In tribute....

.... to the upcoming conference. Check this out.

(Rant) High gas prices

Ok so I have been meaning to post about this for a while now. As you can imagine after hearing from the newspaper profits that gas will be hitting $1.50 a litre this summer I was shocked. After that wore off I realized they are probably right. This naturally flooded my e-mail over the past little while about "High gas prices" and "Save on Gas" approaches to make things right.

Now let me say that in principal I agree with the e-mail. Actually if anyone has watched me over the past few years they would realize that I have been following through with these e-mails. I have been a frequent user of SunCor Energy and have actually avoided places like Esso. Now I realize that the follow website is a bit bias but even if there is a grain of truth, I'm too lazy to confirm myself, to the stuff there then you would understand. Stop Esso, ExxonMobil child company, that some companies are worth boycotting not because of trying to drive down prices but because they are evil. Esso has joined the list of companies that I avoid like Bell (poor support), Electronic Arts (poor employee relations), Nike (child labour) and Walmart (oppresive pricing practices).

I'm not asking anyone to follow my lead. These are my choices and if you agree you can follow them but that will be your choice. There is my rant and I'm done now.

Breakfast

So it turns out that we found a recipe for cooking home fries. Naturally you can't very well have a meal consisting of just that so I thought I would check out how well my omelette skills are. Well they aren't 133t but they aren't that bad.

I settled on a green pepper, green onion and feta omelette for food. Let's just say I wish I could eat like this every day.

Conference update

Ok I have been planning for a few years now to redo the entire report generator and I have finally done it. It took a lot of side work for the past few months but it is done. I have also compared it to some of the results from last year to see if it is functioning properly.

Some updates that are in the new version:

Moved from DAO to ADO data connections

Changed all code away from MS Jet to pure SQL

Created option boxes for each report so the entire routine isn't needed for one report

Created accurate progress bars to reflect what is being done

Made liberal use of "DoEvents" commands to the processor isn't killed

Reduced excessive code

Removed redundant code

With all those changes the report generator which, from what I recall, took minutes to run is now down to 26 seconds for all reports. This includes the most difficult and twisted ones. This should make our job much easier when it comes time to actually use the report generator.

Out of everything listed there I'm not done with it though. Right now it is set to a static database which I need to change to something more dynamic. I'll be including a standard open file dialog box for this use. After that I'm not sure how much more I need to do to make it a better program. The reports are nice and snappy and still accurate so what can I do?

Actually there is two things that need to happen. I need the full documentation of all the reports to make sure that what I am generating is what should be generated. I did find a fault in the previous version of the report generator though. The swimming award doesn't work and from what I can see never did. I'm not sure what I was generating in previous years but it isn't want they wanted LOL.

Well no more updates on this subject at least until Purple Mangos gets back to me about the reports. [Insert not so subtle nudge here.]

Update: It seems my understanding of the report was incorrect. The design of the tables involved were very flawed. Enough that they shouldn't have been published like that in the first place. Anyway a new table will be introduced that will help slipstream the process and make it faster than before. To relax people let it be known that the system before was completely functional just very clumsy. If I wanted to go to Vancouver and back again I wouldn't take a cruise ship to get there I would take a plane. Both will get you there one will just take longer.

And so a truth comes out ....

I'm not sure if it is the real truth or just a convenient truth but it is something. At last I have a reason why my employment was not continued. It seems that I wasn't "management enough" to be able to stay there. Considering the way that people were talking I'm not sure if this is the real reason but it is something closer than anything else that I have heard. The only part that makes this funny is I'm not sure if my boss actually knew that was the reason.

I'm not sorry to go though. The place was nice but I did start to notice some undercurrents throughout the company that I'm not sure I would have enjoyed. This saved me time about what was going on. Also the release resulted me in not having to drive through way too much snow. The other advantage is that I really don't want to be management at this stage of my life. I enjoy what I do right now and I'm not sure I could step away from that to be able to do more. I'm a System Administrator and I'm happy with that.

A sweet goodbye

One of my co-workers sent me this e-mail after my departure:

"Thanks a lot for your assistance in the past, and if need be in the future. The only person that was here to provide stimulating conversation is no longer - you. Days and afternoons will be boring now.

I do wish you all the best that can possibly come to you, and that you find deserving employment soon. I am sure that my surprise was equal to yours on Friday, but I guess the "perfect fit" was more important than an individual who was willing at all times to assist, and one who had work ethics similar to mine.

I am sorry for their loss - not yours.

Keep well and good luck."

I think that is the nicest thing anyone has said to me after I have left a company.

A little update

Ok I have my domain back and it is actually working. I have been responding to various e-mails and what not since it has been back online.

As most people know when you first get a job there is a certain probation period that you are in where both parties have an option of ending the working relationship without notice or reason. Well Monday would have marked the passing of that time at my employment but it seems I won't be there to see it. As management said they didn't think I was the "right fit" for the company. So I'm out looking again for employment and we shall see how that goes. Anyone know of a company hiring a Windows System Administrator? If anyone wants to see my public resume you can find it here.

Just kidding

Looks like my domain is still in limbo.

My Domain

It is back online. I guess the domain transfer from my previous provider to the new one went well. I'm going to be testing the accounts tonight to make sure everything is backup up ok.

Day of sadness

I would just like to inform everyone that today reaches a bit of sadness that I have been expecting for a while now. My very first e-mail account has been closed. This account has been with me since I was in grade 8, for those mathematically challenged that makes it about 15 years. The service from the provider eventually forced me away to find greener pastures.

Because of this change please be aware that all my domain related accounts will be inactive for a week as domain ownership moves from my previous hosting service to my new one. At one point I can actually say I was a proud member of the internet community through the host but as they grew bigger they also grew less feeling to the community around them. I liked the idea of getting messages from the president every Christmas season wishing everyone a happy _______, the greeting was in about 20 different celebrations. I liked the idea that they would work on firming up the local infrastructure by connecting directly with other ISPs to create a bigger web then relying on the local major providers. But alas all that has passed and with it I sign my first e-mail account to the eternal ether and hope that things get better from here.

Happy new year

Ok so I'm late but so have all my thoughts of new posts. All that is ok because right now I'm rocking out to the new Foo Fighters album called Echoes, Silence, Patience and Grace which I must say is quite cool when played at about 20db louder than you should listen to it. (Hmmmm. Wonder where the neighbours are because they aren't complaining)

As promised here is the post about "Management's spin on bad ideas".

