Sheep Guarding Llama

I was up at 3:30 this morning working with clients in the United Kingdom. They are five hours ahead of us so it is mid-morning there. I had originally thought that I was going to work for maybe half an hour at most and then go back to sleep for two hours or so and then go in to work as usual. But instead I ended up supporting the call until 7:30 and then getting a short break before having to go to a second call at 8:00! Talk about a busy morning. Four hours of work by the time most people are just getting up. The really awesome thing is that because the call was so early I just worked from home and its Friday so I am likely to work from home all day, have no commute, be done around 1:30 and have a nice lead on the weekend. Unfortunately it is a weekend without Dominica at all 🙁 She isn’t coming down until Monday. But I will get, it looks like, two and a half very relaxing days all to myself. I could do with that level of relaxation.

I managed to get in some much needed purchasing work while I was stuck on the phone for so long. I can’t do technical work while I am listening to a conference call but i can do some simple paperwork. I managed to order Andy’s new workstation. His old one died on Sunday or Monday. That machine has been nothing but problems for him and it finally crapped out completely. So we just bit the bullet and got him an entirely new, 64-bit workstation. I think that he will be pretty impressed with the upgrade. It is a much faster unit than he is working with currently and it has three times the memory of his old unit. And instead of being a big, loud machine it is an almost silent small form factor desktop.

I ordered Dominica a USB headset for her laptop. That is the laptop that doesn’t have a working internal sound card. We figured out that the USB headsets have their own build in sound card so that they can work with machines that may not have a sound card of their own. What a neat feature. I got myself 2GB more memory for my desktop so it will be 3GB total when I am done. That puts me at three times the memory of anyone else that I know. I also got a memory upgrade for my new Windows desktop. It has only 512MB of single channel memory the way that Jeremy was running it. I am doubling the memory with a matching stick so that it will go to dual channel as well. That should speed it up a bit. I also got myself a new 250GB hard drive for my main desktop. I am going to be installing SUSE Linux on this machine very soon and I want a lot of storage capacity for running virtual machines. Hence all the memory as well. But I am excited about going to an all Linux, fully 64-bit screaming system. I have tried this in the past but ended up falling back to Windows. So we will see how it goes this time. I think that I will stick with it for my main machine.

The new insanely huge Seagate 750GB harddrives are available now. I saw one at Newegg this morning for just $499! That is an amazing price for that drive. That drive is the largest drive on the market and it is getting really good performance as well. I wish that I could get one but that will just have to wait. That means that the terabyte drives are right around the corner. I would guess in one to two months we should be seeing them. You know that everyone is pushing like mad to be the first to have one available on the market.

My morning project wrapped up around 8:15. What a long morning that made. I am feeling pretty good still. Hardly any sleep all week and practically none last night. I can’t believe that I am almost done with the work day! I need to find a Target or someplace that is selling the fourth season of That 70’s Show so that I will have stuff to watch. I have a few movies with me but not very many. I am forcing myself to go through all of the things that I haven’t seen yet by having nothing else in the apartment. It works out pretty well having the laptop just sitting beside me. I can easily have something on and just kind of pay attention to it.

I talked to my boss and he thought that I should wrap up the day working from home. Works for me. I don’t really enjoy commuting so I am more than happy to spend the day enjoying the comforts of my living room. It is a great weather day too. All of that rain all night was awesome. At 10:30 the sun came out and it was really nice and sunny. I opened up all of the windows and blinds to get some natural light in here.

I thought that today was going to be a light day at work. Boy was I ever wrong. I was swamped with work once the New York day began. I had been planning on going over to the Omega Diner for breakfast but that didn’t pan out. I never even came close to having a chance to do that. Noon rolled around and I had been going crazy all morning.

Things started to slow down a bit by 1:00 – probably because people were out at lunch. I ended up getting a pretty solid break in the afternoon from 1:30 until 5:00 when things started back up again. It has sure been a busy phone day for me. During my little afternoon break I took a short half hour nap which I desperately needed and I watch Pleasantville with Paul Walker, Reese Witherspoon, Tobey Maguire and William H. Macy which I have not seen since it was in theatres. That is a good movie. Very original and well done. They had some really good, creative ideas that they put in there.

