Sheep Guarding Llama

Yes, it is actually cold in New Jersey today. It is my first snow in Newark!

I got up a little early this morning while Min was getting ready for her day so that I could get her Vision M loaded up with some Audible books for her to listen to while she travels tomorrow (assuming that she travels tomorrow – she might go to Geneseo on Thursday night or she might wait until Friday morning.) I got her M working and loaded it up with “Mayflower” and “Confessions of a Shopoholic”. Audible rocks.

After Min and Oreo left for work and daycare I got busy getting packed. I am taking a huge amount of stuff with me to Geneseo on this trip. The biggest items are large, empty boxes that we have had to contend with down in Newark for things like our television and coffee maker. We don’t want to throw them away because we might need them when we move stuff but there is no place down in New Jersey for us to keep anything that large. It is a real problem. So now it is all going to the barn so we won’t have to worry about it any more.

Before leaving for work this morning I managed to also finish reading the last bit of “Extreme Programming for Web Projects” that I received from Amazon on Monday. Now I am ready to tackle new books that have been arriving. One arrived at dad’s house from eBay today as well. Maybe I can finish that one while I am in New York so that I won’t have to ship it down to Newark and then back up again when I am done.

I packed up the one server going to Scranton and two servers going back to New York. One is just a spare for parts and one is being decommissioned and retired. That is a lot of extra “space” in the apartment and a really good feeling to have all of those machines “dealt with.” Dominica packed several bags of clothes and shoes that she doesn’t plan on wearing anytime soon to take back as well. That was really important because we were not able to close our closets most of the time and it was making our bedroom seem to be a continual mess.

It took me about an hour to get the luggage cart all loaded up and by the time I was done I was just beginning to see a few flakes in the air outside the windows. These are the first snow flakes that I have seen in New Jersey! I was thinking that I might make it all year without seeing snow except for when I visit New York.

By the time I made it down to the lobby to start loading the car it was no longer a nice, light, first snow of the season but was instead heavy wind and almost blizzard-like conditions. I could not believe what I was seeing and in the heart of the city, no less, where there are lots of big buildings to block the wind! The wind was just whipping down Raymond Boulevard from west to east. It was crazy. Joseph, our regular morning valet, came outside with me into the “storm” and helped me get the car loaded. It would have been horrible if he hadn’t been there to help. It took two loads between the two of us and the luggage cart and things were blowing over and almost away and it took quite a bit of work to get the car loaded so that everything fit and that I could see out of the back window. We had so much stuff that we had to put down the rear seats and take out the trunk cover to make it all fit. Even the front passenger seat is full.

The snow only lasted until I had made it out to US 78 and then the sun came back out and the snow completely vanished as if it had never happened except that there was snow blowing off of the tops of cars on the highway for the next twenty minutes. The wind kept up and it was still cold when I got to the office but the snow was gone for the moment. It ended up being a beautiful, crisp and clear day in New Jersey after that little, unprovoked squall.

This morning was totally crazy at the office but that sure made the time pass quickly. It has been quite some time since I have had this much work to do. I am hoping that tomorrow will not be like this too but I suppose that it is fairly likely that it will be.

For people who have been living in a shoebox or under a rock or slaving away in a third-world sweatshop (as if people in the third-world don’t sweat enough they actually waste time manufacturing the stuff!) or something, don’t forget that daylight savings time is changing this year and it is coming much sooner than you would think. We will be “springing forward” on March 11th this year. In fact, now we don’t spring forward anymore but winter forward instead. It doesn’t even make sense now. Personally I think that this is a truly boneheaded move on the part of the US government this year (thanks George Bush for signing this one into law) – it is likely to cost us a fortune in power consumption and even more in “change management” in US business and who knows how much productivity will be lost in conveying this change and managing it in international businesses. At the office where I work there is a massive effort underway to keep our computer systems operating on the correct time system. The cost on a national scale is probably quite significant but difficult to estimate. All I know is that the cost is all loss and totally unnecessary. US business has plenty to do attempting to compete in the global economy to be sacrificing labour time to the childish whims of an insane wanna-be dictator. The only good side to the whole DST fiasco is that congress maintains the right to change the time back if this proves to be a bad move – except that the issues is the MOVING not the actual dates and so if it proves to be bad then the recourse is to move AGAIN making it even worse. Good thinking. There is a reason that all of these people have to be politicians and can’t get normal jobs.