I found out though some accidental cyber stalking that one of my previous managers listed quite a number of interesting achievements from the company he left. The most interesting of them is the fact that he managed to "Lead initives to outsource email management". This on it's own seems like a great idea. A medium sized company now allowing a third party to offload some of the IT processes and freeing up staff to do more worthy things.

Let us look under the covers just a little first shall we? The company in question had a well established e-mail system in place prior to his arrival. The processes in place to be able to manage the previous mail system were well defined. The Linux administrators made sure that everything was up to snuff and working on a shoe string budget was more than possible for them. They had the mail server working with over 300 users on a small little P2-400, I believe, with a paltry 64 megs of ram for the longest time without causing any issues.

So what happened? Why did such a good system get thrown out and replaced with a Microsoft Exchange system? The answer is simple. After a select removal of staff, me, the rest of the staff saw little to no reason to say and starting looking for new places of employ. The two Linux administrators that were there left with little time between them. With no administrators for the mail system something had to be done to keep the world turning?

The solution was outsourcing the mail services to someone who could handle the problem and do it quickly. It was done with I'm guessing with some issues but a mostly transparent transition from one system to the next. The manager was undoubtedly hailed as a hero for another successful project.

The real problem. After successfully destroying a great IT group for selfish and misguided gains the manager managed to incur an on going expense to the company because of his inability to lead.

As a footnote it seems that said manager has yet to hold a job for more than a year and a half anywhere he goes.

In a way I think I may continue the quiet cyber stalking. Should I ever be in a position where I can hire someone it would be good to use the Internet to find out how some of the IT community works. There are good people out there that shouldn't have to deal with people like him.

A week of work

Ok I have now done six days of work at my new place and it has made me very happy.

The people there are very receptive to having new team members join. It is a small enough organization that I will eventually get to know everyone there. It is great and filled with many learning opportunities which is what drove me there in the first place.

Naturally there is a down side to every place that you work. So far the one I have found is it seems that there are boxes of doughnuts at every turn. This is a test of will to see how long I can hold out without over indulging myself. The company really knows how to keep T.H. in business.

I can see a lot of things that I can do at the company both as my hired role of Network Administrator and as System Administrator. Some will take some convincing while I hope others will be much easier but I won't know until I try. It is times like this I wish I payed more attention to what Luc was doing in years gone by.

The best I can say is I'm happy to work there and I can see a me spending a long time there. Previous posts I had held always had an iffy feel about them but not here. I'm happy and I think I will stay awhile.

The Monday Post

Ok as promised here is the Monday post.

As you all know I have been working at finding a job for the past couple of months. I can now say that I have found one. As of 4:30 today I signed a offer of employment and am now working at TotalLine Transportation.

Some of the finer points are still up in the air but from now on I'll be working from 8:30 to 17:00 at a good job. The people there are great from the ones that I met and and I'm sure that I will enjoy it as there is plenty of learning opportunities there.

Oh and it is still Monday so if anyone was saying anything about "Where is the post?" remember I never promised a time.

The Nerd Handbook

The Nerd Handbook was posted on Digg today. Naturally this is some kind of fluff material that is closer to humor for wild thoughts. Not this piece though. Some of it struck close to home. I can also think of a few people this could apply to as well for understanding .... at least if I left my 'Cave'.

How religion failed my friends

A little while ago I was walking along with my wife and a couple of friends and they were discussing the changes that were happening at their church.

Now let's start off with the fact that I don't care that much for religion and I excluded myself from this conversation and was more of just an observer. Anyway I observed the following.

Over the years through faithful service my friends have been having the feeling of being pushed out of their church as things have changed. These reasons are long and complex but the summary is that after trying hard to keep the better parts of the weekly services in they are now being dropped by the current clergy. This results in less of a role for the choir and a borderline insult to choir as well.

I don't hear many people saying that these are good changes. If church is for the masses then this is a failure of the church as they are no longer working for the masses but a select number of individuals who, frankly, may not be around for much longer.

Coming posts

I have been a little on the lazy side for posting I know but I have thought up of three more posts I just have to get around to them.
1) How religion failed my friends
2) Management's spin on bad ideas
3) (I actually forget)

Anyway I will work on posting them when I have a chance this is more of a reminder of what I want to post on.

And everyone thought....

That my cat was crazy.

Working

I found this on Digg. It is someone's blog about working or the lack of. I'm surprised to read a story like this because it shows that there are people out there that are happy doing nothing. In essence getting a free pay cheque. I find this troubling because I like to work and actually feel that I earn something. I enjoy creating things to make my life and other's lives easier in the field. I strive to make everyone's life this easy. Until then there is far too much work to do for everyone and free rides like this shouldn't be allowed.

That is just my opinion and I'll stick to it.

Youtube

Just saw the chess master Gerry Kasparov kill Bill Maher in a live interview. This was an entertaining interview. Gerry puts on a good show.

Employment news

Well it seems that two more job positions have slipped from my grasp. The first one I don't fault really though. It started off as an System Administrator role but then mutated into a development role. I have some tendencies for development but nothing near what they had in mind. Oh well.

As for the other role I was up for it seems that I was not selected as the candidate but not given a reason why I was over looked. I have asked why but the question seems to have gone into limbo. I don't hold my breath for a response as it is a large company but I do hope I get some kind of answer.

So here I am still unemployed and still looking.

New toy

Now here is something that I would like. mccoe64g8mpr-03a

Job hunting

Just a quick update since I haven't posted in a while. I'm still looking for a job and things are going about as normal as one can expect. Just heard back and I didn't get the job at both Rogers and the Zoo.

I'm not surprised about either really. Rogers is a Linux/Unix/AIX show while I'm a Windows Administrator and the Zoo changed what they wanted to be more of a development role rather than an administrative role. I'm still staying positive as good things come to those that wait.

Anyone looking for a Windows System Administrator with junior skills in Network Administration, Visual Basic development?

Sharing the joy

This ranks right up there with semi-conductors.

Par!

WooHoo. We hit par with the US dollar!

Anyone up for some shopping in the US?

Back home

After what seems like a month of being a way we have finally returned. Everything seems normal for the time being and everything is good. Now there is still the issue of dealing with space. Space for all the wedding gifts that we didn't get around to packing away before we left. Finding space on the network for the near 30 gigs of photos we took while we were away. Finding space in the calendar to just sit back and relax.

