So barring any major negative press, I think I am going to pickup one of the new Dell Studio Hybrid - as Mac User, and Linux user, I haven’t really spruced up the Windows rig in sometime, and I have been shopping for a system in a similar form-factor, but the kicker, the addition that sold me is the Blu-Ray option coming in a few weeks, even the build I setup today gave me 8/14/08 for a ship-date.
In the coming weeks I will know or not if I get a 3bed/1bath house - if it’s a no again, I think it’s the move to the Apartment that will come, but the house is about the same price range as the apartment so if it is possible, I think I want to lean that way - that and I know the owners, and I think I can get repairs done easy since I am renting and am family 
But the computer comes as part of the re-vamp of my computer system, long-term I want to ditch the BIG tower I have for media currently with the Dell Studio Hybrid, then the big tower which currently act’s as storage server extraordinaire - I want to take it’s drives, as well as the old drives from the Media Center and slide them all into a Drobo - but that’s not for a while, I want to give the Drobo 2 a while to brew in it’s new release and get some fixes/patches etc. but with it and the Drobo Share, I can replace my linux storage box, and save more room, more power.
Finally before year end, but hopefully sooner, I would like to retire the iMac 20 for a new iMac 20 New processor, new hardware, 802.11n built in, etc. so it’d be nice to have that all working nice and fancy and everything in-house working on 802.11n where possible, and everything else running off a access point doing a set 802.11g (iPhone, Wii, 360) but I think the plan is pretty solid… thus far
It would scale down the size and energy requirements of my computer army as it is, centralize and secure my storage, and give me some thin-line hardware with lower heat emissions than my current beasts! But the plan is actually cheaper than buying my long-desired setup of a Mac Pro - if I were to get the Pro as I “dream” of it, well over $6000 - and that’s a lot of cake! This configuration all things said and done will come in under $4,000 - nearly $2,000 cheaper, utilize some current hardware (no extra purchases) and get me a complete setup that works wonders.
A lot of this also relies on keeping my day job, while it is nice, and helps bring home the extra bacon I have enjoyed getting to utilize, if I am dead from the stress - it won’t do me that good, so many complexities of my own business I worked for years to simplify and here they can’t even get me simple content for a newsletter! Nor do they seem to have clear communication between the entire staff, what one of the owners says is “Ok” is “Not Ok” with another - no discussion, and my job keeps changing and evolving into a graphic designer / IT manager / Nerd Herd - so if things don’t level out over the process of this coming month, I think I’ll probably put forth my 2 weeks, and search for something else better suited - I have a “thought” on a job, but its one too that I am weary to take on, but could give good results in the end.
Anywhoo - keep me in your prayers, definitely a lot to consider with things, and 2 days of car issues, well maybe it’s a message from upstairs for now though, I am going to keep pushing forward, and see if I can’t get things working all-around. Only 1 more day to go this week, so it can’t get any worse… Right? 
Well for me anymore a Wild Saturday includes a few things, 1) Progress on organizing my junk, 2) Sleep, 3) Food - or any combo of those options.
Today included the unlock of my 1st Gen iPhone to utilize the Firmware 2.0 but on T-Mobile’s network - being out of contract on T-Mobile, I am actually happy to stay knowing I can now use the line “Well if you won’t fix it, I’ll just leave! boo-hoo!” - and can actually do it AT&T has tried several times now to lure me back to their evil death star alliance, but I have remained strong - the iPhone was really the only option I liked, but I doubt I’d buy a 3G model any time soon, revision 2 in which they get GPS quirks out of the way, battery life sorted, and a 12MP camera, then, maybe then
Currently my first gen is on it’s battery drain, listening to Pandora over WiFi, part of me wanted to leave it on EDGE and see what’d happen, but signal isn’t quality EDGE, so probalby Monday I’ll have that fun at work! But all in all the apps are speedy, the unlock works perfectly, iTunes 7.7 backed up all my goodies, and now I have the big thing to decide MobileMe or Stick with IMAP & SpanningSync for Mac, don’t get me wrong, I love the concept of MobileMe, just $99 a year, not sure it’s going to sit well in my budget for IT, I’d just as soon get Google Apps, or utilize my own IMAP servers.
I am sure there are other things which I could go on and on about, but really it has been a mellow weekend, Church tomorrow should be fun (I hope) followed up with Dinner, but I really want to get a lot more sleep in, I think I am trying to get sick, and the lack of sleep usually leaves me wide open for illness, so sleep is coming up soon here - I am going to fight the urge to skip playing with Apps on the iPhone.
