Job

Well, it's official - I am leaving Signal, and heading to ReLogic. I sent the acceptance letter over this afternoon. Signal's unable to offer me a position in the long term, and in the end I have to have a job - I can't just go on day after day, wondering if it's my last day. I start next Thursday - I already spoke with Sara about lead time she'd need after she gets back from her vacation and we agreed on Tuesday and Wednesday for debriefing time. So, now that the weight of wondering about my job is gone, I'm looking forward to my new job. Checking out some of the cutting edge stuff with ASP.Net AJAX (previously known as Atlas), as well as how to do browser-based Web UI testing (which is something we never worried about at Signal, but I want to be familiar with in case ReLogic wants to do that, since I'll be the front-end guy). This job will be a great challenge, and I think it'll engage me more than the Signal job could from a programming perspective. (Not that I wouldn't consider other jobs - you have to keep your eyes and ears open!)

Bifocals

Well, for those of you won don't wear bifocals, I've got news for you: It's like having permanent smudges on your glasses. My brain is constantly telling me to clean my glasses as they're smudged. I am getting used to it, but there's still this blurly line, just under where I normally look at things. The new prescription, though, is better than my old one. I just have to keep tilting my head different ways to look at things right. On the job front, things are up in the air, but I should have something figured out by the end of the day. Rather pissed off at the whole situation. Will report more later. It's snowing, again, here in Denver. As if we didn't get enough before. Luckily the car has new tires, it's oil change, and it's happy. We've got food, and with New Year's we've got a nice 3 day holiday after today, so I've got some time to clean things up in the house, maybe go through some stuff in the garage. Got us some ice cream (which I just had), some food (which I'm about to go get). Wait. just (yes, as I was typing this) came in and told me that Chipotle is doing another snow day half off sale. So, guess where we're getting lunch from? Especially since this snow ISN'T as bad as that blizzard was. And if they're offering this, then SOMEONE has to be there! Well, I'm off to Chipotle.

So, my car got snowed in. Last night, my brother Matt helped me get it out, twice. It got stuck again getting it to the Big O to get the oil and tires changed. The oil really needs changed anyways, and 3 of the tires are too worn down to keep (will probably keep the 4th, which is in fair condition, for an emergency spare). I'm also going to look at snow chains - they're not as expensive as I thought they were! Well, I'm off to the Big O to have the work done (didn't get there until well after they'd closed last night).

Ugh, my car is now stuck in the snow. Luckily, I was able to get it parked on the side of the road, but it's gonna be stuck for awhile now. And, discovered that I need new tires, as the ones up front are getting pretty shallow... There is ZERO chance that I can get into work tomorrow, as RTD is stopping bus service until they can get through themselves. So, more work from home, luckily the providers have the same problem we do, so there's no email in the staff email box to handle. Well, I really should go clean up in the living room, the kitchen, and the office. And if I still have time, I should spend time with , or study my Hebrew books. *sigh* Never enough time in the day.

Well, and I just finished buying the last colored mini lights for trees left in Colorado. We searched all over and now have 300+ lights for the tree. That should be enough to make happy, I hope. Now we're at Atlanta Bread, then we'll hop over to the mall and probably see . got me a nice חנוכה (Chanukah) present - Empire by Orson Scott Card. I hope to start reading that soon. Well, bug is getting fussy, so we'll head on out.

Christmas list

My Christmas list: * Transflash / MicroSD card (NOT MiniSD!!), for my phone's MP3 feature * USB Hub - 4 or more ports, USB 2, for my laptop's desk * BlueTooth USB Nub, for my laptop <-> phone connection * Circular saw, for cutting wood so that I can build book cabinets, etc. * Gift cards (Lowes, Borders, Home Depot, Target, Visa/MC, CompUSA, etc.) * 6' bookshelf (yes, we have lots of books)

