blah

tired. So tired. Too much going on. It's going to get a little easier, but I'm still overworked and pushing hard to complete things in unrealistic timeframes. And I just got landed with yet another project to document, so I guess the beatings are continuing until morale improves.

not a stellar day

it was not a stellar day today. Didn't do much of note, but I'm done with the auditting I've been working on for 3 days. The gal I've been working with offered that "you're wasted doing this garbage"... which is true. My large stack of cisco books turned up today. CCDA studying started tonight, and then once that's out of the way, CCNP it is. Had to drag myself out of bed this morning. My energy level is waning ever so much lately, I guess the heat is getting to me.

yawn

too long a day. So I arrive at work, and make the fatal mistake of looking at my camera. Not 15 minutes later I'm on the road dialled into a conference call that ends 35 minutes and 30 miles later. Then it's into the all day meeting regarding reconfiguration of my huge project. Not an unpleasant experience, as I got to pick the brains of the senior architecture person from the vendor, but nonetheless, I could be doing other things that are more productive. I was asked what it would take to keep me on the project for the next couple of phases. I responded "An act of God". He said "I'll speak to him tomorrow". Now i'm just beat. Too much thinking, not enough doing. Later

boy, am I ever glad I came into work today!

so far, I've been chewed out by 2 different project managers, I've done 4 different build documents, totalled up the servers installed for a project, reviewed 3 documents for configuration options and had 1 cup of coffee. Ew. I shall have my revenge on one of the project managers. Heh heh heh. No Project Approval means I can put in the hardware justifications as quickly as you like pal, but it's not going anywhere until you have someone to pay for it. Heh. Heh. Heh.

and so it goes...

I'm slowly winding down for the day. A little Net, a little BCRAN. FatBrain just emailed me that my books have shipped, so with any luck, tomorrow or Tuesday I can started my CCDA/CCNP studying once I have the courses that the training dept offer downloaded. Go me! Cooked dinner (steak, real mashed potatoes, corn and green beans) about an hour ago - yum! The steak was lightly marinated in KC Masterpiece BBQ sauce, and the potatoes were nice and fluffy :-) Time to zoom - I'm going to play a little with Oracle and then move some more books downstairs. Then I'll stop and sleep and go to work tomorrow to deal with the idiots.

weekend is almost over...

it's almost the end of Sunday. Wah. That means back to work tomorrow. That's bad. On the upside, my cubemate is out for 2 weeks on vacation. This is good. Got up at 8:30 or so and went and mowed and edged the lawn. It looks really good out the front. I mowed the neighbours lawn as well as they sold the house and moved to Austin, and it'll be 30 days before the new neighbours move in. Bob asked me to mow the lawn every couple of weeks, and it's not that much more for me to do anyway, so I'm doing it when I mow. Dropped by Target to pick some stuff up, then visited Helzberg to have my lovely bride's engagement ring resized, wandered about a bit, then hit Best Buy looking at MP3 players for her. Came home, took some pictures of the house to send to my folks, then moved some stuff around in the garage. We're going to finish the laundry room and turn it into an office for me, so we've cleared that room ready for my f-i-l to come on over and help me finish the drywall and lay the carpet and get the desk moved in. Then the fun can begin - I'm looking around for some routers and switches to build a small test network to nail down my CCNP, then I also want to get my Solaris and Oracle certifications this year, so I need Sun and *Nix boxen to blow up and then build production kit once TWC and Earthlink sort their shit out regarding cable modems. SWBell doesn't do DSL out here yet, which sucks, so I'm left with RR. Ew. Anyhow, all the heavy lifting and stuff is done for the day. I survived the heat while mowing. Even at 9am it was over 85, which is a little too hot. Perchance I start doing this on Saturdays at 8. Even the god-botherers should be out of bed by then. Toodle whom.

back from being out in the sun

According to weatherbug, it's 92deg out there. We went and saw "Original Sin". I'm going to do a favor for you all out there - do not see this movie for reasons other than Antonio Banderas' butt or Angelina Jolie's breasts. You won't find the plot even if you look real hard. Ate lunch at The Big Chill, which was ok I guess. They had this weird appetiser of "Pasta Nachos" which was normal nachos with chili pepper pasta in it. It tasted ok tho. I had a 20oz steak and my lovely bride had the chicken. The triple chocolate cheesecake was pretty darn good as well. Now we're digesting lunch, and I'm reading news and ordering up some books for my CCDA and CCNP certifications. Go me.

my ears hurt

I think I have a slight ear infection. Ow. Yesterday was another fine day in my contracting life. The meeting I run to hand off build documentation turned into a shemozzle after half the people who had asked me to be put onto the agenda didn't show. There was some Stern Talking going on afterwards. Then I jumped onto a conference call to smack a project manager around the head for being stupid. I will need to talk to his director to have him 'adjusted'. I have said it for a while now, but it's interesting that the people who are charged with making the application work are more worried about the hardware, whereas the people charged with making the hardware work are more worried about how the application works. That's fucked up. Then I started on the auditing project again, and we finished it! Not one piece of equipment was ordered without paperwork, which is amazing given the volume, size, complexity and variety of stuff we ordered. So I was done with that by 5, and then zoomed on out of work home to my lovely bride. Cooked burgers for dinner, then spent a couple of hours catching up on email and news and then watched Iron Chef before falling asleep. Horribly boring. Today was wake up late, and we'll be off to the movies shortly. It's too hot to do otherwise. Oh, and a quick stop at Barnes and Noble to look for "Designing Cisco Networks" for me. Zoom.

enough already!

I spent all today from 9am to 4:30pm (breaking for 30 minutes for lunch) in an audit meeting for the grand project. And I get to go in tomorrow and do it all again from 11 until 3! Landsakes! It's too much! I exclaim too much! Bah!. !!. So, basically I'm going to be the good little soldier tonight and do everything I was supposed to do today after hours. After the staff meeting finishes at 3 tomorrow, I'm gone. Installed Oracle 8.1.7 onto my laptop. I'm pretty much going to mess with it while I'm studying for my CCDA/CCNP and then with any luck, take the Oracle DBA certs at around the same time. I think 3 certs in half a year is enough for any company. The infrastructure manager at the orkplace is shitting bricks that I may roll off at the end of the year. I know a lot about how to make his billing systems work, and I'm pretty sure he wants me to stick around. Renegotiation time should be interesting.

my net worth is..

$2,446,810.00. Word.

phew!

busy day. I feel much better today than yesterday. Yesterday was a complete blah day - not really interested in doing much at all. I have been reasonably productive - one build document down, one project rescued from death, one serving of canneloni (sp?) sent to a better home (mmm! I like Zios). Things proceed apace. I'm thinking of moving onto my CCNP via the CCDA/CCDP route, but I'm itching to finish my Oracle certifications first. I installed Oracle onto evil laptop of doom today - it installs apache by default! Time to go play DBA. 2 more meetings to go, one of which will be as funny as all hell as the project manager tries to be all butch and "drive us to resolution". Heh heh heh. I'm going to completely blow him out of the water. Hee hee hee.

back at work

Ya know, it's monday for me on tuesday. I apparently missed a bunch of fun yesterday with the fun and exciting projects of doom. Don't want to be here today. Too much to do, not enough time, too many idiots.

ah, a day off

I finally took a day off. i got to the point of going round and round thinking "I can't take day off because of " and not being able to find a day to take off, so I just said screw it and I'm gone today. Titanic exhibition, lunch at Pierponts, then a bunch of errands and we'll be back here continuing to move stuff around by 1 or so. Which is a good thing because it's supposed to be stinking hot today. I love summer, really I do.

words on a page

waking. mist. driving. donuts. breakfast. net. We went out for dinner last night to the Tokyo Japanese steak house to celebrate our respective successes lately. I caught the shrimp the chef tossed at me! Back home and I started to play SimCity3000 while my lovely bride worked on some study stuff - she's starting an Internet class at Park in a week, so she was doing some pre-work. 4 hours later we went to bed. I HAVE to stop playing games like that. I was doing pretty well too! Today we are moving furniture and cleaning. Yay Us.

done!

i is now a ccna. I am able to do... nothing extra on top of what I used to. But it looks good on ye olde resume.

ta tarantata

today is the day - ccna 2.0 time. I'm taking the exam at 1:30, so I'll be zooming down 435 at 12 or so, grab some lunch and then go and do this thing. Yesterday wasn't such a good day. I had way too little sleep and way too much work to do, some stuff didn't come off the way I wanted it to, but it will all work out, and I'm off on monday. My coffee is brewed, so it's time for a quick, review, shower, some cuddling and then zoom!

yawn

too much going on today. I just spent a couple of hours working on the evil project of doom. This is bad as it means a lot more work to do in order to complete the project. ew. On the upside, my lovely bride has finished her associates as of 12noon today! Yay her! Must finish build document and get the hell out of here. Zoom.

wah

it was a VERY long day today. I don't know what it is, but I've been having real trouble getting out of bed in the morning. My continued troubles at work (overwork more than anything else) just exhaust me to the point of sleeping like a log but waking up tired every morning. My ability to hurl myself out of bed in the mornings is still present, but it's taking to the 2nd cup of coffee to be awake. I had a whole 1.5 hours today to do any work at all, let alone finish anything. I have 4 build documents to write tomorrow, and to review the hardware configuration of one of my projects, and decide how the LDAP server will fail across between two servers, and order 76 181GB drives for the Albatross project, and not go insane in between. Not to mention chasing up every little thing that goes wrong with anything I have ever touched. Not good. Every so often, I catch myself mentally totalling up how long it is to go on this contract and I remind myself to not think that way lest I do dumb things. The albatross project continues. We have levelled out on overhead in the database so instead of 20% growth, we're now seeing 6%. This is a good thing as it means that extra storage puts us into next year, and then I'll have a fighting chance to rework the system and get some 6800's into the network. Go me. Anyhow, some final review sessions before my testing on Saturday. Should be fun. I then get to try and sleep before the day begins tomorrow. Ugh. Toodles.

sunday, is it already sunday?

where did the day go? yesterday was *HOT*. It was 115degF by the old heat index, and it was unpleasant to be out. So we went to the movies instead. Do not waste your money on Jurassic Park III, unless you're willing to pay for just the special effects. The story is an extension of the original, the special effects are great, and I was really left wondering whether this was all that Tea Leoni could find do to post-child. Made a beeline after that for home. Watched "Life of Brian" - i am covered for my python fix for a couple of weeks.. for now. Our next door neighbours have moved to Austin - whcih is sad, because we really liked them. But it was for work, and it is the season. I'm watering our lawn and theirs for the next couple of weeks until the new neighbours move in. They're apparently very nice, so we'll hopefully have a good set of neighbours. Another 30 minutes and the lawn will have had an hour. Don't know what's on the agenda for today - it's supposed to be hotter than yesterday, so I think inside the house work is on. It's all very domestic, isn't it?

