I need a book!

It has been a while since I picked up a good book. I had a favorite author Jefferson Scott - who I was nice enough to email back and forth with once - his first books that caught my eye were the Ethan Hamilton stories, namely the progression from Virtually Eliminated (going to read it again soon) - but the stories are wonderfully written, and not just some “magical computer terms” like the movie Hackers “let’s hack a gibson!” and no spray painted Apple laptops, simple, true, accurate goodies - but the stories tied in Faith to the whole story, tied it into the job, the walk, the day-to-day of the character’s life. Amazing Stories.

Then yet again, he wrote the Operation Firebrand series - yowza! I could put those down, as I heard one was released, I was at Barnes and Noble or CBD placing and order to get it to me, sadly I found myself done in a night. LoL - Re-Read them again this past year in under 3 days - the stories are about a miltary unit that uses non-lethal weapons to carry out, how should I put it, Extreme Missionary Field Work but again very accurate, visual books, that in some cases even with just the people you meet in the story, brought tears to my eyes.

Sadly, no other books of the Fiction variety have come from him lately, and who knows maybe one day they will, but I have said all this for two reasons:

1. Mr. Scott - I love your books, today as much as I did when I bought them, a massive blessing to me!
2. I need more books!

I find myself constantly in front of the computer anymore, with a day-job and a business of my own which keep me busy, a book to burry my head in would be good for a change. I have found some other Christian writers who do decent fiction, but I want fiction, I deal with Real Life enough as is, a blip off the radar from PHP/dBase/MySQL/How-to books, would be a great relief.

So if you have a thought or two, post your suggestions in the comments either here or on Xanga, and let me know if you have ANY sort of suggestion, even Non-Fiction suggestions are allowed, but again a little escape from reality would do me good

That’s it for tonight, I am off to see what these 24 emails are then hopefully passout! Have a blessed Sunday!

Tueday, I’m still here.

So today I figured I’d be pulled into the morning meeting to discuss things, which I figured could possibly lead to a few things like me leaving this job, while not the “greatest” thing that could happen in the world, at some level it’d be easier on my brain lol - but nothing happened, not fired, no updated draft of my job description, as always less and less respect for someone who’s supposed to be in charge of a company’s IT infrastructure (I think).

But the day goes on, I have held off on my media rig until things settle down here, which they may well do - but time will indeed tell, but I figure if I haven’t heard anything about the job by tomorrow, I’ll go ahead and get the parts coming, and look more serisouly towards getting an appartment - I have scaled the rig down some to save money, and simply recycle some parts, namely Memory, TV Tuner, and Vista, so under $1000 for a system, but still should be a nice setup for the time being, and as things continue to settle down, might get something more to add-in down the line, but for now it’ll do.

Big thanks for all the prayers - I am hoping things continue to pan out here, it’s not that it’s a bad job - its just they keep trying to expand it where if I am not careful, I’ll be moping and vaccuming floors soon, and while I know how to do that, it’s not my job, nor am I being paid for it, so we’ll see how it all goes from here - today I get lunch for sure! Missed it yesterday no car, my ride ditched me, could of had Scott bring me some tasty bits, but I failed lol. So today, it will be tasty indeed! I just need to get cash from a ATM somewhere.

Anywhoo - that’s my update, so far so good, really am tired, but it happens for now I am off to once again look at these old database formats and see if I can’t get things happy somewhere within the flow.

Mostly Alive - TGIF!

So a long week, a day sick in there, which I think I need a LOT more sleep, and a lot less stress. I am trying the juggling act of work and business, and it’s not horrible, but I feel sometimes like I am letting one side or the other down, but then again the sucky part @ work right now is there is literally nothing to do, until they give me money.

The big problem right now is over the last few months I have worked on quotes, new hardware game plans, and a company locally has pitched in to help, a guy I knew from long back works there, and he and I have worked out a fair plan, but the catch is - they are used to spending $79 on consumer grade products - so when someone say oh I don’t know…. Me, lays down a quote for $3000+ it raises and eye brow or two, but I have a battle, one person is for it, 2 against it, 1 unsure, and me playing the waiting game.

On top of everything else I think I am going to have a talk with my direct boss back east. I am tired of the games I am playing lately, of home repair man to the new house fixing Xbox360’s etc. for kids, and when I say kids I mean 18+ it’s just one of those things I didn’t really sign up for in my mind, I thought maybe the ocasional tune up on the bosses “WORK” station @ home, but not the Geeksquad routine to setup stuff that is honestly not business related - so I may be opening a can of worms, but at the same time I just am tired - tired of being pulled 30 ways, being hired for one thing, and disrespected when my judgement on hardware is questioned by someone who has been using Netscape 7.2 for years now. Yeah.

I dunno, venting aside, I do like the job, most of the time it’s mellow, granted my office is a heat trap, and I may die in there tomorrow (was 115F today!) but fun people, good crew, just wish I could truly do my job, have a budget, and get things setup and working smoother, more efficient, and all this consumer grade stuff meant for 5-10 users out of the network map.

In other news - comments are back, trying out Disqus, looks like it could be fun, give it a look, who knows! May be worth while and handle spam much better, but time will tell.

Anywhoo - that’s my rant, it’s friday now, so I am hoping a relaxing day is ahead, and looking forward to some fun things I’ll blog about later that are happening this weekend. So I will say good night folks, thanks for the prayers for my health, still not 100% - but if I can eliminate some of this stress, and get the weather cooled down, I may be right as rain Night.