Interview

Well, just got done with the interview (well, and lunch). Sounds like a very interesting company, sounds like I've got realistic expectations of salary/hours/work/benefits. Hopefully they'll call back in the next couple of days and offer me the job. :) I would actually get to work with other geeks! I haven't really done that except maybe for a short time once or twice. It would be a lot of hard work, but I think I could fit in well, and I definitely think that I could get a passion for it. It's been so long (4.5 years) since I've worked in a software shop (well, close enough). Signal just hasn't been challenging for me, and I think this is a place where I'd have to quickly adapt (adding C#, Atlas/ASP.Net AJAX, and MySQL, all of which I've played with or worked with a little). They're really flexible on dress code and even working conditions. I could be working by Wednesday at this place. I hope I'm not trying to bite off more than I can chew, but it's a great opportunity. Now we'll also see if that other job interview schedules itself. Well, back to the old job for the last day (in theory, revised).

Today and tomorrow

Well, today was OK. Went out to Babies'R'Us, the inlaws' house, the library (we saw there!), and the mall (got to see ). Had lunch late, tried some of Sonic's cheesecake treats. They were good, but filling. Got a "First 1000 words in Hebrew" thanks to my wonderful wfe . And now is playing with yarn and making poo in his diaper - oh the fun of being daddy. I get to put together a website tomorrow for an interview on Monday (as my previous work is an internal/associates only site), and try to demonstrate that I have a clue with ASP.Net and VB.Net. I also get to finish up the stuff for Signal on Monday (or Tuesday at the latest). We get to take our holiday pictures tomorrow (to print up and send with the cards we got today at the mall), go to Target to get glue to fix the recently broken lint filter on the dryer, drop off my brother's card at my family's house, and eat at various points in the day. Oh, and it'd be nice to have some time to work on , but I won't have time for that, I'm sure. EDIT: Oh, and I want to go to the community Chanukah celebration tomorrow. Not sure when we're going to fit that one in...

A funny for DBAs (overheard at my work):

nvarchar(60). I feel dirty just typing it.

So, today was fun. Drove around with this morning, from about 8am-noon. Went and looked for a McDonalds that Google says is there and we say is a house.. Also went to the local Whole Foods. Then this afternoon, we left him at one of his grandparents' house, and swapped the office and the bedroom. Not a trivial task, or a lightweight one. Now we're mostly done, and we're just browsing the web before going to sleep.

Black Friday

NEW LAPTOP!!!! Ok, now that that's out. I went to Best Buy this morning, hoping to get one of the $380 laptops. Didn't get in line quickly enough - was probably 30 people too far back (wasn't too far away from the front door). So later when we all were out and about we happened to find a good $600 laptop (Compaq Presario C304NR) - I grabbed the last one they had. I'm still setting it up, but definitely getting there! It's powerful enough to replace my desktop for almost everything (can't play EQ (which I don't play anymore anyways) or do the TV card I had in the desktop). So I'm pretty happy. Still nothing new on the job front. Wouldn't have gotten the laptop, but the deal was really good (and I'm a computer guy, so I've done some research and try to keep up with things a bit), and I do think I'll get a job in the not too distant future. As far as the family, Kris works next Tuesday. Things seem to be going well - Thanksgiving went well (although we didn't have leftovers for the first time in forever), Isaac's trying to talk in syllables. Saying "mamama" and "ababobob" (I'm trying to raise him with some Hebrew, and Abba is Hebrew for dad/daddy). We're going to massively rearrange almost every room in the house except the kitchen. 3 bedrooms and the dining room - partially to optimize some of the space, and also to make space for the ... Winter Lights Tree. Yeah, the Winter Lights Tree, the tree with lights on it during winter, that thing. :) The agreement between and I is that I'll put up the tree if I don't have to call it a (You know what) Tree. Speaking of Hebrew, my study is totally at a 0. Due to the recent work situation, any time I've had not working or spending with family has been playing on the computers to destress and play. I'm hoping to have some more time to study next month or early next year.