<elton john> saturday! saturday! saturday! </elton john>

yes, it's saturday! Last week was a very long one, and full of battles that I shouldn't have had to fight. On the upside, my director knows who I am and what she can expect out of me when she asks questions. Just went out to water the lawns, as it's going to be stinking hot. Audrey 3, the 3" plant that grew to 2.5' before it snapped on a windy day is back and growing! It will not die! My lovely bride received her new laptop and ipaq yesterday and so has been madly trying out all the lovely flashy bells and whistles. I must say, I do like the screen on the ipaq, but we'll see how it goes. I get her IIIc in return to replace my aging IIIx, which is starting to show its age with the screen having some big time problems. In other news, it's off to the movies today. I've been convinced to go see Jurassic Park III, for better or worse. Ok, time to go turn off hoses, it's been an hour and it'll be stinking hot soon.

i'm the real slim shady

I have stood up. End transmission.

awooga!

I've been up since dark o'clock working on a presentation for my director to take to the application types director as to why the evil project of doom must get some clue regarding their disk storage. I am not in a fit state to do much, so come 3:30pm, I'm out of here.

i am ready

for my ccna 2.0. I know I'm making this out to be more than it is, but this is the first real cert (other than oracle) that I'm sitting for. In other news, there were LOTS of thunderstorms last night. Not a lot of damange, but plenty of lightning and rain. I slept through it, of course, but it was apparently very cool according to my lovely bride :-) Chinese tonight, and laughing at any "reality" tv that is on. Tomorrow is friday, and given that the boss in on leave, I'm gone once it hits 4pm.

blaugh

time for bed. it's been a long day, but I have some studying to do.

back from shopping

made it back from the grand day out shopping. Spent some $$, made my girl happy. Bout a few christmas/birthday presents, and now I'm going over my CCNA notes. Whee.

argh

I hate having a headache on the weekend. So, I wake up at 8, and go and get donuts. (Reminder to self: email Felix and let him know about Lamars, and demand he visit next time he's in the US. I'll get him to see the light). They had the two-tone knots, so that made my lovely bride happy. We munch on donuts, then I go mow lawn. The lawn is doing pretty well. I thought I had burned it a bit with the turf builder and weed killer I had put down, but it seems to be coming back. It was a little hot at 9ish, I should have mowed THEN gone and got breakfast. Then we went and saw "Legally Blond". The deal was that she would see "Cats and Dogs" with me if I would see "Legally Blond". I didn't give up on the deal, and so I had it inflicted on me. Ohmigod was it stupid. But then again, I did know roughly what to expect. But still, I wasn't prepared for the utter unbelievability of the movie. It was sweet and cute and perky, and that's about it. And I got a hotdog out of it too. Sweet. Then it was haircut time. I am NEVER postponing a haircut again. The past week has been evil thanks to the heat, but now I am shorn and able to get air to my skin. Aaah. Now I'm about to watch "Deep Blue Sea" then cook some burgers and cuddle with my girl. I like Saturdays. This time next week we should be celebrating my CCNA, but we'll see.

and then there was the weekend...

you know, this week really sucked. And it didn't just suck for me, every single person I asked about this week told me that it sucked more than usual. For me, it was finding out that my albatross project is going to be out of storage in August. 3TB is not enough for them, they'll need 10TB by the end of March '02. You realise that you can only fit 14TB of storage into a 8730-73? That means no BCVs for you! Gah. That was after the conference calls at 8, 8:30, 9 (which was also me leading the meeting), 11, staff meeting from 1-3, meeting from 3:30 to 4:30. Gah. I though Friday was supposed to be an easy day! My cube mate has been in Chicago for the week, and is back on Monday. I wrote out the list of things to do on Monday before I left and I cannot believe I have so much to do. On the plus side, I'm ready for the CCNA 2.0 test, I think. I really need to play with a router or two plus a switch, but I'm waiting for my tax return from Australia (which I should be getting RSN, and should be big) before I start buying hardware. Sick as it is, I'm really wanting SGI hardware. I miss SGI hardware. Heck, I miss Unix in general. Wah. On the plus side part II, it's Friday night and I have nothing to do tomorrow but mow, see a movie, go out for lunch and dinner, and that's about it. Yay.

bah!

I am just so tired of having to deal with every little burp that comes up in any of my projects. I have so many build documents to be done with by Friday 9am (for which I am also running the meeting!) that I don't know where to start. Well, actually, I do, but I don't wanna. It rained on me this morning. Not badly (I drove through the worst of it). On the plus side, it's Wednesday and I can waste my time in the meetings I have from 2 until 5. I have Mt Dew. I'm caught up on the project of doom. I am not a fish. I am not me, they are not us, we are not then. One of my good friends just got engaged. It's 2 days until the weekend.

and so it goes part II

bitsy kind of day today. Got up lateish (like 9am), finished off a couple of upgrades to the rebuilt laptop, wrote up some ideas for projects, surfed a little, did dishes and started laundry. Then my lovely bride awoke and we headed over to the parents-in-law to water the garden (have I mentioned its been hot here lately?), then had lunch at Backyard Burgers (mmmmm!), hit Home Depot for a fertiliser spreader (the grass is looking ill), BB&B for a study table and pillow for my lovely bride, now we're at home, the laundry is done and the trash is out, and all we're waiting for is for the sun to start going down so we can water and get the fertiliser out onto the lawn. Yay for domesticity. I've also been pondering the network-at-home question thats been bugging me. Once we have the bills paid we have a bunch of $$ left over. It is time, I think, to put in not only wireless but also the firewall and Unix box ready to get the cable modem run. $#!@#@!!! SWBell and $!@###$!@$#!@#!@#!@##!@@#!!!! Sprint don't run DSL/ION out here, so I'm left with RoadRunner at the moment, although Earthlink is likely to be available sometime soon. Ew. Anyhow, plotting continues. Updates as the hardware purchasing continues.

you'll be pleased to know...

that "Battlefield Earth" is the worst movie known to man. I want the 1hr52min of my life back, and I'll sue to get it! Truly horrid movie. Anyhoo - it's going to be a scorcher today! It's about 90 now and it's just gone 10am! My laptop is basically back to where it was, with the exception of OpenMail MAPI's and the eRAS garbage. Runs a lot better than NT 4.0 as well. Don't know what the plans are for today - I think "legally blonde" is opening, and given that I saw "cats and dogs" at the sacrifice of my lovely bride, I think I can break down and see it. Toodle pip.

and so it goes..

spent most of today rebuilding the laptop. Reinstalling stuff, trying to figure out IR and why Palm and Microsoft suck so badly at doing it. Looks like its still going to be the sync cable. It was BLOODY hot here today - heat index was like 105-110degF. Ew! It will be hotter tomorrow, apparently. Whee. More downloads, more time wasted - I should just wait until Monday and do this across that nice 100baseT connection at work, but that means I'll have to spend time I don't have on Mondays. Oh, and i have to eRAS working as well. Off to watch Big Brother and Battlefield Earth. The latter is just to see how truly horrid it was. Toodle whom.

well that was an unpleasant couple of hours...

I decided it was time to upgrade my Office 97 to Office 2000. A mistake. The 1023 cylinder stupidity came into play and suffice it to say, I now run Win2K Professional and Office 2K and it only took 8 hours. Ew. Long day. Someone summed it up perfectly this afternoon - "this week has had 2 Mondays, 2 Fridays and 2 Sundays. No wonder we didn't get anything done". Off to the Nelson tomorrow and stocking up for the 100degF weather thats on it's way. So now I sleep.

arugh

home again, and so very tired. Actually, it's not too bad, but my lovely bride has just been completely wiped out by the heat. I predict that the weekend will mostly be spent inside, due to it getting mighty close to the 100degF mark. Ew. Very little of use got done today. It wasn't a Monday because there was very little angst and hue and cry and throwing of hands, but it most definitely felt like Monday. I really need a vacation. It's becoming more and more obvious that as the days go on that I'm getting tireder and tireder and am dropping more and more small things that I would have done right if I wasn't as pooped as I am. That's not an excuse, it's a reality. In other news, the project of doom appears to have resolved its albatross (yeah, them 6500's with 12 CPUs and 12GB of memory will run that Oracle database pretty darn well even with 12,000 people hitting it - so STOP SAYING IT IS THE DATABASE, YOU JACKASSES!) and we're moving on to take over the world^W^W^W^Wmake the app stable. Surfing by barnes and noble to pick up some cert stuff. I am >< close to taking both Solaris 7 and CCNA. I go cook dinner now.

too goddamn early

It's too early! We got home at dark o'clock this morning after the fireworks at Parkville, and after blowing up some small stuff at my brother- and sister-in-laws. Pretty cool, if only we didn't have to wait around until 10pm for it all to happen. It definitely feels like Monday. In other news, I'm pretty darn close to being ready to take my CCNA. I've got mebbe 3 more review sessions and I'll be setting up my test slot. Saw "Cats and Dogs" with my lovely bride. Lovely (if sappy) bit of children's film, but the beagle puppy is so cute! Must get things done today.

this is not a drill

it's my first 4th in KC! I have been fully apprised of the central nature of blowing shit up to celebrate the birth of a nation, courtesy of the fireworks that have been going off in the neighbourhood since the 1st. The vacation in the middle of the week sucks. I am just going to be off for the whole week now, and with the number of people at work who wisely took the rest of the week off, it's difficult to get anything done. In other news, my cubemate is heading to chicago for a week to do Veritas training, so I will be gloriously un-cramped for 5 days, then he's back for a week, then he's on vacation for 2 weeks. I can get so much done instead of us tripping over each other. Rule. I'm also madly trying to get my CCNA 2.0 testing set up so I can get at least one cert under my belt before the end of July, and then get cracking on the Oracle, Sun and CCDA certs. It's tough trying to find time to study, but it's working out. It's also the end of the finanical year in .au, so I'm expecting a major tax refund due to the vagaries of the .au tax system. Basically, it works like this: I got taxed as if I was earning the full amount of $$ for the year. But I only worked 6 months of it. Therefore, I will be assessed as only having earned as a salary for the whole year a whopping 50% of what I was taxed at. This means that I paid 50% tax on 50% of my salary, which ends up being $BIG_NUM of pesos. Year, it's in PacRim pesos, but I'm not going to sneeze at it. I should be able to pay back my parents and pay off my visa card bill and have a sizeable chunk of change left over to finally buy a *nix based system or 3. I'm slowly going mad without access to a Unix system, or at least that's how I'm justifying the purchases that are coming down the track. i also need to put wireless in cuz I'm sick of trailing a phone cord wherever I go to get online. If TWC and Earthlink would get their shit together, I'll hand over shekels to them for cable modem access. Which reminds me.. time to send my weekly email to them. Toodles - don't blow yourselves up, and consume much food!

