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What's New |  |
2001 2000 1999 |
05/25/02
I've implemented a new site / format for What's New.
Current entries can be found at Blogdom
05/24/02
It has been a long three weeks.
Jeanie was in Georgia for ten days. Jeanie's dad had to have a cardiac
catheterization. The doctors ended up placing three stents and doing an
angioplasty. Robby went with Jeanie, and for the first couple of days of
the trip, they were in Macon while Dad was in the hospital. Then Jeanie
and Robby went home with Mama and Dad and helped take care of Dad and do
chores around the farm. Jeanie did get to visit with Jay and Tricia, and
to see our new grandnephew. Jeanie and Robby also got to spend a couple
of days and a night with Jimmy and Kim at the lake before returning home.
One highlight of the last few weeks was the Friday before last when I got
invited by my friend Andrew to go to a Carolina Cobras arena football game.
We ended up meeting at David's house before the game, then doing some tailgating
with some of the old DataFlow crowd before the game. After the game, we
did some more tailgating. By the time we headed back to David's house,
it was well after mid-night.
While Jeanie was out of town, I ended up trying some new computer games.
By far my favorite was "Hitman." It combines elements of a good
first-person shooter, with elements that really require creativity in planning
and problem solving. I also enjoyed NHL 2002, as long as I kept it on it's
easiest setting ;-)
My system had become increasingly unstable over the past few months, so
I decided to reload the OS from scratch, and only install applications
that I considered critical. So far, it has been rock solid stable.
As you've probably seen in the news, IBM is in the process of a fairly
significant layoff. So far, I have been fortunate in that I have not been
laid off. I did end up having to lay off one member of my team, which was
very difficult for me; although not nearly as difficult as I'm sure it
was for him.
05/05/02
Work was stressful last week, but that's nothing new, so I'm not sure why I even put it on a page titled "What's New." Jeanie is starting to feel a little better. The antibiotic ear drops seem to be gaining the upper hand on her ear infection. It has been a nice weekend so far. Yesterday was very relaxing during the day, and we had a lovely evening visiting with Andrew and Laura, and David and Paulette. We started out with hors d'oeuvres at David's, followed by a delicious dinner at the Hayes Barton Cafe and Dessertery, and then delightful dessert, coffee, and conversation back at David's.
Jeanie and I stayed out well past our bedtime, but didn't even notice.
Today, Jeanie is off with my Mom and Wendy attending "Fiddler On The
Roof." I find it depressing, so I decided to just stay home, play
with my sites, and get a little work work and home work done.
I sent off an e-mail to all of my Storm King classmates that I had e-mail
addresses for inviting them to visit the site - especially the forum. I
got three visitors, but no postings in the forum. I still don't understand
why people are so reluctant to post in a forum...
I'm getting some traffic on Dealdom, but not a lot, and no referrals so
far. But then again, there are many much more sophisticated shopping sites
on the net, and there really isn't anything compelling or unique about
what's on my site.
04/28/02
The last two weeks have been very busy. Although they weren't as unpleasant
as they could have been. The members of the security team were all very
nice. I think they finally got a glimpse of where the real problems are,
and they seemed eager to communicate the root causes up the ladder. Maybe
the executives will finally realize that the problems stem from the higher
ranking officers, rather than with the low ranking officers and enlisted
men in the trenches.
Jeanie is too good at her job with the benefits center; they won't let
her go. She has now been classified as an "on-call supplemental"
which means that she's still an IBM supplemental employee, just that she
has no fixed work schedule. But, Jeanie really likes her manager and team
lead, as well the her co-workers, so she said she would be willing to get
called in as needed.
Jeanie will have the next three weeks off, which should be nice for her.
I'm hoping next week she will concentrate on just relaxing. She also has
some "stuff" planned, but I'm hoping she can rest some too. Week
after next, Jeanie is going to make a wirlwind tour of Georgia, visiting
her brother, parents, and niece and nephew. She wanted to take Cali and
leave the boys home to fend for themselves, but I vetoed that. Instead,
she'll leave Cali, and take Diego.
Other than work, I've been spending most of my "play" time working on my new site, Dealdom. I've pretty much got the basic site and features complete, so now it
should just be an issue of keeping the content current. To try to get some
traffic to it, I've listed the site with most of the major search engines
that don't charge for listing. It was a real shock to see how many search
engines now charge for you to submit your site. I guess if you have a major
business site, a few hundred dollars here and there is affordable, but
for my site, which is mostly a labor of love, and unlikely to ever generate
even a few pennies of revenue, the fees now being charged are well beyond
reason. Some engines still do allow free listings for personal sites, but
Dealdom doesn't fit the letter-of-the-law definition of a personal site.
