Sheep Guarding Llama

Well, I guess that everyone can tell that I have an Internet connection again. I hadn’t realized how long of an update I had written until I got online this morning and saw it. Wow, that just might be a record for a single day. August has been kind of slow with the move and all and I guess I have decided that I have some making up to do. Emily emailed me yesterday about it and I didn’t know what she meant because I didn’t know that the update was so long. Well, I got it now.

I got up to a phone call from our Washington office this morning as I have done every morning this week. I used to sleep in until almost 8:00 every morning but now I am getting up at 7:00 everyday to the phone ringing with some little thing in DC or another. Yesterday was the big union vote down there so everyone was really on pins and needles. Well, it went through and the DC office is now a part of the teamster’s union. The vote was 19 to 1 in favor of the union. So the office down there isn’t too happy, I would imagine. I haven’t heard how things are going yet but I am imagining not well. We are guessing that now most of the employees will just quit because they all lost their senority and they all have to start over again. In a few weeks, there probably won’t be a single employee left that voted for the union. We aren’t such a big shop that we can’t handle turning over the entire organization. In fact, we do on a regular basis.

Min has the day more or less off of work but she is still going to go into the Youngs and Linfoot office for a little bit to take care of a few things. If anyone knows anyone who is looking to buy and/or sell a house in the Rochester region (including Wyoming, Livingston, Genesee, Orleans, Wayne and Ontario counties, at very least) then please let them know that Min is available and can handle anything that they need.

I am taking the day more or less off too so that Min and I can hang out some before her party tonight. We never get much time to actually do things together so that will be nice.

Min has been trying to get a local bank account but has been finding that all of the banks have just totally ridiculous minimum balances and fees. So she finally broke down yesterday and drove up to Rochester and opened an account with ESL. They don’t have a branch in town but they have one in Henrietta on Brighton-Henrietta Townline Road and they are supposedly opening a new one in Scotsville which my parents say is closer to us than Henrietta but I think that 390 makes that not really true. We are much closer to Scotville than I had imagined we were, though. It is really close. But there are no good roads between there and here.

Eric and I are working this morning on all kinds of stupid problems down in DC. We are trying to get them to use their computers systems the way that they are supposed to but we are having terrible luck with it. No one pays attention and does what they are supposed to and no one is very literate on computers which makes it that much worse.

Some quick news on the “good software front.” If you are an OpenOffice user and are using an older version, OpenOffice 1.1 RC3 is now available and a big improvement over the 1.0 series. If you haven’t used OO yet, you should. But wait until the final release of 1.1 is out. OpenOffice is a totally free alternative (and a good one) to Microsoft Office and other office suites. OO is a full suite with spreadsheet and presentation software too. Totally worth taking the time to look at. It can even save straight to its own XML format, Microsoft Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Adobe PDF and Macromedia Flash. All in all it is a pretty rockin’ program. That is what Min, me, Andy, Eric, Lifestyle Properties, Wards Auto Damage and Nicklin Associates all use for our office suites. Mozilla now has its stable version 1.4, 1.5 alpha and Firebird (its stripped down browser version) at 0.6.1. So go update your Mozilla copy as well.

I have the house phone number set up to forward to my cell phone now so those of you who have our new, Geneseo, “991” number can start calling us on that locally and not have to pay long distance anymore. It only affects a couple of people but now you can start to memorize that number.

Min decided that she wanted to try out the Rochester Museum and Science Center today because she has never done anything in Rochester. And it is her birthday so we are going to do that.

Well, we went up to Rochester and met Eric at Jay’s Diner for a quick lunch and then we went to the museum. We had a really good time, especially playing with all of the hands on science displays for the kids. I found the Indian History section to be pretty good. That was always one of the famous parts of the RMSC. I remember seeing it all when I was very young but it has been a really long time since I was there last. It has changed a lot. There is also a ton of new stuff being worked on right now. I did learn some interesting things about Rochester’s history. Rochester was the first American Boom Town from the explosion of work created from the early flour mills and the Erie Canal. Rochester used to be a big button manufacturing town as well with three big button companies. And don’t forget that Perry used to have a button factory as well. And Irondiquoit Bay in Rochester was the first place where the Europeans had contact with the Indians of Upstate New York.