I continued to work on my Grandsteam Budgetone 101 IP phone today that I have been having problems with. I figured out why it was failing. Well, I should say that I figured out what I can do to make it fail. If you set the QoS settings too high then DHCP stops working which is really quirky but at least I know what it is now. I managed to get it reset. I am pretty sure that I finally discovered the problem this evening. I will have to do further investigation. But it looks as if Netgear, from whom I buy all of my networking hardware, has a new IP telephony application gateway in their equipment – which is brand new and only The Surfing IT Wizard and I have brand new Netgear routers – and that is interfering with the VoIP. What a relief. I knew that it had to be related to the routers but I couldn’t figure out how.

I managed to finally wrap up working for the day at 6:30. A fifteen hour day. That’s a fifteen and a nineteen in the same week. I am worn out. I decided to take the evening to work on installing the newly released SUSE 10.1 which I spent the day downloading. It is a six compact disc download. But Novell has really figured out the mirror system this time and you were really able to get all of the discs quickly even on the first day of availability.

I watched Rock Hudson in Man’s Favorite Sport. Dominica didn’t like the movie very much but Rock Hudson is one of those actors that just managed to turn out tons of really “happy” movies. Not classics but movies that you enjoy just watching. This one was most definitely not one of his better films but it was okay. I can see why Dominica didn’t like the movie and it is surprising that I liked it. The female lead is a character that you really come to hate. That makes it tough to care about the romantic development of the film. But the storyline is mildly entertaining and the mood is light.

After the light interlude I watched How the West Was Won which I haven’t seen for many years. I last saw it squeezed onto a 4:3 television when I was a kid. Strangely enough, watching it now I can remember just about every moment of it. It is hard to remember it as a cohesive film because it is really sectioned off into several barely associated sections. The whole movie does focus on the adventures of a single family but it is focused on different family members over such a long period of time that your brain isn’t very likely to put it all together. And boy is it a long movie. There really isn’t very much action and there really isn’t very much drama. It really drags on. But it is an incredible selection of who’s who actors from the 1960’s. And not just real actors but John Wayne too. How the West Was Won stands as the most important CinemaScope movie ever made. The only truly famous triple projector movie. Unfortunately the system that made the movie famous is also the system that has made it not stand up well to time as even the DVD was unable to composite the three images together well. They do a good job with the DVD and at times you forget about the seems but at other times there are sharp angles in the scene caused by the cameras having pointed at different angles than the projectors do.

It was only midnight when I wrapped up How the West Was Won and somehow I wasn’t really all that tired yet. SUSE 10.1 wasn’t completely done installing the way that I wanted it yet so I stayed up and popped in Once Upon A Time in the West by Sergio Leone from 1969 which I have never seen. It is funny to see the transition between the two films. The really show the incredible degree of advancement that happened to the cinema during the mid-1960’s. How the West Was Won is from 1962 and the film quality and style is very reminicent of an earlier age while just seven year later the second film looks and feels like movies into the 1990’s.

I placed an Amazon order today. There doesn’t appear to be any good way to buy DVDs down here so we have turned to Amazon to get everything. It isn’t nearly as convenient but we have found ourselves getting better stuff instead of just getting whatever is available in the bargain bin. I got some good stuff like Red Dwarf seasons VII and VIII, the first season of The Piglet Files that I am hoping that Dominica will really like, Major League, The Thrill of It All, If A Man Answers and The Thing Called Love which just recently released onto DVD. It was one of my early great laserdisc finds long, long ago.

I managed to actually place the first call through the phone system over to John Stephens tonight. He was the one person that I haven’t been able to call. And this was our first chance to actually test it. So that was very exciting.

I went to bed just a little after 1:00. What a long day. I have to be up by 10:00 tomorrow morning because John is workingin Ithaca and I am doing the remote support.