Since the free search engines take weeks or months to add a site, I did
break down and sign up for one service that charges a fee: Google Ad-words.
It seems reasonably priced: $5 startup fee, and (at least for me) $5 per
100 visitors. The nice thing is that you only pay for actual visitors,
not every time the site is displayed on a search results page.
I have been able to join quite a few affiliate programs with Dealdom that were rejected for Witsdom. So, if you are planning to make an online purchase, and it's not too much trouble, I would appreciate if you would go to the Dealdom Links page and access the site via the appropriate link. This will not increase your cost in any way, but may eventually result in one of the affiliate programs sending me a pittance. If there are sites that you regularly shop on, that are not listed, please send me an e-mail and I'll try to get them added.
I've always wondered why I didn't get more visitors at Witsdom. I think
I've come up with a few possible answers...
Maybe I have ADD. I like to bounce around a lot, but I don't stick with
any one thing, and I don't tend to dig super deep. Even with the web stuff,
my interest is in getting it working, not in digging into its inner mysteries.
What a change from that youthful person who read technical manuals just
for fun.
04/14/02
Next week isn't going to be much fun... four members of the IT security
team will be on-site to perform a security inquisition. And, as if that
wasn't enough fun, my manager will be on-site as well. Oh well, it is better
than being unemployed... right?
Speaking of unemployment, Jeanie's last day will be 4/26 - a week from
this coming Friday.
Jeanie spent most of the weekend playing in the dirt. She and Robby had
a blast tilling/planting/moving stuff. Somehow, she also made time to cook
all sorts of delicious homemade meals for the weekend and a good part of
the week. It's nice to have her feeling well again.
I spent part of Friday and part of yesterday working on taxes. I don't
know why I dread it so much every year. Given that I'm pretty good about
filing away tax related stuff as I go throughout the year, and using TurboTax,
it really isn't that bad. I really do love e-filing. This year we wen't
totally electronic. We don't even have to mail our W-2's!
I also built a new site: www.dealdom.com. It will be focused on deals, and witsdom will go back to being just a
personal web site.
04/02/01
I have three favorite TV shows: West Wing, 24, and Farscape. Each represents a different genre of interest to me, but each has one common element: the stories are serialized. One of the frustrations I have always had with many drama/action/scifi shows on TV is that the story line always has to be neatly wrapped up at the end of the hour. These three shows are more like books - with each episode being a chapter in the story.
Anyway, what got me started on the above is that I like little action figures from shows/movies that I really enjoy. To this day, I regret not having purchased a Marcus figure from Babylon 5. Turns out that one of the quirks of many of my fellow employees at SWG is that they too like action figures. Many people display their favorite action figure in the transom window of their office. So, I got this wild hair to try to find a Farscape action figure. Of course, E-bay had lots, but you never know for sure what you're going to end up with, and you never know if you're getting a good deal or ripped off... So I did some more searching, and found the coolest site: Entertainment Earth. If you're into collectables, it's an interesting online store to browse. There's a link on the links page (in the affiliates section) if you're interested. My farscape action figure sets (series one and two) (yes, I did go a little overboard) should be here in a day or two. I'll let you know...
I've been buying a lot of little things for myself lately - probably a
compulsive behavior related to stress. Or, maybe I've finally learned to
allow myself to indulge myself a little - enjoy the fruits of my labors,
can't take it with me, that sort of thing...
Anyway, another recent indulgence is a cool little folding knife from AG
Russell. What's unique about it is that rather than having a standard blade,
the "blade" portion is a holder for a utility knife blade. So,
it's kind of a folding utility knife. I know it's hard to imagine from
my description, so here's a link if you want to see a picture. It does make me feel a little funny though
- another name for a utility knife is a "box cutter." Stirs up
some bad feelings from September 11. But, come next August, when we're
at the Franklin family reunion, and it's time to cut the roll of paper
picnic table covering, I won't be embarrassed that my pocket knife isn't
sharp enough to cut it.
03/29/02
We finished installing the sheet rock in the attic. I only get to say "we"
because I did help a little - and I do mean little. It might not be the
prettiest sheet rock installation ever, but it gets the job done. We're
not planning to tape, so we can cross this project off the list. I probably
will end up putting some insulation down over the ceiling, but that's another
project for another day. Depending on how hot/cold the room will be compared
to pre-sheet rock, I may have to see about putting an A/C vent in the room
too, but, again... another project, another day.