On the way back from the city, I got called by the Volunteers of America. They want me to be their technical advisor up in Rochester. They found my resume because Kate had put it on file a year or more ago. They finally got around to calling me and I am going to be meeting with them next week to see what I can do for them.

We got back from the museum and I did a little bit of work in the basement before running out to Wegmans to do some last minute shopping for the party. I got Min a Spongebob Squarepants birthday cake with whipped cream frosting and custard in it. She really liked that.

Arti and Danielle and their son Michael where the first to arrive at the party getting there just before I managed to get back from the grocery store. Kate Ayers arrived shortly thereafter while I was still carrying things into the house. Josh, Joanna, Phil, Eric and Amanda all made it too. And for a special surprise (Min didn’t know she knew where we lived) Sara Ruger and her roomate Robbie showed up. Sara and Robbie recently moved from Ithaca to Penfield. They hadn’t made it down to see the house yet so we got to show them around. It is cool that one of the few people that we knew in Ithaca moved up to Rochester at the same time that we did. We partied until about 10:30 and then being the old people that we are we had to call it a night.

Well, today is a big day for me. Not only am I sitting around the house all day waiting for Frontier to arrive and connect my telephone (I am assuming that after they connect the telephone there will be some wiring that needs to be done and I will have to run to the city and pick up some hardware to do that with) but also today is the Teamsters Union Vote down at our office in Washington, DC. So that is going to make for a pretty stressful day down there. They have been trying to convince everyone that they don’t want to go union for two months now but we figure it is rather unlikely that they won’t vote for the union.

Dominica’s boss at the hotel called late last night and told her that she didn’t need to work this week because they are training the other new auditor. So she is excited to have some time off so that she can get some things done around here. She is also very excited because tomorrow is her birthday and she doesn’t have to work on it like she originally had to. So that is extra good since everyone is coming down for her birthday party tomorrow night and she won’t have to go straight from there to work. So we can party all night long. 🙂

Andy is getting very frustrated with his job out in Buffalo. It has really turned out to not be what they presented it as at all. They claimed that they were in a hurry to get a project moving and fix problems and that he would be spending all of his time programming and not having to deal with customers. But the very opposite has happened. He was sent to Puerto Rico to be in front of a customer for an entire week and not programming. Now he is stuck just sitting at his desk all day staring at the wall. He isn’t allowed to do any work and he isn’t allowed to do anything that isn’t work so he is not allowed to read or anything which is extra awful because he doesn’t have his own computer or an Internet connection (of course, it would be weird to have an Internet connection without having a computer.) They have even hired a new guy who is supposed to be doing the same job as Andy and HE is in the same boat, just staring at the wall without a computer of his own and no Internet connection and no work. Not a very good environment. Andy is going nuts.

I removed Natalie from the email list at the bottom of the page because I don’t think that she checks her email anymore. I also filled in a few missing days so that August is complete now. I am stuck working in the living room while I wait for Frontier because I don’t know if I will be able to hear them from the basement if they come. I haven’t been in the basement when the door bell has rung before so I don’t know how loud it would be.

Frontier arrived at 10:15 this morning which works out very nicely for me. There was no box on the outside of the house like there was “supposed” to have been, the wire was just sitting out there ready to be installed. At least that wire was there, it would have been really sucky (or total suck, as they say in Canada) if the wire hadn’t been here already. Luckily for me, my neighbor Linda already went through the six month ordeal of getting phone service run into the complex that we are in and the rest of us don’t really have to worry about it so much because of her. She had such a bad time getting phone service installed that the phone company had to give her a cell phone to use for a long time so that she could make calls. She is planning on buying Internet access off of us through our wireless system as soon as our SDSL gets installed. Hopefully that will be soon because we have a lot of stuff waiting on that big Internet line. It would be nice to get our equipment moved up from Washington sooner than later.

It turns out that I was right about the telephone in the house not having all of the stuff that I need to be able to hook up the phone. There is a hole in the wall were I can run the wires out of the house but I don’t really know anything about telephone wiring and it would be nice to know that it actually works before the telephone technician leaves. It costs $60/hour to have the telephone technician do work for you around the house. That is probably better than I would have guessed but it is depressing that it is so expensive! We only charge $45/hour for PC and Desktop Technicians (but we charge a 2 hour minimum and Frontier only charges for half an hour.)

