One again, it seems like forever since I’ve blogged. The odd thing is that I’ve been thinking about blogging a lot, but every time I go to do it I just seem too tired or busy to execute it. Well, I’ve had a good night’s sleep finally and nothing is going on right now so… The new job’s been great. It’s long hours and the work can be a little overwhelming, but it’s a lot of fun and the people are great. Yeah, yeah, I know I keep saying all that, but it’s so weird for me to deal with that. Traditionally, I’ve worked with companies that try to really keep this stiff business lip and that kind of environment really drains me. I feel that I’m a very creative person in general and really know my stuff professionally, and the sterile environment of some companies drains me like you...
Category: IT
Bye, Bye Miss January
This is a long overdue entry. I’ve been extremely busy getting acclimated with my new job. I get up at 6:00am, hit the road by 7:00am, and get to work sometime between 8:00am and 8:15am. I work until 5:00pm (sometimes 6:00pm) and get home around 6:00pm or 7:00pm. The drive is crazy. I have to drive 65 miles each way back and forth to Tampa. I’m very comfortable with the job now, and even when I leave work I’ve got tons of energy. However, by the time I get home that energy is gone and I’m exhausted from the drive. I need to learn how to relax on that somehow. I guess it’ll come in time. So, I usually go to bed around 10:00pm so that really only leaves me with about 3 good hours each night. And, if there’s a Lightning game on, I get home, change into shorts...
Cha-Ching
Well smack my ass and call me Captain-cheesemo-who-eats-the-black-mamba-when-he-gets-into-the-tub-and-has-three-burritos-for-lunch-and-then-farts-so-hard-he-feels-it-in-his-toes-and-hates-the-smell-of-his-own-sulfur-urine-bath-water-guy. Uh… What was I saying... Oh yeah, I got the job and accepted their offer tonight! Yay for me. The company is OneTouch Direct (stop chuckling Jeff). The company does customer service call volume overflow for clients such as Verizon wireless, Columbia House, and BlueMountain.com. The people there are really nice and the atmosphere is VERY laid back, with most people wearing jeans and shorts in the office. Even the President, who I interviewed with yesterday, was telling me that he hoped it was the last time he’d see me in a jacket and tie and that even he was dressed up in jeans, as he normally wore shorts. Crazy. I’ll be working from 8:00am to 5:00 to 5:30pm Monday thru Friday. The only downside of the job is that it’s one hour away from my place. Shauna and I may relocate...
As promised (albeit a little late), I’ve posted the pictures from Thanksgiving this past Thursday into the Picture Gallery. The day was great. We started out early, around 8:00am or so. I got the turkey cleaned and Shauna and I both buttered and seasoned it. We had prepped the rutabagas, stuffing, and green bean casserole the night before so the only “work we had to do was to cook the turkey and do the mashed potatoes. Food was done around noon, and we kept it warm until everyone arrived around 1:00pm. Glenn had to go to work really early on Friday, so everyone hung out until about 6:00pm and then left. In attendance were me, Shauna, my mom, my sister, Glenn, and my grandmother. Nobody choked on turkey this year, although there was about three metric tons of food in our bellies the whole day. A while back, I picked...
Hell Week, Better Weekend
Oh, there is so much to blog about today… First off, I got laid off from work this past week. My last day was Friday. I’ve been thinking about how I wanted to write about this major event in my life, and, for a while, I was bitter about it all. I even was opting at one point to write this nasty entry about it all. After giving myself a couple days to reflect on it all, I’ve decided to just state some simple facts about it. I was laid off Friday because my job was phased out. The software and most of the systems I’ve worked on over the past seven years have been going away this year, and the last big software package I supported is being shut down on December 1st. I was officially let go around 10:30am on Friday, and they gave me the option of...
11000000000001000100110
Another week (more!) has gone by and another update is due… This past week has been pretty rough on me. I’ve been more tired than usual. I think that I need to sit down and really regiment my working out (it’s been slipping a lot lately) and the whole “eating habits” thing. I wolfed down shitloads of Taco Bell last night. Not good. I mean, it was GOOD, but it’s not good for me. On top of all this I’ve been sleeping lightly (read: poorly). I think some of my problem is that I’m starting to get more involved with projects I normally wouldn’t. I’m in the process of developing a web portal with some people I know, I’ve got the feature to work on with Millard and then there’s the little side projects like updating chewbode.com and such. I think I need to re-organize my free time to allow...
Week In Review
Man, am I ever a lazy mutha. I haven’t posted up here in over a week. A week! Sick. Well, this post should make up for it… The last time I posted I mentioned that the editing began on the feature Millard and I am working on. Well, the first rough cut of it is now done. I toiled away at the keyboard for quite some time (about 35 hours or so – it’s like another full-time job!) and produced a 65GB AVI file. All day today I’ve spent converting it to a 500MB MOV file and am currently uploading it for Millard so he can see it. I imaging he’ll look it over for the next couple of days and send me his thoughts on the edits. There’s still a lot to do: hire the voice talent, create the commercial bumpers, and create the teaser. Of course the final...
Server Done; Tribeca Short
The new server is fully operational… Just like the second Death Star. I was able to finish up tonight, which is great since that will free up half my day tomorrow. All services are now functioning again, including FTP. Yay for me. The only thing left is to resurrect the old e-mail and migrate it into the new server (although the new server sends and receives e-mail fine). I’m sitting here, the clock has just pushed past midnight, and I ponder the next video project (besides the movie with Millard) while listening to Mozart. I’ve decided to film a short and submit it to the Tribeca Film Festival. Maybe I can get some recognition, or even win me some cash. It’s going to have to be quick, since the festival’s submission deadline is next Wednesday night. I’ll be shooting the short all day Monday (I took the day off). Sick...
Server Serves No More
My server took a big, brown, stinking shit last night. Drive C: failed finally (the server’s only 6 years old for God’s sake). Luckily, all my data is stored on a D: and E: drive in the machine, so all I lost was the installed software and basic server configuration. I went to restore the data from my backup to find… the backup was corrupt. I suspect that the server failed in the middle of the backup. No biggie. I had a new server in house already, but was procrastinating the migration of the data over to it (I was going to retire the dead server soon anyway). So, last night I just accelerated my plans and started installing and configuring everything on the new box. E-mail is back up and running and some basic things like antivirus and such. I’ll be tweaking it more this weekend. The goal will...
Sore
I’m fucking beat. I spent thirteen hours at the office yesterday tearing our entire server room apart and rebuilding it. All so that the servers would be more organized, the power, network, and KVM cables could be cleaned up, and we could plug them into our new Liebert power conditioner and battery backup unit. My feet hurt. My back hurts. My shoulders hurt. My throat hurts because the air was so incredibly dry and there was so much dust kicked up. I’m a big fucking baby, I know. Regardless, we completed all the work necessary by about 8:30pm last night, which was utterly amazing as we anticipated it taking all day today too. So, anyway… I’m sitting here relaxing, watching TV, and decided to pop Stan Lee’s Mutants, Monsters & Marvels in the ol’ Digital Video Disc player. Great stuff in there. I hadn’t seen it before even though I’ve...
