So its been a week..

Its been a pretty crazy week. Last week was a nightmare at work. Some pretty major hardware issues caused a ton of stress, work and late nights. Thursday into Friday for example consisted of about 22 hours of work, 5 hours of driving, a crapload of stress, and a total of about 90 minutes of sleep in very short bursts.. most of the time at my desk at work.

Friday morning after it looked like everything was finally running well and stable again at work, I took off to go home, sneak about an hour of sleep before I showered and went to the airport to pick up a friend who came to town for the weekend. We had a nice relaxing time and as she had traveled all night on a red eye, she was fortunately tired and wanting to sleep too so we spent half of Friday she was here sound asleep in bed. It was needed.. and relaxing. It was a very nice weekend overall despite her claims that she was going to get frostbite in the 20 seconds it takes to walk to the bar and grill behind my house.

Wrath of the Lich King was also released on Thursday, which is something I have been looking foward too. For those of you that don't know what it is, you won't care even when I explain it to you, so I won't wasted your time. I am looking forward to hopefully getting some playing time in this week finally so I can play catchup a bit.

Winter is finally really here. It was 16 according to the guage in my car on the way to work this morning. It's dark when I leave for work and its dark when I get home from work. My agenda for this weekend includes cleaning my garage to be able to park in there again as well as make sure the snowblower is working and accessible.

I have been enjoying going to watch B play basketball. Its his first year and the squad he is on is quite bad. It reminds me how much I enjoy basketball though. We are trying to see if the school gyms are open for practice / free play on the weekends and after games so we can work on stuff. The point guard on his team makes me crazy. He is a horrible player and looks like a long limbed monkey with a balance disorder when he's out there. I lost count somewhere around 20 turnovers this kid had.. in 12 minutes of play. This is the POINT GUARD. The guy who is supposed to be good at handling the ball, passing, and running plays. You could have taken a blindfolded walrus .. put him at point guard... and he would have done just as well swatting the air randomly with his flippers hoping to make contact. He at least would have been more entertaining to watch.

Read more...

Its still fun.

There are certain things that you do when you are younger that seem silly, but bring you great joy. Sometimes as you grow older, those things will pop back into your head and there are even occasions where maybe you cut loose and get a chance to relive one of those things.

For example, I remember when my kids were young, im talking stroller age, I would push them fast towards an obstacle making it look like they were going to smash into it and then swerve at the last second. I remember doing similar things on my bike when I was a kid.. speeding towards a tree lined curve and at the last possible second trying to turn and make the corner. The excitement of almost crashing .. the fear of maybe miscalculating and going head on into the obstacle .. made it fun and exhillerating.

My kids used to giggle and laugh when I did that to them in their strollers, but they outgrew the stroller eventually and I thought maybe I had outgrown that little stunt. Yet when I was in AZ visiting my family, I was pushing my adorable nephew in his stroller when we went to the mall, and instinct kicked in and I was right back at it. Zooming towards a palm tree, or planter, only to swerve at the last possible second to a squeel of giggles from Cade.

Now I am headed to lunch the other day and as I was walking through the main lobby, I see an older couple. The woman is in a wheel chair and the old guy is pushing her towards the buffet, which is lined with those retractable barrier things. Without missing a beat the old guy accelerates right towards one of those barriers. The wife is all wide-eyed and nervous. I thought maybe the guy was having a heart attack and lost control of the wheelchair, but no, he was fine. At the last possible second he spins the wheelchair a bit and they miss the barrier. The woman takes a big breath to relax, but has a grin on her face the same as the old man does. He is quite proud of himself actually.

I chuckled to myself as I went on my way, very happy to find out that some things in live are still fun as you get older.

Read more...

Monday Fun

So I get into work today, hoping for a nice quiet Monday morning. Go from 3 day weekend to a quiet day to another day off tomorrow for Vet's day would have been perfect. No such luck.

I arrive today a bit before 6am to find my office open already, some lights and computers on and music playing. Odd for 6am on a Monday as I'm usually the first one here. Turns out one of the main revenue generating systems at work was having 'issues'. I get up to speed on what the problems were over the weekend and my coworker that was on call said he has been here since 2am working on it with our vendor.

My immediate supervisor shows up around 6am, which is surprising as he was supposed to be in training this week. He comes over to my desk and says he needs a writeup on how we can move forward very quickly on viruatlizing the servers associated with this revenue generating system. It has been our plan all along, but there have been many difficulties along the way that have pushed it back time and again.

Here's the basics. We want to virtualize the servers so we can fail them over to a remote site quickly and easily should a HARDWARE issue occur. We made it perfectly clear when we requested the money for this project that it only provided us safety from HARDWARE problems. Once more.. HARDWARE only. Meaning if we lost the servers or the server room, we could bring those servers back up at a different location.

