March 17, 2007

Since we don’t have to pack and move everything in our Geneseo house this weekend Dominica, Oreo and I are just relaxing in Newark. We were able to get up early enough to walk over to Food for Life for breakfast. Dominica was feeling lazy so I just called over and ordered breakfast and walked over and picked it up.

The weather is much warmer today. Even though we got heavy snows yesterday today it is so warm that I can comfortably walk around outside in just a fleece. It isn’t “warm” but it is pretty mild for being cold.

Mostly we relaxed today. We never got the car at all to leave home. We just spent the day doing things around the apartment. There is plenty of work for me to do as the house closes in just over a week. Getting everything transferred over to Scranton is an ongoing challenge that is going to completely exhaust me this week.

This weekend we managed to finish watching Remington Steele. I loved the show for the first four seasons but the fifth season, I think, was really weak and didn’t help the show much. I am not sure if they changed the format because they had been canceled or it they were canceled because they changed the format but either way the final season was not a good conclusion for the show. The biggest issues were that the characters changed way too much and the format changed too much making the final season stand out as not really being a part of the real show. It was weird. It is too bad that they did that. It was like they had run out of ideas and didn’t know how to wrap up the show quickly enough and they panicked. Otherwise it was an outstanding series.

We also got a chance to watch The Guardian with Kevin Costner and Ashton Kutcher. Dad had told us that it was really good and that Ashton had done an amazing performance. I have liked Ashton since he was on That ’70s Show but he is definitely maturing and becoming a really incredible actor. I think that we are likely to see a lot of good stuff come from him over the next twenty years.

March 16, 2007: Snow Returns

I found this hilarious Japanese instructional video on using the bathroom for small children. This is some seriously funny stuff. It isn’t translated but I think you can figure out what is going on.

Well the snow that we thought was gone for good is back with a vengeance today. We decided that there is so much snow going on between Newark and Geneseo that, once again, it would be foolish to drive all of the way back to Geneseo just to do one real day worth of packing and then come right back down here again. So instead we are waiting until next weekend. Dominica took Friday off so we know for sure that we are able to come up on Thursday night.

Dominica and Oreo left for work just minutes before I had to jump onto a call to support a production outage at the office. I was stuck on the phone for over three hours! That meant that it was going to be quite late before I would be able to go to work and it was decided that it would be best if I just stayed home and worked from there. So my weekend has sort of turned into a four day weekend which is pretty cool – if only I could have spent it packing instead of being stuck in Newark where there isn’t all that much for me to do.

I ran over to Food for Life around half past eleven to get some lunch. Then at half past one I drove up to Wallington to pick up Oreo from daycare so that Dominica wouldn’t have to do the extra driving to get him. It took me half an hour to get up there and half an hour to get back. The roads are really awful. It was quite difficult driving in the PR5 which only has summer sport tires on it. We really were not expecting another snow this year. And the suspension is about to go in the PR5 too, we think, which isn’t helping anything either. It is a really good thing that we are not trying to make it to Geneseo tonight. There is no way that we should be driving that far in that car.

Dominica was able to leave work just a little before three in the afternoon. They were letting everyone go early (Dominica is the last support person on in the evening) because of the weather. My office was clearing out too. No one wants to drive in weather like this during rush hour if they can help it and it is best to get the driving in while the sun is up as well.

Dominica got home safely and we decided to make it a relaxing evening. I had to work from home until about eight but then we got the chance to just relax for the rest of the evening.

SGL Vlog March 11, 2007

Download the March 11 SGL Vlog in 320×240 Xvid (Recommended)
Download the March 11 SGL Vlog in 320×240 iPod MP4
Download the March 11 SGL Vlog in 320×240 Windows Media
Stream from YouTube
Stream the WMV Version from OurMedia for Windows Users

The weather is amazing but I have to work on this particular Sunday thanks to the new Daylight Savings Time changes. But work ended up being slow, it was more of a “just in case” situation. So this is my drive home. This is actually the lead up to the “My Commute” vlog from just a few days ago. This part has me talking from Warren to the outskirts of Newark and that part has just the drive into Newark.