long time, no update

Been a busy boy. Too many sev1's to even scratch myself. Much has been going on. It's been icky nasty weather so there hasn't been much outside activity. It was my mum's birthday on Friday, so I called her while on my way home and had a good old natter with her at 75mph. Went to see Moulin Rouge on Saturday - excellent movie, but weird. Went out to see the cows (www.cowparadekc.com) on Sunday morning, then pottered around. Much to do today. Off now.

tired, so tired

need to get some solid sack time. Today was just silly. We think we've tracked down why the database is having the unholy kicked out of it on my little project of doom - it's the app. The Symmetrix is performing like a champ, the 6500 is doing well, and the database is ok. That leaves the app. In the meantime, I have 6 build documents to complete before Friday, and I got handed hostname allocation today. Bugger. Course, I'll get IP's and switch ports tomorrow, I just know it. On the upside, took my storage guys out for lunch at Zio's. Twas good to vent a little and eat some good food. Tonight I got chinese on my way home, and now my lovely bride is doing homework and watching tv while I play railroad tycoon II. Soon I'll sleep. Ch-hah - when I'm dead maybe.

quick update on the weekend

So after a really shitty day at work on Friday, I got to go trench and edge at the parents-in-law. They're away in California, so the children are attempting to surprise them no end. The MIL will be very pleased that her pond in the back yard is almost finished. So, in the end, I spent the evening acting as playground for the 5 and 3 year old niece and nephew. I put my back out seriously swinging them around, but good time was had by all. Yesterday was bitsy stuff - mowed the lawn, did stuff around the house, repotted some of the plants, put the planters in at the end of the driveway, then retired hurt with my back. Today was even lazier, but I got some CCNA study in - I'm getting close to being ready to take it, and then I'll start cracking on the Solaris 7 and 8 certs, as well as the EMC stuff and MCSE2000+I. Stop laughing - it's only to get to do the Citrix Administrator/Architect certs anyway, though I think the active directory stuff would be very useful. Dislocated and relocated my knee while changing sheets on the bed tonight - I'm starting to swell like a mother and bruise, but I should be ok by tomorrow. Must learn to do things right with my right knee. Watched "Sex and the city" which amuses me no end, and I'm about to go to bed cuz I'm tired with all the heat and work that's been going on.

yawn

almost time for bed. Long day. Too much paperwork, too much boredom, too much too much all at once. I've come to the conclusion that I'm inestimably bored, and so will be taking steps soon to relieve my boredom. I may well even go back to operations (gasp!). Need water. Need something to drink. Need a good nights sleep - last night the thunderstorms kept us up and then I had to drag myself out of bed by the scruff of the neck this morning to get out and on the road. sleep, and lots of it. good sleep. Watched "Chicken Run" tonight - must find Wallace and Gromit videos of "the wrong trousers"(!!) Nite nite.

do not want to be here today

I guess I just have run out of motivation at the moment. It's been a year of big changes so far and I'm a little burned out. 6 months of straight work without a break is really beginning to take its toll. Last night was branch meeting night. The worst part was the room - a little dinky conference room crammed to overflow with engineers, the air conditioning turned off at 6 (we were there until 8), it just was wrong. Driving home was even worse. If I'd have left work at the normal time, I would have missed the thunderstorm. But because it was 7:45pm when I got on the road, I went straight through it. Torrential rain, people pulling over to the side of the road (not even under the overpasses), it was bad. Did not sleep well last night at all. Too much going on inside my head. Now I'm at work and it's not where I want to be. Oh well.

zoop

tuesday. Of course, the weather waits until I'm 2 minutes from the office and then proceeds to dump rain on me. I am now wet and stinky thanks to the thunderstorm that has left a cloud not unlike a cloud of doom over the office. Much to be done today. I have build documentation to complete and I need to finish off some quoting and ordering and all that good stuff. No meetings except for one! Need to plan the move of servers from one datacenter to another. To top it all off, there is a branch meeting tonight which means I don't get home until 9 or so. Boo.

monday

it's monday everyone. just so you know. Disjointed weekend. Went and did stuff on Saturday including seeing Tomb Raider (not worth it, even for Angelina in tight fitting clothing), then pottered around the house on Sunday. This included spreading crap on the lawn and weeding. Didn't do a lick of work or study, helped in biology study, cooked dinner, took out garbage. Life is just so... boring sometimes. Not bad boring... in fact, boring is the wrong word. Routine is a good word.

edgy, a little strange

is how I feel today. I'm a little frustrated with life right now - nothing major, just discontent. Having my 6 month review yesterday got me thinking a lot about what I want to do in the next 6-12 months. Busy day today. Much to be done in terms of layout on the EMCs. Whee. Trying to nail down my training and stuff and get stuff done in between. My TODO list was like 15 today, and I completed them all, it's just that 15 more items turned up. Wheee. Lunch done, waiting for meetings, so I go now.

foop

I really should update this at night about the day before, if that makes any sense at all. Last night I went home and we took 2 of my nieces out to dinner at Backyard Burger (mmmm!) and then out to the parents-in-law to water plants while they are in California. It was fun - they're nice young people with their heads screwed on right. Then I spent some of last night catching up on email etc. Today started at $MUMBLE_TOO_EARLY and was pretty much RS until 10:30, when I went to the company offices for my semi-annual review. Basically, all goes well and I'm a good guy, alas, no pay increase yet. Pat on head for doing good job followed by lunch at copelands - 12oz of steak is just not enough! Back at work now and doing much paperwork. I have asked a project manager to find out from the vendor how the filesystems should be laid out, and if possible, what color the sky is. I HATE stupidity. Off home shortly.

short entry

too much to do, too much to think about. McVeigh is dead. He can rot in hell. didn't sleep well last night, for reasons unknown. I feel ok, just tired. played a lot of railroad tycoon II yesterday - maybe that had something to do with it. Not a bad drive in today, despite it being Crack-Weasel Monday and all.

rain rain rainity rain

it's raining again! Friday was a complete shambles. I was due to be shoehorned into a cubicle with my brother consultant from 7am to 12 midday. Ok, fine, I'll rearrange my schedule and be absent (as requested) for the move time. So I go out to Lee's Summit to our mondo data centers out there. Do much good, have some fun, then drive back to find.... nothing had moved! My phone and PC had not moved. Fscking morons! And during the while, the rest of Engineering had disappeared off to an all-hands meeting. So imagine this, if you will.. a floor full of cubicles, all empty except for 1 that has 2 people sitting in it. And they wonder why I want to leave. Saturday was bits and pieces day. I have sandals now so I do not kill people with my sweaty sneaker feet, and we watched "The Replacements" last night. I just got home from picking up Lamars donuts for breakfast - take it from me folks, Lamars and Krispy Kreme aren't in the same ballpark, let alone the same state. Now, I don't know what I'm going to do for the rest of the day. My lovely bride has an ookie eye, so I think rest and relaxation are the name of the game.

and then there was one...

this morning was not a good one. It was hot and muggy last night, and so I slept really badly. When the alarm went off I was not ready to get up, but dragged myself by the scruff of my neck out of bed and into the shower. Yesterday... meetings, meetings, meetings, too much work.. oh, and then Nice EMC Rep called me and said "I have 2 dugout tickets at the Royals game tonight - do you and your wife want to go". HELL YES. Totally ruled. 3rd base was 50 feet away and the Royals won! Only downside was that it was a wednesday night and I had to come into work today, but that's ok. Left the game at 10:30 or so, stopped by Sonic (mmmmm!) on the way to the parents-in-law to see them before they left for their 6 week sojourn to California today. Got home about 11:30 or so, tried to sleep but didn't drop off until midnight or so :-/ No more rain today! The bad part about that is that when I get home tonight I have to mow and fertilise. That's ok, but it's liable to be nasty outside. My lovely bride has a class that will run until 8 or so tonight, so I have the chance to do much when I get home :-)

will noone rid me of this errant rain?

It's raining *again*. I suppose I shouldn't bitch because it makes the grass grow, but for $DEITY's sake, enough! Long day yesterday. Missed a couple of meetings I didn't have to go to, alas, I seem to be paying for it today with a grand total of 2 hours out of the entire 8 free to do things other than meetings. Argh. My folks are currently in Indonesia and should be back in Australia today (at least today on the other side of the date line). Sounds like they had a blast in the UK. Me, I'm just tired. Too little sleep, too much work, too much crap, too much. And I want a puppy.

ARGH

damn you marcie & cynthia. Now *I* *WANT* *A* *DOG* *AGAIN*. Wah. Slow day. got a whole bunch of stuff done, and signed up to donate blood tomorrow. Hopefully I'll pass out during the Afternoon Of Meetings. It's thunderstormy again outside. Hope my car is ok.

rain rain rain

gads, has it been that long since I've updated my journal? Basically, it's been wet in the midwest for the last 3 days. It started on Friday with a thunderstorm, saturday was ok but overcast, sunday was weird - starting raining as we were coming back from home depot, and then it started to thunder and lightning and storm at around 10:30pm or so, and continued throughout the night. It was icky. There were thunderclaps right over the house and 10-15 seconds of sheet lightning all through the night. My lovely bride wasn't able to sleep hardly any of the night, and I got woken up a couple of times (by her and by the lightning). Saturday we went to see "Pearl Harbor". What an emotional rollercoaster that was. I mean, the romantic aspects were standard wartime romance cruft, but the battle scenes and the raw emotion portrayed got to me really badly. I was still shedding tears when I walked out of the theater. Sunday was supposed to be a day to Do Nothing. Instead, there was a minor fight about me going to get the paper at 7:30am (despite having been up until 11:30pm the night before), and then I had a sad time for a couple of hours. I just didn't feel happy, which I suspect was biorhythms being out. We ended up at Home Depot and bought a door which my lovely bride had been coveting for years and the F-I-L and I brought it home in his F-150 Lightning. That is one *sweet* truck. Fire engine red, 5.9L V8, very very very nice. Then the thunderstorms and crappy movies and now it's Monday. Renner was closed at the underpass to K-7. There was one lone car that had tried to drive through the standing water stuck out in the intersection, so I turned around and hit Lackman through to College. Now I'm at work churning out the build documents - I have 4 to send to the SA's "officially". Go me! Toodle whom.

sploop

is how I feel this morning. Just a long weekend all up. Had the family around for the Memorial Day holiday - bbqing on the lawn. It turned out to be a better day than I expected, which was good - a lot of fun was had. The two days leading up to them were less rosy - work work work to finish the downstairs bathroom and guest bedroom, clean the garage, mow lawns, clean upstairs and finish off the little bits needed to make the place look good. It was a long couple of days. This morning was a good one - woke up right on 6:10, out of the house by 6:55, gassed up ($1.68/gal down from $1.74) and then zoomed into work arriving at 7:50). Now, the insanity begins because of the 3 day weekend, but I can live with that.

