Well @ the office Courtney scheduled fake Friday in for me yesterday after a long Monday with dad’s trip to ER, it was much needed, but sadly I did work some and get things done - however being now officially mid-week, it is the real-deal, my fake Friday, which really is just a mindset, but I think may also include a movie-night.
Got my check for the server work I did end of last year, was happy to get it, goes towards the server clean-up here, so waiting for it to clear, but should be 100% in by Friday, but other payments still coming in so possibly sooner! It’s very awesome to think of what is possible, this server configuration has me excited to re-do all of the servers, a lot of work, and probably a few nights without too much sleep, but what it brings to the table:
Fully Sync’d and Redundant DNS
Multi-Noded Spam Filtering Service
New Mail Format which loads email faster in Webmail, IMAP, and POP3
New Auto-Install Script System (farewell Fantastico)
Powerful new reseller options
New Webmail system added to replace Neomail -> Roundcube
New Ecommerce Packages for both FH and TN
YourServer product offering - fully customized server that grows with you.
Etc. etc. etc. etc.
So yes, very excited! And now that my dad is back home and doing well (Thanks for the prayers) one less worry on my brain, thankfully his heart is perfect, he was just majorly dehydrated from the new meds - so adjusted medication and he was doing good.
So it looks like Feb. is a good month, I get older, means a special deal on FH as usual, new servers, new billing, new support, new new new - so its all good! Just wish I had time to finish every little thing here on my to-do list, but it’s getting there, going to grind away on it a bit, hoping to get to the office and find a pile of checks, going to check the other office too and see if anyone addressed wrong, but hopefully a few hundred in checks, and I can push forward on a few things
The day started off like any other day I suppose, with an exception, my dad’s blood pressure was totally out of wack, and his Doctor suggested the ER - so around 1ish Mom came and took dad, me following shortly there-after to hang out most of the day. Off and On stress, but really it was pretty nice, the hospital staff was awesome - the day went well, some craziness - they came to a few conclusions:
New Blood Pressure Meds were too aggressive.
He was probably dehydrated.
He needed a nap.
But it was a crazy day, and I have to say, I have some great friends and customers who were up for praying, and up for giving me some spare time to work on projects - but one couldn’t wait, a customer’s DNS was entirely screwed up, so I had to go in and poke at some things, but a few lines later, and a bit of hand holding with the server, life was happy again.
So quite a day, just a lot of ups and downs - but some good prayers out there, folks being very awesome and supportive, and even a friend or two who’s cells were on to hear me rant a bit - and thankfully some work on the plate to focus on for a few hours to really unwind from Hospital talk, but all in all we made it through the day, things could of been worse, better, whatever - but God is good, and I made it threw, and my dad is spending a night in the ER for observation to see whats up (if anything else exists) - they looked for a room, but sadly no rooms were open, so he got a bigger bed in the ER and stayed there, so in the AM I’ll probably check in on him or pick him up depending on if they find anything, but I think they’ll just adjust his meds, and tell him to drink water and REST
Anywhoo - off to zone out watching Studio 60 the Replay picked up, and then maybe Sunday’s Battlestar Galictica that’s on there too (nerd out time!) and probably crash here on the couch.
Well this week so far has been… well kinda odd. Not necessarily bad, not necessarily good - but sort of that middle ground that well leaves you say “Wha?” - I haven’t been sleeping too much, not that I am busy late night, but I just have stuff griding away in my mind, work, personal, faith, etc. just all there - so I figured write a bit down tonight here in a blog - not EVERYTHING, but at least a little helping of each to simply put down on the virtual paper so to speak, vs. keep in my head.
So let’s start with the thing I have been doing lately: Work. The servers have been performing well enough, but I really want to re-do everything, heck I have done everyone else’s, but for mine, most are pretty older in the sftw. department, and with the new FH on the horizon, I kind of want to go into 2007 with new things like fresh servers, same with TN, just clean slate, stuff migrated, and online - and I am looking at a solution that could do the following:
Increase Performance
Add Value To All Accounts
Simplify Hardware
Cut Costs
Did I mention Cut Costs?