Anywhoo - lots to do in coming weeks, Reunion Website, Photographer’s blog, Wordpress 2.6 upgrades for folks (big kudo’s to WP devs, Gears makes it rockin all the more!) but busy busy - just need to be sure I am rested for it! So I will say goodnight, and wish you all a wonderful Sunday!
I really don’t know how I got to the a-typical boring guy level of things I have lived a pretty wild bit now and again - I mean how many people have been investigated by the FBI twice, and the Canadian mounties? (Okay it wasn’t the mounties, but it sounds cooler than the Canadian version of the FBI)
A lot lately people keep telling me that I am far too nice - when did becoming nice almost become a put down? LoL I love the folks who tell me these things, tonight it was my little sister, she said it in reference to something that happened to me a while back, and I jokingly said I was going to hire her to come do collections for me! She’d have me tons of owed money ASAP.
Honestly I do see it sometimes that I let things go that I should be upset about, but I suppose it is true that nice guy’s finish last - and sometimes as of late aside from heat stroke, flu, and bordum @ work, I do feel like I am finishing last. My vision of where I would be by now is a lot different than how it turned out - I am not a chef cooking for people, I don’t have 2 kids and a beautiful wife, no 3 bedroom house, but instead - I have a lot of things folks don’t have - and more and more I see that even in my every day interaction with folks at work.
My office has some folks that look at life a lot different than I do, they see the negative and hang on to it, “being nice” isn’t something they practice on a regular basis - I mean the fact that I keep a stash of goodies that I hand out for free still to this day boggles the minds of folks there - both young and old. I mean who would go out, buy some candy bars, and some snack cakes and hand them out for free? I mean come on what’s the catch?
I dunno, this past 2 years a lot of learning has gone down for me, and adding this 9-to-5 style job is a big change for me, no more running out on a Friday to Kosmos with Matt for 2-3 hours to chat, no more snagging lunch for Rosie and running it over to her at B&N, no helping friends decipher taxes and applications for loans, granted I still get to help folks at work, even got to help a old friend today, and she offered to take me to lunch as a thanks - I dunno, things like today where I should be billing $75 just for doing something, I am going to let it fall by the wayside.
Grace. As Google defines it:
“a disposition to kindness and compassion”
I have always been a big supporter that if grace is given to you, if that kindness and compassion is shared - you should share it in return, because grace is something you don’t deserve - it’s a gift. A gift which I have received in my life time and time again - so who am I not to extend it to others?
I mean if I have no other role in life than to spread a little bit of grace, compassion, and kindness - that seems like a noble enough of a life - may not be the vision you come up with a kid of being a fireman, of being the president of the USA, but I think for this day in age - it is something needed.
My life is going to be taking some changes soon, probably a new place to live, changes in how I eat, exercise, interact, etc. and thru it all I pray I don’t loose that sense of grace - as even when folks are short with me, or fall short of what I expected from them, grace can still be given, that gift that costs nothing but issues such a rich reward to another - the best gift one can give and the same for someone who receives it.
Anywhoo - that’s my bit for now - going to run the budget numbers again, and pray about ditching work tomorrow to rest up for Friday’s big inventory day - but knowing me I’ll probably just end up going and be grumpy on Friday from lack of sleep and even more fun heatstroke Keep me in your thoughts and prayers - hopefully going into July some things things will be underway. Night folks.
So today I was excited about quotes, however when I checked in on the status, he was a tad tied up, but is going to come in tomorrow morning and go over things with me, in the end to sell this I think we’ll REALLY need to do a off-site demo with the boss-man as well as something onsite to demonstrate the speed of things.
In other news while I was eating lunch I had 2 visitors come in, one was the head of personal/accounting the other is her friend who does filing around the office - so we chatted for a little bit about things, laptops, etc. then she asked her friend to leave and shut the door - so knowing that my 90 days was here, I wondered what it would bring - she started off with the good news a 7% raise, and another review in Feb. so now making $34,240 a year - not too shabby on top of hosting, also since I am 90 in I can now get health insurance, hopefully vision too as I’d like to get a new pair of glasses! One negative point did come up in my review which was I spent too much time on sales, which I had recognized myself, I do have some on-going projects on that side, and some of the print work I do, does require me over there, but I let her know I have been working on doing rounds during the day and it was a work in progress - that seemed to make her happy. And that was that.