sploop

is how I feel this morning. Just a long weekend all up. Had the family around for the Memorial Day holiday - bbqing on the lawn. It turned out to be a better day than I expected, which was good - a lot of fun was had. The two days leading up to them were less rosy - work work work to finish the downstairs bathroom and guest bedroom, clean the garage, mow lawns, clean upstairs and finish off the little bits needed to make the place look good. It was a long couple of days. This morning was a good one - woke up right on 6:10, out of the house by 6:55, gassed up ($1.68/gal down from $1.74) and then zoomed into work arriving at 7:50). Now, the insanity begins because of the 3 day weekend, but I can live with that.

almost to the end of the day..

almost made it through the day without losing an arm or a leg or my sanity. (not so much the last one "you don't have to be insane to work here" etc etc). Trying to nail down a couple of things and zoom to the graduation. Some random Python: Praline: I am not a loony. Why should I be tarred with the epithet 'loony' merely because I have a pet halibut? I've heard tell that Sir Gerald Nabarro has a pet prawn called Simon - you wouldn't call him a loony! Furthermore Dawn Pathorpe, the lady showjumper, had a clam called Stafford, after the late chancellor. Alan Bullock has two pikes, both called Chris, and Marcel Proust had an 'addock! So if you're calling the author of 'A la recherche de temps perdu' a loony, I shall have to ask you to step outside! Clerk: All right, all right, all right. A licence? Praline: Yes! Clerk: For a fish. Praline: Yes! Clerk: You *are* a loony.

almost to the end of the day..

almost made it through the day without losing an arm or a leg or my sanity. (not so much the last one "you don't have to be insane to work here" etc etc). Trying to nail down a couple of things and zoom to the graduation. Some random Python: Praline: I am not a loony. Why should I be tarred with the epithet 'loony' merely because I have a pet halibut? I've heard tell that Sir Gerald Nabarro has a pet prawn called Simon - you wouldn't call him a loony! Furthermore Dawn Pathorpe, the lady showjumper, had a clam called Stafford, after the late chancellor. Alan Bullock has two pikes, both called Chris, and Marcel Proust had an 'addock! So if you're calling the author of 'A la recherche de temps perdu' a loony, I shall have to ask you to step outside! Clerk: All right, all right, all right. A licence? Praline: Yes! Clerk: For a fish. Praline: Yes! Clerk: You *are* a loony.

doop de doo!

Yes, it's Friday! Strange night last night. I left work at 5:10, and was only 10 miles down the road by 5:45. Ew. There was late finishing roadworks at Woodend that closed 2 out of the 3 lanes. (!) OW. Made it home, ate dinner (mmmmm, Sonic!), then started painting the bathroom downstairs. Once the 3rd coat goes on we're done with painting! Yay! Hopefully I can get out of work early today - one of my nieces is graduating tonight and we're going to show Family Support (tm). It's been a busy week. I'm worn out. Need vacation or at least a couple of days of doing very little.

doop de doo!

Yes, it's Friday! Strange night last night. I left work at 5:10, and was only 10 miles down the road by 5:45. Ew. There was late finishing roadworks at Woodend that closed 2 out of the 3 lanes. (!) OW. Made it home, ate dinner (mmmmm, Sonic!), then started painting the bathroom downstairs. Once the 3rd coat goes on we're done with painting! Yay! Hopefully I can get out of work early today - one of my nieces is graduating tonight and we're going to show Family Support (tm). It's been a busy week. I'm worn out. Need vacation or at least a couple of days of doing very little.

so tired...

I'm just out of energy today. I think it's the weather combined with too much to do. Thankfully, I have most of the day open to do things other than go to meetings, so that should be a bit of a relief. In other news - downstairs is almost done. All we need to do is paint the bathroom wall, border and all the decorating et fini! Ok, except for the little stuff like shelves and pictures and plates for decoration. But apart from that - all the big stuff is done and looks way cool. Must dig out the digital camera and do the whole virtual tour thing. In other news - the big evil projects get bigger and more evil as the days go on. Ew. I have a sneaky suspicion my project engineer is going to go and play on the other side of the house, which means that I'm the man when it comes to billing. This is how fubared the company is - the most important bit of the entire puzzle is in the hands of a contractor who is burning out. Insane? I think so!

so tired...

I'm just out of energy today. I think it's the weather combined with too much to do. Thankfully, I have most of the day open to do things other than go to meetings, so that should be a bit of a relief. In other news - downstairs is almost done. All we need to do is paint the bathroom wall, border and all the decorating et fini! Ok, except for the little stuff like shelves and pictures and plates for decoration. But apart from that - all the big stuff is done and looks way cool. Must dig out the digital camera and do the whole virtual tour thing. In other news - the big evil projects get bigger and more evil as the days go on. Ew. I have a sneaky suspicion my project engineer is going to go and play on the other side of the house, which means that I'm the man when it comes to billing. This is how fubared the company is - the most important bit of the entire puzzle is in the hands of a contractor who is burning out. Insane? I think so!

crap

It's been a rough week so far. Way too much to do and not nearly enough time to do it in. Monday was just bad. Tuesday was bad and long. Wednesday I'm left to hold the 800lb Gorilla Project of Doom together for the next 3 days. My project with the little cloud of doom following is has a pretty awful volume manager problem (the oracle backup area is intertwined on LUNs inside the database volume. Which is fine, unless you want to BCV mirror the database only. So the solution is to down the database, then pick out the LUNs which have the backup area on it, trash them, then move the raw database data from one disk to another by LUN. EW EW EW. It's screwed up alright). Then, as if thats not enough, I have equipment all over the place that I've ordered and everyone but me is told that its arriving. The problem with that is that I need to know when its turning up so I can get the build documents done so that it can be wheeled in and turned on and configured. There seems to be a hole in the process there. Then, as if the "not enough" needed more, I just got handed making all the switch port and IP allocations until we can sort out how to automate it. I'm supposed to do that, run the 5 projects I'm working on, go to the meetings (today I have a grand total of 3.5 hours free to do work - the rest is in meetings), share a cube and still not work more than 8.5 hours a day? I think not. And the move idiots managed to screw up my phone - I have voicemail waiting for me, but my password no longer works. Bra-vo. Way to go. Way to help me do my job. I love my job, really I do. I also need to get home and paint the downstairs bedroom - there is apparently a memorial day bbq at our place on Monday, so cleaning and painting and sanding and general dogsbodying needs to be done.

crap

It's been a rough week so far. Way too much to do and not nearly enough time to do it in. Monday was just bad. Tuesday was bad and long. Wednesday I'm left to hold the 800lb Gorilla Project of Doom together for the next 3 days. My project with the little cloud of doom following is has a pretty awful volume manager problem (the oracle backup area is intertwined on LUNs inside the database volume. Which is fine, unless you want to BCV mirror the database only. So the solution is to down the database, then pick out the LUNs which have the backup area on it, trash them, then move the raw database data from one disk to another by LUN. EW EW EW. It's screwed up alright). Then, as if thats not enough, I have equipment all over the place that I've ordered and everyone but me is told that its arriving. The problem with that is that I need to know when its turning up so I can get the build documents done so that it can be wheeled in and turned on and configured. There seems to be a hole in the process there. Then, as if the "not enough" needed more, I just got handed making all the switch port and IP allocations until we can sort out how to automate it. I'm supposed to do that, run the 5 projects I'm working on, go to the meetings (today I have a grand total of 3.5 hours free to do work - the rest is in meetings), share a cube and still not work more than 8.5 hours a day? I think not. And the move idiots managed to screw up my phone - I have voicemail waiting for me, but my password no longer works. Bra-vo. Way to go. Way to help me do my job. I love my job, really I do. I also need to get home and paint the downstairs bedroom - there is apparently a memorial day bbq at our place on Monday, so cleaning and painting and sanding and general dogsbodying needs to be done.

ow

Yes, my back hurts again. So there I am, tooling along writing build documents, and I get a call from my lovely bride saying "head to the parents-in-law for dinner". Ok, no problem, straight up 635 and I'm there. Well, I got there at 6pm, and we didn't leave until after 10pm. I had changed oil and rotated tires and other car-related stuff by that time, and alas, I spent most of the night sitting on a hard wooden chair. This is incredibly bad for my back, and generally leaves me with a spine way out of alignment and back muscles that are ready to strangle me for doing such dumb things. Ow. Slept pretty well last night - it's been cold overnight recently, and the days aren't getting much above 65 or so, which makes for good sleeping weather. OTOH, I can feel a cold coming on due to the change in weather. It was a pretty good drive in this morning, although the cop sitting at 87th and Renner was not amusing. Anyhoo, busy day today. Off I zoom.

ow

Yes, my back hurts again. So there I am, tooling along writing build documents, and I get a call from my lovely bride saying "head to the parents-in-law for dinner". Ok, no problem, straight up 635 and I'm there. Well, I got there at 6pm, and we didn't leave until after 10pm. I had changed oil and rotated tires and other car-related stuff by that time, and alas, I spent most of the night sitting on a hard wooden chair. This is incredibly bad for my back, and generally leaves me with a spine way out of alignment and back muscles that are ready to strangle me for doing such dumb things. Ow. Slept pretty well last night - it's been cold overnight recently, and the days aren't getting much above 65 or so, which makes for good sleeping weather. OTOH, I can feel a cold coming on due to the change in weather. It was a pretty good drive in this morning, although the cop sitting at 87th and Renner was not amusing. Anyhoo, busy day today. Off I zoom.

long weekend..

it was a very long weekend, but productive. Friday night saw us finishing up the preparation work on all the walls upstairs and downstairs, and then we wallpapered all saturday. The living room and entryway and hallway all look amazing - great colors, great border - all good :-) We even got behind the entertainment unit! I also finished off the downstairs preparation - filled and sanded the holes in the wall and removed all the backing paper from the previous border and washed the walls of glue and crap. It's all ready for my lovely bride to clear the room and paint :-) Apart from that, the weekend was bits and pieces - cracker barrel for lunch on saturday, home depot and target, aborted attempt to see "A knight's tale" (thwarted by session times), mowing lawn, thunderstorms and other bits and pieces. Oh, and Monday is garbage day, so it was clean and pitch. Astute readers may well notice a large increase in the domesticity quotient and a lessening of the geek index. This is by design, trust me, and is not a permanent fixture. In the past, I've geeked at work for long hours, then gone home and geeked for even more hours until I fell asleep. I've taken a solid decision to put my need to hack and experiment and Do Stuff aside for domestic replacements to try and balance my life a little better, especially as it Isn't Just Me any more. What this really is is a break from the creative process on How To Do Things and a chance to refresh my brain so that I can come back to the geeking and make lots of good things happen. Ideas need to be taken care of in the same way that the body needs rest and the house needs maintenance.

long weekend..