Photos will be posted but as Bubbles said it will take time. There are many photos that need to be stitched together so they will take a while but they will come eventually.

Greetings from Italy!

Ha I'm in Italy and having fun. Been here a few hours already and had some real pizza while my new wife has had some real seafood.

Yummy. Pictures to follow on our return.

Honeymoon

Be back after Greece and Italy.

HP LaserJet 2600N

If one more person asks "Is it too late to change my wedding RSVP?" I'm going to scream and hunt them down and hurt them.

To parody Homer Simpson:
I have a colour printer, that is good.
It has a problem printing on some card stock paper, that is bad.
It connect directly to the network so no print server is required, that is good.
It is now not receiving data across the network for printing, that is bad.
The printer is far faster than the ink jet we have, that is good.
For the wedding we have used about $600 worth of toner, that is bad.
It cost less in ink that the ink jet we have for the wedding, that is good.
This is the end of my post, that is bad.

I'm glad

Harry Potter has a sense of humor.

Harry Potter

Almost done the book. I should be able to finish it in the next night or two.

Harry Potter guesses

Seeing that it is only a few days away from release I thought I would get everyone's opinion on what they think of the next book. Any guesses?

Here are mine:

Most of the Weasleys well be dead by the end of the book

Current standing members of the order of the Phoenix will also be dead with the exceptions of Lupin and Alastor Moody

Ron and Hermione will be a couple during most of the book but Hermione will sacrifice herself for Ron

Harry will loose all his magical powers in the final confrontation

There are my opening guesses for the book. Anyone else want to post theirs?

The past week

Well here is a quick update for the past week. I have:

Had two interviews

Had the car serviced for it's 100 000 km checkup

Celebrated a couple of birthdays

Celebrated Canada's birthday

Aside from that life has been routine and just trying to keep up on all the wedding things. Due process is taking time but that is fine as it currently is spreading out all the expenses to something that can be managed.

Fireworks and sunset

Here are some photos from the weekend. Hope everyone enjoys!

Fireworks: Small / Large

Sunset: Small / Large

Favorite photo is dsc07296.jpg in the fireworks group.

Finally figuring it out

Ok so for a long time now people have been asking "What can I do to help with the wedding?" because:

It's a wedding and intended to be a huge event

My brother and wife threw their's together in four months

There is a lot to do

For an equally long time I have been saying "Nothing everything is under control" because:

We have been arranging this for the better part of two years now

Mostly it is just contacting the responsible people and getting them to "make it happen"

Two years is a lot of time to get everything in motion for the most part

We are generally not that picky about the way things are done, if things are just off electric blue we won't panic

We have lots of friends actually taking care of various aspects of the wedding and we all casually talk about it

So really for all those that think they should be doing "more". There is already enough more going around it is just so thin that no one really sees it. Ha. I guess that is the way it should be. However, for those who really want more wait until the last two days because then there will be enough more to go around.

Oh in case it hasn't been mentioned yet for all you happy groomsmen out there. You are also bouncers/security enforcement for the wedding .... just in case :)

Job interview

As I'm sure may of you know I was in a job interview yesterday for the OSSA. They are a great company and their work is very impressive. The thing that I found most surprising is that they are only 80 people. Out of everything they do I would expect a larger company to be able to do so much.

I thought the interview went great and everything went well. At the end of the interview I asked when everything would be settled for the job. To my surprise I found that they were going to be making a decision that night to who would move on to the next phase of the interview process. After leaving I was thinking how great it would be to hear Nicole call up and say "Great we would like to have you in next Monday for the technical review!". I was a little surprised when the call was "Thanks for coming and we think that you had some great skills but we don't think you would be a very good fit."

Damn job hunting.

Surprise!

Well there was a big surprise wedding shower that happened yesterday. I would like to thank everyone that came from out of town to join in. I was really surprised at the turn out!

Thanks to everyone who made the surprise party such an event!

The 100th post!

Yea I have finally hit the 100 post mark!

Now I didn't intend this to happen but here is a question. As you may know I'm on Facebook. Now it seems that my previous previous employer found me there. Now I wouldn't have a problem but it is the Director of IT that found me which I particularly don't like. Here is the question is it better to just leave the friend request hanging or should I reject it?

Job hunting

Funny thing job hunting. You can spend weeks trying to get a job, then when out of the blue something comes along that you are perfect for they say "I'm sorry you aren't senior enough." To say I'm a little miffed over this is being nice. So now comes the fun of trying to make myself senior enough.

On the off note I was planning on getting a quick job at Staples, just to fill time, since it is close and the staff like me but, I was told that I would get a call last week and I never got one. Oh well that avenue is closed. I think the problem was that I had too much experience.

Have I commented that I hate job hunting?

Two tragedies from last week

Ok two things went horribly wrong last week. The first I posted about which was probably the bigger of the two. As a recap I'll just say that StarCraft 2 was announced. The other is that I can't find my copy of Brood War for StarCraft 1!

I know these are trivial matters compared to the larger world but right now I want to play Brood War!

Ow

I just spent most of yesterday wandering around town delivering invitations to various households. My legs are sore from all the walking even though I did make good use of the local transit. *sigh*

In other news the cat attacked me yet again this morning. Insane beast.

New computer research

Darn. Safe to say that old Dolphin can't run it. FTPServ doesn't stand a chance and Mugatroid will be underpowered as it had a hard time with just the website. Good to know this won't come out for a year or so. Give me some time to get a good computer together.

Wedding stuff

Ahhhh! So much wedding stuff. We have done the registry thing and got the wedding invitations setup. All is good! So much left to do though. I'm working on it a little at a time.

A little humor. I could see a couple of people doing that. One more for the smokers out there.

Links ....

Technical Support:
Ah the good old days when I had to call Bell for support. This best demonstrates how it works.

Which Family Guy Character Are You?
Surprisingly I'm both Brian and Lois.

New Point of Contact:
Facebook

Conference reprise

Ok the conference is now over and everyone is tired and wants to sleep. On the good side I did sleep for a stupid long time last night and I'm feeling better this morning. I'm sitting in the SO's office right now figuring out what to do next.

Conference was good and lots of new ideas came out that should hopefully make next year an easier year to manage from the Scoring perspective. For the most part it was a flawless year except for a few awards that were causing issues at the very end which made everyone stay up later than anyone wanted to.