So I have about $100 roughly more per paycheck, which is nice - every little bit helps, not sure if they are doing bonuses this year, but if so that’d rock to get that as well (fiscal year is done in the end of June) but none the less it’s something, and the fact that I don’t have to wait for a year before another review, that’s handy - so some major big cool deals today! Just had to get on and post about it, who knows may go out and celebrate tonight!
Anywhoo - back to the grind of it all, going to work some of a PHP project or two, been working on converting these DOS based exports to MySQL, so who knows if I can work that I can probably bring back a lot of reports they wanted - time will tell!
So for a few days I keep trying to blog, but nothing ever comes of it - but today I had to - so much going on, had to get some of it down out of the ol brain, but just also a lot of busy busy coming up - for instance the title, Tuesday I get my quotes, for virtualizing the entire office - all desktops to virtual setups, rather clever idea, and work-able too… so we’ll see what the final price point is, and go from there, who knows may work, or my fear will come true and my boss/admin board will go “Huh? No.” as they sometimes fear things that are new / different.
Sorting out some projects, been one of those weeks where a pile of projects seemed to all take various twists and turns, one ended - never got to production, but now sorting out the final bits, should go smoothly though I hope - but more are on the horizon, thankfully not as involved, and with folks who want simplicity vs. complexity, not as fun, but easier to complete
Weather is heating up, was 104F coming home from work today, of course it’s still mighty toasty out, but welcome to summer! Need to work on my bedroom a bit, or look at apartments - basically something with more advanced cooling than the swamp cooler - but as usual I’m sure I’ll survive, already loosing some weight from the lovely shift in weather, but that’ll go away with Winter.
Anywhoo - just rambling now so I think I’ve reached my goal, and I am going to call it a night, nearly midnight and I feel ready for sleep, just don’t wanna wake up for work tomorrow - but I’ll do my best. Night.
Last night I got some good sleep in finally, it’s my bed. I need a new one, this one is dead and then some, but I need to figure out my bedroom first, or figure out if I am getting an apartment or waiting to see if the rents find a new house again or not - so not sure, but I slept on the couch, and got a LOT of sleep, and woke up feeling good vs. dragging to the shower then getting to work even more sleepy.
Today was fun - got another foot in the door to virtualizing desktops, so we’ll see what happens there - but one funny thing is I handed out some Peppermint Patties I had from my snack drawer, and one person more or less questioned me if they were poisoned lol. She’s not always friendly to me, so I think she wondered if I was trying to get even lol - but in the end she ate it and said thanks.
Anywhoo - 10m left, the Windows Virtual is still chugging away at 7zip’n the MLS backup, my Linux workstation finished it a bit ago, and it’s already off-site, but it’s 100% scripted, but once that’s finished, I am off to home, possibly to see a kid and his Wii - but for now I’ll say “Have a Good Thursday!” and maybe a blog to follow tomorrow… more to talk about I’m sure…. lots going on, and after tomorrow’s meetings more stuff to talk about. Good times. ttfn!
So here we are at the start of a new week - busy, lots of planning ahead, I have appointments tomorrow afternoon as well as Friday, so I imagine the rest of the week will fill in soon - or at least it usually tends to - but I have a meeting on Friday about basically virtualizing all of the desktops which has me torn really, as I love the concept, but the single point of failure could mean a LOT of downtime in “theory” but if the sever is built properly, there should be no issue at all…. but I’ll find out more solid details Friday what these guys have in mind.
The billing issue seems to be getting there, I had hoped it’d resolve today, and I got the apologetic call, some explanation, but I think the payment idea I suggested is going to work, half in the first of the month, other half in the middle - so more or less the same as my work pay system, so not too shabby in the least, going to swing by there after work and pick up a check, and discuss some other things quickly, but hopefully it’s all good - and we can get a game plan going.
Lastly, I feel drained today, just really really tired, which is making me wonder should I go and rest, or goto pancakes & games @ Scott’s here after the meeting, but I am down for bringing OJ, but at the same time I think they’d understand …. if not I know they’ll come for me in the night and I’ll never be seen again…. all due to OJ…. sweet, tasty Florida Orange Juice.
Anywhoo - I am off, getting backups packed up, VM is lagging a bit, not unusual, I think that copy of XP has a leak in it somewhere - but going to get it offsite, shutdown, and off to downtown - so take care all, more later I’m sure!