Last week was really lousy work-wise. There are rumors of another audit,
which has my manager freaking out again. And when he freaks out, it's all
threats and public humiliation. No one in upper management seems interested
the long list of things we've done right, and in all of the progress that's
been made - just the one or two things that have slipped. I'm frustrated
with the team too. I know that last year was tough relatively speaking
- between the audit, and spending restrictions. But heck, we still have
jobs, we received bonuses, and this year training has opened up again and
we are getting to purchase high priority items. But, most of the team members
are so negative. And everyone complains about how there's too much work
to do, and how busy they are, yet almost everyone is averaging around forty
hours a week. I just don't know what else to do to help them see the glass
as half full. It is really getting me down, and eroding my confidence.
The good news is that Jeanie seems to have recovered from her bout with
mono. The bad news is that she has started getting migraines again.
We're having a devil of a time getting Cali house-broken. Sometimes she's
good, but she still have quite a few "number one" accidents.
She had a urinary track infection, and we thought that the accidents might
be related to that, but she's been on an antibiotic for two weeks now,
so I would think that the UTI has been cleared up... but, the accidents
continue. I guess we'll know for sure tomorrow - I have to take another
urine sample to the vet. Let me tell you, collecting a urine sample from
a little dog is no easy task. In fact, my guess is that an observer would
find the entire affair to be quite humorous. The sample container is a
full sized people sample container. It is about half as tall as Cali, so
there's no hope of getting the sample directly into the container. So,
I get to follow Cali with a 1/4 cup measuring cup, and try to slide it
under the right spot, at the right time. Problem is, if I don't slide the
cup under far enough, I get no sample. If I slide it too far, I get no
sample, but I get wet fingers. And, even if I get the placement just right,
all of the commotion is enough to inhibit Cali and she stops "going."
Mom was in an automobile accident last week. No serious injuries, but her
back is very sore. Her mental facilities are really starting to show a
decline. At first, she was just having memory problems. Now, she finds
it difficut or impossible to follow many conversations. Often, I have to
just give up trying to explain something to her because she doesn't doesn't
get it. I've never been Mr. Small Talk, and now with her increasing cognitive
challenges, it makes dinner conversation with her a real challenge for
me.
I know that in the big picture, we are truly blessed. I need to learn to
not let the little things get me down so much.
Happy Easter to our Christian friends, happy Passover to our Jewish friends,
and happy day to our friends of other faiths (or no faith).
03/27/02
I decided to implement my own page counter rather than using the bfast
service's counter. This should result in faster page loads, more accurate
counts, and the ability to count each page individually.
03/24/02
I'm so happy. Two new members joined the forums and made posts. Yea!
Gee, I am easily amused, aren't I?
Posted a new deal today on the deals page. I'm going to try to keep the
deals page devoted to things I can personaly recommend based on actual
experience. I'll use the forums for stuff that I've heard about, but that
I don't have first hand experience with.
Speaking of deals, there are some killer deals on CD-R's available this
weekend. Many of the major office supply stores are offering 100 disk spindles
for ~$10 after rebate. Since they all turned me down on my affiliate applications,
I won't provide links (spiteful, aren't I?) But, just check your local
Sunday paper and you'll see the ads. If you really need a link, send me
an email.
03/23/02
I think I finally have the DNS/DDNS issues resolved, so that when you enter http://www.witsdom.com as an address in your browser you don't get an error. The root cause of the problem appeared to be a configuration problem with the domain registrar where there was a conflict in the name servers configuration. This created a conflict with the DDNS provider, resulting in the correct DNS entry not being propagated to everyone's local name servers. Even after the configuration was corrected, it took a while for the correct entry to propagate due to varying TTL settings on the local name servers. Hopefully, everything is now correctly configured so that the next time RoadRunner changes my IP address, the DNS information will quickly and correctly update throughout the Internet.
Robby is continuing to make progress getting the sheet rock up in the attic.
He also installed a nice large shelf (2x8) which allowed us to reclaim
quite a bit of floor space. We (I ?) decided to go ahead and do the ceiling
also, so it might take another day or two until it's all done. I'll have
to help Robby with the ceiling (not expertise, just slave labor) so I guess
I will be able to say that "we" did it.