Sick.. Bleh

Well stayed home from work today, slept a lot - had a meeting in the afternoon, it was canceled for the second day in a row - which was probably for the best, but for now I am hoping that I stop feeling like crap before morning - the headache alone is horrible.

Things have been busy though, thats why my mom is now convinced that my sickness is from stress, heck she could be right - that and the heat are two things lately which have been in abudance, heck in most of btown it’s still +90F and slowly coming down - which means sleep will happen soon.

Anywhoo - just checking in, lots to do this week, meeting tomorrow at lunch possibly, but I may need to cancel and head downtown, not 100% sure yet, just need to turn in my Traffic School cert, but time will tell - in the mean time, I’ll say “Good Night!” to all, and more blog to come.

Back to Blogging?

So if the blogging increase is any measure of my stress level, it is true, things have calmed down, with taxes done and paid for, finances leveling out, a case of seasonal Gadget Fever, and of course finally getting my Christmas present from my bro ($50 @ thinkgeek) I did what any person trying to unwind would do… buy some nerdy stuff for no other reason than you can Actually the mini-maglight kit and the wallet were two of my main purchases, the candle I wanted to try, as for my apartment I want to limit power, see how they work.

All in all though things are getting better, not perfect, still a LOT to do. This next week I start open talks about email, I had previously hoped to have it online, but the company started to make me nervous, their solution was overly complex, and I want something 1) Clean 2) Easy to Use 3) Fair Resale Rates - so the ball is in motion on that, and this next week calls will be made, and ideas will be formed.

The speeding ticket is getting interesting, apparently my court date is moved, as my ticket was barely entered into the system on the 4th, so I am going to call again on Friday and then again on Monday if no valid answer arises, I am going to simply go in and get a printed/signed proof of the date change as I have no desire to get a bench warrant out for me over a silly ticket - so I am going to do it right and get it going and done with.

Had dinner with the boys tonight, went to Cindy’s and had some grub, good chats, good time, I was also invited to another gather next Friday with a fellow PK and his friends, few I know at least 1 other guy he hangs out with, but had a good chat today as his company does some IT services locally, and would do wonders for us, so probably going to work with him to get them helping us re-structure the entire IT setup at work, so time will tell how that all goes, but if nothing else, more friends to hang out with.

Anywhoo - approaching midnight, and I want to get some sleep, of course I may drop in a movie, but I think even if I do, I am going to just pass out, but thanks to everyone for their continued check-ups on me and their prayers, it’s all getting there slowly but surely, and to anyone who wants to if you want to hit me up on IM during the day, feel free, I am not always at my desk, but my system is locked so no random person will start chatting with you - but I’ll get back to you sooner or later, just means I am wandering between buildings so with that said I am off, happy Friday’s Eve!

Backup, Bowling, Stargate, Shirts, Anywhoo…

Soooooooo… how you all doing? This is the “its late, so brief blog” version of things, so here we go….

Backup at work is up and running, in the end with fakeraid I went with dmraid + RAID0 - so no real failure option, but at the same time, going to archive per-user to bzip and such sans media (personal mp3 files) and it’ll all be good, but it’s a rockin system, doing well.

Bowling - we have made it a weekly thing it looks like, as we are going Thursday night, but none the less bowling, so I’ll get to see if I can improve my game any from last week’s cosmic bowling. Crazy Girls in the lane next to us… long story.

Stargate - Ark of Truth is out, loved it. Bought it @ Target watched half of it at work while working on the backup server, but finished it @ home, rip’d it to Xvid for watching on-demand on the TV as well as a copy for the iPod… yes I love Stargate, I have all 10 seasons of SG1, and all of Atlantis. Good stuff indeed.

Shirts - got a few new ones, one came today, mainly artsy, also got one of a pigeon that says “I’m from the streets” looks cool, but I do need to do some laundry this weekend and get things ready, plus I need to find some clothes for Church and singing in the choir, may need to venture out to the GAP as their shorts/pants tend to fit me good.

Anywhoo… there it is, I am sure there is something I am leaving out, still waiting on my ticket, got to meet Solomon Poon, etc. etc. BUT it is time to goto bed soon, so I must wrap up, set out clothes for the AM, and get to it - bi-weekly meeting tomorrow, and more folks to get setup on the backup server. Fun Fun. Night all! Thanks for reading!

Good Morning!

So far so good - I crashed out and woke up at 1pm, so fair sleep, got some minor issues out the way, and on a whim installed Installatron on Trogdor, hit a snag, but the guys at Installatron were awesome and quickly got me a work-around, and now all friends on Trogdor will enjoy the benefits of this great auto-instaler, frequently updated, some nice scripts to choose from - a major enjoyment indeed. If the budget levels out, and once I get all these assorted cPanel lic. cleared, as well as various tid-bit bills I have officially phased out cleared off the books, I plan to install it across all servers.

Tonight will be a night to relax, possibly going and hanging out with Dan and the nephews, I hope my scrabble skills have not gone down-hill, as I am indeed out of practice. But this will be one of the last nights I imagine for relaxing as I head into things moving forward this week with a spot job, a coding discussion, and a job interview - but none the less I am hoping things all work out and move forward, for now though, I am going to hit the shower - and get dressed for a relaxing evening, one way or another.

Thanks to everyone for their prayers over these migrations! Much appreciated - always glad to know I have folks watching out for me even on something that to some may seem trivial like a server move, but every little bit of prayer helps! So again thanks a million, and now I will go forth, and become clean! More later.