I slept in a little this morning getting an actual eight hours of sleep. That is something that I don’t manage to do very often. Boy did I need it though. I have been pretty tired all week. It is going to be a long haul getting through until Dominica can come down with my CPAP on for Monday night.

Dominica is on her home stretch at work. Just three days left to go including today. At the end of the day today she will be halfway through her final week. I am sure that she is starting to get that “winding down” feeling at work. No more stress. The final days are never too bad.

Dominica also found out this morning that she is getting scheduled for an interview with the company that I am working for down here in New Jersey. The position that she will be looking at is a position that is based in Manhattan. It is a really exciting opportunity and it is a direct, not contract, position which would mean full benefits and the works.

Dad managed to get over to Wegmans in Geneseo today while he was picking up Oreo and pick up my pictures that have been there for about two months or more. That is one less thing that I have to worry about now. I can’t remember at all what those pictures would be. I think that they are all recent but I have no idea. Now I can stop carrying around the claim tickets as well. My wallet gets awfully full awfully quickly these days. Junk papers collect very quickly if you don’t keep a close eye on them.

I was able to leave the office at 5:45 because I have been scheduled to work the super early shift tomorrow. I am supporting London clients super early in the morning at 4:00 am our time so I have to be up at 3:30. I figured I would take off a little on the early side so that I could get a little bit of an evening in prior to having to go to bed.

On the way home I stopped by Barned & Nobles on Route 1. I picked up a Spanish dictionary to keep in the car with me because I listen to Spanish radio all of the time. I also got a travel guide to New York City. I wanted to get one to Philadelphia but they didn’t have a single one. How weird is that?

I stopped by at Walmart in the adjacent plaza and looked to see what new DVD releases they had. They really didn’t have anything interesting. I was hoping that they would have at least had the recent release of season four of That 70’s Show but no luck. I was tempted to get a few things but I managed to resist. I am doing much better these days doing some more serious shopping on Amazon and getting movies that we really want and not just whatever is available when we go to the store. I grabbed dinner at the McDonald’s inside of the Walmart and went to the apartment to eat.

I took it easy this evening working on installing software on my “new” Windows XP desktop and watching some movies. I watched Fletch Lives with Chevy Chase. I don’t think that I have seen that one since it was in theatres. I am not positive but I think that I saw it at the Silver Lake Drive In many a moon ago. I also watched the first half of the 1962 remake of State Fair with Pat Boone, Bobby Darrin and Ann-Margaret. Dominica and I were wondering why they did a remake of the 1945 original just 17 years later but it is a major rewrite. It isn’t very good but it is very different. It is fine but I would never recommend it over the classis earlier film. The original is definitely a lot more meaningful to today’s audience than the quirky 1960’s remake. And the acting and music were a lot better in the older film too. I think that over time we will see more and more often that remakes of films fade away and the originals are most often the ones that remain classics. Growing up I never even knew that there was a 60’s version of this film it had all ready faded away.

I only made it through half of the film because I needed to get to bed. It is a heavy rainstorm here so I opened up the windows before bedding down for the night. The rain turned into a massive thunderstorm that lasted for hours. I never really slept all night. I got a good rest in but I was awake almost the entire night. But just laying listening to the rain is awfully relaxing. I dozed off now and again but never for very long. The downside of not having my CPAP. With the CPAP once I am out, I am out. I sleep quite deeply. But without it sleep is just a form of resting with my eyes closed. Weird that I did this for so long and was able to still function. Surprisingly I don’t feel much more tired now than I would if I had been sleeping with the CPAP all week. I wonder what makes that work that way. My sleep patterns are so bizarre compared to anyone else.

I was up at 3:30 to get my computer set up and ready to work. I ended up putting in over an hour and a half on the international conference call. I had figured that I would only have been working for a few minutes but if I would have really thought about it I would have realized that that was not going to be the case. Had I really thought about it I would have gotten up a little earlier and gone into the office to work and just started my day at 4:00 instead of breaking it up doing a few hours now and then the rest of the day later on. In case you are wondering, I am writing the update while I am on the call.

