Archive for the ‘general’ Category

Testing

I wanted to see how this thing handles image data. So I’m including one in this post. I’m also going to link it to the larger image of my back tat. Not that you care. I’m just experimenting.

Mr.Bubble!

Dig it.

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Experimental data

I suppose that is the nature of all things. Even more so when you take into account that, like just about anyone else working in IT worth their salt, I’m about as ADD and OCD as the next guy. Ok, so I don’t have to count the nuimber of CDs in the stacks every day to make sure they’re still there, but you get the idea. Bottom line: things have a tendency to, and will come in and out of my attention span at seemingly random intervals. Like say … this blog for instance. I may have frenzied posts for weeks, and then nothing for a month.

Oh well.

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And so it ends….

Another vacation coming to a close. Back into the fray, as it were. This is not going to be an easy time, SUN is not “being all it can be”. Here’s to hoping our esteemed colleagues in upper management can defy gravity, nature’s laws and lawyers, and turn this all around. That’d be nice. 3 more years. 3 more years. Its like a mantra.

And what then? Who knows, but its got to be better than this. Ah well … *tips a glass* … back into the fray.

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Vacation thoughts

It almost seems as if I’m on vacation from myself. I forgot everything I was supposed to do for work. It required force of will to remember those things again. Man, apparently I really needed a break from all this.

It was a fairly low profile week. Played a decent round of golf with Jason, and then subsequently, probably one of my worst rounds ever with Sky, John and Rob. Ah well, I got some good advice from them, so it was definitely worth it. If I can find some time, I’m going to grab a lesson from someone. Golfing, if nothing else, is another sport where you’re sort of competing mainly against yourself (first and foremost). It reminds me of pool (billiards) in that regard. Body control, perception, consistency, assessment, etc. They are all elements of both.

I should listen to my own advice that I give others when teaching them pool. Start with the absolute basics. In this case, I still need to learn what all those are. Stance, grip, body position, arm position, backswing, etc. Once again, all the same terms from pool. I need to either rent some video or something, or spend some time with a pro who can get me those basics. Once those are consistent, then I can start working on all the nuances that make up the rest of the game. Before then, the rest of it is silly to focus on. It’ll get there.

Talk to Sky about the pool league team. I’m going to sit the next session out in order to make sure the whole team can play without hindrance of worrying about ranking out of a match. The APA has a rule that says that you can’t have more than 23 “points” of players play in given week. The ranks vary from 2 to 7 in 8-ball. Since I’m currently shooting as a 7, if I play, that means (currently) that not only MUST Ella play, but we also can’t play two 5’s in that week either. Me sitting out a session will get the discussion going as to what to do with the team longer term. Sky and I discussed splitting into two teams, etc … but I think we’ll just wait and see what happens this session and how the discussion develops.

Played alot of WoW and AC. Go figure. In AC, StormWlf was around this week, and Friday night, we had the Queen’s Quest which I went on for the first time ever, and got the kill! Holy smokes. Lemme see if I can link in a screenshot of that…. there we go QQ.png (148K). Quite a fun ride. Thanks again to all the PL, and Lyc as well, who joined us for the mayhem. We will definitely be doing that again.

WoW has been pretty crashy since the last push. Seems like they’re trying to push alot of new function in at once. This last push was Auction Houses, the beginnings of the talent system, level cap raise, etc. Its been hard to quest with how much its gone down. But then again, thats what Beta is all about, right? They’re definitely making progress though.

Ah well, more later.

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And there you have it…

The quiet before the storm. I’m home from work. Took Friday and Monday off, so I don’t have to think about any of that again (with any luck) until Monday evening or Tuesday morning. There’s a ton of stuff to do, cleaning-wise, preparation-wise and all that, to prepare, but for now, I’m just sitting, not thinking, in the dark basement. Kind of a nice quiet feeling.

I may take a nap until my better half gets home. That would be nice. Today was actually productive, despite all the work related nonsense. I managed to get them to come get the garbage canister thinger, so its gone. I managed to get a hold of the guy who will weed the back porch, and he promises me they’ll put at least two hours in before tomorrow evening. Also setup an appointment for the week of the 4th for the eye doctor.

