from Hoquiam. That's where we moved when I was 10 and lived through my graduation from high school. I don't exactly remember where they met, but they've known each other for at least 2 years. He's not been feeling well lately, which I can understand. My mom told me that he moved in about 2 months ago. Here's the story, we went there and none, and I mean NONE, of our family photos were in the living room. It was all pictures of his family. In fact, I dont' recall seeing any of pictures of my kids in the house. My wife noticed that my mom was a little more tense than usual and not as bubbly as she normally is.

I noticed it as well. I'm really curious what's going on there. I have this fear that he's a control freak and is trying to impose his view of the world on her. I got the distinct impression that he really wanted us to leave by the end of the night. If he wasn't feeling well, he could have just said so and we would have kept the kids quiet so he could rest. There were a ton of ways to handle the situation, but he chose the most passive/aggressive way possible. I shouldn't be surprised. I don't really care for the guy, but I do try to be pleasant.

I really need to talk to my mom and find out what's going on there...

Vacation: Days 5 & 6 (a.k.a. Christmas)

Yesterday, that would be Christmas Eve, was a whirlwind. My brother-in-law showed up Friday night sometime between 5PM and 7PM. We all got up pretty early on Saturday. My son and oldest nephew took a long time going to sleep on Friday and were cranky as hell for our little shindig.

Everyone started showing up at about 11AM for Eggs Benedict. I've never had it before and found it to be pretty good. I might try it again. We began the present extravaganza at around 1pm. The kids' behavior deteriorated steadily until everyone left at about 6pm.

With the house quiet, we watched a couple of our new movies, namely Star Wars Ep. 3: Revenge of the Sith and Robots. To be clear, my son and I watched Star Wars and my wife and daughter watched Robots. The kids didn't manage to get to sleep until 11:30PM. It may have been visions of sugarplums doing the Cha Cha in their head that did it. Of course, it could have also been that they were just too amped up from the day's activities to sleep. Santa arrived at about 1:30AM after successfully wrapping the goods and depositing them in the appropriate sock.

Today was relaxing. We watched It's a Wonderful Life, which is just about my favorite Christmas movie, outside of Miracle on 34th Street and A Christmas Story. We're all tired, so everyone is going to bed early tonight. We're planning on going to my Mom's for dinner and the last bit of Christmas for the year.

Vacation: Day 4

I'm sneaking upstairs to my office to write this while my son, daughter and oldest nephew are playing outside. My wife, sister-in-law, niece and youngest nephew are playing Toy Story Yahtzee!. The plan for today is to wrap up the last few errands we have to run and then hang out. We're in the home stretch of the Holidays, and I can't wait until the rush is over and we can have some quiet time around the house.

Vacation: Day 3

It's Day 3 of my Winter Wonderland Vacation. I was hoping that today would be the day to relax and buy some gifts for my wife, but I found out yesterday that I have to take my daughter to an eye exam today at 9am. That means I need to leave in 35 minutes to get there on time. We got back late from my family's, and the kids are groggy and don't want to get up. I'm trying to be pleasant, but I have a sneaking suspicion that they are going to be really cranky. The joys of parenthood.

I also just found out that one of our data circuits at work is mostly screwed. Why the fuck did I check in? My team can handle it. It's not like there's anything we can do about it being down either. I should have just let it slide.

Vacation: Day 2

With the oven successfully installed yesterday, today marks Day 2 of my vacation. I started off my day with a trip to the county landfill. We are nearing the end of our pre-spring cleaning and had a van-load of old stuff to get rid of. None of it was really suitable for The Goodwill, or The Salvation Army. If it was, I would have donated it, but sadly, it contributed to the further degradation of Mother Earth.

I learned something about myself, however. I can't stand getting rid of perfectly good and functional technology of any kind. We had 2 stereo systems that we simply didn't have room for, and that we couldn't get rid of. I stared at them both for about a minute before I gave them the heave-ho. I really wanted to find a home or them, but couldn't. Oh well. C'est la vie.

The rest of today goes like this:

• 1:00PM : Leave for Longview to visit my Dad, Uncle and Grandfather.
• 3:00PM -8:00PM : Visit, eat dinner, etc.
• 8:00PM - Head home.

My friends are doing an instance run tonight in WoW, but I doubt I'll make it. They'll be done before I get home, I'm sure. I'm going to need to take a vacation from this vacation in order to get some rest and relaxation.

Vacation: Day 1

Today marks day 1 of my vacation. I had the distinct pleasure of putting in the new oven we just bought. I don't remember it being such a pain in the ass last time. But, this one was. After 2 hours, however, I was able to finally get it to the point where we can turn it on and do all of the stuff that we're supposed to do with a new oven.

We can't cook on it yet, so the wife and kids are heading out to get chinese food for lunch. It should be a treat. I'm looking forward to eating something made within the walls of my home, however. Take out is pretty old, at this point.

A New Day

Today is my last day to work before I'm on vacation (from work) for the Holidays. It's a foregone conclusion that I'm happy has hell to be away for some rest, relaxation, and fun. A few things before I go, however.

• A friend posted this on our guild boards. I laughed my ass off when I read it. I think I'll get a copy and change it so I says Class: Warlock to all loot.
• Wil Wheaton has posted Radio Free Burrito, Episode 3. I've enjoyed listening to these in the past, and am looking forward to pretending that I'm working today to listen to this one.
• Visions of 24" Wide-Aspect Monitors are dancing in my head.

I'm going to try to put something more coherent together, rather than just rambling, while I'm on vacation. I'm not sure what it will be yet, but it will be something. Actually, I may bounce my final assignment for school around here as a way to work on it without it feeling like I'm working on it.

Time to ParTay

I didn't get a chance to play or drink last night. But, I'm done with school for 3 weeks as of about 5 minutes ago. W00t! With school done for a bit, I can now look forward to The Holidays. Here's hoping that I act a little more out of character and actually work on my final assignment between now and January 8, 2006.