it was a very long weekend, but productive. Friday night saw us finishing up the preparation work on all the walls upstairs and downstairs, and then we wallpapered all saturday. The living room and entryway and hallway all look amazing - great colors, great border - all good :-) We even got behind the entertainment unit! I also finished off the downstairs preparation - filled and sanded the holes in the wall and removed all the backing paper from the previous border and washed the walls of glue and crap. It's all ready for my lovely bride to clear the room and paint :-) Apart from that, the weekend was bits and pieces - cracker barrel for lunch on saturday, home depot and target, aborted attempt to see "A knight's tale" (thwarted by session times), mowing lawn, thunderstorms and other bits and pieces. Oh, and Monday is garbage day, so it was clean and pitch. Astute readers may well notice a large increase in the domesticity quotient and a lessening of the geek index. This is by design, trust me, and is not a permanent fixture. In the past, I've geeked at work for long hours, then gone home and geeked for even more hours until I fell asleep. I've taken a solid decision to put my need to hack and experiment and Do Stuff aside for domestic replacements to try and balance my life a little better, especially as it Isn't Just Me any more. What this really is is a break from the creative process on How To Do Things and a chance to refresh my brain so that I can come back to the geeking and make lots of good things happen. Ideas need to be taken care of in the same way that the body needs rest and the house needs maintenance.

thursday. All day.

yes, Thursday. I like thursday because my day is free after lunchtime to do all the crap I need to do. Yesterday was good. Out to lunch with EMC to do a customer satisfaction survey at the Hereford House. Then the Sun rep came around at about 2 with ice cream :-) Picked up chinese on the way home, ate, added a second and third coat to the entryway (which looks really cool now!), took down some border in the guest bedroom - darned stuff came right off the backing, so I have to strip the wall of the papery crap thats left. Boo. Slept pretty well last night despite the heat. It's into the 70s overnight, and we're trying to avoid the air conditioner because of energy prices, but it's working out ok. Next project once we're done inside is a bigger deck. And some landscaping. By then, I think we're about done with the house.. well, except for finishing the laundry room, hollowing out the area under the stairs and shelving in the garage. Oh, and a hot tub somewhere. Ok, so I'm nowhere near finished. But APART from that, we're close.

thursday. All day.

yes, Thursday. I like thursday because my day is free after lunchtime to do all the crap I need to do. Yesterday was good. Out to lunch with EMC to do a customer satisfaction survey at the Hereford House. Then the Sun rep came around at about 2 with ice cream :-) Picked up chinese on the way home, ate, added a second and third coat to the entryway (which looks really cool now!), took down some border in the guest bedroom - darned stuff came right off the backing, so I have to strip the wall of the papery crap thats left. Boo. Slept pretty well last night despite the heat. It's into the 70s overnight, and we're trying to avoid the air conditioner because of energy prices, but it's working out ok. Next project once we're done inside is a bigger deck. And some landscaping. By then, I think we're about done with the house.. well, except for finishing the laundry room, hollowing out the area under the stairs and shelving in the garage. Oh, and a hot tub somewhere. Ok, so I'm nowhere near finished. But APART from that, we're close.

in other news...

the painting and wallpapering at home has begun. I'm thinking we'll need to wash the walls again to get rid of the glue residue, but that's not a big deal. I had to go to the branch meeting last night. Pretty good stuff - the KC office is doing an awful lot of business. Made it home in around an hour - Overland Park is a long way away from home, but it's interstate almost all the way so that's ok. Although I'd like it if it was 70mph all the way, instead of 65 then 70. Anyhoo, once again, the madness begins so I'll be on my way..

in other news...

the painting and wallpapering at home has begun. I'm thinking we'll need to wash the walls again to get rid of the glue residue, but that's not a big deal. I had to go to the branch meeting last night. Pretty good stuff - the KC office is doing an awful lot of business. Made it home in around an hour - Overland Park is a long way away from home, but it's interstate almost all the way so that's ok. Although I'd like it if it was 70mph all the way, instead of 65 then 70. Anyhoo, once again, the madness begins so I'll be on my way..

let the insanity begin... no wait, it already has.

well kids, guess what? Manglement, in it's infinite wisdom, has decided (for an unknown reason), that I and my fellow contractor-from-the-same-company have to cube share. This will not work. I'm loud, busy and I like speakerphone. I have hundreds of people stopping by in a day, I need desk space and quiet time away from people. I am pissed off about this. Then to top it all off, my manager decided that he would have the team assistant pass on the "good" news instead of doing his own dirty work. Isn't that just peachy? Really, I mean, that's the kind of intestinal fortitude that is going to see such great returns on investment, especially since I'm the one who makes most of the billing projects actually happen. Funnily enough, I intend spending an awful lot of time this weekend doing the administrivia to get all of my skill assessments up to date.

let the insanity begin... no wait, it already has.

well kids, guess what? Manglement, in it's infinite wisdom, has decided (for an unknown reason), that I and my fellow contractor-from-the-same-company have to cube share. This will not work. I'm loud, busy and I like speakerphone. I have hundreds of people stopping by in a day, I need desk space and quiet time away from people. I am pissed off about this. Then to top it all off, my manager decided that he would have the team assistant pass on the "good" news instead of doing his own dirty work. Isn't that just peachy? Really, I mean, that's the kind of intestinal fortitude that is going to see such great returns on investment, especially since I'm the one who makes most of the billing projects actually happen. Funnily enough, I intend spending an awful lot of time this weekend doing the administrivia to get all of my skill assessments up to date.

and so it goes part III

tuesdays used to be my favorite day of the week. But its quickly turning into Just Another Day. Went out to lunch with the boss on Friday and he made the offer to me to go permanent at this gig. This is good news, it is bad news, and it's so-so news all at once. Good that I'm considered important enough to make the offer, bad because I'm not going to take it, and so-so because it's a double edged bargaining chip with the current $VBC for whom I conslut. Though my 6 month review is coming up... hmm. Gads, has it been 6 months? I guess so. Time flies when you're working hard. My 600lb gorilla project is puttering along. Almost done with it though, then I can work on the real stuff that needs to be done - the 900lb gorilla. I also seem to be being sucked into working on the 1200lb gorilla, which is bad. Not because the project is bad, but because the project engineer running it is a twonk and he and I don't see eye to eye on the direction that should be taken from Engineering. Oh well. I can outlast him :-) I haven't been sleeping properly lately - last night was ok, thanks to us turning the air conditioning on, but I'm just bone tired when I get home and then I go and do other things with my lovely bride so I'm exhausted when I hit the pillow. Anyhoo, these things are sent to test us. I go now to get on a conference call.

and so it goes part III

tuesdays used to be my favorite day of the week. But its quickly turning into Just Another Day. Went out to lunch with the boss on Friday and he made the offer to me to go permanent at this gig. This is good news, it is bad news, and it's so-so news all at once. Good that I'm considered important enough to make the offer, bad because I'm not going to take it, and so-so because it's a double edged bargaining chip with the current $VBC for whom I conslut. Though my 6 month review is coming up... hmm. Gads, has it been 6 months? I guess so. Time flies when you're working hard. My 600lb gorilla project is puttering along. Almost done with it though, then I can work on the real stuff that needs to be done - the 900lb gorilla. I also seem to be being sucked into working on the 1200lb gorilla, which is bad. Not because the project is bad, but because the project engineer running it is a twonk and he and I don't see eye to eye on the direction that should be taken from Engineering. Oh well. I can outlast him :-) I haven't been sleeping properly lately - last night was ok, thanks to us turning the air conditioning on, but I'm just bone tired when I get home and then I go and do other things with my lovely bride so I'm exhausted when I hit the pillow. Anyhoo, these things are sent to test us. I go now to get on a conference call.

monty python for the day..

Some people have made the mistake of seeing Shunt's work as a load of rubbish about railway timetables, but clever people like me, who talk loudly in restaurants, see this as a deliberate ambiguity, a plea for understanding in a mechanized world. The points are frozen, the beast is dead. What is the difference? What indeed is the point? The point is frozen, the beast is late out of Paddington. The point is taken. If La Fontaine's elk would spurn Tom Jones the engine must be our head, the dining car our oesophagus, the guard's van our left lung, the cattle truck our shins, the first-class compartment the piece of skin at the nape of the neck and the level crossing an electric elk called Simon. The clarity is devastating. But where is the ambiguity? It's over there in a box. Shunt is saying the 8.15 from Gillingham when in reality he means the 8.13 from Gillingham. The train is the same only the time is altered. Ecce homo, ergo elk. La Fontaine knew his sister and knew her bloody well. The point is taken, the beast is moulting, the fluff gets up your nose. The illusion is complete; it is reality, the reality is illusion and the ambiguity is the only truth. But is the truth, as Hitchcock observes, in the box? No there isn't room, the ambiguity has put on weight. The point is taken, the elk is dead, the beast stops at Swindon, Chabrol stops at nothing, I'm having treatment and La Fontaine can get knotted.

monty python for the day..

Some people have made the mistake of seeing Shunt's work as a load of rubbish about railway timetables, but clever people like me, who talk loudly in restaurants, see this as a deliberate ambiguity, a plea for understanding in a mechanized world. The points are frozen, the beast is dead. What is the difference? What indeed is the point? The point is frozen, the beast is late out of Paddington. The point is taken. If La Fontaine's elk would spurn Tom Jones the engine must be our head, the dining car our oesophagus, the guard's van our left lung, the cattle truck our shins, the first-class compartment the piece of skin at the nape of the neck and the level crossing an electric elk called Simon. The clarity is devastating. But where is the ambiguity? It's over there in a box. Shunt is saying the 8.15 from Gillingham when in reality he means the 8.13 from Gillingham. The train is the same only the time is altered. Ecce homo, ergo elk. La Fontaine knew his sister and knew her bloody well. The point is taken, the beast is moulting, the fluff gets up your nose. The illusion is complete; it is reality, the reality is illusion and the ambiguity is the only truth. But is the truth, as Hitchcock observes, in the box? No there isn't room, the ambiguity has put on weight. The point is taken, the elk is dead, the beast stops at Swindon, Chabrol stops at nothing, I'm having treatment and La Fontaine can get knotted.

once more into the breach, dear friends...

yup, it's a monday. I just did not want to get up this morning. Yesterday was a good day. I was up at 8am and pottered around the house doing stuff (catching up on email, starting laundry, unloading the dish washer, peeling the odd bit of wallpaper. This was while my lovely bride slept. She needed the sleep after having had a few sleepless nights. Around 10 I decided it was time to tame the wild beast in our lawns, so I wandered on out and killed grass for an hour. A quick nap and we were cleaning out the office. That took way less time than we both expected, and all the laundry got done. Is this just not the most domestic situation? We then decided that a cheezy movie was in order. And was it cheezy - "Charlie's Angels" is just one long T&A flick, but Bill Murray almost makes it worthwhile. Then, in celebration (or was it punishment?), I washed walls so my lovely bride can paint on her second spring break. I think (I can only stress "think") she's decided on the living room/entryway and the guest bedroom and I really like the wallpaper border she's chosen for both of them. Warm in the living room, calm in the guest bedroom. After that, we watched the first of two parts of "Christy". Why I watched it, I don't know and stop laughing in the back! Retired about 10:30 or so and did NOT want to get up this morning. Anyhoo, just finished the old time sheet for last week - damn I'm busy. More to go on with this morning, so away we go!