Things slowed down after lunch like they always do. Everyone gets food and is out of the office over a two hours span and then everyone is sleepy when they get back to the office so nothing happens for several hours start just before noon. It is funny how that happens in almost any office setting. Lunch just totally kills productivity. I think that people should work from first thing in the morning until lunch. Take the afternoon off and then work again in the evening. Seems to me like that would work better. Run errands and stuff during the sleepy, worthless afternoon hours.

I started using Google’s document system for tracking my books today. I thought that using an online spreadsheet that I could easily access from home or from work would serve as a pretty decent, quick and easy way to deal with the need to track my books. I should really use or write a simple web application to do that but I don’t have the time to write the program nor do I have the time to enter all of the data. So I am just getting the titles and basic info put in so that I can avoid buying duplicate books and I will try to get it organized into some more useful form sometime down the road. I also attempted to upload my resume to Google today to see if I could store that online and edit it there but I immediately discovered that Google couldn’t handle the complex formatting and that that was not a workable solution. So that I am stuck working with locally installed, normal office applications.

Just before the end of the day at the office today we had a fire alarm go off and we all had to go outside and stand around in the cold. After weeks of insanely warm weather we have to go out and stand around on the one really cold day that we have had all year! It would figure.

Things slowed down at the office towards the end of the day, and after the fire alarm sent everyone outside for a little while, so I was able to escape at a reasonable time to hit the road for Scranton. I am going to make an attempt at taking the regular local roads through Scranton tonight to get from the data center back to US 81 on the north side of town. That should be a lot more interesting than just driving back out and taking 81 around town the way that I normally do. So I will probably get lost.

I expect to be in Geneseo around eleven o’clock this evening. I am leaving Warren a bit before six and Scranton is not out of the way at all. Now if it just can hold off from snowing the entire time that I am driving I will be all set.

I will be in Geneseo tomorrow. I am having breakfast with dad at the Omega and I will be working from home all day. Then starts my official four day weekend.

I have noticed now that I have the Forgotten English Word a Day calendar from Jeffrey Kacirk that if I do a search on the word of the day (day, for example, is ramjollock – I will let you do your own search for the meaning) that I will find, each and every day, a large number of people talking about their new calendars and the words that they are learning. I wonder how many people will be doing this every day by the end of the year? It is pretty funny how Jeffrey’s calendar is now the largest reference, possibly ever, to many of these forgotten words.

I slept in a bit this morning not getting out of bed until Dominica was almost ready to head to the office. I woke up earlier but Oreo decided that he was cold and moved over to lay with his back right against mine and I couldn’t just leave him there to be all cold all by himself so I stayed in bed for an extra hour. I had a crash at work last night that left me unable to work from home until I got into the office today so I didn’t need to get up extra early anyway. Tomorrow I hope to be into the office on the early side as I hope to not be staying too late before driving out to Scranton and out to Geneseo.