So I was inputting Bringing Down the House and Chicago into the master movie list today and noticed that Buena Vista Pictures (the distributor of Disney, Miramax, Touchstone and Hollywood Pictures) has finally starting putting the year of release on their movies. Up until now, there has been no dates on any of their movies, not a copyright date or anything. Now, they are the only company that explicitely puts “2003 Release” right on the box. For those of use that always want to know what year a movie is from, that is really helpful. Chicago also came with a coupon for $6 off the purchase of a couple different movies includes Gangs of New York which I have been wanting to get so maybe I will stop by Walmart today and pick that up as well. It is a mail in rebate so I will probably never send it in, but maybe I will get around to it.

The other day I picked up another book on the CompTIA Security+ exam so I have been reading that a lot today. The tests from them are really expensive so you don’t really want to risk failing one of them if you can at all help it. I am also waiting to find out if Niagara Telecom is now a CompTIA member because, if it is, I get a big discount on the test.

Well, Frontier got the phone in and I did the inside wiring enough so that I could hook up my laptop and dial-up to AOL. We are getting a 53.333kb/s connection which is like the fastest dial-up I have ever seen. So, whoo-hoo. I am finally able to check my email at home. Only five days short of a month in the new house and I can finally get my email! Still no mailbox out front, though. Ok, I am going to upload early just so everyone knows that I am online now.

Borders in Bowie, Maryland called today. They finally have my replacement copy of “The Map That Changed the World.” It sucks, though, that to get a replacement to a defective product that I already purchased, I have to place a special order and then drive down to Bowie in the next ten days to get it. They make the replacement system much more complicated than it needs to be. I suppose they do this to discourage people from returning things. Mostly, though, it just makes me want to shop at Barned and Noble and Amazon.com a bit more. Now that we finally have the house all taken care of, I can use my credit cards again and I can now shop online like I used to. That will make life a lot better since it is so much cheaper to buy stuff online most of the time.

Boy am I glad to be working from home today. I need to have a day just here by myself. I have a lot of work that needs to be done today on the phone so I went down to the basement and got my office more or less setup so that I can work from down there. I have my laptop and my desktop computers setup on the desks and I have my new leather executive chair and everything so it is pretty nice to work down there. I have a lot of desk space compared to what I am used to because I have the three big desks that I had in the old house in Ithaca and I also have the desk that Dominica was using in the closet as her desk. So I have tons of space to spread out. Which is nice because I have to set a lot of equipment on my desk for a while until we get all of our racks and things in place down here.

Min went to her first broker’s open house today in Groveland. She ended up being the only real estate agent who showed up. But it was good that she went, gave her a chance to see a broker’s open house without any pressure. After her open house, she worked at home getting letters and stuff ready to go to people.

I spent a lot of the morning on the phone with the DC office trying to get their printer situation under control. They have a single user that can monopolize a laser printer for over an hour at a stretch and they have to print a lot of stuff because they use paper fax to get information to other offices (I know, how archaic!)

After Dominica got her new phone yesterday, we decided that I would get the same phone because it would be really convenient for us both to have the same model so that we would be able to share charges and other peripherals for them. And I really liked her phone (it is still a flip phone but better than the last couple that I have had.) So I ordered an LG VX4400 just like Min’s (it shoudl arrive in 7-10 days.) And I dropped my rate plan from 1600 minutes to 1500 minutes because I just don’t use that many and I might as well save a couple of bucks in the process. Especially now that we will have real phone lines in the house with long distance and everything. I am sure that I won’t be using my cell phone nearly as much as I have been in the past. So, the new phone will be paid for in just three months of the new service plan. My old Motorola Time Port is totally falling apart. It looks like crap and the buttons don’t work very well anymore and the antenna is bent and the phone turns itself off periodically which is really a hassle. I am really looking forward to getting a new phone. It has been two years and I have been saddles with crappy Motorolla phones for at least three years now, ever since Andy and I lived in Pittsburgh.