once more into the breach, dear friends...

yup, it's a monday. I just did not want to get up this morning. Yesterday was a good day. I was up at 8am and pottered around the house doing stuff (catching up on email, starting laundry, unloading the dish washer, peeling the odd bit of wallpaper. This was while my lovely bride slept. She needed the sleep after having had a few sleepless nights. Around 10 I decided it was time to tame the wild beast in our lawns, so I wandered on out and killed grass for an hour. A quick nap and we were cleaning out the office. That took way less time than we both expected, and all the laundry got done. Is this just not the most domestic situation? We then decided that a cheezy movie was in order. And was it cheezy - "Charlie's Angels" is just one long T&A flick, but Bill Murray almost makes it worthwhile. Then, in celebration (or was it punishment?), I washed walls so my lovely bride can paint on her second spring break. I think (I can only stress "think") she's decided on the living room/entryway and the guest bedroom and I really like the wallpaper border she's chosen for both of them. Warm in the living room, calm in the guest bedroom. After that, we watched the first of two parts of "Christy". Why I watched it, I don't know and stop laughing in the back! Retired about 10:30 or so and did NOT want to get up this morning. Anyhoo, just finished the old time sheet for last week - damn I'm busy. More to go on with this morning, so away we go!

good day

yesterday was fun. My lovely bride and I spent the entire day together just doing Stuff. We went out shopping, had lunch, did some more stuff, came home and pottered around the house. Nothing amazing. nothing earth shattering, just were together. We watched the patriot last night, and I have to say I like the movie a lot. I think it's worth sitting through the cheeziness to remember not only the horror of war, but also the horror of what it does to people. But also, why it is important to fight for Right and to be courageous enough to work endlessly to resolve a problem without resorting to violence, but then to have the courage to accept that all other means have been exhausted and that the only response is force. This is interesting thinking given the current OKC brouhaha going on. I guess the difference between the decision that McVeigh and co made (and all the school shooters who wanted to "show people") and the Revolutionary War is that their decisions were unilateral and not shared by others. The justifications are spurious to say the least, but at the same time, important to them. Before people start leaping to their defence, I personally believe that violence is nothing but a last resort, and that the oft-quoted "All that needs to happen to allow evil to flourish is for good men to stand by" is not a justification for terror. It is a justification to raise an army to fight against an injustice, but the weapon of the weak - terror - is never excusable.

good day

yesterday was fun. My lovely bride and I spent the entire day together just doing Stuff. We went out shopping, had lunch, did some more stuff, came home and pottered around the house. Nothing amazing. nothing earth shattering, just were together. We watched the patriot last night, and I have to say I like the movie a lot. I think it's worth sitting through the cheeziness to remember not only the horror of war, but also the horror of what it does to people. But also, why it is important to fight for Right and to be courageous enough to work endlessly to resolve a problem without resorting to violence, but then to have the courage to accept that all other means have been exhausted and that the only response is force. This is interesting thinking given the current OKC brouhaha going on. I guess the difference between the decision that McVeigh and co made (and all the school shooters who wanted to "show people") and the Revolutionary War is that their decisions were unilateral and not shared by others. The justifications are spurious to say the least, but at the same time, important to them. Before people start leaping to their defence, I personally believe that violence is nothing but a last resort, and that the oft-quoted "All that needs to happen to allow evil to flourish is for good men to stand by" is not a justification for terror. It is a justification to raise an army to fight against an injustice, but the weapon of the weak - terror - is never excusable.

friday!

yup, like clockwork, it's friday! not much to report - thunderstorm woke me up at 3am and then I kinda dozed in and out. It had cleared by dawn, so the drive in was pretty good. No crack-smoking monkeys to be seen. I'm tired tho. I'm not sure what it is, we just seem to be getting to bed later. Which is fine for my lovely bride as she can sleep in, but it's making me all weird during the day. Apparently we're going out to dinner tonight for mother's day (MIL will be in Nebraska on Sunday), so it'll probably be a late night tonight too. The weekend? Dunno. Definitely need to mow the lawn and do so work outside - the spider killer needs to be spread, and I think we'll have to mesh each of the air vents in the house. Hmmmm. Oh, and we're going to start planning the deck to build. Yay us :-)

friday!

yup, like clockwork, it's friday! not much to report - thunderstorm woke me up at 3am and then I kinda dozed in and out. It had cleared by dawn, so the drive in was pretty good. No crack-smoking monkeys to be seen. I'm tired tho. I'm not sure what it is, we just seem to be getting to bed later. Which is fine for my lovely bride as she can sleep in, but it's making me all weird during the day. Apparently we're going out to dinner tonight for mother's day (MIL will be in Nebraska on Sunday), so it'll probably be a late night tonight too. The weekend? Dunno. Definitely need to mow the lawn and do so work outside - the spider killer needs to be spread, and I think we'll have to mesh each of the air vents in the house. Hmmmm. Oh, and we're going to start planning the deck to build. Yay us :-)

so long and thanks for the sesame chicken

Long day yesterday. As detailed before in this august forum, yesterday started at mumble o'clock, and proceeded through to 11pm. Most of last night was spent talking to the 'rents-in-law, and to our neighbour. By the time bed rolled around, it was 11, and I'd been standing on concrete for too long. Today is going to be icky. Rainy and thunderstormy in the morning (it started at around 3am as it woke my lovely bride up), clear but hot and muggy for the day and then thunderstormy all night. Ew. I have much to do today. I've been going to meeting after meeting trying to get the real requirements for a couple of projects I'm running driven out, and finally the chickens have come home to roost and I know what they want. Yay me. So now i zoom. I may have to head to a different meeting up on College, but that's ok. That's for the 1200lb gorilla project that threatens to kill us all, and I enjoy taunting the application people. :-)

lunch!

lunch is now complete. Please enjoy the hold music. Another caesar salad has been demolished, much to the satisfaction of the individual involved. Though the salad isn't that impressed. Not a bad day so far. My afternoon of meetings is coming soon, but they should all be amusing.

mumble o'clock

I have been up since 5. My lovely bride's favourite uncle and aunt were changing flights at KCI on their way from Omaha to Pittsburgh, so we went out and spent a very pleasant hour with them. She's an adorable aunt type and he's ex-AT&T, so we talked shop while she and wifey talked family and stuff. Very cool, if only a little early for this little black duck. I zoomed all the way down 435S to work from the airport and it only took 10 minutes longer, which is pretty darn cool. Need to gas up tho, and having a car which does 300miles on a tank is nice given gas prices these days. Uncle Gordon made the point that if the huge SUVs-o-doom were taken off the road, an awful lot of oil would be saved. What an interesting thought. Now I have a day full of meetings I don't want to go to. Wah. From 1 until 5 I am in meeting after meeting after MEETING. EVIL. DIE MEETING SCUM DIE. Oh look, "Jailbreak" as music of the day. How convenient.

how is it...

that the music that is playing in the car seems to reflect the oncoming day? I'm zooming down Renner with ACDC's "JailBreak" booming out of the sun roof and it just struck me as... odd. Pretty slow day today. More hardware, more quotes, more design, all fun fun fun.

and so it goes

another monday down. Not a bad day. I'm mostly caught up on paperwork, my World Domination Through Server Movement plan is coming together. I'm tired now, so I go sleep. 9pm is too late when you've been up since 6.

it's another monday morning...

yep, Monday. Most hated of all weekdays. But, I continue on despite it. Good drive in, reasonable nights sleep. The weekend was busy, but productive. We have the color scheme for the living room/entry way and guest bedroom pretty much nailed down, and I finished hanging shelves and the like for the bedroom and bathroom. Who knew a chisel could be so useful, but the engineer in me sez "having the right tools is a Good Thing". It rained a little on Sunday - thunderstorms that moved in from Kansas, but I did get the lawn mowed. It's looking ok, but the turf builder needs to go down tonight and I need to nuke the weeds before the neighbourhood dogs are eaten by them. Which wouldn't be a bad thing. Busy Monday morning, time to zoom.

quick note

it's saturday morning and it's too early. Another sleepless night for my bride, and she refuses to wake me up when I snore. Bad girl. Today is going to be a miscellaneous day, I think. The weather is pretty rainy and I'm thinking a lot of home maintenance as opposed to being out and about. Need to surf on by the UofE to scope out my training options - CCNA isn't much (heck, neither is MCSE2000+I), but it's a start to my plans of World Domination Through Training.

tired, so tired

been a while since an entry, so here goes. Yesterday was bad. I had icky protein deposits on the edge of my contacts that irritated my right eye all day. THAT SUCKED. It started to rain just as I left the building, and when I got onto 152 from 435, a famous Missouri rainstom hit. Visibility was zero, and I had to stop under an overpass to wait for it clear a little. Picked up chinese for final survivor night and spent a pleasurable few hours curled up with my lovely bride. Did not want to get up this morning, but did anyway. Came to the site, worked a couple of hours, then went to a meeting with my real boss to map out a training plan. Got soaked walking into the building (thankyouverymuchhughie), spent good hour chatting, walked out with warm fuzzies and a training plan. (EMC is gut). Bright sunshine and of course my sunglasses were in the car, so I spent most of today with a headache. Bah. Staff meeting, random meetings, pat on the head from the director, almost time to go home. Yay. Have a good weekend.

and so it goes part II

Another day, another $MUMBLE dollars. At work, gas prices are WAY UP. $!@@#$!@!! I have another project now, so my plans to become an evil overlord of engineering progress. There was a pretty gruesome murder on Friday last week. A little girl's headless body was found at a local park. Police combed the park and the surrounding areas all friday and saturday and sunday. They couldn't find the head. They used sniffer dogs, but no head. That's bad, the investigation continues. Tuesday, man "knows there is something out there" and walks into the woods and 150 feet from where her body lay, "finds" her head in a bag. Now, here's the shitty part. Instead of calling the cops, he calls Fox4 News and has them film him PRODDING THE BAG WITH A STICK, and saying cheezy shit like "lots of flies... it feels like a head". THEN they call the cops. I wanted the cops to shoot him and the reporters. That's just fucking wrong. Instead of going to the police to help them, instead of preserving the scene where the head was found, instead of doing the decent thing, he called the news crews. My cynical self says it was to make sure he got the reward money. I want him arrested for obstruction of justice. I want the news crew arrested for obstruction of justice. I want the community who has been "banding together" to find the killer to villify this idiot for not going straight to the police with his find. I want the killer caught and sent to the chamber. I don't want to see the footage of this precious childs head being prodded with a stick endlessly on the news. This is the latest and the most heinous incarnation of the disturbing trend of "news as entertainment" that continues to make US mainstream media a joke. If this trend doesn't stop by someone smacking this idiot and the news media HARD, then the national joke gets bigger and less funny. There, I have ranted. I don't feel better, but it's something.