DRM (Digital Rights Management – a clever term meaning digital consumer rights removal) rears its ugly head today as Microsoft is forced to admit that because of DRM built into BluRay and HD-DVD discs that a large number of Vista users will be unable to watch the high definition discs. This is because most new computers and most high end consumers are using digital connections (generally DVI) to connect to their monitors for the best image quality. These connections are forbidden by the DRM in the new high quality discs. Old, low quality analogue connections will be allowed, we hear, as will content protected HDCP connections that a few computers today have – but very few. So few, in fact, that even as an IT consultant who constantly buys the latest and greatest I have never seen one nor heard of any person having used one or seen a monitor that connects to it!! Now this is not Microsoft’s fault. They are caught in the middle. Disc player makers face the same dilemma as do other operating sytems like Linux and MacOS. The real issue here is DRM and the US laws that allow content providers to dictate the way in which a consumer is allowed to use content which they have all ready purchased – and worse yet to determine AFTER the purchase has been made. In reality, it has made it that consumers no longer purchase anything except the plastic disc and everything else is at the whim of the content provider.

So what are our options? Well, unfortunately, the iPod crowd has pretty much established the fact that Americans are too uneducated about their own freedoms and so little concerned with them that they are willing to give away unlimited amounts of money to the iTunes store for music that they don’t even get to own because they don’t consider what will happen six months in the future let alone ten years. So the content makers are very well aware that Americans won’t band together to fight DRM or to fight for their fair use rights. They will just buy whatever junk is advertised on television and never consider the long term consequences of their actions. My only hope is that underground media – Internet television and the like – will create some good content and that people will decide that that is so much better and that the ability to do useful things with their content is so much more important than being able to get Mel Gibson in ANOTHER cop movie blowing things up from Best Buy that they are only allowed to watch on their expensive HDCP gear and only once a month without paying an extra fee and only for three years before the discs self destructs and that they weren’t allowed to back up anyway and if they did i they might have gone to jail for five years. Once they decide that – then the movie studios will start losing money and will eventually go away – replaced by companies that make content that makes sense and deliver it in the way that people actually want. But Americans don’t value freedom so good luck.

I have been picking out the classes and concentrations that I will be doing at RIT (assuming that everything goes to plan.) I am definitely planning on doing concentrations in Software Project Management and Application Development and I think that I will most likely choose my third concentration (you are supposed to have three) in Health Systems Administration which applies well to my career thus far. I really wish that I could take classes from the school of business but they are apparently not at the same level as the IT and hospitality schools and do not have their classes online. By not having their classes online they are guaranteeing that the best and the brightest have gone elsewhere so these classes must be just for the leftovers which is not how I want to do my degree although MBA cross-over classes would be awfully handy.

I did some playing with Google’s online Writer today. This is my first time really playing with it. It occurred to me – because normally I only think of tools such as this in terms of their usefulness to businesses – that with a word processor and spreadsheet available online with simple collaboration and storage Google has effectively removed the need for ninety percent or more of all home users to ever need to install office suites at home. Some power users will continue to need the power of locally installed OpenOffice, KOffice or Microsoft Office but for your average casual user the Google tools are more than adequate. In fact with Google taking care of storage using the Google tools is often the better option just because home users don’t have to worry about where they are going to store their files, file formats, backups, etc. Plus without any installation there is no need to worry about versions, licenses, etc. And you can automatically work from any Internet connected computer anywhere even if you don’t have your own personal account there. Having grown up using productivity suites on computers for so long I often forget how little most people need from an office suite and, in fact, how few people even have one. If you haven’t checked out Google’s online office products be sure to do so. They will be sure to impress. If you need a real, locally installed and feature filled office suite and don’t have one yet go to www.OpenOffice.org and download one that is completely legal for free.

Dominica found an awesome “Old West Shootout” video on YouTube that is short and well worth watching for a chuckle (notice: no animals were harmed in the making of this film.)

I had to stay late in the office tonight. Not too late but there was some work that couldn’t be done until after six. I have been out early quite a bit though so I figure that I have it coming by this point. It was close to seven by the time I was able to head for home. This is my last night in Newark until Monday night.

I got home around seven and we decided to just take it easy and to order in a pizza.  We ordered from Steakhouse 1 and, of course, it took just under two hours for the food to arrive.  While I was waiting for the food I managed to almost completely read “Extreme Programming for Web Development” that I got from Amazon yesterday.  I want to get through it quickly because a new box of books arrived today.