A few stats for people:

Lines of Code:

Scoring: 534

Reporting: 1597

Post Web Registration: 1141

Number of Records:

.... of Participants: 478

.... of Staff: 99

.... of Events: 98

.... of Results: 1239

Other stats:

.... of hours writing last minute reports: more than 12

.... movies watched: 0

.... of pizzas ordered: 2

Until next year folks enjoy the time off for next years preperation!

Conference

Ah! back to the joys of conference for this year. Anyway things are quite normal now that we have our happy rooms of 831* so we don't have to go walking around to just do our work.

Well since I'm here I don't think I'll be doing a lot of talking so have fun everyone!

Oh ya photos and video to follow. I hope.

Last day of work

So I have finished my last day working at CGI under contract. I have to admit that working with those people was a good experience. The team, approximately 20, is a really friendly group that works well together. They joke around and act more as a bunch of friends than co-workers. This made for a really comfortable atmosphere that I enjoyed going to every day.

Since I was contract the only overtime I had to deal with was when a specific issue needed to be solved by the end of the day. I think the worst day was 3 hours overtime. There is something to be said about working in a 24x7 environment then changing to a 9 to 5er job. Somehow it doesn't seem like enough work gets done in a day and I should be at home writing e-mails or other support events.

The good news is it seems that my team leader, Dave, really enjoyed having me there and thought I would make a good addition to the team. The bad news is that they don't have any openings right now. The good news is that they are working on that and trying to create an opening for some new team members. The bad news is that they don't know when that will be. The good news is that I will be given first dibs on the position.

Ok good news comes out on top. I guess that is great then right?

That which I thought would never pass....

You know how you are young and you always think that your parents will be around forever? You grow up and you realize that this isn't true but somehow some of your innocence is then lost. Well our family has had a cottage for as long as I can remember. I always thought that it would be part of the family. Even when there was fighting between the family members I always thought that it would be around. Sadly this isn't the case.

It was decided about a week and a half ago that the cottage will be sold. It has been on the auction block for a while and it was finally purchased. The owner takes possession of it next week if I have my timing right. So the previous weekend we went up and took what we thought we needed. Everyone is having their turn to clear out the cottage. Anything left will go to the new owner.

Anyway here are a few pictures of the old cottage. It was nice while we had it and I didn't visit it as often as I should but now it will really be missed. Here are a few photos that we took with the Alpha.

Picture 1

Picture 2

Picture 3

Picture 4

Driving to work

Makes me feel like this. I'm getting to the point of just wanting to ram my car into that stupid BMW/Lexus SUV that keeps cutting me off just before I get off the highway!

Maybe I should get some stress relief.

Punctuation

The great thing about typing everything out is that I can actually proof things before actually committing them to paper/message. Now I have noticed that lately I have had random punctuation creeping into my typing. I have been getting ? in places where . should be like wise random ! have been showing up.

I need a vacation. Thank goodness in 3 weeks I'll have at least two weeks off.

Morning funnies

When I walked into work I saw the funnies thing. The building I'm at we have a concourse level where everyone parks outside and then we go up to the ground level for all important things. Well on the retaining wall between the lower concourse level and the actual ground floor there were a "silly goose". He was staring at the building which is mirrored and complaining highly at the goose that he saw in the building. As geese do he was very loud about it too. Very funny seeing the goose get all bent out of shape about his reflection.

I found this at Worse Than Failure today. Best search string for Google ever. "how to hook up a hose to a kitchen sink". The best is the "Did you mean:" section.

Oh the toaster oven of doom in the office has been taken away :(

Bell the stupid

Ok LF dropped us a line a couple of days ago about an outstanding modem charge after canceling our account in APRIL!

Well there was a minor bandwidth charge back in December and there was no comment about about hardware costs. Anyway we got a message from a collection agency about a charge of ~$84 outstanding on our account.

So I call the agency to find out what is going wrong. They are just out to collect the $$ so they don't know any of the real details. So I call the dreaded Bell. I start talking to someone at One-Bill billing. "I'm sorry you need Sympatico billing. Please hold on." (Transfer to Sympatico billing). There was a quick discussion about what was going on and then the person confirmed that the modem was returned in January. Excellent! Bill has now been zeroed and we owe Bell nothing. Again. For the third time since April.

Call agency back again and say all is good and you should hear from Bell about this soon. They have confirmed that the modem was returned in January and all is good. This is when the abilities of Bell far exceeded what they have previously done.

-=-=-=-=- -=-=-=-=- -=-=-=-=- -=-=-=-=-
Me: They have confirmed that the modem was returned back in January and that the value of the bill has been reduced to zero in reflection of that.

Agency: Well that is odd why would they have done that? If the reason for the charge was fixed in January why did they send this notice to me in February?

Me: Because Bell is a wonderful company that is highly orderly and stands at the peak of customer service.

Agency: I detect a little sarcasm.
-=-=-=-=- -=-=-=-=- -=-=-=-=- -=-=-=-=-

Anyway the conversation continued happily and all is good once again with the world with Bell fixing their problems .... Again .... For the 10 ^ 8 th time. I hope it stays that way.

I'll be calling the agency in 30 days to confirm that all is good.

Phantom of the Opera

Well went and saw Phantom last night and it was great! The seats we had were good seats but naturally they came at a bit of a cost.

The show was good and the guy that played the Phantom did a great job. I would cite his name but I don't have the booklet with me here at work. Anyway the story and presentation was as great this time as it was the first time I saw it.

I have to say that there were two minor flaws with it though.

1) Raoul didn't provide a very emotional performance. Though from what I gather he is getting better.

2) One of the stage props has squeaky wheels which destroyed the "suspension of disbelief" during the second act.

Still that aside it was a great performance and I'm glad we went.

Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End

Just found a new trailer today. Funniest point:
>Barbossa "Thar's not been a gathering like this in our life time."
>Sparrow "And I owe them all money."

Check out the trailer.

Bored

Ok so right now I have a mess of things on my plate. Conference related issues need to be resolved before too long. This is more work than I feel up to doing. I have already done some of the simpler stuff but the real functionality tests still need to be done.

Really I'm just tired. I blame my lack of sleep.

Something else that makes me bored is my job. I just don't do enough there. I'm better than what I'm doing. *sigh* At least they pay me well enough so it doesn't bother me all the time. I guess just I'm feeling a little down about being in a job that doesn't seem to have any forward potential.

Installing Ubuntu Part 2

Ok so one defective disk can can really screw up an install.