during the while...

must watch life of brian again soon. At work again. Up at 6, out of the house by 0630, at work by 0715. Good drive in, except that I can now say I've actually seen someone who has nailed a deer. "Yes officer, it really did jump out in front of me". Lots to be done today - I'm taking on another project so the handoff for that is today, and I have to get agreement on the Evil Plan For World Domination Through Server Relocation (EPFWDTSR). Waiting for the morning conference call to start, so I go now.

and so it goes

Monday again, everyone. Just in case you were wondering. The weekend was pretty good. Saturday was a hodge podge of things - mowed lawn, cleaned house, did a bunch of little jobs. Went and purchased multiple things for the house - new sink, shutters etc. Sunday was Chiefs Fan Day. We went out to Arrowhead to watch the mini-training and we both got a little sunburned. Not too bad, especially for this lad from the wide brown land down under. But for the light skinned of the world.. Watered lawns and generally puttered around the house - garbage day for us is on Monday, so Sunday is "find crap to throw out". Now, I'm at work. Slept pretty well last night. I have Evil Plans(tm) brewing in the back of my head which is making sleep a little difficult, but I am sleeping. Now, if I could just get a little more energy during the day.. Oh, and my parents-in-law made it back from their sojourn to Nebraska. My MIL has laryngitis. She always gets sick when she goes to Nebraska. This can only be a sign, but given that FIL is *from* Nebraska, alas, the sign cannot be heeded all that easily. Anyhoo, at work, working, will continue to work. Busy day, but hopefully the Other Evil Plans will come off today.

foop

well, today was a busy day. woke at 6, was out of the house by 6:30 due to having to make copies of the build documents I handed off today. Got into work at 7:25 (good drive in!) and proceeded to kill some trees. Missed the daily conference call, but that's ok. Went and handed off documentation, made it through alive, then went to meeting about Project With Idiot in Charge. Got to meet the storage admin I've been working with a lot lately, and picked his brains and he picked mine and many clues were exchanged between he, the EMC SE who I want desperately to be just like, and myself. Got >< close to smacking the project manager with a big stick for being stupid, though I have a Evil Plan to make it all right. Missed conference call on my albatross project (eg, ancient mariner), missed big project con call, missed lunch with the other contractors due to EMC guy taking me out to lunch. Cool! Back for another meeting on storage, had brain wave that not only delivers the development environment for the follow-on project to the big project 3 months early, but also frees up space in the load testing environment (we have a full symmetrix, well, ok, it's one of many full symmetrixen we have), AND frees up floor space and power in the DC at the building I'm in. I'm so smart sometimes. Then I picked up chinese for our survivor night, and we ate crab rangoon and laughed at the poor sods on the show. Now I need to sleep. Moni's news makes me happy, and it's friday and payday tomorrow, and my lovely bride was accepted into her university of choice for her bachelors! All in all, a good week!

foop

so, the morning began at 4am. My lovely bride can only fall asleep with the TV on, and after an indeterminate time. So what inevitably happens is that the TV is on all night. It doesn't bother me at all, because I can sleep through anything (viz. the thunderstorms a couple of nights ago that kept her away and had me snoring away next to her). What does wake me up is "Cops", which comes on at 4am. I don't know what it is, but it just wakes me up like clockwork. So I wake up, realise it's 4am, and go back to sleep. Anyhow, we finished most of the bathroom last night. Got the border up after the paint had dried for a day, and I proved my manliness by hanging a shelf. Go me. I need to hang the towel rail and another shelf and we should be done. After that, it should be a matter of repainting downstairs in the guest bedroom and bathroom and then allowing my lovely companion, bride and decorator to go nuts. She's torn between asian influence and doing an Australian theme. I don't mind which - I think her decorating tastes are impeccable. So I got into work at 7:30, was on the daily call by 8, then spent an hour beating the head of a PM in with Yet Another Review of his project. Had a chance to talk to one of the developers, and I'm pretty sure we're on the same page as regaring the Two Projects In One Body (tm). Now I have mountain dew and documentation to write, so I go now.

busy busy busy

busy this morning. Woke up at 6am, out of the house by 6:45am, at work by 7:25am. Straight onto the conference call at 8 and the cans of worms open as launch date approaches. We finished painting the bathroom last night, and it looks cool! The blue make the room seem a little larger, and I need to do some work on the shelves and stuff that are going in to make sure they sit flush against the wall when they hang. The bedroom decorating is almost done, with just the bitsy stuff to hang on the wall. Spackle makes filling holes so much easier. Need to fertilise the lawn tonight. The wind has dropped off and it's very nice out there today. Which sucks because I'm stuck inside, while the rest of the troops head off an an all-hands. This is just getting silly. IP addresses should be on the way. yay. that means completed document. All we need now is power to the racks and we're done!

awooga!

it's monday. Monday. Monday! A pretty good weekend, if a little stormy weather-wise. Thunderstorms in KC. Spent Saturday variously stripping wallpaper and cleaning. Pretty good day. Slept right through the bad thunderstorms overnight, much to the amazement of my lovely bride. Sunday was a nice day, if very windy. Did some shopping, mowed the lawn, waited for the thunderstorms to arrive (they did), stripped more wallpaper, hung a shelf, generally puttered around. Now I'm back at work. With any luck, I'll be ready to hand off the small pile of documentation I've been working on for the past 3 days, and my project engineer is back and can go to the meetings I went to last week for him. Much to be done, so I work now.

gads, busy!

i'm busy but productive. This is a change from being a hamster in the wheel. Mucho documentation done today. The cables have had their PO cut, I've ordered many more CPUs and memory, and things proceed apace elsewhere. Just got to finish the build documents and I'll be on easy street tomorrow. Oh, and the status report. Back to it - my coke is almost done, but I'm on a roll.

almost time for bed

8:30 is just too early. Where did my youth go? Made it through the day. Too much work, not enough time, and I have left a critical piece of email at work. Which means what I want to do I can't tonight. Bah. Sleep, bed, laugh at boot camp. Yay me. Night.

biddle

still working away. Lots accomplished. Need to keep at it though. Funny how network access gets so much quicker when noone else is around :-)

busy busy busy

the rest of IT is disappearing off to an offsite, so the contractors are left running the shop. I'm pretty damn busy. Ick. Too much documentation, too much other crap, and not enough time. Oh, and all the people I need to talk to are away at... the offsite! I swear, companies need to realise that they're paying contractors to sit on their asses for this time due to the rest of the division off having warm and fuzzies. Bleh.

good weekend?

mine was pretty good. Went to the doctor on friday afternoon to discover that I have bronchitis and am overweight. Duh. Spent saturday variously in bed or suffering from stomach cramps from the antibiotic, and at easter family gathering. Early night to bed as I was fairly stuffed. Sunday was a good day. new clothes for me, mowed and edged the lawn, then helped out with homework. You know, I every so often have pangs of not hacking endlessly, and then a nice day like yesterday and I don't care. The weather here has turned coldish. It'll maybe get to 60 today, and won't warm up until Thursday or so. Good drive in today - zipped all the way along Renner from Midland to avoid the crush of 2 lanes of traffic turning into one, and to keep out of the right lane. Need to gas up on the way home, and I really need to reburn my driving CD as it's all scratched. Rage Against The Machine do not handle skipping all that well. Off to meeting.

day 2 of the lurgy

yes, I survived the night. Actually, I don't feel too bad this morning. I'm still congested in my chest, but the volume of phlegm (ew!) is much less. Yay. Drive into work was more fun than the drive home last night. The crack-crazed monkeys were out in force again, but this time, it was pouring with rain! Huzzah! If there was something that was really need to spin out the monkeys, it's a lot of rain. So, needless to say, it was an interesting drive home. Work goes ok - there are a whole bunch of folks out to a Sun presentation on the SunFire servers. I, alas, have meetings all morning so can't attend. But hey, what are you going to do? I am kontractor-skum, so I am not allowed to go. Boo hiss. On the plus side, it means I can get a lot of work done, that is if the scum who are doing the datacenter move can stop being loud and obnoxious. I can tell there is Trouble Brewing.

today

must be "Drive like a Crack-Crazed Monkey Day", and noone told me. I drive fast but safe. I even see the speed limit occasionally. But lots of people doing 85mph on a bad stretch of road scare me. The trooper at the roadworks must be doing an awful lot of business today :-) In other news, the lurgy seems to have spread. I have a chesty cough, a stuffed head and I sound husky. I have been drowning myself in orange juice and I feel ok (no headache or other nasty things), I just look and sound worse than I feel. More vitamin C for me.

did I mention..

I watched the matrix on saturday night? Now I wait for the exchange server to stop doing it's brick impersonation so I can get back to work. Whee.

boo doop be doo

ta da! I have returned from the weekend! not much to report. The weather took a turn for the hotter and more humid, which was ok. A chance to air out the house. Put up 2 ceiling fans - the living room now has a ceiling fan, as does the office. Yay us. Wasn't too much of a hassle, though I'm going to have to track down the reason why the office fan vibrates a lot. Sunday I got my haircut (the annual summer shearing), and then dumbly mowed the lawn at 1pm. Came into the house and drank an awful lot of water, then retired hurt with a migraine. Slept (with the aid of tylenol pm) from 6 until 6, so I guess the combination of hard work while a little ill plus caring for my sick bride conspired against me. I'm ok this morning, tho. With the exception of dumb drivers. A little explanation. I take I-435 S to work every day. This normally not too bad. Up to the State Line it's great - small amounts of traffic, few cops. After State Line, the Kansas drivers arrive. There is currently two sets of work going on in a 3 mile stretch of road - they're working on the bridges over Midland Drive. So the road goes from 3 lanes to 2 to 1. Now I don't have the best eyesight in the world, but even I can see and interpret the signs on the road side stating that there is roadwork ahead, that it's a 55mph zone, that there is the left lane closed 1/2 mile ahead, that the 2 left lanes are closed 1/2 mile further on, and then the freaking big blinky arrows pointing right. $!$!#@!!@! Then, I hit the offramp to 87th Street, and there is some idiot in his nice new SUV who is in the left lane, indicating a left turn, then pulls out into the right lane right in front of me, still indicating left. I mean, I can understand that the driver is a lazy plonker, but it's stupid in the first degree to pull that kinda crap. Anyhoo, weekend survived, and now back to the fun and games.