I bought a small (2 gallon) compressor at CostCo last weekend. I really
liked the size and portability, but unfortunately, it just didn't quite
have enough capacity to satisfy me. Its maximum pressure was 90 pounds,
and two gallons just wasn't enough reserve to fill a tire. Home Depot had
a four gallon compressor for just $26 more, so I went ahead and bought
it. It has a maximum working pressure of 125 pounds, which makes a big
difference along with the two extra gallons of capacity. While it is about
twice as large and twice as heavy - and a whole lot louder, it is more
of what I was looking for. The new compressor does not have enough airflow
to run pneumatic tools, but all I really wanted it for was light duty -
filling tires, balls, etc., and maybe driving an air brush. And I wasn't
willing to spend the fairly large extra amount of money to get one with
a higher continuous airflow.
I was very pleased with CostCo's return process - fast and absolutely no hassle.
03/20/02
What's new? Well, I set up the forums, but only three people have posted
so far. I know what's new with me, but I don't have a clue what's new with
you. I'm kinda bummed that there have been so few posts. We've had quite
a few new visitors, but no posts. So, why don't you click over to the forums,
register, and give us all an update? Jeanie says my expectations are too
high... that I'm a freak and no one in their right mind spends as much
time on the computer as I do, and that most people just aren't comfortable
using the Internet the way I do. Maybe she's right... she usually is.
Work is really boring. There's lots to do, but it's the same thing, day
after day. E-mail, seas of endless e-mail... And stupid report after stupid
report. And trying to keep my folks happy and motivated in trying times.
Funny how I can sit at the computer all day long and work on the web site
and have the day go by in a flash. But, sitting doing e-mail and teleconferences
all day, and the seconds are longer than in free-fall. Sorry, you have
to be a sky-diver to understand that last reference.
If you haven't played stick-man kung-fu yet, you don't know what you're
missing. Click over to Fun Stuff, and give it a whirl.
Cali has a UTI, which explains the little accidents she's still having,
but otherwise, she appears to be feeling fine. She's getting big - last
checkup she weighed five pounds, eight ounces. Hopefully the antibiotic
will clear up the UTI quickly. All of the other living creatures in the
house are doing well. Even Jeanie is starting to feel like she's getting
back to normal (well, as normal as she gets... ;-)
03/15/02
Learned how to force user login (user name and password) for selected pages.
For right now, I just have some administration pages protected that really
should have been protected a while ago. Maybe at some point I'll consider
protecting other parts of the site, but not right now.
Other than more site work, today was spent mostly doing chores - vacuuming,
de-pooping and mowing the side yard, dishes, etc.
I heard a piece on an Irish band called Solas on NPR yesterday, and I really
liked their music, so I've been listing to them throughout the day.
Jeanie was out of work the last two days. She woke up with a migraine on
Thursday, and it got so bad that Friday morning she went to the doctor.
The doctor ended up having to give her a shot, so I had to leave work and
pick her up in Chapel Hill and drive her home. We left the car overnight
and picked it up today. She had driven the grey car, so we didn't mind
leaving it so much. Fortunately, she's feeling better today, although still
not 100%.
Sent out a couple of mass e-mails to DataFlow and Storm King alumns. Got
quite a few new visitors to the site, but only one posting in the forums.
03/13/02
Okay, decision made regarding the forums... none of the above! Installed
a new forum that I like the best. Happy postings.
03/12/02
I decided to take another day off. And what did I do? Spent the bulk of
the day doing more work on the site. I added two different forum applications
with very different styles and interfaces. Let me know what you think.
03/11/02
I decided to take the day off. And what did I do? Spent the bulk of the
day revamping the site. I removed the frames, and modified all of the pages
to use a server side include for the header. Should make naviagation better.
Let me know what you think.
03/10/02
Watched "The Fast and the Furious" last night. The cars and the
stunts were amazing. This movie won't go down in history for character
development or plot, but oh, the cars and the action. The movie really
brought out the benefits of the surround sound and our new TV.
Oh, I forgot to mention our new TV, didn't I? We have been wanting a larger
TV for the living room since before we moved here. In fact, we designed
the nook in the wall expressly to accomodate a larger set. Well, after
four years, I finally broke down and bought one - a 32" Toshiba flat
screen. The set fits just as we had designed, and looks wonderful. As an
added bonus, we ended up with two additional TV upgrades... so to speak.
We moved the 27" that was in the living room up to the bedroom, and
moved the 19" that was in the bedroom down to the study, replacing
the 21 year old (really, I had it in college) 13" set that had no
remote, and could only receive channels 2-13!
I added a new deals page. As I come across good opportunities, I'll post
them on this page so they are easier to find. I'm not trying to compete
with spoofee, gotapex, or techbargains, but I know that most of you are
not as obsessed with checking all of the sites and forums as I am. Hmmm,
I wonder if I could call "feverishly searching the Internet for bargains"
a hobby?