The coolest thing about installing Ubuntu is that you can load up Firefox while installing it on a second desktop. So while Ubuntu was installing I was browsing Digg while the install occurred.

Post install I was politely told that I had 138 updates pending download. So now I wait for my 226.3 megs.

Installing Ubuntu Part 1

Ok I started an install of Ubuntu last night. I figured I would let it install all night. I think it froze because it was still at 23% done just like when I went to bed last night.

Tonight will be take 2.

Things to look forward to....

This.

Anyone notice I don't write medium length posts. They are either super long or ultra short?

Lately....

I just took the Stupid Tester and came up with this:

I think I have been passively cheating though because I have been working on a bunch of random stuff that seemed to be in this test. Oh well. Being 4% stupid isn't that bad. Especially considering that 95% of those that took the test are below me :)

Other things in the news .... It turns out that BNL just released a new album that is freely available for download from here".

Well back to work to tell my fellow admins on the weirdness that occurs when downloading PDF files.

Weather

Ok so last night trying to get home was interesting. I left the office at 15:30 to pick up the SO from her office. A nice little 15 minute drive .... Well at least until the weather decided to make driving stupidly slow. I got to her office at 17:00. Now in all fairness I did take a wrong turn which prolonged the drive by about an extra 30 minutes by my guess. Oh well.

Now came the fun part. Getting to the gas station before running out of gas. I should have done this in the morning but I wasn't thinking too clearly.

We stopped by a Sunoco for gas but it was out of gas :( It seems that the fuel shortage caused by Esso's refinery created a more global shortage than I thought of. Darn.

So we continue heading home in hopes of finding a gas station before running out of gas. We did. Oddly enough it was a Esso. I filled the tank at a whopping $36 and went inside to get some dinner. Normally this would have taken about 10 minutes to make it this far down the road. Nope not because of the weather this time. Almost an hour later we managed it *sigh*

We continued home and stopped in a Chinese place for food at 19:00. Again this drive should have taken us about 20 minutes. Ate while the snow stopped. All was looking up again. Until we got outside and realized that the snow had stopped because the freezing rain had started. *sigh* Looks like it will be a longer drive home. We got home at about 20:00. All this from a drive that only should have taken an hour tops, not 4.5 hours.

Now I'm staying home by advice of both the fire and police department because the roads are so bad.

Smooth moves

This is funny yet so wrong. After playing on a Wii and the "Smooth Moves" game I actually understand this comic. However the general idea is correct.

In the game you are introduced to the Wiimote in a few different ways. The first is "The Remote Control" is pretty much like that, you hold the Wiimote like a remote control. Later you find things like "The Waiter" where you hold it like in the illustrated graphic. "The elephant" where you hold it against your nose like a trunk. It all kind of adds to the game. A great idea if you ask me.

However leave it to someone to find the twisted way of looking at it.

Stupid work things

I'm not referring to anything that would be Dilbertian. I'm talking about just dumb things. I was wandering around the office today because the helpdesk system crashed, yet again, and I had some time to kill. Well it seems that the floor here has two little kitchens. That is fine because it is a decently populated floor. The stupid thing is that one kitchen has a toaster, that works, and the one close to me has a toaster oven that is a safety hazard.

The toaster oven can't be on while the door is closed. One must keep the oven door open so the trip switch will be in the off state. Needless to say I think this is a fire hazard as it is stupid to have to use the toaster oven open for it to work. *sigh*

Back to staring at my helpdesk screen waiting for it to come back online. *yawn* I already did everything else today that was on my hit list
- Renew license plates
- Figure out parking ticket issue
- Setup DVD burns to get stuff off FTPServ's hard drives
- Play fun games

Kids

If I have kids they will be like this

Weird things

Ok first on Friday I finally took the dive. I have always wondered what happens when you ask for an "Extra Strong Hot Water" from a coffee machine. Guess what? It cancels your Extra Strong and just gives you hot water. How uneventful.

On a stranger note .... The SO and I were discussing about our tear ducts last night and found that both of us have an uneven share of tears come out of our right eye. Has anyone else noticed this? Or is it really that our left tear ducts are underused?

Humor: In case of terrorist attack

Just follow these helpful signs and you will be safe. This ranks up there with the "If you see a flash duck and cover" kind of thing back from the cold war.

It seems that for this world to live the same life style as I'm living right now we need 3.8 Earths. My ideal life though bumps that up to 8.6. Anyway how is your lifestyle?

Mafia feeling....

I have the feeling that I should be posting. Anyone interested if I start posting again? It is kind of like the mafia, once you are in you can't leave as it will just drag you right back again.

End Post

I have been considering this for a little while and I have made up my mind. This will be my last post.

On that note .... "later folks".

This just in....

Five seconds ago the "The Man" said that our contracts were extended until the end of April!

GTI 3 answer and 4 question

Well you have all asked for it. Here is the answer for GTI3. So the answer is a Uranium PU-36 Corn Fish! Sorry about the little hacks out of the image but it seems that I left lots of address related stuff on the picture so I cut it out.

Here is the next GTI:

This one is really undefined but you can all get it. If you haven't seen this you need to have your head examined :P When the new month comes I'll post the answer and the next question. I'll make it every two weeks the images.

Since this is the third post in the day can I say that I have unleashed the "Fully-Post-A-Matic"?

GTI Change

I decided to change the answer for the GTI to offsite links. Even having gobs of bandwidth made it difficult to get the entire page in good time and I want to be nice to my Dad who is on dialup. Anyway I made the changes retroactively for future consistency. The images still come from the same place so really it was just changing the HTML to be "A HREF=" lines from "IMG SRC" lines.

Something I haven't thought about is how long should I post the images before providing the answers. What sounds good? One week? Two? A month?

Funny

I stumbled across this when reading a Slashdot article about age in IT and if it actually impacts your employability (is that even a word??). The topic changed to how much of a problem it is to have a family in IT. The feeling in one thread was that "If you have family you can't work 18 hours a day and thus aren't any good to the company." The comments got to the point at citing someone's boss. It is a good picture and I think of a few people like it :P

Guess That Image 2 and 3

Ok here is the answer.

And here is the next image....



Let the guesses fly!