As always, the Xvid is for most users watching on their PCs, Linux or Mac computertive Zen Vision. The iPod version is for, well, the iPod video or Apple TV devices. The WMV version is for Windows users without Xvid codecs installed or to stream without downloading.

If you don’t have the Xvid codec, download it here.

March 14, 2007: First Day of Graduate Classes

Scott Adam’s on the Dilbert Blog writes today about the BS of the Fossil Record. Just a common sense look at evolution today from a non-creationist.

I was very excited about have Zimbra and OpenFire servers up and running last night and was looking forward to getting to really get them set up today but by the time that I got into the office the systems were not accessible and I could not do anything with them. So now I have to spend the day wondering what went wrong and hoping that it is nothing serious. I hate when that happens. I really don’t like waiting all day just to find out how bad something is. Not being able to fix it is one thing but not knowing if it is major or minor is nerve racking.

FYI: Microsoft has released Service Pack 2 for Windows Server 2003 today. I know the average reader didn’t just get his or her (most of my readers are her as far as I know) socks knocked off but for admins it is relatively interesting. You can learn more about the service pack and the Win2K3 SP2 Summary Page.

If you think that Microsoft’s new server patch set is exciting (and who doesn’t?) then you will be ecstatic to learn that Red Hat is released RHEL 5 today! Big news in the Linux Administration world where I live most of the time. I spend my days running RHEL 3 and RHEL 4 systems and have been looking forward to RHEL 5 for a while now. Unfortunately it released just too late for me to have a chance to use it on my own systems that were shipped to Scranton this week. 🙁 That is very sad.

If you are an audio blogger or podcaster and would like to add some simple audio to your WordPress page I recently discovered the WordPress Audio Player Plugin. It’s free and it’s cool.

I had originally planned on traveling to Geneseo tonight so that I could spend tomorrow and Friday packing but I had forgotten that we actually have two weekends left before the house closes and not just this weekend so I am waiting until Friday night as usual and will be traveling up with Dominica and Oreo as usual and we will be packing for just two days this weekend and saving any extra packing time for next weekend when things will be really tight. So I will be in Newark all week now.

I didn’t take lunch until very late in the afternoon. Around two. A friend in the office and I went to Silk Road for Afghan food.

This afternoon I was able to log into my class at RIT and get started for the semester.  There isn’t much to do yet but I got involved in the discussions and started getting into the swing of things.  Best to get started right away.  This is likely to be the easiest class that I have during my Master’s program so I need to be careful not to get used to the slow pace.  I have ten more classes after this and a capstone to do.  Forty-eight credits in total.  It is going to be a long road from here to there.

I got home and spent the evening working on the downed server in Scranton.  Turned out to be a power issue that we had nothing to do with which was a massive relief.  Everything is working now and we are able to start using the server.

My Commute

This past Sunday, March 11, I had to work in Warren for several hours.  It was a gorgeous day and on my way back to Newark in the late afternoon I decided to whip out the Elura 60 and film a bit of my return to Newark so anyone interested in seeing what my commute is like can ride along with me.  This is a very boring video.  The camera turns out several miles west of Newark on US 78 and you get to ride along on the local portion of 78, up NJ 21 from near the airport into downtown Newark and then down Commerce to 1180 Raymond Blvd.

I don’t suggest this video for everyone.  It is fairly long and mostly silent.  But it you want a feel for where we live and what it is like in the area or want to know more about the wonderful city of Newark it gives you an idea of what that part of down looks like along the Passaic River.

During the ride as you come up Route 21 we are traveling along the Ironbound just off to our right.  We cannot see it because of the raised train that runs along that entire route.

Download “Scott Alan Miller’s Sunday Commute” from OurMedia in 640×480 XVid format.