One of these days, I really should get a life... Sometimes it's quite challenging
to have anything to write here, because my life is so routine. Wake up
~6:30am, check personal e-mail and hunt for deals, log on to work, read
e-mail, shower, eat, work, eat, work, go home, eat, (watch TV/work/play
on the computer), go to sleep ~10pm. Repeat.
03/08/02
Life is good, we are truly blessed.
Jeanie is doing well. She still isn't 100%, but she's making strides.
Robby spent the last few days with us. He had outpatient surgery on Tuesday.
Jeanie took the day off to drive him back and forth, and to care for him
post-op. I scheduled to work from home Wednesday and Thursday to help and
look after him. The surgery was more involved than the doctor anticipated,
and took quite a bit longer than expected. Of course this resulted in more
trauma to the tissues than anticipated, resulting in more pain and swelling
for Robby. We set the alarm clock to ensure that we gave him his "meds"
every six hours - Jeanie took the late night shifts :-) Robby is such a
trooper - he didn't complain once, and was a wonderful house guest. It
was nice to have a couple of days with him where we weren't busy working
on a project. The only thing that would have made it better would have
been for him to have not been in pain.
site: added privacy policy
02/23/02
Deals, deals, deals. I love good deals, especially when they are free or
better.
This week I received three prepaid cell phones. Each one cost me $40 (free
shipping), but, each one came with a $25 prepaid wireless card, plus a
coupon for another $25 prepaid wireless card, plus a $50 mail in rebate
(MIR). So, AT&T/Nokia are paying me $10 in cash, to use $50 of their
free prepaid cellular service. Not too shabby.
I also received a Visioneer OneTouch 8100 scanner - usb/parallel, plus
PaperPort Deluxe 7, and OmniPage 8 OCR. Price was $99.99 from Staples.
They had a free shipping for orders over $100, so I added a $0.17 box of
paper clips, then used a twenty dollar online coupon to reduce the price
to $80. Not a bad deal, huh? Oh, I forgot to mention, Visioneer had an
$80 MIR, so, cost after rebate? ~$6.00 (sales tax, 16 cents for the paperclips,
and postage for the MIR)
How do I find these deals you might wonder... Part of my morning routine
is to check my e-mail, and to check Got|Apex and Spoofee (check the links
link on the navigator to the left). Both are updated daily with deals.
Sometimes they're interesting, sometimes not, but definitely worth the
few minutes it takes to check them each morning.
Speaking of deals, you shouldn't ever have to pay more than about ten cents
per blank CD/R. The trick is to be patient, check the sites above and your
Sunday newspaper, and wait until some store has a deal. It seems like either
CompUSA, OfficeMax, Staples, or Office Depot will at least once a month
have a deal on a 50 or 100 spindle of blank CR/R's that end up costing
no more than five or ten dollars after MIR.
Speaking of rebates, I finally received my rebate from HP for my Jornada.
All it took was an e-mail to the president of HP :-) That was the only
rebate I have ever had any trouble with. But, good documentation and persistence
paid off in the end.
Jeanie started back at the Employee Service Center this week. She said
it was just like riding a bicycle - she was able to get right back into
the routine. Even though the work isn't the most exciting thing for her,
she says the fellow employees and managers are really nice, which makes
things tolerable. Jeanie said that many of her co-workers and even her
first and second line managers came by her desk to welcome her back, and
to tell her how glad they were to see her. That's a nice change from what
she had experienced in staffing for the most part.
Cali and Diego are doing fine, the kids are fine, life is good.
02/17/02
Well, I've already spent all of my Stamps.com $25 in free postage, and
$10 more to boot. We had two packages to send to Jamie, so it worked out
really well. I went ahead and bought the Stamps.com Internet Postage Small
Business Starter Kit. The Stamps.com postage requires special "fluorescent"
labels for postage that goes on envelopes. If you sign up via my link and
you want a sheet or two, just shoot me an e-mail and I'll send you some.
You do not need fluorescent labels for 8x10 envelopes or packages.