Well my morning call ended up going much later than I had expected. I finished watching State Fair and it is now just after 6:30 and I am still on the line. I can’t believe that it could go too much longer than it all ready has but who knows. I haven’t done one of these before. So I am going to post and move on to “tomorrow”.

I worked last night until 4:00 in the morning so today I slept in until I felt like getting up. I woke up around 8:00 but went back to sleep until 9:00 or so. Dominica got me up this morning. She is working at TMobile in Pittsford and needed to talk to me about some things. So I decided that it was as good a time as any to get myself out of bed.

I took the morning leisurely getting ready. I left the apartment a little after 10:30. I stopped by at Panera Bread on Route 1 and got myself two cinnamon crunch bagles with light cream cheese. Those are so awesome.

It was just a little before noon when I arrived at the office in Warren. I had a throbbing headache which is a result of being up way too late and then sleeping without my CPAP. I can tell that it is going to be a long day.

Tomorrow my Linux 301 class from Hewlett-Packard starts. It is a free class that is done a lot like a class from Empire State College. It is totally online and has a forum system for the students to interact with each other and the professor. I have been interested in seeing how the HP education system works and so decided to take this class to get a feel for it. The classes are free so I think that it is a really awesome service that HP provides to people. Anyone is eligible to take classes as long as they are not yet filled.

I logged into the class today and did the “welcome to the class” activities that typically take place before the classes start. All of the students introduced themselves and there were a few online conversations in the forums that I responded to.

Dominica found out today that she has an interview set up for Tuesday, May 16th down here in New Jersey with the company that she is currently with. Currently she is a contractor and the position down here is an additional contracting position but doing basically the same job that she is doing in Rochester. And the site where she would be working is very close to the apartment that we have right now. It is really encouraging that they called her about the interview. We were sure that they were not going to because that site had a large round of layoffs this past Friday!

I didn’t stay at work for too long today. I took off a little after 5:15. I was exhausted and it wound up being a really slow day. Of course leaving work at that time results in driving in incredibly crazy rush hour traffic the whole way home which is a pain. But it was nice to be home early.

I was super lazy tonight and I had skipped lunch so I ordered pizza from Dominos. I really need to stop doing that. I popped in Remington Steele and started working on the phones that have not been working. I also worked on the new Windows desktop that I got on Sunday. I finally managed to get its network adapter working and got it started on its updates. It took several hours for all of the updates to download. But at least that is done now. Now I can spend the evening tomorrow getting all of the software that I use installed and set up. That takes several hours as well. There is so much software that I have to put onto a computer when I first get it going. In addition to my standard software I should get all of my Microsoft software installed on that machine as well but I don’t have any of those disks with me. Things like Microsoft Office, MS Project, Visio, etc. This new machine is going to be my new, dedicated Windows desktop so I should have everything that I need loaded onto it. It has a 160GB hard drive which should be quite adequate for me for quite some time since it is just the Windows desktop. My other machine is going to be turned into a SUSE Linux desktop once I am able to get that downloaded. SUSE Linux 10.1 is due to be released tomorrow but it will take several days to get all of the downloads.

I worked until 11:00 tonight. I wasn’t going to stay up so late but I got down to the final episode of Season Three of Remington Steele and needed to finish it. I couldn’t go to bed knowing that there was just one episode left to be watched. I didn’t manage to get anywhere on the phones. In fact I managed to completely kill the one that I have with me so it doesn’t work at all anymore. I am hoping that tomorrow night I will have time to do a full reset on it and start from scratch. Maybe I will get lucky and it will be fine.

I woke up before my alarm went off this morning. It seems like that must be a good sign. No CPAP and I am still waking up. Actually I think that it is easier to wake up without it because I sleep lighter. I don’t feel as good when I wake up but I that initial waking up is easier.

Jeremy got his new computer last night but did not have a chance to get it put together. Maybe he will have it up and running tonight. I am concerned that he may not have matching components though so it might be a while before he has it all together.

I got out of the apartment in good time this morning and go into the office a little after 8:00. I would have been much earlier but traffic was exceptionally bad today.