Sheep

A simple rant. It really annoys me when parents are sheep. "Just do what you're told, and don't ask questions, 'cause we know better than you!" ARGH. Can you not think for yourselves? No matter what the topic is: breastfeeding/bottle, circ/nocirc, stroller/baby wearing, cribs (and crying it out) / co sleeping, vaxing/delayed/novaxing. I mean, come on! You have a responsibility here! You and you alone - not your doctor, or in laws, or the government! If you don't FULLY understand the implications of doing/not doing something - ask! Ask what the real risks are, and where those data are coming from! And yes, doctors DO get things wrong - look at how they bundled the SV40 vax issue, and there are STILL peds who try to retract foreskins, even though it should NEVER be done except by the kid themselves. Ask other parents what they've encountered. And finally trust in your instincts, assuming that they aren't buried under all of this science of pumping kids full of drugs, or that if anything's wrong then we must fix it. Not that this is intended for anyone I know - not at all! Just venting as I'm reading stupid online parenting boards. Authority should be questioned when things don't add up - whether it's Iraq or mercury/autism links.

My life

Still searching for a new job, hoping to get something soon. Will report more when I have more to report. :) I read in Opera magazine (while waiting for a coworker to finish a discussion in which I definitely was NOT participating in, you read the only magazines available) that if you can keep a habit (good or bad) going for 30 days it becomes more habit and requires little to no active thought. And that one social scientist suggests 3 habits a month. So, my habits for December: 1. Drinking 8 cups (2 liters) of water a day. Coloradoans are very dehydrated - it just comes from being in this environment. Also, drinking more water helps with weight loss (and let's be honest - I've got a few spare pounds!) 2. Daily prayer. Seems weird to type it, and since I didn't grow up religious it's not something that I'm very familiar with. But, being as I'm trying to convert to Judaism, and trying to be more observant, I think it makes sense to at least try. Will probably just use the standard Jewish prayers, but might not. I've got some time to research this more. 3. Start serious work on PocketPoster 2.0. I wrote PocketPoster as I wanted a LiveJournal client for my Windows PDA. Now, I want to be able to upload media (pictures, audio and video) as well as blog entries, and I want to use more than just LiveJournal, but Google's Blogger, Atom API, FotoBilder, Flickr, etc. from one client. Might even make a desktop client as well as a mobile client. I wish I had time for more things, like learning Ruby (might be a January goal), or playing with advanced VB.Net (like massive multi-threading) or learning C#. I think I may put one of those for a January goal now that I think about it, maybe all three.

Online assessment - did great!

I recently took an VB.Net online examination through a contractor company that I'm working through, and I got a 90th percentile score! I was ranked as Advanced (Master), and capable of mentoring others on most areas of a project. I also only took 23 minutes for a 40-60 minute test! I'm pretty excited - it's not as good as I was with VB6 back in the day (there I got 97th percentile, and I knew which two questions I didn't know the answer to), but still it's very good.

Funny userpic/icon

This userpic is just funny. The woman in the picture is J K Rowling (I didn't get it until explained it to me).

Okay, so and I were discussing this article. I intended to say "She's a crackpot." What I actually said was "She's a crockpot." This has led to to me replacing "liberal crackpot theory" with "liberal crockpot theory". As in:

Kris, this is just more evidence of your liberal crackpot theroy! Instead of putting him in a stroller all of the time, and putting him to sleep in a "nice" "safe" crib, and giving him "perfectly good" formula, you want to practice babywearing, co-sleeping, and breastfeeding. In public even! You're crazy!

becomes

Kris, this is just more evidence of your liberal crockpot theory! Instead of just cooking meats, roasts, and stews, you want to cook desserts, beverages, and fruits! For a potluck even! You're crazy!

See? So much more fun.

'Canadian Idiot' Weird Al Yankovic

"'Canadian Idiot' Weird Al Yankovic" on Google Video
A little video to the Weird Al song "Canadian Idiot".

Extreme Diet Coke & Mentos Experiments II - The Domino Effect

"Extreme Diet Coke & Mentos Experiments II - The Domino Effect" on Google Video
The guys from EepyBird are back, with 251 bottles of Diet Coke and over 1,500 Mentos mints. In Experiment #137, they did a mint-powered version of the Bellagio fountains. This time, it's one giant Coke & Mentos chain reaction that has to be seen to be believed.

Jobless...