I ordered a sewing table from Speigel last weekend, and it arrived last week. I never realized
how expensive sewing tables were! This was the only affordable one I could
find. Fortunately, I was able to find a $50 coupon on-line which more than
covered the shipping costs. For the money, it's not bad... The design is
actually very good, but the materials could have been better, as could
the instructions. The table is made entirely of painted pressboard; the
real fine kind that is somewhat delicate if you're not careful. Fastening
the parts was done with wooden dowels and glue - which to their credit
was included in the kit. The main problem was an error in the instructions
which had you glue dowels into the bottom of one of the table surfaces
which would have been fine except for two things... the dowel holes were
drilled so deep into the bottom of the table surface, that when I "ensured
the dowels were all the way in the holes" I ended up punching through
the top, and, to make matters worse, the dowels for the legs which fit
into the bottom of the table top had been glued in place during the second
step! Trying to remove glued in soft wood dowels from pressboard was not
pretty. I ended up drilling out the dowels, and drilling through the top
in the process. Well, after completing the assembly, I applied some wood
filler, sanded the top, and after a visit to Home Depot and an extra $20
for a piece of laminate and some laminate glue, we have ourselves a nice
folding sewing table with a better-than-new top.
My friend Wes lent me his X10 MouseRemote to play with for a few days.
It is very cool. I downloaded the instruction guide and software from X10.
I plugged the receiver into a free serial port on my PC, and the system
automatically installed a second mouse. This cool device, combined with
the TV out on my new video card and an X10 multi-media sender-receiver
connected to the TV, now allows me to sit on my La-Z-Boy and control my
MP3 player on my PC, seeing/changing the selections on the TV and listening
through the stereo system in the living room - way cool. The only thing
that didn't work was the MouseRemote software from X10, which provides
added functionality. Apparently, it is only designed for Windows 95/98.
Fortunately I was able to find a piece of freeware called maX10 that does everything the X10 software does, and more. As an added bonus,
the MouseRemote also functions as a remote for the TV and VCR, as well
as functioning as an X-10 controller!
Week before last, we received our automobile insurance renewal - OUCH! Come on! Yes, we do have two cars in addition to Jeanie's truck, but sheesh, the newest of the two is a 1992! And yes, one is a sports car, but, doesn't the insurance company know that I'm an old fart? Well, I decided to do a little shopping around. Checked out Geico and Progressive. I tried to compare "apples to apples." Geico was more expensive than my currently policy, but Progressive was quite a bit less expensive. I've had the same insurance agent, Jerry Teague, for twenty years. He has always been great. He's even written a binder for a boat policy on a Saturday when we forgot to get a policy before we bought our boat many years ago. I wasn't about to just up and ditch him without at least asking him why there was such a difference in the prices. Well, long story short, even though he didn't have to, Jerry called the underwriter and browbeat him until he agreed to give us a 15% discount! Jerry really is the best. If you live in the Triangle area, and your insurance agent isn't absolutely fantastic, or a relative, give Jerry a call at DHN&T at 919-286-7473.
Jeanie starts back to work tomorrow, at IBM, as a supplemental employee,
for a three month assignment. She's still not feeling 100%, and we both
have very mixed feelings about her returning to work, but, it is income,
and we both felt that it would not have been wise to pass on the opportunity.
02/12/02
This week has been quite exciting.
Jeanie is starting to feel better - yea!
Jeanie had to run an errand near 9th street in Durham this morning, and
dropped by the Biscuit King to pick me up a country ham, egg, and cheese
biscuit. It has been at least five years since I had one of their "gut-bombs."
You know how so many times, you fondly remember some delicious food that
you had years ago, remembering just how absolutely delicious it was, only
to get to eat it once again, and be really disappointed? Well, that didn't happen today! Oh, it was just as delicious as I had remembered... Yumm!
I signed up for Stamps.com yesterday, and received my free scale today.
Very impressive. I also signed up as a Stamps.com affiliate, so, if you
haven't signed up for the 29 day free trial on the main page... why not
do so after reading this update? Why? Cause you risk nothing, and by signing
up for the trial, you indirectly contribute to my computer fund through
the stipend that Stamps.com sends me :-)
Last night Jeanie and I went to her friend JoAnn's to help her set up her
new IBM Netvista. JoAnn served us a delicious dinner of Chinese food, and
then Jeanie and JoAnn chatted while I set up her new system.
Monday was Jeanie's exit interview. Two minutes before she was scheduled
to start the exit interview, I received a call from an IBM manager at the
HR Services Center where Jeanie had worked for the last few months. Turns
out they had a three-month temporary supplimental position, and wanted
to see if Jeanie was interested... I gave her a call on her cell phone,
and long story short, Jeanie will be back among the gainfully employed
(at least for three months) starting next Monday.