Enter in our department head Dedicated Understanding Magnificent Badass Astute Supervisor Stud... or DUMBASS for short. Now let say DUMBASS doesn't have a clear understanding of what this project actually allows us to do. Lets say he only hears "quick failover" out of the whole thing. Instead of getting clarification before making promises.. he decides to just go all out and promise the powers that be that we will never have more than 15 minutes downtime on this system. Ever. Boy.. that is a DUMBASS move to the core if I have ever seen one.

This weekends issues I found out are all software related. So even if we had been setup for failover, the data is replicated realtime. Meaning the same software issues would have existed on the hardware at the remote site if we had failed them over. The issues had to be resolved within the software. It had NOTHING to do with hardware. That didn't stop DUMBASS from cancelling training, pushing the panic button and calling a meeting to discuss how we can fast track a very detailed, risky server and SQL database conversion. Thats always the best choice. If something goes wrong, panic and make snap decisions without thought to the consequences!

There are 3 kinds of bosses. Two of them you can work easily with. The third is a nightmare.

1. Your boss knows as much or more than you. If you boss has a full understanding of what you are working on, he can provide guidance and direction and is easy to discuss things with. Its easier to get support for projects etc.

2. Your boss knows almost nothing about your area of expertise and admits it. This kind of boss will listen and try to follow your explanation. He is smart enough to know he doesn't know much about the topic and knows he hired you for your knowledge in the area and takes your recommendation. He knows his limitations and is willing to let the people who know what they are doing take care of it.

3. Your boss knows almost nothing about your area, but likes to fake it.

This kind of boss does things like:
-Pulls random keywords out of an article on the topic he found on the internet an hour before the meeting.
-Makes your department look like a bunch of circus clowns when he asks questions that don't even belong in the current discussion or asks them in a way that makes no sense
-Likes to ramble on about random topics not related the issue at hand because maybe he knows something about that random topic.
-Likes to offer support and guidance which you must listen to until he lets you leave the meeting so you can ignore said guidance and continue to do it the right way.
-Makes grand assumptions based off of nothing more than a random though that flitted into their head while having a beer the night before.
-Listens to what people have to say and then takes credit for it 2 seconds later with a "Thats what I was thinking last night, but I wanted to see if you would come up with it too"


Yes.. DUMBASS is a fine example of #3. Oh how he keeps life interesting around here. Only problem is.. I work in IT. The ideal situation for your IT staff is to walk into their office and find them all asleep or surfing the web. Oh I know.. as a general rule that is very unproductive. Think about it though. Think of it like you are walking into a nuclear weapon facility. Do you want to see those people running around in a panic? Hell no. You want them half asleep in their chair. That means things are running smooth and there is nothing to worry about. Its the same in IT. We don't want exciting in IT. We want smooth, steady, stable, status quo. Excitement is for after work. We don't need a DUMBASS creating issues for us.

Read more...

More Madness

If you haven't seen some of the celebrity costumes from halloween, check them out. Its pretty cool what endless money can come up with for costumes. Some were exceedingly lame, but some were pretty kick ass. Heidi Klum dressed up as the Hindu goddess Kali. Check it out:



Now THAT is a costume that should be winning the costume contest. But her prize did not come without repercussions. Apparently because she is a super model, she offended the entire Hindu nation by dressing as their goddess. A "Indo-American" leader (more on the idiocy of 'Anything-American' in a min) had this to say in a public press release:

"Goddess Kali is highly revered in Hinduism and she is meant to be worshipped in temples and not to be used in clubs for publicity stunts or thrown around loosely for dramatic effects," Indo-American statesman Rajan Zed said.
He added: "Hindus welcome Hollywood and other entertainment industries to immerse themselves in Hinduism, but they should take it seriously and respectfully, and not just use the religion for decoration or to advance their selfish agenda.
"Casual flirting sometimes results in pillaging serious spiritual doctrines and revered symbols and hurting the devotees."

Seriously? Get the fuck over yourselves. You want to tell me that there weren't a whole bunch of people that dressed a Jesus or Buddah or some other religious figure for halloween. How about priests? How many priest costumes or monk costumes or the Pope? Does no one see the irony in what this guys is doing? How does her dressing as Kali "pillage serious spiritual doctrines and hurt the devotees"? Is there suddenly Hindus feeling the need to switch religions because it has been cheapened to a point their faith is not there anymore all because Heidi dressed as Kali?

He lives in a country that guarantees him religious freedom. It guarantees him freedom of speech. Yet he then turns around and feels he should speak on behalf of an entire country's Hindu spiritual body when he says that they are all mortaly offended by a costume that represents one of their deities. All the while identifying himself as a "Indo-American". Hey.. I am going to use my freedom of speech to say.. SCREW YOU BUDDY.