Well, today was not my best day. The stress at work was really getting to me, and I decided that I needed to make sure that my boss knew that I was still stressed. I didn't expect anything to really come of it, just that he'd be aware. However, as we got to talking, the discussion moved to how I fit in at Signal. To make a long story short, I don't have a long-term future there. I can understand, but admittedly I'm still in shock about the whole thing. I've updated the resume, posted it online, I've reopened my Monster account and I'll be looking starting immediately. Good thing is, they're going to keep me on for the next ~ 30 days to do knowledge-dumping from me to Sara. And they're going to be flexible with regards to interviews, so I still get paid, and I can arrange interviews. This deal also comes with a good recommendation to companies that call, and knowledge that I'm OK on the job until the end of the month. Of course, I'll certainly miss the job - I don't expect to find a well-paying job that combines both programmer and network admin in one job. Not for what I want in pay, at least! I think I'll stay in the small-medium business sector, but I probably won't be able to stay in the medical field. For now, I'm just taking this weekend to calm down, relax, realize that the world will not end, that I do not hate the people at my now-old work, and that I can move on and get an even better-fitting job. One that challenges me like my current one stopped doing 2 years ago. In the end, everything should be OK, if not better. It just sucks in the short term.

AY Karsh videos

AY Karsh videos on Google Video. Very funny, I've embedded two of their videos before, but this time I did a search, and found more of them!

AJAX breaking in IE7

ARGH! A note to all AJAX XML programmers: Microsoft has changed their javascript implementation in IE7, and the variable names 'status' and 'error' are now reserved. Thanks Microsoft for NOT documenting this! My AJAX scripts are broken until I fix this (luckily I just have to fix a few places, but still...). I used those names to track the status and error messages back of/from my AJAX requests. I do so love unannounced changes in APIs.

New Phone!

I have a new VX8300 from LG. Very cool, although not having a native BlueTooth sync for Windows is annoying (but my wife's Mac can with iSync [edit: no, actually, it can't, someone posted online that they could and I'm unable to duplicate their experience]!). And BitPim is able to access it (from Windows), so in the end I was able to get my contacts on there.

Yay

Well, we recently had a very good release. Only 2 bugs so far, and very minor ones at that. So things at work are going rather well. I'm getting my new phone tomorrow, the LG VX 8300. Got it primarily for the bluetooth address book syncing (Mac OSX native, BitPim on Windows) and the bluetooth DUN. Don't know if I'll use the DUN yet, but it's nice to have just in case.

Support your people

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d4vyG7wZ5Pg
Okay, okay, this one is kinda funny, weird, but funny. Jewish content.

Lecha DISCO!

"Lecha DISCO!" on Google Video
Okay, you've just got to see this. Absolutely hilarious!

So, a fun time at work. Due to coworkers being aware of this blog, I can't say much, but I can say that my boss is letting me (mostly) close my door/DND my phone and actually work this week to get the next version out the door on Friday, which is VERY APPRECIATED. :) Actually, I'm getting along with most of my coworkers very well, these days. Finance and IT are working together, we're all one big happy family (really, no sarcasm here!). They're giving me suggestions to make their lives easier, I (usually) get it done pretty quickly, and then our collective boss sends the us a nice happy email letting People know that we did this, and it saved time, etc. This version is the first to use ASP.Net in production use - we are migrating all of the PHP code to ASP.Net, after which we will slowly work on migrating the classic ASP stuff to ASP.Net, but that's going to be over the next year or so.. Writing a new billing system, migrating reports to SQL Server 2005 Reporting Services, all sorts of fun stuff. And we're working on processes, documentation, time management, expectation management (!!), and communication skills. All very good, they should help be become even more professional than I am now (ego!). At home, our internet keeps fighting with our TV for signal, I'm getting tired of waiting, but if I have Comcast come out they'll charge me if there's a problem on my side of things. Which I can't afford (a 5-month old son does that to one's checkbook...). At some point I'll probably just bite the bullet - we'll see. Speaking of sons, we have posted lots more pictures of him online, and since got her new camera, we expect to take a lot more in the future! As far as the Jewish stuff goes, I'm trying to find a good book to read during Elul to prepare for the holidays. Last year I think I just winged it, and this year I want to do a more structured approach. (Last year I asked one person, they reacted .. badly.., and so I gave up asking for forgiveness from everyone else!) I was able to go to shul recently, hope to again, maybe taking / with me. I think I may see about taking some vacation, maybe in November. I don't think that I can before then, too much to do at work, but perhaps by then things might be settled down enough to take time off and not take just as long catching up.