On Monday I received my replacement memory from Crucial, so I popped open
the case and installed it, and the new IBM 60GB hard drive I had purchased
a few days earlier. When I look back to the first computer that I ever
worked on (for money - as in as a job) and realize that it had 16 kilobytes of RAM and three 8" 600kilobyte single sided floppy drives and cost $20,000.00, it is hard to imagine
that I am right now sitting at a machine with 786 megabytes of RAM and 130 gigabytes of hard drives that cost less than $1000.
Robby came over this weekend to help (do?) more "honey-do's."
He installed another shelf in the garage, and helped me carry ten sheets
of sheet rock up to the attic. He also helped get alot of the "stuff"
(this is a family site) off of the garage floor and onto the shelves. The
garage looks sooo much better.
Cali, Diego, and Peanut are all great.
If you haven't looked lately, I've added a boat-load of links on the links
page and some new pictures of Cali on the pictures page.
02/02/02
Not too exciting a week...
Jeanie is slowly getting better. She still hasn't had any luck finding
another job, not that we really expected that she would.
Robby came over today and put some shelves up in the garage. They will
allow us to get some of the junk up off of the floor. The shelves are up
high, utilizing what has otherwise been wasted space. They're too high
to be used every day, but they're great for mid-term storage.
I have been really tired lately, but I'm not running a fever or presenting
any of the other symptoms of mono, so I'm not sure why I'm so tired. On
Friday, I kept falling asleep at work. Finally had to leave about 2:00pm
cause I just couldn't focus. I came home and went straight to bed and slept
until about 7:00pm, ate dinner, watched a little TV, then slept through
the night.
If you aren't watching "24" on Fox on Tuesdays, you are missing
a fantastic show. If you aren't watching "The West Wing" on Wednesdays
on NBC, you are missing the other great show on TV this season.
Speaking of being tired...
01/26/02
Today I got around to setting up the Apex AD-1500 DVD/MP3 player I bought from Amazon.com for less than $85 delivered. It really does pay to check out the deals on Got|Apex and SpooFee on a daily basis. I put it upstairs as our second DVD player. It is amazing how many tweaks are available for various electronic devices if you just know where to look.
I had wanted to install a relatively new game on my new system to get an idea of its performance. A friend turned me on to Max Payne, which has a playable demo available for download - as long as you don't mind a 130 MB download. Thank goodness for cable
modem! Anyway, even though in some ways it is just another gory first person
shooter, the game's graphics are amazing, and it has a very interesting
presentation - sort of "game noir." And, the new system had no
trouble running it smoothly - very gratifying.
We had a bit of a scare this afternoon. We took Cali and Peanut out to
the side yard to take some pictures. We had taken Peanut out and let him
run around the side yard before with no problems, but today, he made a
bee-line for the fence, and was half-way under it before Jeanie was able
to grab a handfull of hair to stop him. Peanut was screaming, Jeanie was
screaming... it was quite an experience. I had to run around out of our
side yard, through our front gate, through the neighbor's gate, and into
their yard to grab Peanut from the other side. Other than some lost hair
on Peanut's rear, we all seem to have survived the ordeal. Needless to
say, we didn't get any pictures.
Yesterday I attended a Quintiles IT "reunion" at The Trackside, just down the road from where I work now. It was a lot of fun. A bunch of former and current IT folks that I worked with while at "The Q" showed up, and it was really nice to get to spend some time with them.
On Wednesday we had a DataFlow "reunion" at George's Garage on
Ninth Street in Durham. I was disappointed in the turnout, but maybe it
was just that I left too early.
Jeanie is doing about the same. She is still very fatigued, which makes
it very challenging to try to find a new job in the two weeks she has left.
Cali is doing great. She has learned how to go up and down the stairs,
and she is now holding her ears erect. She continues to hold her own when
playing with Diego, who continues to be a wonderful big brother.
Things continue to be unsettling at work for me. Every day seems to bring
another reorganization, change of direction, or "resource action."
Right now my job appears to be secure, but who knows what tomorrow will
bring?
01/19/02
Wow, it has been a heck of a two weeks...
On January 8, Jeanie was informed that she would be losing her job. She
was one of a group of one hundred and fifty HR professionals nationwide
who were "released." Jeanie was given a month to find a new position
within IBM. Positions are pretty scarce right now, so we're not too optimistic.
She was offered a nice "package," and since we knew a few months
ago that this might happen, we've been preparing, so we think we'll be
okay for a while. And, who knows, maybe Jeanie will be able to find another
position within "Big Blue." Or, maybe, a few years down the road,
we will realize that this is the best thing that ever happened to her (after
marrying me of course).