This is what happens when your mind grinds Every possiblity is considered, and I do mean every - I have been in talks with other companies, I have been researching hardware/software that I have tested over the last 2 years as I have considered new solutions, but tonight I am sitting here about to hit purchase, max out a credit card or two, and simply get it rolling - I just think at some level I need to do something, and get things moving.
Which leads to the next bit, Faith. A lot lately I have gotten the “Good Christian” bit, not saying it’s a bad thing, but apparently I live my life different than a lot of folks, and I get this confused look from people when I am polite, tip a foodservice person, open a door for someone, and do things like Not Drink. Most of my friends drink, and honestly, the nice thing about that (yes I found a positive in someone drinking) - I get to be the driver, I get to cruise around in a Cadillac CTS now and again, now thats some fun raw power but Church is one thing on my mind lately, I see a door that maybe is the one I have been waiting for, its a local church, and there is some spots I could serve, and I think the same for my Dad, I dunno, maybe why my brain is going a bit crazy.
But I have had some nice talks about God lately, and folks are always curious if I don’t drink for a “Spiritual” reason, but honestly, I have no desire to try it, I am crazy enough on my own, as I have seen this last couple weeks socially, I do well @ parties without drinks, I dunno - apparently I’m fun lol. but I had some nice talks with folks about my faith, about some churches lately, I dunno - lot of things on that, I really want to start a Men’s bible study, we talked about it, but never did it, Jake how’s Tuesdays? Personal. The one thing I tend to avoid real depth on my blog about, but really it comes down to this - my personal life is odd, when it comes to a love of my life, I just have a ton of good friends - I spent the other afternoon hanging out with William playing Lego Star Wars for Xbox at the office, which was fun, and I got a nice break for my brain, but I laugh because I have been told I am dating like 3 different girls, heck people thought Courtney and I were married, but we have just known each other since what, kindergarden? Oh yeah, were nerds, and we know each other’s secrets, and were taking them to the grave.
The bottom line is when it comes to a Mrs. or even a “Chuck’s Girlfriend” - it’ll happen, not sure when, not sure who, but as my MySpace profile says, I hope she’s patient with my craziness, not sleeping, wearing shorts in 20F weather, and odd batch of business / non-business friends - but with that said, its not like I DONT want it to happen, just I need to get some areas in my life in order, but at the same time, that’s never going to all be perfect, but where does a odd Computer Nerd look for girls? Last setup I had, apparently the gal was scared to high-heaven… maybe I should shave, I don’t think a beardish look makes me scary? but maybe it does.
Anywhoo my therapy is done, I am going to go pray over this new server/software configuration, and maybe hit buy and get things rolling, it’d be awesome to get things rolling tonight, clean slate of FH/TN online (clear out a TON of old junk) and put the new FH online - or I’ll put my camera on to charge (Baby Photos Tomorrow!!! New Foster Child!) and hit the hay, but no matter what, I need to clean this room, I just am rarely here anymore, where to put it all…. I need a house of my own - or a dump truck. One of the two.
Well tonight started the journey on a new server, enter UNICRON! This is one for my buddy kman and his wife’s design studio, we are retiring their old server ION soon, and are slowly moving a batch of things over, I worked at his office till around roughly 2am, and enjoyed the steady snoring from him at which time he woke up and he went home, so I migrated here to continue the process.
Nice thing is we also deployed Scalix at his office, for you tech nerds, think OpenSource Exchange-ish - for you non-tech, think, really cool shared email/calendars - the install went pretty smooth, and for it being spare hardware lying around minus a new 80GB drive, it was a good setup! Going to swing in this afternoon and re-locate it in the office (off the tech-bench) and follow up on server moves, but so far it all looks good, some domains are already rolling, which is WONDERFUL, OpenDNS is very quick to pick up the changes, so I am seeing things running good.
But back to working on keeping DNS all sync’d up - I am doing good, not really too tired, a pretty full day, and evening, but so far energy is good, concentrating isn’t a issue yet, and I have some iTunes playing here on the Mac - so can’t complain too much - nice to have SSH and other tools be native in this enviroment, so lovely.