Google does it again

If you use Firefox, consider loading Google Browser Sync for Firefox. Very cool - syncs bookmarks, cookies, history, tabs/sessions across computers..

Jabber and Pandion

Pandion is a pretty cool jabber client. I'm using my LJ account on it, and then I'm using foxybanana.com for the MSN/ICQ/Yahoo transports (the AIM one appears broken). Very cool. And if I change programs to another one, the transport stuff gets carried over, so it's very very cool for me.

Livejournal does XMPP/Jabber

Wow, livejournal now does xmpp/jabber. Which means that my gmail self can talk to my livejournal self. Very cool. I looked at doing some integration at work, using xmpp to notify me when events happened (like a referral was entered, an error happened, etc..) but couldn't find any good .net-based libraries. I may have to look again.

From http://www.chipotlefan.com/index.php?id=rice_recipe:

Chipotle's Basmati Rice Recipe 1 teaspoon vegetable oil or butter 2 tsp. fresh cilantro 2/3 cup white basmati rice 1 cup water 1/2 teaspoon salt 1 Lime In a 2-quart heavy saucepan, heat oil or butter over low heat, stirring occasionally until melted. Add rice and lime juice, stir for 1 minute. Add water and salt, bring to a full rolling boil. At boiling, cover, turn down to simmer over low heat until rice is tender and the water is absorbed, about 25 minutes. Fluff rice with a fork. [bahs-MAH-tee] Basmati is a long-grained rice, with a fine texture. It can be found in Middle Eastern and India markets, as well as some supermarkets. The source of this recipe is attributed to Chipolte's Executive Chef (and CEO), Steve Ellis.

אבות ובנים

Wow. Until the end I wasn't sure what the point of the video was, but it really hit home.

Well, interesting week at work. We scheduled our ISP switchover for next Tuesday, and finally looks like that's a go. Ugh. That means WORK. Today I had to figure out the DNS hosting, as our current DNS host limits the TTL to 24 hours, which is not an option for us. Luckily our new ISP will host our DNS and can set the TTL to 1 hour, so we've switched that and it should be fully propagated over the internet by Monday sometime. I was supposed to start testing the new version of the web app this week. Didn't happen at all. Finished up some of the development, in fact. And next week I have to make a few changes to production, then go over the version changes with my boss, and totally finish up all development. Drop dead day: Thursday. After that, you'd better be the CEO to get the change in. Too bad, so sad. Then, I get to start testing heavily. Good thing that I can do that from home, so I can do that some weekend time or evenings. I hope to make at least some of the .Net stuff automated, so I can click Run and go do something for a bit, but we'll see. We're rearranging the server room, putting in A/C, moving racks, fun fun fun. Just rearranged my office, everyone's saying that it's much better than the old arrangement (which is good, as I like it too). The CEO, the COO and the Director of Quality (aka. the managers) now all have Verizon's Palm 700W phone. I like it because it doesn't have to use Verizon's stupid Wireless Sync app. Stupid program requires a separate desktop for laptop users or for desktop users who aren't logged in 24/7 (which no desktop should be, ever, in a company). And when users change their password, they have to tell the network admin so that he can change the settings on this "sync desktop". With these phones, they sync the same way my Windows Mobile PDA does - through Exchange's built in protocols. So they enter the password on their own darned phone themselves, and I don't need to know the password. Happy me. In the personal realm, it's been raining the last few evenings, which is wonderful in my opinion. Isaac and I have been doing some father-son bonding stuff by going out for drives or window shopping while mommy gets to rest and not be constantly taking care of baby. Speaking of that, we've pretty much solified our baby schedule: Mommy takes care of Isaac when I'm at work, and I take care of him when I'm not (i.e. in the evenings, on the weekends, holidays, and days off). Of course she has to breastfeed him, but we're going to get a pump to get some milk out so that I can take him on extended trips, like all-day leave mommy alone days. :) Isaac's in the size 3 diaper range, even though he's only 3 months. He's holding his head up well, and just today I reconfigured his infant car seat to use the upper shoulder straps. In a few months we'll have to get a non-infant car seat... He's outgrowing some of his 3-6 month clothes - I think he's getting taller more. We'll probably pick up a few 6-9 clothes when we get the pump, I think. Sitting here in Whole Foods, I can people watch, which I haven't done in a while. Kinda nice. Of course, it's shabbes, and ideally I'd be home, eating dinner, relaxing. I haven't been able to go to shul (not blaming at all!), or do much jewishly. I even tried to donate a little change I had on my on the recent yahrzeit of the Rebbe, but every time there was someone to give it to it was a green light, and no parking lot nearby to stop in.. I'm really finding it hard to do much in this direction, I'm not really sure what I can/should do to work on it further. I'd go visit the rabbi, but a) I haven't read half the books he asked me to over a year ago, and b) getting time off of work is difficult since I have so much to do. I'd tell my boss if I don't get a day off I'll blow a gasket, but things would pile up, and it'd be MORE work when I did get back. So for now I'm reading up on hebrew, thinking I may try again to (re)start learning that. I've also been thinking of maybe trying the not mixing milk and meat thing. Maybe, maybe not.