Two days before the shoe dropped, I broke down and ordered parts for a
new computer. I had been accumulating parts for a while whenever there
was a good deal, so I already had a monitor, case, power supply, floppy
drive, hard drive, keyboard, and mouse. I decided to create a mid-high
end system. It was my first time building a system from "scratch,"
so it was challenging trying to decide what the "right" components
to purchase were. I ended up asking a number of friends, and reading as
many on-line reviews as I could find. For the motherboard, I chose the
Soyo SY-K7V Dragon Plus! AMD Socket-A VIA KT266A ATX motherboard, with
an AMD XP 1700+ processor and 512MB of DDR PC2100 RAM. The motherboard
has good on-board sound with full analog and digital inputs and outputs,
4 IDE channels - two of which can be configured for RAID, 4 USB ports (2
front mounted), on-board 10/100 NIC, and the standard assortment of legacy
ports. For the video, I chose the CardExpert GeForce 2 MX 400 32MB with
TV out.For optical drives, I chose a Liteon 24x/10x/40x 24102B CD/RW and
a Liteon 16x/48x LTD163 DVD.
Assembly went fairly smoothly, although installing the CPU cooler did make
me a little nervous. I had a little trouble configuring the IDE because
of a typo in the motherboard manual (which otherwise was very good). Since
I only have two hard drives and two optical drives, I was able to place
each drive on it's own IDE channel. I also had a little trouble with the
Crucial memory chips, one of which only reported 128MB rather than the
256MB it should have, and one of which was flaky for a couple of days before
dieing altogether. Since I bought the memory 3rd party, it will be interesting
to see how well Crucial honors their warranty. I ended up having to buy
another DIMM locally, since I'll have to send off both of the Crucial chips
for replacement.
I decided to load the OS (Win2K) and all of the apps from scratch, which
was time consuming but not difficult. Since I still have my old system
(for the moment) I was able to transfer all of the data over the network,
which made that part pretty simple.
In addition to building my new system, I was also building a new system
for Jimmy and Kim. Fortunately, I had a full base system to start with
for them, so I only had to add a few components and load software.
Jimmy and Kim were supposed to come up for the weekend to celebrate my birthday, but, on Friday we found out that Jeanie has mononucleosis. We called them to let them know that we still were okay with them coming,
but that even though mono isn't really very contagious, we felt like they
should decide if they wanted to stay or not. They decided to drive up for
the day for a quick visit, and so that they could pick up their new PC.
It was really nice getting to see them, if only for a few hours.
Fortunately, Jeanie does not have a bad case of mono (relatively speaking). She is very fatigued, has a sore throat throat, swollen glands, is running a mild fever, and has lost her appetite. But, she is not miserable, and doesn't have any of the more severe consequences that sometimes occur.
Last Sunday we were looking in the classifieds, toying with the idea of getting another Chihuahua. There was an ad for pups in Middlesex (which is near Selma) for $200. We called, and they had a fawn colored female, so we decided to take a drive and see. Well, all it took was one look for me, and I was in love. That's how Cali became our newest family member. Her full name is Chica California Chasca
- California Girl, Goddess of the Dawn (Chasca being the Inca Goddess of
the Dawn). Cali was born on November 30, 2001, and at present, weighs two
pounds three ounces. We were a little concerned about how Diego would react
to Cali, but to our immense joy (and relief) he immediately demonstrated
that he will be an excellent big brother.
01/05/02
Well, the big news here is the ten inches of snow that fell Wednesday night
and Thursday. IBM was closed Thursday and Friday, so Jeanie and I got to
stay home. I had to work both days, but Jeanie got to spend lots of bonus
quality time with Jamie.
I think the only member of our household who hasn't enjoyed the snow is
Diego. But then, can you blame the poor little fella? It's not like he
has lots of fur or fat to keep him warm. The snow was so high, that when
Diego walked in the little path that Jeanie had stomped down for him, the
top of the snow was even with the top of his back!
I have been doing performance reviews for the last two days. I think the
only work related task that I dislike more than performance reviews is
having to let someone go. Oh well, I guess that's why they call it work.
Jeanie, Jamie, and I watched a really cool movie last night: Momento. It was very different than the sentimental love stories or comedies that we usually favor, but it kept us all totally engaged for almost two hours, and continued to be thought provoking well after the movie ended. The web site is incredibly cool, but if you are going to rent the movie, wait until after you've seen the movie before visiting the web site or reading any reviews other than the one at at this link, (select Memento 10/10 from the list) which doesn't have any spoilers.