Guess that Image 2

Ok here is another "Guess That Image". I know I said I was going to post this a while ago but I kind of got side tracked with other things. (Like looking for a new job)

Well I figured since the SO was out of the house I could go around taking pictures of things and then use them for the GTI. I managed to get four good images that I thought would be able to stump people so we shall see how it goes. Some might be easy like this one that I'm posting. I think the next one will be a little difficult for some people. Anyway all this stuff you can find around our place and I'm sure everyone has at least seen it once.

I'm going to try to standardize on a 200 x 100 image so at least that will give something consistent to view :)

Bored....

Earlier this week I received confirmation about the last Linux administrator leaving my previous place of employment. It seems that he has finally called it quits. If memory serves me right he was there for eight years. Not bad as far as I know that was the longest serving IT staff member. Though there is still one person left there from when I started I doubt he will last long. Last I heard he was looking for employment back in India, or some other country halfway around the world.

The best I can say is welcome to a better life TT and I hope life treats you better. Just remember that if you find a good employer you will submit my resume there for me LOL.

As I'm sure most can tell I'm posting from here at work just because there isn't much going on. I managed to streamline my process so I can get everything done in about three hours. So what do I do for the rest of the day? Not much. Read Slashdot, play Neopets, or just generally browse, the internet. I also read all my cartoons, links on the right, but that only takes me to about 1pm/2pm.

Anyway at least I get to start job hunting soon. I get to update my resume but I have no ideas on how that will go. As usual I'm not sure what to say about my current position. Nothing new there but at least it will give me something to do. As for a new "Guess That Image" I will be posting a new one tonight .... hopefully. I have an idea I just have to take the photo.

Innovation?

I just read in the paper an article about Windows Vista being the best thing since sliced bread, [insert continuing Microsoft propaganda]. The best part is that as usual they our touting the new innovations in Vista. This is not the funny part though. The funny part is that at the very end of the article it is commented:

"Microsoft doesn't have to be the leader. They are a fast follower," Sharwood said.

Now can anyone tell me how one can be a leader in innovation but always be a "fast follower"? I'm stumped on this one.

Yes I do also know that Microsoft has always been a follower when it comes to most of their R&D but don't they think that they should stop trying to push the "We are innovation gods" angle and start changing their line to "Doing what Apple and Linux have been doing for years!"

If anyone really wonders I will be doing my best to not adopt Vista. I'll be moving over to Fedora or something like that. This has less to do with my growing anti-Microsoft views and more of the "Have you read their license agreement!" view. Sorry Microsoft you just lost one more customer. I'll stick with my Windows 2000 and Windows XP boxes for playing games but aside from that I have no interest in anything new you have to offer.

Guess This Image 1: Answer

Ok here is the answer:

Considering that the first, and only guess, was right I guess I should try for something a little more difficult next time. Maybe something a little less orange?

In case anyone missed it Weird Al did a parody of Green Day's "American Idiot" and called it "Canadian Idiot". The lyrics are aren't his usual funny but it seems that it is now spreading through YouTube quickly so at least humor yourself if you are bored, like I know so many of you are :P.

Scary

Ok I wanted to post the answer to the "Guess This Image" but I don't have it here at work so I will post it tonight.

Anyway I found this posting on Slashdot. It seems that some police virtually/did assault a student at UCLA. Someone managed to catch it on their video cell phone and recorded about six minutes of the process. Watch the video at your own despair! The event surrounds a guy who gets hit with a tazer FIVE times! This isn't pretty but, it is surprising that the police carried this out in a library with what looks like about 50 students watching. One student is threatened with a tazering after they ask for the officer's badge number. This falls nothing short of police brutality.

Yes it is noted that the student makes things difficult for other students by finding the most difficult solution to a simple problem but it is no excuse for what the police did to him. Anyway while watching it I think I would probably try to intervene but someone noted that it probably would have been better to call 911 and say "there are people dressed like police officers assaulting a student!"

Survey and Guess That Image

Ok I know the survey is still up but in theory I will be taking it down tonight. If you haven't filled it the clock is ticking towards shutdown.

I thought of something new to do on the blog .... "Guess that Image". Seeing the wonderful quality of the images that we get from our new camera I thought I would post a fragment of the image and let people try to guess what it is. So let's begin "Guess that Image: Round 1!":

Take your best guess!

Survey

Don't forget to answer the survey!

Final Fantasy XII

Ok so I should have posted it for a couple of days now but lets get on with it.

First: WOW! and I don't mean WoW I mean "How did Square-Enix squeeze this kind of production out of hardware so old?"

Second: The strategy guide that I picked up with the game is about an inch think of 10" x 11" paper. Just a little bigger than normal paper.

Third: How can they draw all the complicated stuff from all the previous FF games put it in a blender and come out with something simpler?

Seriously the graphics in this are impressive. There is no more an area map and then a combat field like all the previous ones but it is all one big world now. For as cool as that is it also means that you can plan your battles better or just avoid them outright.

The only issue that I seem to have at this point is they way the skills are setup. First you have to get enough experience to get a skill then you have to buy the skill to use it. Seems like a double catch to do one skill. So far it isn't that bad and if this is my only complaint so far I'm doing well :)

Now excuse me while I have no life for the next month while I finish the game.

Electronic Arts

First it was EA eating up as many smaller companies as it could consume. I liked Origin Software before it was eaten along with Bullfrog, Maxis and a few others.

Next this came to light. A position that I could sort of sympathise with considering my previous employment.

Now EA is supporting the use of spyware in their latest game.

Really do they think they can get away with this? I hope the unclean masses wake up and see what is going on. Anyway this is one more reason why I like my console.

How do you determine your life?

In the past 10 years or so it seems easier to define my life by a series of failures rather than successes. Keeping that in mind I still think that my life is a success. How does that work.

I hate Mondays. I could never figure them out.

Kindness in strange places

When I was headed to the bus stop this morning I found that the bus was already there and ran to get it. No more than three seconds away, while running, the bus pulls away leaving me in the rain. Grrrr. Anyway there was another bus right behind it that followed a similar route and the driver told me to get on. Not thinking clearly I did what was said and hopped on the bus that would have taken me elsewhere.

Well once I'm on board the bus the driver casually says "How else will you catch the bus?"

Thinking it through, a real challenge for 7:30am, I thought hey he is right. Anyway four bus stops later one bus passes the other and then I'm ahead of the bus I want :). I get off at the next stop and transfer busses.

"Thank you Mr. Bus Driver!", yes I did tell him directly but no harm in saying it again :)

Files everywhere....