The pizza finally arrived and we ate and watched some Are You Being Served? and then were off to bed.  It was a really short night.

I am guessing that none of you were aware that today was Plough Monday. Well, it is. The first Monday after Christmas (remember Christmas only officially ended on Saturday at dusk – the end of the twelfth day of Christmas.) SGL sure is educational, isn’t it?

I woke up this morning at half past two! I woke up partially because Oreo is the world’s biggest bed hog and I was struggling just to keep from falling out of bed. Oreo spent the entire night sleeping on my pillow and I had to rest my head on my arm. Once I was awake I was able to hear an alarm going off. Unfortunately it was not an alarm in our apartment. As far as I can tell it might not even be an alarm in our building, but I sure can hear it just fine. That kept me awake for a while so I decided that no one was planning on turning it off so I just got up and got moving on the day.

I got ready for work and then checked in with the office. I did some work starting around five and almost immediately had an outage to deal with and there went my morning. In addition to an outage at the office the Scranton Data Center went offline this morning for two hours taking my sanity with it. When it rains it pours. Oh yes, and it is raining quite hard this morning down here. It is still pretty warm but it is really raining.

I decided that with all of the issues going on that I needed to get into the office right away. So I waited until Dominica woke up at half past six and then I drove into the office. I am glad that this is going to be a short week or this would be a really bad omen of me facing a week of no sleep. At least I managed to get almost four hours last night. Better than nothing.

I am only in the office for three days this week which is awesome. Today and tomorrow should be more or less normal days and then Wednesday I will leave for Geneseo right from work with a quick pit stop in Scranton to drop off a server. I can’t wait to get that server into Scranton. One less thing to worry about. I need more stuff to be “just working” at this point.

I had a phone meeting with someone from the Masters of Science in Information Technology program at RIT today.  The plan is for me to begin classes on March 12th which is just a few weeks away at this point (okay, more a smartish-few but still quite soon.)

It was a stinky day in New York City today.  We didn’t notice anything out in our neck of New Jersey.  Apparently Newark is far enough away from NYC and Jersey City to escape the stench.

It was a busy day for me.  I was exhausted too having gotten so little sleep last night.  I left work at four and had a really quick commute back to Newark.  No traffic at all.  It was great.

When I arrived back home I had a package from Amazon.  My book “eXtreme Programming for Web Projects” had arrived which is perfect as I need a new book to start on.

Dominica and Oreo got home and we left almost immediately to go to Food for Life for some dinner.  They have started offering tilapia as a replacement to the whiting that they have always had.  I like whiting but Dominica doesn’t like it at all and is really excited to be able to get their meals with tilapia.

After dinner it was back to the apartment for studying and server building.  This has become the focus of our time and will continue to be so for several weeks more.  I did manage to get two virtual machines built this evening.  That worked out really well.  The new VMWare server is going to work very well indeed, I think.

We decided to go to bed very much on the early side tonight.  I am exhausted from last night and want to be useful at the office tomorrow.

It was a short night for me. Oreo only went out once yesterday and he was up bright and early this morning needing to take a walk in the park. When he is at daycare all week he doesn’t get to go to the park very much and he really loves it now when I take him. He just runs all over smelling everything. He is so funny to watch.

Before going to bed last night I finished reading “The Pragmatic Programmer”. That is an excellent book that I recommend to any programmer.

Once Dominica was awake – a few hours after Oreo and I got up – we drove out to Harrison and looked at some condos there. They are quite nice and not done yet. A little more expensive than we had been anticipating but they were definitely interesting.

After looking at the condos we tried going to the Tops Diner for breakfast but, as always, the place was completely packed. We knew better than to go there but fooled ourselves into trying it. We left immediately and went to the IHOP in University Heights. The weight might be just as long but at least we know that the food will be good.

