this could be interesting….
A fun night, silly movie (the thriller “SAW”) semi-predictable, but fun to watch reactions, kids got some good trick or treatin in, good grub (still stuffed, and that was 2 hours ago!) but all in all, a good evening, Rosie’s family is fun, very welcoming and friendly, just I need a second stomach to eat more, good grub.
So that leaves me with one thing to do - sleep 
Posted on 31 October '05 by Chuck Brown, under The Real Me, basic goodness. No Comments.
Latest slew of mail server tweaks, experimenting with SPF records, new spamassisan, and of course the ever popular, not sleeping - has resulted in less spam, it was funny though, previously I was getting ballpark of about 2,000+ pieces of spam a day, now while its not a FORCED thing, the server checks for SPF, not blocks on it, but as part of spam scoring does a SPF check, if a domain has it, it can score mail better if its forged - now vs. 2000+ a day, I got 73. Still not perfect, but a heckuva lot better!
Plans for this week are mixed, Monday night invite to Rosie’s house for some BBQ on ol hallows eve, probably cruise back over here afterwards to candize the local kids (granting the BBQ fun ends) - meetings throughout the rest of the week, still a few more emails to catch-up on, some projects to hopefully wrap up, and my hope, my prayer, finalize FH/TN’s site re-builds using Joomla, plus throw in the new support system which includes LiveSupport, and remote access for me to better manage tickets via the Treo, so I can have a life, and not be strapped to a chair, plus the new support system throws in a lot of options for growth in the realm of hiring someone else to come in and pickup the load! So if I can get some of these new things in place, I can almost have a real life
But as for me, doing good, tired, sleep is still royaly screwed up, but I have had some good times lately none the less, quality prayer time tonight, some good time in The Word, and some good time hanging out with friends, and catching up with old buddies from high school who are now strange as it may be clients! So busy busy, but good stuff, life is changing, and who knows, this time next year, I may almost be normal! (if that is even possible)
Oh one last thing, if your a PDA owner, and came here from old old old links/articles at HappyPalm.com - drop me a comment if your still using any form of PDA/Smartphone - looking for a few writers/contributers, not entirely un-paid position, perks include review goodies (aka free software/hardware) and if you plan to stay on long-term, AdShare of advertising revenue/your own ads attached to your articles.
And now, the last big ‘choice’ of the night, sleep… or gym - but sadly French Toast is all that sounds like a good idea at the moment 
Posted on 31 October '05 by Chuck Brown, under General, The Real Me, basic goodness, deep thoughts, work. No Comments.
Ah I have finally done it! They said it couldn’t be done, but I have done it! Last night I was working on yet another server trying to get the mail conversion done (larger use of WEBMAIL on this box) and knowing that my Saturday could have some personal activities (going to the movies) I finally just said “Thats it! To Bed!” and closed up shop, and went to sleep.
Granted my sleep was interrupted by some minor glitches caused by a NOC monkey’s RHN script, but it took about 3m to fix entirely, and then I crashed again till 3pm, which was indeed nice, then I checked in on the Movies playing at the dollar theatre (yes were cheap!) - some decent films (March of the Penguins, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, Four Brothers, etc. etc.) well while we didn’t goto the movies, I did pickup a movie “Napoleon Dynamite” to cheer up a friend, and hung out for a while and just talked. Was good fun, but for once I wasn’t dead from a Friday Night of work, I actually was able to stay awake and have real conversations was a nice change from my usual half alive on saturday feeling.
Anywhoo - things are going good here, finally getting caught up all the way, some minor run-ins with “The Man” aka the FBI, a customer’s site got hacked, their Calendar or Guestbook script allowed someone full access to write files, run commands, grab files - kinda scary really, but their primary goal was to create a fake PayPal site - so my upstream and the FBI asked it to be taken down, and keep a backup of logs and such for evidence if needed - so a minor stress of the week, but a lot of projects on the fire right now, but some good headway on all of them (I think) but still working to keep that balance of work and personal, still not a master of it, but that choice I talked about a while back is on my mind again, still not sure entirely what to do, but again, time will tell.