My real estate agent at Remax in Lakeville sent me a thank you card and a $50 gift certificate to the Villa Carlo here in Geneseo so Dominica, Andy and I went there for dinner last night. Neither Andy nor I have ever been there before; that is a really nice place. The food was great. Andy and I especially enjoyed their cream of mushroom soup.

After dinner, we ran over to Walmart and did a little shopping. Chicago is out so we picked up a copy of that because Min has been dying to see it for forever (well, at least since it was in theatres.) We ran into Nate’s aunt and cousin while we were at Walmart.

Time to get back to work after the weekend. I spent the morning working on the big Compaq Proliant 6500 that is sitting in the living room. I want to get it taken care of sooner than later because it takes up a ton of space in the middle of the floor. Min went into the office early this morning because she had a meeting to get to. But, after her meeting there weren’t any available computers at the office so she came home and we drove up to Rochester. I worked with Eric at the UofR for a while and Min went to the Greater Rochester Association of Realtors training class today for their new software. So she was there all afternoon and Eric and I spent the whole afternoon trying to put out fires at work. We ended up being quite busy.

After work, Min and I did some shopping in the city. I hit Borders and picked up the Exam Cram for the Security+ book so that I can prep for the test that I want to take this week. We also went to the mall and Min got a new cell phone because her old one was in pretty rough shape. She got a new LG flip phone – she is pretty excited about it.

We got back from shopping and picked up dinner at KFC/Taco Bell and took it down to my grandmother’s house in Leicester because my aunt and uncle and my cousins are on vacation this week. So grandma is home all alone this week with Peter, the cat.

Just a reminder: Nate’s Party at the Pond is August 30th in Trumansburg. Dominica’s Bridal Shower is also August 30th in Letchworth State Park.

Also! Dominica’s Birthday is THIS THURSDAY, August 21st!! Everyone is invited to come by the new house on Thursday evening around 6:30 to have some cake and ice cream. It is not a surprise party, Min knows people are coming. No presents necessary.

Don’t forget everyone, Min turns the big 25 this week! A whole quarter of a century. And don’t forget that Eric and Amanda are getting married this Saturday.

Min and I actually got up early this morning and it out to church at LaGrange. After church we headed up to the city to do a little shopping. We stopped and got some lunch at the Omega Grill in Geneseo. The Omega is Min’s favorite restaurant ever. We went to Walmart and we got a bunch of four and five shelf shelving units that hold between 720 and 900 pounds. We are putting at least one of them in the garage and at least two of them in the basement. We also picked up a lot of other miscellaneous stuff that we needed around the house like light bulbs and plastic bins. We are trying out some of those florescent light bulbs that go into regular light bulb sockets. They are much brighter than regular incadescent bulbs at a much lower wattage. So we are giving one of them a try in the basement.

After setting up some shelves and cleaning around the house, Andy, Min and I drove up to Avon and got some subs at Pizza Land. Their subs are really awesome. After dinner we went back home to Geneseo and watched Our Man Flint which is a really funny movie. Its sequal, In Like Flint is really bad. Austin Power’s draws a ton of material from the original Flint movies. Both Andy and Min fell asleep during the movie.

I have been working on taking my Security+ exam from CompTIA. I read the Passport book on it and finished that this week. I took my first practice exam this evening and got a 90%. On my second exam, I scored a 93%. I am going to try to schedule the test for some time this week so that I can get it out of the way. It should prove to be a good use of my time since I am still unable to get online this week. It will be good to manage to get it out of the way instead of waiting until I was actually able to be productive again.

This week I will be staying in New York. Eric and I have a lot of remote work to do for DC so I will probably spend a bit of time up at the hospital in Rochester so that I can be online. Thursday is Min’s birthday. I don’t know if she took it off of work or not. She doesn’t like to work on her birthday. Wednesday I have to be home and around the house all day because Frontier is coming at some point to install our new phone line and someone has to be here to make sure that everything gets taken care of okay. So that job falls to me. There is plenty of work to be done around the house that it shouldn’t be a problem. I have been working hard in the basement trying to get that situation under a little bit of control. I finally set up my main computer today. I have four desks set up in the basement now, power and lights.