Server room A/C

Well, it's been fun this last week. At work we're trying to figure out our server room's A/C requirements. We found calculations, and helpful hints and whatnot, but in the end we're taking a not-exactly-wild-arsed guess about it. Hopefully we're going overkill and it's all good. 16000 BTU/hour should be enough for all of the servers (modern servers run HOT). In other news, Isaac is close to turning over, I'm slowly recovering from the financial hit of having a kid (wait until taxes, then I'll be happy..). Went recently to two user groups and was pleasantly surprised. I'll have to go back over. Oh, and we have new pictures on Isaac's online picture gallery - see links on the right of my recent entries page to get there.

Firefox Extensions I use:

Just for my future use, Firefox extensions I use are: del.icio.us - chriswiegand Stealther Session Manager Israel Radio Toolbar Sage RSS Reader

WSUS Client force update

Want to force your WSUS client to update NOW? Try this: wuauclt /detectnow. Yay! Very useful if you've just repair installed a machine, or just joined a machine to the domain and need it usable today and not tomorrow.

Samuel Adams Cherry Wheat

(Note: backdated, apparently I never wrote this up.) Well, I tried Samuel Adams Cherry Wheat. Very cherry, my father in law says it's very hoppy (still new to beers so I can't really tell yet). I will try this again someday when I have more experience with beers, but I would have it again at this point.

Weather

Ah, it's raining as I type this. Earlier it was quite windy as well. A wonderful end to a rather good day. Contracts at work weren't too bad - I even got around to getting some real work done. And is even letting me keep the bedroom's door open to get some of that rain smell in the house. Found some Xiaolin Showdown userpics. Proceeded to change my default userpic. Must get the DVDs come August. Isaac's feeding and filling his diaper - surprise surprise. And it's thundering outside. Good thing I have a) a UPS on my wireless and cable modem, and b) a wireless laptop.

I WAAAAANT:

More work

So, it's been awhile since I've posted. That's because it's been a very busy time. I got back from my paternity leave and work imploded. I had a report due that was not where we wanted it to be (it's still not, but I just transitioned it off to someone else). Then the changes to the web app needed to be pushed out, and we hired a DBA, and now contracts are up for modifications, and they're all a big fat mess. And more changes to the web app, and one-off queries from management, and teaching the DBA our system. Which is somewhat embarrassing, as it's not really designed as a claims processing system, but a clinical system with billing and referral data hacked on. But hopefully over the next year we're able to agree on how to build a claims processing or similar system that works with the clinical side (which IMHO is pretty well designed, although it's got its own flaws). My inbox is growing and not shrinking much each day. Oh, and I'm migrating the whole thing to .Net. So there's a bit of stress, particularly since almost all customer problems I still have to handle. Can't wait to get Sara trained enough to handle at least some of them. Of course, I want to eliminate how some of those problems occur, but that'll be a few months. But, I get to go home sometimes with time to spend with my wife and my son . And our friend Mandy is back in town, so we're going to visit her tomorrow night and see her son Vincent. is getting a Mac laptop from me which I'm buying from 's wife Min Young. She's selling it to us, and I'm turning it around and giving it to Kris as a late present. Not that I can't use it sometimes, but it'll be more hers than mine. (I got the G4 which I'm using now to post this, so that's ok with me.) I'm also starting to try different beers. Once I get my next paycheck I'll have to try more, so far I've only tried Killian's Red and, of course, Guinness. Next I'll probably try a bock and probably some pale ales.

Isaac

Let's see.... I'm now a father. My firstborn son, Isaac Alan Wiegand, was born on 28 March 2006 at 4:02 PM. He weighed 8 pounds 2 ounces (and at 14 days he was at 9 pounds 1.8 ounces!) We've setup a journal for him, , so that people can keep up with his activities. And it will be updated FAR more often than my journal will be.

Fire on Shabbos

Fire on Shabbos
Originally uploaded by yonkeltron.

Windows Vista

Windows Vista is interesting, however, I can't find any compelling business reason to upgrade to it. Got it (Feb CTP) on my laptop now, and while the look and feel is pretty cool, I can't see myself recommending businesses to upgrade to it.. Oh, and I apparently doesn't like connecting to WPA Enterprise wireless networks, so I have to wire up at work. We're still waiting for Isaac to be born. We needs to get out there so that we can hold him and teach him to play soccer. Yeah. I'm over at 's house, playing some golf game on the 360. Entertaining, but I'm sure nothing like the real thing...

Baby lunch (shower)

So, we had the baby lunch (shower) at work today. Went really well, the game (we played Wheel of Fortune except, um, it wasn't quite like that, but anyways) was good, the presents great. I'm now washing all of our 0-3 month stuff so that we can use it, and getting the diaper bag, labor and postportum bags ready, phone lists, that kind of stuff. is 38 weeks this wednesday, so we're trying to be ready to go at any time. I don't think we'll get someone into work as the new DBA before I take off for the 1st week off for fatherhood, I have no clue what we're going to do. I'll be kinda available via cell phone, but honestly, I'm never going to have the chance to make it up in the future, so I'm not letting work get in the way of enjoying my firstborn. We're thinking of throwing a baby naming party, or as I call it, an unbris. Since we're not circumcising our son, it won't really be a bris, but an unbris. Hoping that our family/friends can come, see the baby, etc.. Mom took well to the "wear a smock over your shirts when you handle the baby because you smoke and it'll cling to your shirts" thing. I expected an explosion, instead she totally understood and actually suggested the smock bit (originally it was "change shirts to clean ones before you handle the baby"). We've finally gotten the last of the major baby stuff purchases before baby comes. We've got the crib, the playpen/crib, the car seat (installed, not yet inspected), the stroller, the clothes and the diapers. Someday we may post pictures. Or not. And finally, my project, PocketPoster is almost at 0.8. Added some features like friends list in the LJ User dialog and saving info for offline use (like group memberships, etc.). The only other thing I want to add is the ability to edit previous posts, but I may leave that off until 0.9. Dunno, we'll see.

Work is fun... not.

