TGIF: Good Day, Bad Morning?

So this week was great, got a lot accomplished. Work has gone good, had some mini blips in our billing software (DOS App!) - did some packing and it half worked, half took an hour longer than normal (guessing it found + repaired some bad things) - this week has been incredibly smooth though, even have the house to myself for a few days.

Heck so well, we got to hang out with Cory tonight, well last night (aka Thursday) and it all went well, got to drive Cory by his old house, show him what used to be fields and orange groves we used to play in as kids, now housing lol - then we made the trek to his hotel, dropped him off, and I got this crazy idea to swing out and pick up a check that has been waiting for me for 3 days, and when getting there and looking around, said check was no-where to be found which just compounds my desire to really start shutting stuff off - not from the hosters who host on my rigs, this is a sold unit I manage, and the fees for it have not been paid going on 2 months now, so on Tuesday it’ll be officially 2 months of payments due.

I am not honestly sure what to do, this is one of those sticky situations - where the client is a friend, but as of late I seem to be more of an distant friend, and as his employee feels about myself and dan - part of me, and at the encouragement of others, it may be time to go our separate ways on friendly terms, vs. wait for me to explode - since I have taken the 9-to-5, I keep their servers running, but then also the occasional bit of side-work, which I do my best to keep up on, but this latest side gig, seems to be more and more trouble, and I don’t know if I am getting the full story or not, so not sure what’s up, but I am leaning towards enough is enough.

But I am trying to unwind, so I am just going to lay it at the Lord’s feet in prayer, and just pray his will be done in it all, because I don’t honestly know what to do in this situation, short of fight, and that doesn’t seem like it’d work.

Anywhoo - I need sleep, tomorrow is a busy busy day, need to get some things setup for a presentation, as well as get some other assorted things rolling on software upgrades, so I bid you all a good night, and happy Friday.

Saturday, Shirt, Money, Rain

Hello from my first non-crazy weekend in nearly a month. Yowza - last month was a tad nutty, but this month may amp up to be just as cookoo - but hey I can’t complain too much, if I snag this job, a lot of things will be coming around, changing, adapting, etc. - so a relaxing weekend, that in the end turned into not too shabby time with the kMan (we had pizza & played with computers), but also getting partial payments and such - so nice there.

The way home the rain started, I love rain, I plan to go driving in it here shortly to get to the bank and ATM these checks, not the perfect way to get money in the bank, but as it’s that time of the month for bills, I’d rather get it rolling in now than fight later - hopefully Monday I’ll have other checks in and be able to get that going.

To finish up the night I just snagged a shirt from tonight’s Woot:

Pretty snazzy, my mom wanted one too, so I ordered 2 but 2 shirts for $20, not too shabby.

Anywhoo - Tomorrow brings Sunday, a day of rest, probably the one day I truly do take off, so I will bid you all a pleasant evening, have a Wonderful Sunday - for you Superbowler’s enjoy the big game, and here in Bako the new channel 46 on brighthouse for the game in HD. (yes I got the call 3 times too) - night folks!

Real Job Time?

So I have the iMac set to wake me using Awaken - it’s pretty snazzy, though I need a new wakeup playlist - I have the alarm set for 6:45am, should give me plenty of time to shave, shower, get dressed (in pants! omw!), and get out the door not in a hurry by 8am, slowly drive over across town, find a parking spot, find the building, and be ready to chit-chat job wise. The plan seems to of changed, originally it was a casual look around, now it’s a full on interview it seems, so I need to print a copy of the resume.

All in all I am more tired than excited or nervous, this past two weeks of migrations and moves has worn me out pretty good, but we’ll see how it goes, and I am sure I’ll post an update here or via twitter tomorrow - but once this is figured out, then a lot of things are going to fall into place, finances, new schedule, projects, etc. etc. etc. so change in general - but good things I think.

Anywhoo - I’d ramble on for hours, but for now I am going to drop a DVD in the player, turn it on and drift off into a dream world - more tomorrow, prayers appreciated!

Farewell Cable TV?

Why do I need TV? Oh the random entertainment, noise in the background, stay up on current events? I dunno, though with Cable modem + Cable TV, I have me a hefty bill - but with all the entertainment available do I really need it?

The options, things like Netflix, Hulu, Joost, Amazon, iTunes, Vongo, etc. various free to low cost monthly subscriptions, I mean even with the ones listed, say $8.95 for Netflix, Amazon.com $10.00 for Rentals, Vongo $10, so around $30 gets me lots of streamable/downloadable content, as well as a single DVD out at a time from Netflix, I mean it’s a lot of stuff for $30, all of which can be view via the media rig using DVI->LCD TV - which then leaves the question, short of Vongo, why do I need Windows again? I don’t write this to make Jake upset about my Mac/Linux love, just looking at options to eliminate a machine, I mean remove the one machine merge some hardware, less clutter.

But time to look at it seriously, if I take digital cable line-up out of my monthly budget, that’ll increase my monthly surplus greatly - any one have any other ideas?

Anywhoo - so far so good today, got assorted things finished up, DNS will hot-swap tonight, just need to migrate the FH/TN core DNS records over and its good to go, but right on schedule with a Wed. cancelation! very cool indeed. It’s all good - thanks for the continued prayers, this week is looking good! Eventually I’ll sleep…. eventually.

