17
17
Wednesday, February 05, 2003
My home computer died last
My home computer died last night. Poof! No booteh... no naahsing. I have needed a new PC from some time now. Mine was held together with duct tape and those little twist ties that come on bread bags. I used to play the hell out of some Q3A, RA3, and TA... but ever since I started having spurious reboots and hangs, it was nonfunctional for anything but my financial software. Which brings me to the conundrum I am in this morning. I have a million bills to pay and a checkbook to balance and stupid-ass me didn't back up anything to floppy or CD... it's all on drive partitions that are currently residing in a dead hunk-o-shite paperweight that used to be my humming tower of crazy rail shots and rocket jumps many many moons ago. I thought about ordering a Dell, but Dell and I hate each other right now (it's a long story). I considered going to Fry's or someplace local and picking up a peecee on the cash and carry program, but that is not financially feasible for me right now (another long story... let's just say being a landlord sucks sometimes). I suppose I'll live off my laptop for a while until I can get some moolah for a new system. Another stress in my life right now is work. Work has been tres suck recently and I am buried. The new responsibility I eluded to before is coming down on me like an avalanche and I honestly and struggling for the first time in a long time with technical issues. I need some serious cram time. EL is going to be in town to visit day after tomorrow and I still am not done with the house. I have been working long hours and by the time I get home and go eat, I am tired and just want to sleep. I've been to bed early every night since I've been back... and when I say early, I don't mean the midnight or so that early used to imply... I mean nine or ten o'clock kinda early. I could stay up and do all the shit that I need to do, but I'm like chingalo and just sleep instead. I just want to sleep because the next day comes faster and she'll be here sooner... relatively speaking. I can't wait until Friday. This is EL's first visit to Houston and really only her second time in Texas. I need to get back to the grind here at the office. I am really busy.
Tuesday, February 04, 2003
Holy Schneikies! Today has been
Holy Schneikies! Today has been a suck ass busy day. Not that there was any ass sucking going on here... I mean that on the good/bad scale, today was on the busy bad end. Spectrum o'shite-sammich with a pinch of nutmeg, stir, and bake in preheated oven for 15 minutes. Okay. I managed to start breathing again around 11:30 when Sam and I went to Taco Milagro for lunch. It was difficult for me to leave the sound of the running fountains out front. The warm sun and sound of running water was soothing and assisted in my interlude away from work being relaxing and gratifying. I've got a lot of cleaning to do at the house. It's not dirty. I'm just a closet neat freak. I feel more comfortable in a clean house where everything is placed in it's proper location. I grabbed some Deidrich coffee on the way back to the office and have been nursing that for a while now. It helps me to not go postal. I'd really love for Santa to bring me a dual 1.42GHz PowerMac G4 as a surprise gift, but I don't see it on the horizon. I love those little guys. This is where I would type some more of my random thoughts if my boss didn't just start my 2 o'clock meeting early. Perschnickity fudge! Gosh darnit! Good golly gee willikers! Shucks! (<-- my new cleaner mouthed approach)
in bed. that is where
in bed. that is where i should be. i'm tired of work.
 |
been at work since seven
been at work since seven this morning... have not slowed down since...
Monday, February 03, 2003
C&H Steakhouse has replaced Massas
C&H Steakhouse has replaced Massas Seafood as my favorite lobster bisque in Houston. I'm going to bed.
I’m going to start my
I'm going to start my own Fight Club.
Wanna join?
Wanna join?
Ok. I’m finally home from
Ok. I'm finally home from work with an early day to look forward to mañana. Oh well. I'm really tired and all the stuff that I thought I was going to take care of tonight when I got home is not looking like such fun as I type this. I'm hungry... I think I'll go out to eat tonight. I would give anything for EL to be here with me right now. My stomach is about kick my ass if I don't feed it soon. Ciao.
“Where is My Mind” -
"Where is My Mind" - Pixies
Ooooooh - stop
With your feet in the air and your head on the ground
Try this trick and spin it, yeah
Your head will collapse
But there's nothing in it
And you'll ask yourself
Where is my mind
Where is my mind
Where is my mind
Way out in the water
See it swimmin'
I was swimmin' in the Carribean
Animals were hiding behind the rock
Except the little fish
But they told me, he swears
Tryin' to talk to me to me to me
Where is my mind
Where is my mind
Where is my mind
Way out in the water
See it swimmin' ?
With your feet in the air and your head on the ground
Try this trick and spin it, yeah
Your head will collapse
If there's nothing in it
And you'll ask yourself
Where is my mind
Where is my mind
Where is my mind
Ooooh
With your feet in the air and your head on the ground
Ooooh
Try this trick and spin it, yeah
Ooooh
Ooooh
Ooooooh - stop
With your feet in the air and your head on the ground
Try this trick and spin it, yeah
Your head will collapse
But there's nothing in it
And you'll ask yourself
Where is my mind
Where is my mind
Where is my mind
Way out in the water
See it swimmin'
I was swimmin' in the Carribean
Animals were hiding behind the rock
Except the little fish
But they told me, he swears
Tryin' to talk to me to me to me
Where is my mind
Where is my mind
Where is my mind
Way out in the water
See it swimmin' ?