Possibly a new office, after a year or so now at 19th street, kman showed me a place that could work too, LOTS more room, good parking, cool location still downtown-ish, but another option might be at kman’s office (where I used to be) but not sure, that’s all up in the air, so if you could keep that in prayer with me, that could be good stuff.
Anywhoo…. Night All, if you see me online when you wake up, say hi! I’m on AIM.
Just got home from a nice evening, J & J bought me dinner at Joseph’s - was pretty fun, then we swung over to my office and I got some software for their laptop, and we sat and chit-chatted, it was a good evening, very funny, relaxing, and I think it allowed them to talk about work a bit, and joke around.
All in all today was semi-unproductive, just couldn’t get going, ate breakfast, kept trying to work, got nothing so I crashed out around noonish, for about 3 hours, and I guess I was tired, even had a dream or two, which is crazy - but I got showered, and ready for dinner and went out, so a mellow day, a nice change for sure - hopefully I can go into Friday with the same level of mellow fun.
Anywhoo, no word back from Rosie yet as to how she thinks she did on her school stuff, but I imagine she did fine, just school gives her a bit-o-stress, but thats the hours of endless fun that is school - so hopefully I’ll hear something on that tomorrow.
Lastly, if your in Bako and you are free on Oct. 7th, there’s a benefit concert a the Gate, $10 for 16 bands, should be fun, I’ll be there pretty much all day, doing photography, working the booth for awaken, should be a hoot - but if you want more details, some will follow soon.
For now though, I’m off - going to grab a bite for desert, and then crash for the night, dead tired. Night folks!
On my way home today I did something not tottaly out of the ordinary, but different from my norm, I stopped by the gym, now during the summer months I hit the bike riding a lot, friends would come, it was good stuff, but now that Rosie lives across town, and my days have been longer, I have been missing rides, so I stopped in for a refresher course at the gym.
Got a appointment at 10am on Friday to meet with Joe (from the picture below) he is going to give me a new diet plan, workout ideas, and all-around kick my butt - which will be good as we hit winter, I usually slow on biking anyway, so my hope is to get into a groove again with working out, and I hope work/life allows it - be nice to loose a few pounds again, balance out some of the muscle bulk - as that’s always been one of my problems, I bulk up, versus lean out
Anywhoo, thats my crazy thing for the day, hopefully if all goes well this week, I’ll have some extra dollars rolling in, make my car payment, make some server payments, life is good. Night folks!
So I am looking at upgrading/replacing my HP+iPod 40GB - it has treated me well, but I think I am going to pass it on, and upgrade to one with Video/Photos (color in general) - plus the battery life is appealing - but only if all these pending things happen, waiting on one $800 a month contract, which is good, and I got a verbal “Looks Good” on my $400 a month contract for services, so if both happen, my car payment is done and then some, so one single splurge, iPod feva!
The old pod would go onto the gent I promised the first jump at it, Dan, then if he says no, it goes down the line to Rosie, and if no there, it keeps going and going till I find it a new home, but it would be nice to have some of my shows, iTunes, and finally organized layout of all my music on the pod - I have some tracks in OGG from my Tungsten days, when I put tunes on my PDA - but now the iPod is handy, works in my car, and looks cool, so why not
I do want to organize my tunes, remove dupes, ditch OGG and find my discs and re-rip things into MP3/MP4 for iPod/iTunes, and maybe hook up a BIG 200GB drive for all my media so my primary drive on iMac 20 (who still needs a name, like Shimmi?) - but so much to do so little time, tonight’s project is FH - get it ready to ride, some stuff won’t be 100%, but its new, fresh, and updated packages, deals, etc. may get some folks excited and buying!
Anywhoo - thanks for reading, and do take a minute to go forth and read/comment on my Fridge issue.
Every possiblity is considered, and I do mean every - I have been in talks with other companies, I have been researching hardware/software that I have tested over the last 2 years as I have considered new solutions, but tonight I am sitting here about to hit purchase, max out a credit card or two, and simply get it rolling - I just think at some level I need to do something, and get things moving.
so I crashed out around noonish, for about 3 hours, and I guess I was tired, even had a dream or two, which is crazy - but I got showered, and ready for dinner and went out, so a mellow day, a nice change for sure - hopefully I can go into Friday with the same level of mellow fun.
