random ramblings of a crazed nerd

So for the first time in over 10 years, I have made a resume, on top of that, I have sent it to a company for consideration in a Linux Administrator position. Yowza.

I am pretty excited honestly, I am really hoping for a call back! I was a little hesitant posting this, as I know it may worry some of the customers who have found/read this blog, but honestly for the time being, nothing will change - even if I pick up this job, however if after a few months things are good, then I may have an offer to customers to migrate over to my new job, but let it be known that I am not putting clients up for sale, I am not bargaining your websites to get the job, you are safe - you will be given a choice if I decide to shutdown my own hosting operations, but I doubt that’ll ever happen 100%.

The choice to apply for a job just came from the slump in hosting, even yearly promotions which normally brought in a large amount of sales brought in 0 thus far, so it’s sad to look at really - and I have bills to pay, but long term I know I will always do my own thing at some level, but again, I don’t have this job yet, I barely hit send a minute ago, so as it stands nothing has changed, and until I get the job, I am trying to not think past “Today” as that’s all I can focus on, and stay sane so we’ll see what happens, but I appreciate your prayers in this matter, it’d be an amazing opportunity, and really open the doors for more things in my life from a financial standpoint, as well as give me a group of other linux admins who I can learn from and who knows maybe even teach things in return.

Anywhoo - that’s where I am at - I am excited, anxious, and hopeful that it will all work, but at the same time I know that just because I put my resume in I am not instantly hired so now to wait and watch, and see what happens! But for now, onto the day, more work on billing migration, more exploring what’s up with email on a friend’s server as I begin more external testing today, plus I am going to explore Amazon S3 a bit, have some ideas for it. So I will say Have a good Thursday folks! and be on with the craziness here take care!

So the first 2 invoices went out this morning for TN - two of the largest invoices by far as they are two server customers, so needless to say, very excited! but it’s also good to see the system is performing just as it should, one of the two doesn’t have a card on file, but I hope to solve that later today - but all in all, I hope to use a good portion of the day to really push harder on the migration and audit, I’d love to have it completely done by the end of the month, but from the current rate, it may be a little into next, but not going to let that discourage me.

Tuesday was fun, got to bed in the early AM, was waking up in the afternoon and got a call from my good buddy Dan, we talked shop a bit, then I got the call from my sister a hour or so later, and she wanted to know if I could help Michael goto Costco to get their new TV, so I loaded up myself in the truck and headed that way, we had some fun times as they gave us the wrong TV and over charged, then they had to figure out what was what, but in the end got the right TV and a cash refund - but we got it setup, and for my help I got a Pizza & Potato Wedges - I know I know, not the health kick I was hoping for, but it was awesome good So then we proceeded to watch Heroes on their new TV as we ate, and then as that wrapped up, I headed home across town. A good day! I came home full of pizza, and feeling good, I laid down, and then woke up around 2am, and I have been up for a while.

All in all today is Bank day, I have a check here, I need to do a run to the office to check for Checks there, and see if I can get the last $75 of a invoice from the kMan, hopefully checks came in, but then it’s off to the bank one way or another, I hope to get things deposited and good to go, just seems income isn’t really the issue, it’s the time frame it comes in lol - had a customer 22 days overdue in his invoice, so I think I may need to start a late-fee policy, never had to before, but I guess times change.

Anywhoo - nearly 4am now, and I am craving breakfast, I am thinking of taking the ol Moleskine, hopping into the car and going for a early breakfast at Denny’s - Biscuits and Gravy sound really good, or maybe some french toast… hrm… tasty. But none the less, a big day ahead, with a nice break in the middle for the bank, and who knows, maybe I’l convince Dan to have lunch (I love you Dan) - but I hope you all have a great Fake Friday!

So I wrote this big blog a minute ago, had it all written up, and then I highlighted it all, and started typing this, it was just something I needed to write out, to re-read, and just nod my head and go “Yup” - for the first time in over a year, probably more like 2 years, I feel right - granted exhausted, emotionally shot, and out of clean clothes - BUT - I am excited. I am excited about projects, I am excited about finding a Church, I am excited about being excited!

I’m tired of life beating me down, of things being complicated, and I know at some level… yeah that’s how life is, but some things I just stopped caring about, I let things slip because it’d take a lot of work to fix them, but not anymore, I am jazzed, I had my Monday night unwind which consists of watching Chuck, Heroes, and Journeyman - all wonderful shows, and I just left them feeling what I have felt since last Friday, alive.

I know, my blog is a collection of what some would probably classify as a madman, but thats why it’s here, to unwind, to write a 2 page blog then just wipe it away to simplify it to this, I am blessed. Even when it all sucks, even when I can’t find which way is up, I am blessed - Good Friends, Amazing Family, who knows, maybe even one day soon a nice special gal, but let’s not rush anything one step at a time. I feel like I have direction, I have been working on billing today between a brief nap, and also working on some various server bits as I mentioned in my last post - I just feel excited, alive, ready to go - and I am hoping to push on, to make efforts, to grow.

And that’s all I really had to say. I hope everyone has a good Wednesday, I know I am thus far, and I am more or less doing data entry! How can that be fun?! Take care all. More later.

ps. I have laundry going now. lol

Needless to say, I was excited to stay up past my “bedtime” so to speak, but I don’t really have a real bed time but I wanted to stay up as the first round of invoices ran tonight via the new system, and it went wonderfully! Only a single little glitch, but nothing that was a REAL show stopper, but it got things rolling good.