I hate Microsoft. Know why? Because, in their infinite wisdom, Exchange isn't really scriptable. This caused me to take over SIX AND A HALF HOURS doing something that should have taken two. Signal's migrating to a new forest and domain, for documentation / configuration cleanliness reasons. Whole new slate. I've moved over the other servers, but the Exchange can't just move over (because of IDs not matching). Okay, I can understand that. But, if they had just made it so that I could change those IDs myself, or copy the contents via a path, I could have made a small script/program to do that. There's only six, count them, SIX employees here. A couple of extra mailboxes, and that's it. Way too much .... time wasted while I copy contents around using our backup program (which, BTW, kills the job if there's an error in restoring the mailbox, THANKS for not making a "continue anyways" option CA!!) and PST files in one case (because a user had imported a PDF directly into their mailbox as an object, not as a message or anything, but directly in the folder. Which kills ArcServe and it's MAPI doohickey. Argh. Now I'm fighting with the fact that Windows 2003 can only take driver FLOPPIES. This is 2003 fer goodnesssakes, and it can't read a CD for drivers! WTF?! If Vista doesn't correct this, it will be huge. None of my new servers have floppy drives, so my workaround is such: Create a RAID array on the adaptec card with both drives. Remove a drive and the card, put one drive back on the builtin port, install Windows 2003, put RAID card back in, load drivers, use Disk Management to create a software-raid mirror on both "drives", then move the drive that's currently on the builtin back to the RAID, have it "repair" the mirror, then boot off of the RAID. Too much **** work. I'm not going to be able to leave until 3am, if I'm lucky. I was hoping to be out of here by midnight, maybe 1am. I am pissed. And hungry. And my wife, is hopefully sleeping finally. Oh, and the wireless router, which for me would be a nice "oh, I get to set this up today" sort of a balancer for the "I have to work late" thing, was delayed by UPS. Their website finally decided around 10pm that it wasn't going to be delivered today. Well DUH. And of course next week I've got plenty to do, and Monday will be hell with everyone coming in and wanting to get on and *hopefully* I'm able to get everyone's setup done and all I'll have to do is give people their passwords and have them login. We'll see.

work

An update to work: my old boss left the company. So now we can reconsider those technical decisions, like migrating to PHP. We've stopped that, and are now moving to ASP.Net. Much less bad stress. Although there's still a lot of stress, it's good stress, it's just because there's a lot to do, not "I have to do it all" stress. Knowing that my boss *works* and his casual demeanor, along with his strong work ethic really helps defuse my stress. Of course, getting a DBA in will help in the long run too.

baby shower

Well, we just got home from the baby shower. We got lots of stuff. (Thank you !) We like the playpen - we just put it together. Now we buy a bit more and get ready for boyo. Well, that's all for now.

I am Jack's newest LJ client

Well, the client certainly posts. A few bugs, but the core functionality is there. Once SourceForge approves the project, it'll be online (http://pocketPoster.sf.net). There's some functionality that I want to add next, like posting to communities and launching the browser for the friends list. It's got draft and offline functionality. Maybe a spell checker. Definitely tags, userpics and private/public. I'm putting it under the CDDL as I prefer it to the (L)GPL.

Fight club

In case I haven't said it yet, Fight club is something. Something. I'm not sure what to call it. I've been borrowing it from my brother in law. Weird movie, but I think I'm over my fascination with it. I think I'll put it on my birthday list, though, something to show the uninitiated, perhaps. My work is exciting now - I'm the only IS/IT guy at my company now. My boss left the company Thursday, so I'm now part of the Operations department. And our Director of Finance/Operations is bringing in a consulting company to take over some network admin stuff. (Although I'm being told that I'll still be involved with the network admin, that they're just free me from the day-to-day maintenance to focus on programming.) We're bringing in a DBA (YAY!! It's taken YEARS!), and at least for now so long as I don't mess up my job *should* be relatively secure, but I'm not so sure about the long term, none of us from the IS department (myself, my ex-boss and Dmitriy, an ex-programmer) think that it's possible to do it all with just one person, but that wouldn't stop management from trying. So I'll start learning different things in case I get encouraged to leave myself. At least I've got a little retirement money on the side as well as a little equity in the house (although not alot..). We're still expecting a little boy around mid-March. I just got my taxes accepted - should be getting back around $500 or so total. The dishwasher's broke (I am Jack complete lack of surprise) and and I will go window-shopping for some tomorrow. I'm loving my rx1955 iPaq from HP - it's going to be invaluable now that I've got a zillion tasks and projects at work and way too much to remember.

Super Mario with 16 stars in 16 minutes

For those of you with BROADBAND connections: look at this.