Either you are an American.. or you are not. There is no Indo-African-Jewish-Italian-Irish-Scottish-WestJersey-Compton-DownSouthOnTheChattahoochie-American. Give it a rest. If you live in the US and are an US citizen. YOU ARE AN AMERICAN. Period. If you don't like that.. if you want to be a different person.. then by all means pack your damn bags and move there. Apply to be a citizen and live your life in happiness. Stop calling Obama an African-American. He is a US citizen and thus an AMERICAN. He wasn't born in Africa. He didn't reside there for half his life. He has never applied for dual citizenship with the US and Africa. He is an American same as you, same as me.

I have Scottish, German, Dutch heritage. I don't call myself a Scottish-American despite the fact that I look dashing in a kilt with my killer legs or the fact that I am a big fan of the Braveheart movie. I lived in NY for 11 years.. AZ for about that and now WI. I don't call myself a New York-Arizona-Wisconsin-American because that is where my 'people' are from. Why not? BECAUSE IT'S STUPID. That's why. We don't need this overly political correct bullshit anymore.

Be proud of your heritage, your beliefs, religion, clubs, teams, family, and pets. Practice your rights and rituals and festivals. Do so knowing that you live in a country that protects your right to do just that. Be happy that you live in a country where you can write a blog like this. Where you can discuss and criticize the government without fear of them arresting you and taking you computer like they do in China.

Let poor Heidi dress as a Hindu goddess if thats how she wants to express herself for halloween. If it pisses you off.. dress up as Jesus or some other religious figure and express your displeasure. Don't go to the media with a big damn hissy fit over how a super model is opressing your religion. I'm thinking a good couples costume would be a guy dressed as Jesus and his significant other dressed as a sexy Satan.. they could make out at the party. How cool would that be? We all know women are the root of all evil anyway right? ;P

If that last statement offended you... well then you should probably just turn off your computer.. go listen to some classical music and bury your head in the sand so nothing could possibly offend you and your delicate sensitivies. You know I have an Aunt, who won't read my blog anymore because she is pouting that one family member or another didn't stop to visit on their way through one time, who gets offended over stuff like this. But rest assured she has boycotted my blog as well even though I was not one of the "offenders" so she will not have to endure this post as it would probably make her bleed out of her ears. On the off chance that she still reads it in private.. yes I still let my kids play Halo.. and yet my kids are smart, well adjusted, happy and not prone to killing sprees. So get bent.

And that I guess, is enough of a venomous rant for today. Rest assured dear readers, I am not angry today.. just frustrated with the retards of the world. If you are overly sensitive, hypocritical idiot.. would you would please take a number and line up in a single file, my shovel and I will be with you shortly.

Read more...

I don't care.

I don't care that Obama is the first black president. Honestly, the more I heard on CNN, NBC and every other news program, the more it irritated me. I voted for Obama, but not because I wanted to help make him the first black president. I voted for him because I think he is the best choice to lead our country right now.

I found it rediculous that such a huge deal was made about his race. Yes I know, its a first. Its a long way for the country to come.. blah blah blah. I know minorities came out in record numbers to vote. But you know what? So did the 18-24 year old demographic, and the old people demographic (old people demo.. I crack myself up), and every other demographic. It was a record year for voting, period.

Are there some people who voted for him just because they are a minority and wanted him to win for some kind of vindication for minorities? Im sure there were. The same way I know there is a bunch of KKK redneck hillbillies out there that voted for McCain for the simple reason that they refused to even think about having an black man running the country. Does that mean that the news has to spend hours dwelling on the fact? Focus on what he did, has been doing and will be doing in the future. Look at his gameplan and discuss that. Talk about his goals and stances on important issues.

I don't care that MLK's youngest grandniece's sister's best friend's cousin was overjoyed at the victory this is for 'her people'. I didn't need to see the tears in Jesse Jacksons eyes for 5 minutes on CNN while they discussed why he was in tears. Why can't they let Obama stand on his own as the future leader of our country and start looking at how he is going to change the state of affairs we are in right now.

I watched the speeches last night. I was impressed with McCains speech conceding to Obama. I liked Obama's speech as well. I hope they both meant what they said and I hope the American people can get past the thrill of all the "firsts" of this election and focus on the issues at hand. Democratic majorities in both the house and the senate gives them real potential to get things done. I honestly hope the next 4 years are about trying to turn things around for this country and its economy and not focused on all the wonders of the fact that there is black man at the helm.

Frankly, Obama could grow out a bitchin fro, shave it bald in a strip down the middle and dye each side a different color and wear a pirate costume on tuesdays and casual fridays to the oval office as long as he gets things done and steers us forward in the right direction. All the news organizations had to have 2 or 3 black people on their discussion panels this year. All the shows spent so much time talking about how much this country has changed to be able to elect a black president. If we have changed so much, then why are we talking about the color of his skin at all and not just talking about the fact that he is an American who won the democratic nomination and here is his stand on things.