My long term plan is to phase out the old billing system overall, but I love the PDF option, great for printing, great for customers - so I am very excited and hope to have all customers migrated over by month’s end if at all possible - but for TN I hope to have it’s migration and activation setup and running by Friday, only a few customers migrated to Digital Billing, but with this I hope to make the push for all customers lingering on Check -> Credit Card.

All in all my hope is to get things all rolling sales wise again, I have been fighting burn out for a while - this job can be unforgiving, while I love to serve customers, not all respect it, and I think in the time fighting against burning out on this job, I have come to realize and respect that not all customers see my service as “above and beyond” and that’s fine, but I look at customers who have been with me for several years and know that it is customers like that who keep me sane!

I do hope that over the next few weeks money will level out, and I can get things going - I do hope that by the end of the year to be seriously looking at this nice 2 bedroom apartment, granted I could probably swing for a single, but honestly, I want 2 rooms so I can have a office and secondly a place to sleep - so I can really have a spot to simply “walk away” from and not have squish everything into one spot - so my hope is things continue to progress forward, and with the addition of Exchange Hosting here in the next few days, I hope to pick up some more clients, plus I am finishing up some tweaks to offer my DSPAM interface I wrote in PHP to manage users on the filter per-account holder who’d have access to all domains they have paid for, just a few more tweaks in the PHP and I’ll be good to go.

Anywhoo, thats all I have! Going to go find me a light snack, and then setup a plan for tomorrow, mainly the move to get folks ready to move on over to the new billing + continue writing content for TN. Good times. Have a Good Week folks!

Just waking up to this lovely Thursday (okay, so I have been awake for an hour) - I had a pretty productive evening, heck ran the iPod dead from a few days of use, it’s recharging now for a second wave of fun, but things have gone well - got a batch of about 30 clients sorted, now that’s not folks just migrated over, that’s dealing with standing invoices, I have gotten some emails back - which is nice, and things are getting squared away with most, but a few who are questioning every invoice they are late on - which is leading me to really push hard on the new policies once folks are migrated entirely.

But not going to let a few bad eggs ruin my day, or my joy in the things that are being accomplished, things that probably should of been done a year ago, but didn’t get finished - plus some functions I have now weren’t even possible a year ago, so that whole Romans 8:28 note really applies here - and while what I have imported thus far is not a massive amount of funds, considering there are nearly 300 more clients to go, and some who have a LOT of services, its all good.

Anywhoo - on-to the day, must get rolling on some more transfers, and get folks moved, tonight’s first cron job with active clients should be interested, it should generate some invoices which are due in 4 days, then the new credit card processor gets its first test drive - very excited indeed - once this is done, it’s onto TN for the same migration - should be fun - no really.

Now that’s what I call 2 days. A lot has been going on with business stuff as of late, I recently finished up the basic ground work to a new Thrust Networks homepage - it’s been nearly 7 years since it’s original went online, and for 7 long years it stayed the same - so now it’s getting a new lease on life, and I am very excited - in part I was prodded to get it up to date by the application process to process credit cards, you have to submit your website for review and make sure things like “Return Policy” and such are all clearly listed, and having gone thru it once before with my now “old” provider who will be canceled within a month or so (phasing folks over) I knew the game - so things went very smoothly, and now I can officially process Visa, Mastercard, AMEX, Discover! Definitely very stoked!

I had a good meeting with a client today, and got to talk with my good buddy Dan-o, was a nice day, I feel exhausted like I have run a marathon, maybe it’s some of this stress finally letting up, especially with this new card processor, it’s simply awesome, I bill a card thru it, instead of waiting 2 days, it’s in my account instantly, and I have a Debit card attached, so instant access to funds - very nice indeed, but also the finishing of the first leg of TN and now releasing the first of the FH Crazy October deals, very excited indeed, finishing up the game-plan for the remainder of the week as well as fine tuning some for next week - but I just feel like the tides are turning for the better.

Tonight I start test runs of Apache2 + PHP5 - my hope is to test several of the major apps out there in PHP, such as Wordpress, Gallery, 4Images, Etc. and ensure PHP5 compatibility, but I have a funny feeling for at least another 6 months, I’ll need to run both PHP4 & PHP5 to accommodate folks - but the big thing I am excited about is the migration of security to Apache2 and ModSecurity2.x - both which are wonderful tools, as-is for the current Apache 1.x/ModSecurity1.x branches - but 2 offers some more sexy with things like the ModSecurity Console - it’d be nice to have a more real-time over-view of security happenings across the servers, so I can make adjustments to the ModSecurity rules to better safeguard customers to the best of my ability.

So a fun evening ahead of me, which will probably just end with me passing out here in about 20 minutes, and having happy dreams - or I’ll get my second wind and start working on customer transfers from old billing -> new billing (yay!) already have a few in there, but more to come - ah fun fun fun - and PHP5 + Apache2 just finished compiling, dev copy of Wordpress on that box is working fine, more testing soon
Anywhoo - thanks for reading, more news on the way, lots coming up, lots going on, for now I’ll settle for a nap… or at least a “resting my eyes” session - night folks!