Speaking of, the week of the fourth should be tremendous. No work for 9 days in a row. OMG. An extended break is just exactly what I need on the menu right now. That should do nicely for catching me back up on sleep, and giving me some liesure time to play and whatever else I wanna do. Praise the gods.

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Conference Calls

The last two days have been concall hell. Yesterday was 6:30am, 8, 10, 11, 2pm and 4. Today was 8am, 10, 11, 1pm and 2. Wow, look at all the work I got done!

You know, from the design and architecture perspective, I understand that this role is important. I need to be able to help other groups understand what it is we’re implementing, and assist with their using my environment as a useful tool, and get the best use out of it possible. On the other hand, I haven’t actually set foot in my own data center in over a week.

I like it down there. Its nice and cool, constant thrum of the A/C, surrounded by the latest in server and grid technologies. A geek’s wet dream, really. So why can’t I be down there! Instead, I sit on the phone call day, headset glued to my face, not getting enough time to eat lunch, and sipping down can after can of Mt.Dew.

<mantra>I love my job, I love my job, I love my job.</mantra>

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Rants and more conversion notes

I was originally thinking I was going to take my old site and just basically convert it over full bore. Take all the old rant posts, the content from the pages, etc, and just put them in as new posts, etc.

As I’m reading through alot of my old stuff, I’m realizing that its alot of crap. Or, at a minimum, I’d like to see the content of it updated and revised before I re-express those opinions and talk about those topics. Life changes, and rather than start the chronology here with a point-in-time snapshot from years ago, and then suddenly dive into new topics, I think I’m going to just spend some time thinking about those old topics, and then write about them anew. Seems to make more sense that way.

Another thought, just to keep things clean… I’m going to stick with a flat organization on the categories. I am, however, going to have to rethink how links work. Its taking up WAY too much space on the menu, and I’m not sure yet how to manipulate the way the links are displayed well enough to customize that. I’ll work it out.

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Layout final v1.0

Ok, I went a bit template happy, and Dar pointed me to this site for some good styles to use with wp. I ended up picking the Mars Spirit one, and then modifying as I saw fit. So consider this post the credit to the author over there. In addition, I went and played with PSP and made the header image up there. Its a pretty serious composite of a bunch of different things, and I’m very very pleased with it. Thanks to Cesium for his help when I was throwing the various images around and compositing.

So … I’m going to leave things like this for awhile, and see if I get bored, or stick with it.

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Conversion

So this will at least be an experiment in conversion from the old format of this page to this style. I will be incorporating graphics back into this, despite the urging of most other people who blog to keep the formats as simple (and image-free) as possible.

I’m a visually oriented person. So sue me. On second thought, don’t.

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Preparations continue

This time of year always feels like you can never quite do enough to get everything in place before the people begin to arrive. Cesium was first this year, but only because he’s moving out here. Everyone else is being good and checking in around Friday.

I need to try and reach Tooker/Danno to see if they want to take crash space in les Casa des Hombres to save themselves a bit of cash. I seem to recall something being said about cutting the trip short due principally to hotel bills, etc … so that might very well help out.

Lots left to do. 6:30am concall at work, 8am all hands (CJ), 9am meet with Morris(server at the ok prompt) and 10am normal staff meeting with people who could care less. Hopefully, after all that, I’ll have put in sufficiently much time to release me from duties for the day. At least, assuming I can get Susan over into the lab with a good list of stuff. We’ll see.

On the list for today at home? Call eye doctor (thanks Sasha … my glasses really did need replacing anyway), call Western to remove the big ass garbage bin, dig out second horseshoe pit, clean desk, NOT play WoW. Yeah, right.

I will say, though, thats its really great to have Cesium out here. Its about damn time. Hmm, let’s see…. who can I convert next.

Due to extenuating circumstances, the Church of Potts will not be in session this week. It seems the worshiping is taking a field trip to a remote location. The king is dead, long live the King.

– g

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Continuing

Templates. Fun to play in, but you can tinker forever. So is the nature of all such things. Whoosh.

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