Something is changing in me though, I do know that, things that were once important to me, aren’t so much, time away from the PC is more enjoyable, my anxiety while still present, is not as “in your face” as it had been, and I am doing a tad more living, versus exsisting - so who knows, maybe Gov. of California
Thanks for peekin in, watch the Flickr/TextAmerica for more random photos, re-wrote my TextAmerica Grabber, now works on ANY format of RSS feed from TA, had some issues converting it to mine as I tag all my photo’s coming in with the Treo, but I may release the code if someone wants it, only requires GD2 so it can do image re-sizing on the fly, and I have to re-map some variables so their easier to manage for average users.
That’s it, I am off.
Posted on 29 October '05 by Chuck Brown, under The Real Me, basic goodness, deep thoughts, random thoughts. No Comments.
Well - I didn’t sleep yesterday till about 8:45am, busy night to say the least, started at around 10:45pm on Friday, just had a lot to do, little window of “evening” to do it in. What was accomplished? The list:
- This has been on my plate to do for a while, I have really wanted to get off the old IPB codebase, up to something a tad more modern as we make more changes @ CMC, so from a tech standpoint this opens a lot more doors in the design of me intergrating a site-wide login to my existing code, so needless to say, very excited.
I still have a slew of things to do this coming week, eCommerce things to setup, sites to create SSL certificates for, domains to buy, phone meetings, in-town software/hardware consulting, etc. just a busy week - trying to decide if I should crash out here soon and head to Delano in the morning for service & check out my old piano and see if it’s worth me and my dad breaking our backs to bring back to Bakersfield - not sure, praying about it.
But life is good, busy, but good - got Rosie’s brother’s computer setup, came out pretty nice,the kids wanted to know where the games were, their mom asked about printers - but in the end I think it’ll treat em well, and if needs be, the board can be upgraded quite a bit from a Semperon - so gave em some room to grow versus buying a whole new desktop.
Anywhoo - enough ranting for now, I think I am gonna go lay down, and ponder nothing
Posted on 23 October '05 by Chuck Brown, under General, basic goodness, deep thoughts, random thoughts, work. No Comments.
Apparently people heard I was taking it light lately, trying to relax and prevent from exploding - which of course means I have a full week already scheduled - and it’s only Tuesday. Here I was thinking I’d get time to work on my stuff
But it’s all good, some fun deals coming across the desks, Zoegirl Fan Club, Christian Clothing Designer (second I’ll have if I get the bid), Possibly a Online Auction House, and of course the usual hooplah of existing clients - but what I have on my own “personal” work is to re-vamp both FlockHosting and Thrust Networks to Joomla [ linkage ] the original core dev team from Mambo - why a fancy CMS? Just a matter of time, don’t have time to re-code the CMS I wrote for CMC, it’s very “CMC-Specific” and it has a slew of changes coming to it’s codebase soon, but for my needs, after a few days of playing with Mambo, I am getting the hang of it, just need to get the pages, deals, etc. all written up and in the database and the template made (nothing right?) but I am also re-vamping all of my Support / Knowledge base options, including a FlockHosting User Community.
So lots to get done, maybe if I can boost sales I can find someone to come on staff, I’d love to have someone come on board and work for comissions, but at the same time that’d mean they’d be focusing on sales, but I need a lackey for coding/projects - to get the current workload down, then re-balance out and bring on more if needed - ah the joys of business, so much easier to deal with/understand/work on than other issues on my brain.. but that’s another post, for another day.
My sister in law is doing good, her arm was casted today, it was indeed broken from the car accident friday - but she’s doing well, put my bro back from a trip he was supposed to do for work, but his boss is being pretty cool about it considering he was supposed to be in Tuscon, AZ on Saturday, but I think he’s going as soon as Harmony is a tad more settled in.