With your feet in the air and your head on the ground
Try this trick and spin it, yeah
Your head will collapse
If there's nothing in it
And you'll ask yourself
Where is my mind
Where is my mind
Where is my mind
Ooooh
With your feet in the air and your head on the ground
Ooooh
Try this trick and spin it, yeah
Ooooh
Ooooh
Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!
Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!
“Just because you are a
"Just because you are a character doesn't mean that you have character." - The Wolf (Pulf Fiction)
I'm still in the office... multicast video streams at MPEG1 compression (about 1 Mbps) are all good but some subscription MPEG4 at one of the buildings on our MAN is choppy. My friend is prepping the network for some live subscription coming up so corporate peops can watch TV on their desktops for this internal presentation. They asked me to look into what's wrong. Unfortunately, I'm the cleaner. It's like calling Mr. Wolfe in Pulp Fiction. When it gets down to the wire and they are out of answers, they come to me. I would like to shoot the individual that gave me that reputation. I am not Mr. Wizard. I'm just an ordinary guy like everybody else and, contrary to popular belief, I am not the magic eight ball with the answers to all their problems. However, it is my job to find the answers... wherever they might be hiding, so that's what I do... find answers. Often, if I'm lucky, I can blow some dust off some atrophied corner of my brain and get what I need without a lot of research or looking too far... but sometimes it's work... digging and testing and troubleshooting and lions and tigers and bears... oh my! Part of the new responsibilities I took on this morning were knowledge deficiency items that I have been meaning to brush up on for some time now and could never find the free clock cycles to accomplish that task, so I will carry a heavier burden for a while until I get up to speed, but it is something that will make me a better network engineer in the long run and thus more valuable to my employer (whomever that may be). Plus, it may spur some motivation to carry through with my plans to achieve a second CCIE this year. We'll see... it's not likely, but it's a nice goal to have. Ahhhh yes, back to the subject at hand... so, I get asked to help with this multicast performance issue this afternoon. I'm convinced that it is isolated to systems at that location that have some common element that is thus far unknown to me and not a problem with the network system performance or bandwidth. It is definitely not bandwidth. Most of these folks are only bottlenecked at the fast ethernet NIC... the rest is gigabit fiber through and through. The bottom line is this: for me to do any further troubleshooting, I must drive to that location. Fudge. I was planning on going home... umm... now. It doesn't look like that is going to happen any time soon. So, off I go... work work work. I miss EL.
...no, I really miss her.
I'm still in the office... multicast video streams at MPEG1 compression (about 1 Mbps) are all good but some subscription MPEG4 at one of the buildings on our MAN is choppy. My friend is prepping the network for some live subscription coming up so corporate peops can watch TV on their desktops for this internal presentation. They asked me to look into what's wrong. Unfortunately, I'm the cleaner. It's like calling Mr. Wolfe in Pulp Fiction. When it gets down to the wire and they are out of answers, they come to me. I would like to shoot the individual that gave me that reputation. I am not Mr. Wizard. I'm just an ordinary guy like everybody else and, contrary to popular belief, I am not the magic eight ball with the answers to all their problems. However, it is my job to find the answers... wherever they might be hiding, so that's what I do... find answers. Often, if I'm lucky, I can blow some dust off some atrophied corner of my brain and get what I need without a lot of research or looking too far... but sometimes it's work... digging and testing and troubleshooting and lions and tigers and bears... oh my! Part of the new responsibilities I took on this morning were knowledge deficiency items that I have been meaning to brush up on for some time now and could never find the free clock cycles to accomplish that task, so I will carry a heavier burden for a while until I get up to speed, but it is something that will make me a better network engineer in the long run and thus more valuable to my employer (whomever that may be). Plus, it may spur some motivation to carry through with my plans to achieve a second CCIE this year. We'll see... it's not likely, but it's a nice goal to have. Ahhhh yes, back to the subject at hand... so, I get asked to help with this multicast performance issue this afternoon. I'm convinced that it is isolated to systems at that location that have some common element that is thus far unknown to me and not a problem with the network system performance or bandwidth. It is definitely not bandwidth. Most of these folks are only bottlenecked at the fast ethernet NIC... the rest is gigabit fiber through and through. The bottom line is this: for me to do any further troubleshooting, I must drive to that location. Fudge. I was planning on going home... umm... now. It doesn't look like that is going to happen any time soon. So, off I go... work work work. I miss EL.
 |
...no, I really miss her.
My day has been hectic…
My day has been hectic... it still is. I was handed a TON of new responsibility and I have little time to "ramp up" for the laundry list of tasks appended to my job description. I need a serious vacation.