I had a crazy day at work today. I was so busy that I had to eat lunch at my desk. That isn’t any fun. And Dominica wasn’t down this weekend so I didn’t get to see her yesterday and today 🙁 Only one more week before she moves down. But she is thinking about flying down to Houston for a week and then driving back up with Francesca and the girls so that will mean another week apart after she is down here for just a week. And since no one will be home during the day Oreo will have to stay with dad instead of with me so I will be very lonely again.

By the end of the day I was absolutely worn out. It was just go, go, go all day long. I was really looking forward to the end of day (EOD) and a chance to just collapse.

Fortunately, for me anyway, Dominica is attempting to do the lingering TMobile project from February that hasn’t been completed yet. It isn’t much work and it is just in Rochester but we haven’t been able to get it completed and they are waiting on it. I hate having projects hanging over my head. I like things cleaned up and neat. Completed projects make me happy. And it will be nice for Dominica to get to do some other typs of tech work. She is broadening her experience.

Eric and Amanda are going over to the county pound in Hampton Corners between Geneseo and Mt. Morris this evening to see about a puppy that they have over there. For those who don’t know, Hampton Corners was a thriving village in the late eighteenth, early nineteenth centuries but, for some reason, it just upped and vanished at some point so long ago that there is no structure left to attest to its existance. Those of us who grew up near by had never heard its name. Eric and I used to bicycle right through it and he has even worked there once or twice. It is the crossroads now of NY Route 408 and NY Route 63 (which I grew up just off of.) In the mid-1990’s the salt mine was relocated from Retsof to Hampton Corners after the collapse of the original mine. This began an era of construction at the corners. The railroad was extended into it. And then the county began placing public services there and the state police relocated there. This location probably became popular with low traffic services because of its prime location in the dead center of the county directly between Mt. Morris and Geneseo with very easy access right into Dansville and also because it is just dirt cheap to build there. So now there are tons of things springing up that you would never guess would go there.

I didn’t leave work until after 8:30 so it was quite late by the time I got back to the apartment. I had some leftover pizza in the fridge and I ate that for dinner while I continued to work from home and watched Remington Steele. It ended up going from a late night at the office to a really late night at home. I worked until almost 4:00 in the morning! I was totally exhausted and delirious by the time I finally managed to get to bed. I am really wishing that I had that CPAP right about now!

It is Monday morning, once again.

It looks like I am not the only one who feels that the Mission Impossible movies are prime examples of internally inconsistent cinema.

Today dragged on and I was really tired when I got back to the apartment a little before 8:00. I plopped down in front of the computer and started trying to fix the telephones that aren’t working properly and turned on my laptop to watch some season three of Remington Steele. I was hungry so I ordered a few days worth of pizza from Dominos. I figured that it would be a lot easier and more cost effective if I had some in the fridge instead of ordering food every night.

I made it through three episodes. I couldn’t bring myself to go to bed. I spent a lot of the evening working on the HP D325 that I got on Saturday. The unit was in pretty rough shape and wasn’t working anymore. It could only run for about five minutes before it would shut itself off. No wonder Jeremy was running it with the case wide open when I saw him using it. I put some serious work into it and it appears to be able to keep itself running now but I am going to have to be really careful with it. Fortunately it is still under warranty for quite a while but the downside is that it has been so abused that HP might not honor the warranty.

Dominica was able to get out to Carousel Mall in Syracuse this evening and wrap up the onsite survey work that we have been doing for TMobile. What a relief it is to have that site completed. Now to get all of the paperwork completed. That is as much work as the project itself. It worked out nicely that Dominica’s parents were able to meet her at the mall and they were able to have dinner together.

I got the desktop running and finally got Windows XP installed but now I need the HP drivers for the box and after trying all kinds of different things from HP I decided that I needed to give up and get off to bed. It was not that far from midnight when I finally got to bed. Now I have to face my second night without my CPAP. Hopefully I won’t become increasingly exhausted as the week wears on but it seems likely.