Well I finally decided to sit down and take a look at my wide collection of junk that I have sitting on my file server. Let me tell you there are more sound files there than I can shake a stick at. 14 335 files actually if you wanted to know.

This has made me realize that I really do need more space if I keep chewing up disk space at this rate. Doesn't help that there are over 61 000 JPEG files most of which I'm sure are vacation photos or other random photos that have been taken at various events. I think we will really need another couple of these hard drives if we are planning on getting anything like this so really I guess there are a few more expenses left to go before the wedding expenses take over entirely. Oh the fun I will be having.

I found out why I can't figure people out. I'm a Sim. This also means that everyone I interact with are Sims.

On a side note I found VG Cats funny. I just found the comic strip and though horrible polictially incorrect most of the time, it is funny.

Humans

I can't figure them out. Though if I did I'm sure the galaxy would end and be rebuilt in an even crazier fashion, a la HHGttG.

Most people complain that they never have enough money and always look for ways of making their budget go just that little bit further. Well on my way back from a conference meeting the SO and I noticed that the ticket collector had to run to the bathroom and thus needed to abandon her post. Not an issue when nature calls how often do we say "Not right now!"? Anyway after she left we witnessed about 30 people go through the ticket booth, normally in pairs, and each person paid full fare when passing instead of just walking through. Some people even stopped in front of the collector booth, looked inside and saw no one there, rummaged through their pants/jackets and pulled out and displayed it to the non-exsistant collector.

I am really pleased to know that even though, litterly and no pun intended, people passed up a free ride to be honest.

Then there are things like my previous post.

Anyone else try to understand this world?

Law suits and kids

I noticed on Slashdot that there was a case about a 14 year old boy who killed his father and step-mother. Well the case seems simple in the article, abusive parents vs kid who played video games obsessively. Naturally it wasn't any old game but one that has had lots of press .... "Grand Theft Auto: Vice City". This game is well known for it's violent nature.

Now that the case has started what I really want to know is:

How can Jack Thompson expect to pin the problems on the game while the game is rated 17+/Mature? If so Jack Thompson should read this

Where were the parents making sure he wasn't playing games that are rated for three or four years older than him?

What else did the "parents" allow him to do that wasn't suitable?

What happened to personal responsibility?

On a side note I think I have posted too much this month and I'll save anything else for next month....Except maybe tomorrow's meeting.

ColorQuiz.com

Found a quick test to take. This seems interesting but for the most part I don't think it is right.

Phalse took the free ColorQuiz.com personality test! "His need to feel more causative and to have a wide..." Click here to read the rest of the results.

Stupid + Cat = Five

This is actually obvious math to anyone who has actually watched our cat for more than a minute. More often than not he finds new ways of proving he isn't quite "with it". So for your review I will submit the following evidence....

Example A:
Cat jumps off back of couch to get fly on wall on the cupboards. Failing to note that flys move frequently he lands head first into them at about 3 feet above ground and falls.

Example B:
Most cats like to chase their tails, this is accepted. This cat likes to chase the shadow of his tail and gets upset when he can't catch it.

Example C:
The cat likes chase the back of bags. The back of bags really. Anyway he will dive in head long into the bag and propell himself with his back feet until he hits a wall, again head first.

Signs of a stupid cat? I think so.

Worst network cabinet ever....

No really!

Work

For those of you who didn't check their e-mail or who were missed on the BCC list .... I am now employed at CGI! It is a three month contract or so but it should keep me busy for a while. The good thing is since it is contract it is the same a driving a dump truck of money to my door and saying "Want to work for us?"

After being a bit googly eyed I said "Yes".

I'm now employed. Strange to think that as of 1pm yesterday I didn't even have any real job prospects LOL.

Blogging speech

Ok I forgot to add in a small thing when posting last. So think of this as two posts in one day to make up for the single post from last month.

[RANT]
Anyway I have been going around and reading many bloggers site's and I am really surprised. Some are very well written and articulate, not mine ;), while others use what could be closely compared to as leet-speek. Oddly enough the articulate ones are good as they can be read easily and normally stick to a point and don't end up to be rambling stories about anything.

The l33t-speakers among us bloggers make reading very difficult. I tried reading one person's blog about the attempt at dating a guy but it was so difficult to read that I had to give up after a paragraph. I stumbled across this from Bloggers main page as a "recently updated blog" so I wasn't searching for this.

I just ask that for those people posting in this world, I do mean the whole world not my circle of friends, please keep things simple. Language rules were developed so we can communicate but if you throw those away we can't communicate. (Insert "Tower of Bable here comments). Sure I know that L33t-speak has it's use. No one likes typing out long lines on a cell phone but for those blogging? Really when was the first time you heard someone posting from a cell phone? Really! You have an entire keyboard, use it!
[/RANT]

Yes I know this wasn't well thought out but I think that is fair since it is before 8am.

Ooops

Well it seems like my usual posting of twice a month didn't work out.

For what it is worth I have been meaning to post for the past week or so.

Our cat has been experimenting in all new lows of stupidity. He has not only a small fear of water like most other cats but a complete phobia of it. I have see him cower away from a layer of water in the shower no higher than what resistance will allow but it is still a frightening thing for him. Well Five has taken to jumping into the shower while it is on and getting completely soaked. Naturally this bother him so he takes off with a shot. If he didn't keep doing it I might actually consider it funny. I guess he just doesn't learn. Generally his intelligence seems to be slipping into his belly as he is getting fatter. I think it is time for his diet to start.

Weather

Finally it seems that the weather is breaking and I feel great for it. Sticking around in the house with the A/C blasting away is kind of deafening after a while. I do thank I&T for the A/C though it has really made the last week quite livable.

Last weekend the So and I went to a birthday party for my previous boss AK. She is a really great boss and we all had lots of fun in and out of the office so she is now both an ex-co-worker and a friend. Anyway there were many ex-employees there, I think the department is now down to three original people from when I was there. Most of the others have already left in the wake of my .... hasty departure :). Anyway there was a little shop talk there but most of it was humorous as it was more like "Guess who quit now?" kind of stories. The best quote for the night has to be from DQ: "I have never been as drunk as I am right now." This was then followed with another three hours of drinking. We all got seriously smashed that night but it was great. Oh CM your drunk speeches are the best along with TT's transcribing!

Anyway the party was great and I do thank AK and SK for hosting such a great party. I know I said it before but I'm saying it again! Any of you wanting photos let me know I can zip them all up and post them.