I don't envy Obama now. He is taking the helm in a time where we are in one of the worst economic climates in a century among other issues like the war in Iraq that is lingering on yet. I hope he is able to lead us to the change that he talked so vehemently about. Wether you voted for him or not, I hope everyone can respect him and support him as the next president of the United States .. and not pidgeon hole him. He's not an african-american.. he is an American. Period. He will not be the first black president, he will be 44th president of the United States. Period. He is a citizen of this country we the people elected to lead us for the next 4 years. Lets just focus on that fact.

My one request to Obama right now.. can we PLEASE keep gas down at 2.25/gal? Much thanks ;)

Read more...

Supa dupa clean!

There are some of you out there.. and you know who you are, who are taking this whole clean and sanitized thing to an unhealthy level. Its an argument I have made for years. You can over-clean. Sanitize and disinfect too much. Keep your kids in sterile environments so much that you are actually hurting rather than helping.

There was a good article on MSN today about this phenomenon. Link here. Basically its talking about how our bodies NEED a lot of the stuff that people are constantly trying to prevent. Sure you don't want to start rubbing raw chicken onto your child, but there is a big difference in watching out for salmonella and making it so that every inch of your house is scoured with industrial strength cleansers that are more dangerous than the stuff its supposedly removing.

Its the same thing with parents that don't want their kids in daycare or in public in general for the simple reason is they don't want their kids to get sick. You can't protect them that way. Putting them in a bubble doesn't help in the long run. Unless they have some physical complication, their bodies are designed to deal with sickness and disease as it encounters it. Sure it sucks when your kids is sick, but sheltering them to the point where their immune system never develops is not helping them in the long run.

Now I'm not saying that keeping a clean house is a bad thing. On the contrary, I like my house clean. I don't however bleach the place every other day. I don't scrub out my shower with super disinfectant and a brillo pad after each use. I don't carry a bottle of hand sanitizer with me just in case I actually have to touch a door handle out in public.

There is someone at work .. and I don't know who.. that irritates the living crap out of me. He uses the restroom by my office. I can only assume he scrubs up afterwards like a surgeon sterilizing before going to cut someone open. Afterwards, he drys his hands and then takes the paper towel with him to the door. He then uses the paper towel to open the door and then leaves it there as he is ducking out quickly so the big scary germs can't catch him. So you made it out safe.. and now the rest of us get a nice wet paper towel left on the door handle? There is no way a warm damp paper towel is going to breed any kind of bacteria or germs right? Right? Get a hazmat suit to walk around in if you are that damn paranoid.

People need to chill the hell out with this stuff. We were all like this once though. Remember back in elementary school where you wouldn't touch the opposite sex for fear of cooties? I suppose its not the same though, because back then you would also drop food on the ground, blow the dirt off and eat it. Kids sneeze on each other, on the playground equipment, on their neighboors grilled cheese sammich. They get cuts and scrapes, let the dirt clot that stuff right up, and keep on truckin.

Oh how times have changed. When I was growing up, my parents would drive for 12 hours with me in my crib they put in the back of the VW Bus they had back then. There are pictures of me freewheeling around the back of this thing as we cruised to Myrtle Beach. Now you have to have kids in a 14 point space shuttle type harness til they are 12. Lawn Jarts was a toy given to kids to play with back then. We quickly determined that the point of the game was to stand in the circle, throw the heavy sharp metal object straight up in the air and then run around and try not to get impaled through the skull. Nowadays parents might as well put their kids in a sanitary sealed hamster ball and let them roll around and bump into the other kids so they can't come in contact with anything bad for them.

Read more...

Its that time. Vote.

Its the big day. If you haven't already, get out and cast your vote. Who you vote for is your business and I am not here to sway you one way or the other. Honestly, if you are undecided at this point and are influenced by my blog the day of the election, then maybe you shouldn't vote after all.

My gaming guild has had a couple lengthy threads on our forums discussing the election and candidates and the government in general. We have people from all over the country chiming in with many varied viewpoints and stances. We have quite a few Canadians in the guild as well and its interesting to get their opinions in there as well as an outsider and see some of the comparisons to things going on in their government.

Someone had posted this picture.. and I liked it. Simple and made a very good point.



Does it matter that Obama could be the first president with a skin color other than pale? Does it make him better? Does it make his policies and platform of 'Change' any more potent? Is McCain's choice of Palin as a VP candidate an obvious counter to that as she would be the first woman to hold that office? Does it matter?

People are so focused on all the historical, ground breaking firsts going on in this election. It has a positive effect in that voter turnout is already looking better than it has been in a very long time. As of Monday, 24 million people have voted already with the ease of restrictions on early voting.

All I am hoping is that the majority of the people can look past all the amazing firsts and all the excitement going along with this election and actually vote for the candidate based on his stance on the issues.

Read more...