I spent the day working on the virtualization server and Dominica put in a bit of time studying and playing video games (mostly playing video games.)  Oreo was very quiet all day and pretty much just slept.  He appears to be a little bit sick we think but we aren’t sure.  He might just be tired.

It was a slow evening and we went to bed on the very early side.  Back to work tomorrow.  At least it is a very short week.

Today is the beginning of Opentyde – the traditional English season of winter weddings that runs from Epiphany until Ash Wednesday. Opentyde was the only part of the winter calendar when the Catholic and Anglican churches allowed weddings to occur and at one point because quite popular for royal weddings. Today is also known as Wassail Day although last night, Wassail Eve, is the far more famous use of the holiday. Much like Halloween has totally overshadowed All Hallows Day on November 1st.

Newark was so incredibly warm this morning when we got up. We slept with the windows open last night and really we needed to have the air conditioning on it was so warm. There was even a breeze coming in through the window and still the air blowing through was warm. We are projected to be going five degrees over the all time record for this date today. By the time that Dominica and I walked next door to Food for Life to get a late breakfast it was seventy degrees out! Seventy! In January! This must be the warmest day “at home” that I have ever had in January. This is totally nuts (or nvts in Latin – I love that joke.) We checked and it is only fifty-two degrees back home in Geneseo, sixty back home for Min in Frankfort and sixty-five for the Grices in Houston, Texas!

I spent the main part of the day completing work on the Asterisk server that has to be delivered to Scranton on Wednesday evening. That took most of the day but I am very happy to finally have the work done and have the machine ready to be shipped. On Wednesday I am sending one server to Scranton and two machines being decommissioned heading to dad’s place. That is three servers that don’t have to be stored in the apartment anymore. I also did some work today getting web sites moved from hosting in Geneseo to Scranton. My hope is that by the end of the week there will be one more machine in Geneseo being decommissioned before I leave. That would be awesome.

This evening Dominica had to return a dress to Dress Barn so we drove out to Kearny (pronounced Carnie but we have no idea why) and took that back. Oreo was glad to be able to hang out with us. Then we hit Walmart for some quick supplies. While we were there we noticed that they had the Sony PS3 just sitting on the shelf. No one was looking at it. No one was interested. No one seemed to care at all. Pretty funny considering all of the hype about it just a few weeks ago. No one believed me that they wouldn’t sell out. It is true that they did sell out but only by delivering half as many a promised. Given the number that they said was shipping and how few have sold – the number that I said would not sell out has not yet sold even over a week after Christmas even with all of those kids running around with all of their Christmas money burning holes in their pockets. Still no Nintendo Wii to be found, however.

We couldn’t figure out what we wanted to eat for dinner. It took forever for us to settle on IHOP by the hospital. We were all ready out in the car so it wasn’t a big deal to drive over there. Dinner was good and we came home and I wrapped up work on the Asterisk server and Min got down to studying for her exam. She is almost done with the book that she is currently reading which is the Exam Cram that she borrowed from Andy like two years or so ago. The same book that Jeremy had used when he studied for the exam over a year ago.

A week or so ago dad sent me an Internal Kodak commercial (as in a commercial meant just for Kodakers to watch.) It is very funny and cute and hopefully shows Rochester’s prodigal son figuring out how to run a company again after all these years but I don’t think that anyone is going to be holding their breath. Of the things that they mention in the advert being the “hot new Kodak technologies” most of them are things that I can do all ready with the equipment that I have. Sure Kodak will make it more convenient than it has been but that is hardly ground-shaking news. I hope that they figure this stuff out and I am really happy that they finally are semi-officially making fun of Advantix that I have been pissed about for more than a decade (Advantix is to Kodak as Windows ME is to Microsoft.)

We spent the evening relaxing and watching Are You Being Served?.  I built a VMWare virtualization server that will be going to Scranton eventually.  This is my first DL380 G2 that I am working on.  Unfortunately it is SO loud that it makes doing anything else in the apartment pretty much impossible.