Tomorrow is Turkey Day - Every year before Thanksgiving rolls around, my dad does at least 1 test run, and tomorrow is it, all the fixins, pie, etc. Good stuff, just hope it’s clear enough to walk afterwards, or I am going to the gym an hour after (granting the turkey doesnt put me to sleep) - tons of fun
Well that’s all I gotz for now, have to prep for a few calls tomorrow, a meeting on Wed. etc. but sleep soon becomes me.
Posted on 18 October '05 by Chuck Brown, under The Real Me, basic goodness, deep thoughts. No Comments.
Well yesterday I had a lot planned, mail server overhauls, working on Rosie’s bro’s computer, maybe a trip to the gym, but after hanging out at the office I headed home after my brother came in for a bit, and heard the news that Harmony had good results from her interview at the coast, Harmony looked at houses it went so well, but they are still going to be praying about it.
Got home was getting settled in for a late night, and the phone rang - twas my brother sounding a little panic’d said Harmony had been in a car accident coming home from the coast, her car was on fire, she was okay it seemed, but he still wanted to get to her, so he was going to bring the kid by if we could - told him sure, he came over, and my bro asked my dad to drive if he could, and he did.
There is a lot of little back and forth’s on the phone, but as me and Charity watched Disney Channel (Twitches) we got word Harmony was stable, and being transported to the local hospital and that Dad and Ron were about 20m behind the ambulence, but they came up on the car, and my dad who is a car buff said the car did exactly what it was supposed to do, and kept her safe, but the impact they found out on arrival at the hospital had broke her arm - but she was bruised up but they said she was stable enough to be discharged from the hospital.
So she’s doing good, she got back to B-Town today, and is resting at home, got to hang out with the squirt a lot this past week, but none the less a high-stress night, kid watchin, etc. wear a guy out! I slept through the night, into nearly mid-day - got Rosie’s bro’s computer setup, just waiting for a time we can go drop it off, but needless to say, life is calming down! Currently relaxing by clearing off the Ubuntu box, and prepping a install of the new Ubuntu Release, going to do a fresh install, see how it handles, if not-so-great, then going to head back to FC4 I think - who knows.
Anywho- thats all I gotz for now, maybe more later.
Posted on 15 October '05 by Chuck Brown, under basic goodness. No Comments.
I think it’s offical, I am broken, and I am okay with it. Tonight I looked at gadgets online, and some things that would normally make me go… “oooo where’s my credit card” I just looked and said “Oh, thats neat” and kept browsing. Something is wrong with me
Was a odd last 2 days, didn’t feel “sick” per-say, just tired - late nights are catching up with me a lot quicker lately, but not a huge deal, was awake this morning at 4:30, so I went into the gym and worked out for 45m - came home and passed out after hangin with the rents till 6ish, so slept about 6hrs from that, and I still feel tired, but a lot on the plate, so can’t rest just yet.
Some fun news, I did get the parts of Rosie’s brother’s computer - nice little computer setup if I do say so myself, only thing which has not gotten here yet is the floppy drive, but it was free, and is shipping from Newegg’s distrobution center in NJ - so probably tomorrow or Friday at the latest, but I am going to start the build out tomorrow night, should be fun, going to try and get her brother some fun apps, his first computer for him and his fam, so Rosie’s checking with his kids to see what programs they use at school - and since I know a few teachers, may bum a copy or two of things like typing tutors and such.
Other news, which is good as well, my mom is going back to work, she offically is hired in fact, she went into the interview and the guy ended it with “So can you start Thursday?” so she’s pretty pumped, she starts next week and is getting $32 an hour with promised 30h a week, so definately still leaves time for Grandkid time
(more news) Harmony (my sister in law, Ron’s wife) is up for a job interview at the coast Friday, so prayers are appriciated there, she kinda wants it kinda doesnt from what I understand, but just hope it all works out for what’s best for their ENTIRE family, not just my brothers unwavering desire to live at the coast
And with that, I am gonna get back to server clean up, clearing of dead domains, dead-beats, etc. If anyone feels like it feel free to send me money Never hurts to have some extra cash.
Posted on 13 October '05 by Chuck Brown, under The Real Me, basic goodness, deep thoughts, my toys. 1 Comment.
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