Hot....

Damn hot. So hot we have a little network cooking.

Ok not quite but until this stupidly warm temperature passes I have shut down as many electronics in the house as possible. So I have rearranged the network so at least I can get out along with the SO. Aside from that I have shut down all unnecessary network equipment and computers. This includes the FTP server because it does create quite a bit of heat.

In the mean time I found out that there are a bunch of new Final Fantasy games coming out in the near future. Final Fantasy 12 comes out in a few months, October 31, 2006 to be exact. Something new for me to play with :). I really enjoy the FF series but I'm still working on some of the older ones but the biggest problem now is trying to find the PS1 save card so I can actually play them.

I really have to finish up with FF7 as there is a movie that takes place two years after the game and a follow up game called "FF7: Dirge of Cereberus". It has a release date of August 7th but I haven't been able to find any more information on it with any quick search. I'm sure I will find something in the next few hours though. It isn't hard to find such information :)

Ah work....

Ok so before everyone starts commenting I haven't found employment yet but I have been looking steadily.

I have been working on a few systems as a "tech support guy" so it has at least provided a small source of income. Though it is strange to be paid in advance. Anyway the credit is almost over so that is good :)

Anyway I was going through the normal web comics and I found this....

"Always wear your gloves. That way, if you fall backwards as you make your entry into the water via a rockey shore, you won't stop your fall with your hands and scrape one of them across a patch of razor-sharp barnacles."

Sounds like something I would have said while down under considering the number of cuts that I got.

Anyway things are generally going well on my side of the wire so I can't complain at all :) I'm still waiting on my second interview notification from one employeer. I have been told it will happen but a time needs to be found. In theory I should be hearing about when tomorrow if all goes well :)

Until then it will be lots of me sitting at home dreaming of a job.

FTP Server

Well after coming back from down under I found that the FTP server I ran didn't work. Actually it complained about no boot disk or something like that. Normally this would be just me kicking the box to hard and knocking a cable loose but not this time. It seems the primary hard drive on the box failed so I coulnd't boot any more :( But no worries! The only drive that failed was a very old, at that time cutting edge, Seagate 9.1 gig IDE hard drive. Needless to say I'm not surprised that it failed just a little disappointed.

Let it be known that this is the FIRST Seagate drive that I have had that has failed in all my years of happy computing. Yes that is a first in over 15 years.

Anyway I found a Western Digital drive, 6.4 gig, or something like that to replace the failed 9.1 so I'm getting back in business. THe system is currently patching so it only has another 30 minutes left before it is done patching but nothing of installing the patches.

If all goes well the system should be back online by the end of tomorrow hopefully with all the user accounts established. Since I didn't keep a record of who had access if you need it just post me here and I will send you login information where suitable. Most people that will mean phone but if you want me to e-mail it just say so.

Known users:
- Phalse Impressions (me)
- Bubbles
- The Eye
- Purple Mangos
- "The Crew"

I'll post again when FTP is fully operational.

Posting

Ok most people are probably complaining about my lack of posting. Well for the most part I have been letting the SO take care of that. You can check out the recent trip on her blog. That should get you mostly up to speed with the trip. There are still parts of it that need to be added to so keep reading as I think there is a new post every couple of days.

As for things in my world, I'm currently staying in a friends place in L as convocation was yesterday and we needed a place to crash for the night. Now that we are done crashing, well I am at least, plans are being made to visit a friend of mine from years past KY and AY. It will be fun to see what they are up to these days as there has been a lot of time to catch up on.

Convocation was a blash for the most part the only issue was having each of the students given their degrees. This took quite some time even though they were called in batches of three. Oh well it gave me some good nap time LOL. Many pictures later and an hour of video later everything was completed.

It should be noted that for the time being we are still adjusting to the cat as it is quite a strange cat. I have hopes of being able to get one of the little video segments up about him chasing after a paint spot on the floor. It is kind of funny watching him go at it. Even funnier seeing that he eventually loses 3-0 to it.

Sydney

Well we are just finishing up our little tour of the world down under and we finally came across an internet connection with lots of time at a reasonable cost.

I would love to post what we have been up to but I tried it on a post card or two and it didn't turn out so well. Let's just say that we have been very busy doing lots of fun stuff. Most of the time we have been busy enough not to even see time go by so when it came time to go leave from the Brisbane it was a little surprise to all of us.

On our way down we stayed at a hostel and a Best Western. The hostel was a unique experience and I would suggest that not everyone try it. If you like a quite night it is wasn't the place to do that. Though being in a party town might have had something to do with it. The Best Western seems a little strange because really we aren't west as we are more East. Anyway since there was a big conference going on nearby, we ended up getting a "Spa" room for the cost of a normal double room which was cool. Let me tell you that was a very relaxing experience that was much needed after the previous night's stay in the party town.

We are just cruising around here looking around enjoying our time away but we are both starting to get a little home sick. I guess four weeks will do that to anyone :)

Anyway time to head off to something new and exciting!

Annual conference

Well I just finished up with my annual May conference. It was a whole lot less stressful this year compared to previous years though this is pretty normal for us. Every year we get some process hammered out or created so things go that little bit smoother. This year we did a lot of little things and everything took a lot less time than normal. This is a good thing since it is just what I needed. Some good time to slowly wind down.

As most of you are probably wondering I haven't made it out to of town yet but I am starting to time shift my body clock so that is why I'm posting at near 2am :)

On the bright side I should at least be half way changed by the time we land and that is a good thing considering it is 15 hours offset from the current time zone.

Anyway I will try to post pictures when I can while I'm away. I figure it would be nice if we put all the digital equipment to work for us LOL

I'm out of here

See everyone in a month. I'll try to post but it depends on access.

The Prophecy

Well who would have thought it would come true.

It seems what I spoke about back on Feb20 did occur. I am now a member of the non working class. The funny thing about it is that I am happy. There is much to say on the subject but be aware I won't say anything here. There is a lot of paper work for me to review since I have no exited the company unwillingly.

The good news is this. At least the parting package that I am getting will be given to me over the next normal pay period that means in the middle of the month I will get a nice little bonus.

Now before all you legal folk out there start saying "This is agreement to terms for my release", the paperwork that needs to be worked on is the agreement. Dianna said that since this is a minimum amount that needs to be paid I am entitled to it anyway but if I am going for more then that is taken up later.

In the mean time I have a no strings attached vacation and I'm planning on enjoying it.