bah

jesus h christ on a pogo stick, is it that difficult for HP to find a particular model hub? Yes, hub. Don't bitch at me that we need a switch, it won't work. ServiceGuard is a pain in the butt about this. In other news, I think the procurement manager needs... nah, I won't say it. It's not very nice. Too many meetings, too many crap hacks to cover mistakes, blah blah blah.

snore

almost time for bed. It's been a long day. Lunch with the boss went well - i just sent him my list of training requirements. It's about 2 pages long, and represents an awful lot of $$. I hope he doesn't fall out of his chair. Work was pretty good today. Solved a few problems, smacked a few heads. The operations manager was having a Really Bad Hair Day. I mean, her hair was _awful_. I smell a bug in netbackup (shaddap Van), which is nuking 3 out of the 18 streams after 100GB of backup. Saundo no like, bad juju. Time for sleep.

bah

too little sleep, too much going on. My lovely bride is currently ill, but she's at school, so it can't be too bad. I, on the other hand, remain robustly healthy. Boo for me. Lunch with the boss today - it should be a productive time. Zio's is apparently a good restaurant, so we shall see.

zoom

and yea verily, we did get a full nights sleep, we did have a good drive in, and we are slowly making everything right in the world. The weekend was pretty good. A little cold, but this week sees the first really good temperatures after a long winter. Got a bunch of stuff done, except a haircut for me. I'm a little shaggy at the moment. The niece birthday party yesterday was fun. Got to meet more of the extended family, and the terrible twosome (niece and nephew) proceeded to expend vast amounts of energy in wrestling, tumbling, and general mayhem. the day has yet to really begin, so it's more coffee for me!

yawn part VII

too damn early on a saturday, but when you get up at 6:15 every morning, then 7:30 is about as good as it gets on the weekend. Did my consultant's duty in firing of the latest weeks report and the whole timesheet thing. I am hoping to get a spot of spodding in today :-)

warning, all hands to pants

ok, so that subject line makes no sense at all. It's just a weird day. Got mucho sleep last night. Didn't wake up once, which makes me a happy camper. It's pay day, and we're all taken care of. Good drive in - KDOT seems to be messing with peoples minds as to which lane they close on 435 at Midland. Today it was the right lane. I have yet to see ANY roadwork going on, but we live in hope. Yesterday was a bad one - too much bad juju arrived, not enough good news. Having said that, I think today will be ok. I'm on top of most things, and the big problems should be sorted out by 1500 today. Yay. This weekend should be reasonably quiet. Have a couple of familial appearances to make, and I'm sure we'll be painting or something as well. My Evil Plan (tm) is coming together to get computing sorted at Casa De Saundo. Heh. Heh. Heh.

damn, I don't recall eating that...

with the amount of stuff I have been asked to pull out of my arse at the last minute, I don't remember eating any of it. Oh well, the less PCBs, SDRAM and 550MHz CPU's the better I guess. My head hurts. I came out of back to back meetings this morning where the Bad Stuff came out. Big, Bad, Evil, Evil Stuff came out. And lo, the little Dark Cloud Of Doom settled on the project, and the timelines just don't seem to ever move. Bah. It's been a day of "not enoughs". Ok, I have had enough of HP being stupid, but that's the only excess I have - not enough time, not enough info, not enough people, not enough brainpower. But I had lasagna, which is good. And it's Thursday, which means tomorrow is ok.

gah

morning. too early. It's 0750 and I'm in the office. Good nights sleep last night. I was just so tired last night that I dropped off at 9pm, and didn't resurface until 3am, when nature called. Good drive into work, though Big GMC Truck Man obviously doesn't drive 435 enough, cuz that roadwork has been there for 2 weeks, along with it's 55 mph speed restriction. Not too bad a day outside, a little grey, a little cold and there's the promise of rain today, and for the rest of the week. Oh well. Things move along apace. We're finally caught up on bills (cellphones, paying for weekenders, redecorating), so the last couple of things we really need are a PC for me, a couch downstairs, and some extra payments on the Focus. Yay us. The day begins. My Nifty Little Whiteboard (tm) is full of things I need to do, so off I go.

arugh

Little sleep again. Bugger. In other news, it's rainy outside. Rain == cheap car wash. The idiots were out in force at Midland Road again - KDOT closed the left lane for road works, but I saw 2 minivans zoom up and cut in front of the same semi. In heavy rain. At 65mph. If I was the semi, I wouldn't have slammed on my brakes. 2 new belly tanks. Apart from that, the drive in was fine. I like it when it rains, it's very soothing.

ick

kill vendor, die die die scum. And now, I go home. The rest of the server engineering crew have been at an all hands meeting this afternoon, that we contractorscum don't get to attend. Which is weird, because they keep preaching the "OneVBC" message, and I work for VBC, just a different bit. Weirdness abounds, and I don't care cuz I'm out of here.

then again..

the more things change, the more they stay the same. There's a strong core group of people who I work with, across the company, who are just good solid people, all on the same page, all of the same mind. It almost balances out the stupidity... almost. In other news, I see I'm not the only one having One Of Those Days. Cheer up. It could be worse, you could be a small piece of cheese which has ended up under the fridge. Smelly, hot and rotting. Ok, that didn't work at all. Did I mention I hate our web developers?

ya know...

is it just me, or is today "stupid people day". The vendor has just told me I need to find 16GB more disk, add that volume to the serviceguard config, oh, and by the way, here's another NFS mount that you have to serviceguard. The web developers I had to talk to on the conference call about a certain application were >< close to me driving over to their building and slapping the fuck out of them for BEING STUPID. Just because we use IP to get to it doesn't mean that the application needs to be on the INTERNET, you CLUELESS FUCKS. Don't you ever question what Engineering or Security tells you again, or else I will personally wire you to the line-power that Catalysts can provide and give you voltage across the space where your balls used to be, rather than through the vacuum that is OBVIOUSLY IN YOUR EMPTY HEADS. Not happy. Not happy at all.

i'm a simple man

I don't like complexity. I really don't like vendors who seem to want to make things harder than they need to be. And just think, if I stuck around in .au, I could be a mid-level engineering manager by now. Whee! Not a bad night - Chinese for dinner, caught up on some of my technical reading and generally putted around. Decent night's sleep - crappy documentaries on Egypt seem to have a soporific effect on my lovely bride. good drive into work, except for the morons who a) cannot read the 55mph speed limit sign, b) cannot read "left lane ends 1/2 mile" sign. I can only presume it's because their heads are shoved so far up their arses. In other news, it's 9am. Ew. That means I've been up for almost 3 hours, and there are 8 work hours to go, plus 1 hour of travel. Ick.

quick note

doo de doo - and along we go. Project managers should die. Horribly. With lots of pointy things jabbing into them. Mt Dew is good. Very good. It's pay week. Yay. I need a Unix box at home. the Orb kicks ass as a 40 minute mix. Conference calls are my most productive times.

yawn part VI

too damn tired, and I didn't do much at all on the weekend. my lovely bride was a little worried about her test this morning, so she tossed and turned all night. Which meant I tossed and turned all night. Watched "Gone in 60 seconds". Pretty good movie, if entirely predictable. Watched the Oscars. Boo Gladiator, yay Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon. And Joan Rivers needs to be shot for saying 'enema' on national TV. Not much on the agenda for today. Need to review all the servers we bought, and I really REALLY need to start playing with Unix at home again. I am beginning to forget the joys of X. Help. (pointers to cheap sparc-5's gratefully accepted)

doh

Saturday, the day of rest, and I'm wide awake at 6:30. Argh. Doing the whole "catch-up-on-office-email" thing, as I'm consulting out with another firm, and I've already done a whole days work by the time I get home. I should just get that other network port activated. Hmmmm. Cold day out today - I darn near froze my nuts off getting the paper, despite the sunshine. Don't know what's on the agenda for today - probably decorating. And away I go!

Ah Friday...

Yes, it's Friday! yay Friday! Another night of bad sleep - my lovely bride is ill, and it means she's tossing and turning and has the tv on to try and sleep, which does not bode well for me. Made it out of the house a little late - I was waiting for the fog/mist to burn off a little before i left, but even so, it was evil. Visibility for the first 15 miles of my trip was like 100 feet - I do not like merging onto interstates when I can't see squat. Apart from that, the drive was nice except for the psychotic Kansas drivers who seem to think that doing 80+mph when you can't see that far ahead to stop if there's some kind of problem. That and the weird traffic light incident. I pulled up to 95th St stopped traffic, the first 3 cars go through, then the light goes yellow. So I slow down to stop and the lights go green again! Weird. Anyhoo, status report time, so I zoom. Yes, I have Van Halen stuck in my head - it's just how the CD turns out - some 40 minutes into the CD and I'm at work :-)

mmmmm

caesar salad. Crunchy big croutons. Coke. Getting your way in meetings. Depositing big checks. Nice day outside. Cold coke. Van Halen.

suckage

the lovelace scale is getting a bit of a workout around here now, thanks to our delightful software vendor. In other news, gads I'm tired. I was out of the house for 15 hours yesterday, and I feel it this morning. My back is also beginning to bother me a little. I think it's from the laptop bag I have to carry, but it's also probably the Escort, being 6'4" and a soft bed to sleep in. I like a firm mattress. The B&B we stayed in in St Louis had a great mattress. Anyhoo, there are meetings-a-foot, so I go now.

doo doo doo doo doo doo (scooby mix)

another day of fun and frivolity. Capacity Planning and I seem to be of one mind with the project I'm working on - it sucks, and we have no real data to assert or not assert the suckiness. Dropped off the planet at 9:30 or so last night, but another night of interrupted sleep. Up at 4:45am, dozed until 6, good drive in. Off to a meeting now where I will beat my head against another wall. Dinner with the in-laws tonight, which should be ok. I get to brave 35, 635 and 29 in rush hour - yay me.

zoom

out of here - got to get to the store and find something to eat and then get on home. Reports to write, web to surf, girl to spend time with.

in other news to hand...

HA-NFS inside MC/ServiceGuard hurts my brain, especially when the vendor persists in not giving me the information I need in a readily digestible form. It's interesting to note how email becomes a corporate memory and a method of documenting things when you don't expect it to. It seems that only those who have worked inside an organisation that runs on email in order to facilitate decision making truly understand why keeping email is so important. I think it's a really good habit to have - disk is cheap, your ass is not, so keep your email! Elsewhere today, my left contact is bugging me. This is normally a sign I'm dehydrated ro that I have been staring at a screen too long. I hate 17" monitors - 21" has spoiled me. It's one of those things that contact lens wearers (especially hard lens) find out right quick - if you can see the entire screen by staring, your contacts will hurt because you don't have to move your eyes and thus keep the tears moving. Ow. Ow ow ow. Coke. bbq chips. Net. Completed documentation. All is ok right now.