Thanks WAMU Dave

Well today I decided to call and get a update on my “VECTOR” search at WAMU - as usual the intro level folk just gave me the usual run down of what we’ve already covered, and so the guy said “Want to talk to my Supervisor?” well the call in total all levels of discussion lasted 40 minutes but in the end, Dave finally saw where I was coming from, he saw notes on the vector that were contrary to what I’d been told at my local branch. So I intend to have a good chat with the local branch manager again, as he claims they should of never started the vector as it was done probably moments after I left, as it’s very clear cut.

But what makes Dave special in my mind, is he realized all the ups downs, around etc. I had been thru in all this, and agreed to reverse the $30 issue, he explained things, and went over some past similar timeframes and worked it all out, so in the end, it came out wonderfully, of course I plan to push these fees over to the two companies who essentially caused the issue in the first place, which will cover fees I got from my old credit card processor, which I hope to have done with by tomorrow.

In other news, servers are nearly ready, working on some tweaks to the Apache/PHP configurations to make things a tad more zippy, but it’s an amazing thing to watch the monitoring info I have on this, I signed up for a new monitoring as the old one was becoming unreliable (it was a OLD OLD never updated Beta) - but the last 48 hours the current servers have had lots of ups/downs where as the new boxes, even the one with about 5-10 sites on it, all steady, solid, sexy. So writing up the FH newsletter, prepping to move some friends tonight to Trogdor, but it’s all coming along nicely, by Feb. things should be happier than happy!

I appreciate all the prayers, keep em up, lots coming up, lots to do, and back to it I go!

So it begins!

It begins. I have placed the order for the remaining 3 servers to get the core up and running, merging a few smaller systems into larger, and of course a few specialty servers which will host core service sites (aka FH/TN/TSWS) - the plan is to really get things rolling here in the next 2 weeks, Monday I am going to get the big bits done in software projects, finish the final plan for migration, and get things rolling with a full audit.

Lots to do, and I must do it all in 2 weeks, then it’s smooth sailing, budget survives easier, opens up to some other upgrades I have planned for all customers, now the big test, doing some searches to see if there are any apps NOT compatible with MySQL5, so far I see no reasons as to why any would NOT, but I want to check, and if things look good, I think I may just install MySQL5 by default and let sites import in and be upgrade to MySQL5 from 4, worked well on all other projects, heck this site is running on MySQL5 now too so it looks good.

Anywhoo - going to try to rest up the remainder of the evening, may try to rally up some folks for dinner, as once Monday starts, I may be MIA for a while. Prayers as always are appreciated greatly! And all support given is welcome! Here’s to a great migration, a great happy budget, and the occasional nap

What a day! Time to Breathe

Today ended up being a great day, got a great gift from BdG (big thanks sir!) which really set the day in motion, some more research through out the day, also got some reading material on a project website for my Uncle’s tent stakes, follow that up with a check coming in (PTL!) which led to a few other things, like dinner with dad (LJS Chicken Planks + Hush Puppies!), it was a good evening.

Then it was back to work. I started basic prep on Faith for it’s upgrade to PHP5/Apache2 (compiling now) and placed an order for a server to test out over the next 24 hours to see if I want to make the plunge for sure - the project server is lovingly called Trogdor, he’s a dragon-man of a machine, 8 cores, RAID10, *tear* a nice upgrade, got the call confirming my order, had a nice chat with “Jake” the guy on the other end, he loved the server name of Trogdor, suggested Burninator as another option for other projects down the line (It is officially on the list) - but he said he’d have me up in about an hour, and he had me running in 45 minutes.

So far so good though on both fronts, Faith is at 15 minutes now compiling, and Trogdor has gotten some of the royal lock down treatment, while their initial locks were nice, and some of the mods they have in place I am definitely leaving, I run a tight ship, so have to have them help with a few network tweaks and such on their end to make my life happy, but all in all, it’s looking good, speed is amazing, seeing 8 cores in top is a lovely sight but I think it’s going to work. Sure sure, it’ll mean some changes from the current way I monitor, and such, but really, the savings is a motivator, the growth potential is amazing, and of course, it gives me another set of eyes monitoring, keeping up the server etc. which in itself is like hiring a crew to stand watch as I do things like Sleep.

Also today I talked possiblity of a local job, it’s one I am really going to pray about, but it was one of those things that just leapt from my mouth, and just felt right, but then I found myself saying “Why did I say that?” so I am putting it to a God thing, and see where it goes, who knows, may all work out just right, may not, none the less, if it does, possibly means no moving, and maybe, just maybe I’ll be in my own place by my birthday!

But that was my day, as I go into Saturday, I lead into things by having picked up my mom from my sister’s house as they returned from a Lakers game with my Aunt, then its onto a site-by-site check on Faith to see if anything has post PHP5 upgrade blues that I can easily fix, or at the very least point the site owners to upgrade options to get themselves back on track, but after a few month or two that this upgrade was coming - I hope everyone is up to date, or at least one hot-fix shy. So now I am going to find my shoes, and pack up to head towards my sister’s house - one step at a time.