Month: September 2004

Well, my weekend was pretty crazy. Friday night was uneventful, as Elissa went out with some friends to a poker night, and I just stayed home and did various things around the house.

Saturday was the first meeting of my Database Design class at Post. I don’t predict too much difficultly withe course, given my experience and background. The professor is in business, and seems quite knowledgeable – something I greatly appreciate, as I feel at the graduate level practical application is just as important as theory. I asked him if he had any experience with Open Source databases, to which he replied, “MySQL?”. (I find it quite funny how Open Source translated to MySQL, considering there are hundreds of databases out there, but whatever.) He replied that he “builds enterprise applications” and wouldn’t use anything that didn’t support stored procedures. I followed up by asking if this was the only thing keeping him from using MySQL (not getting into the discussino about Postgres or others that DO support stored procedures), to which he said ‘yes’. Digressions and rants aside, I find it interesting that it is only one feature (which IMHO is not REALLY needed) is keeping an IT veteran from going OS. This definitely leads me to believe that we will likely see greater gains in OS in the next years.

So, I come home and begin to do various things around the house (the house – the consumer of all of my free time), and the power in half of it goes out. I check the box, and none of the switches are tripped. Great.

I end up calling a few electricians, one of which calls back. Very nice guy named Danny, and he shows up in about an hour. He does some basic tests (which I should have done myself had I known anything about electricity) and concludes that it is not my problem, but LIPA’s. Apparently, a “phase” to the house was down, which is something they need to fix. I confirmed this with a buddy of mine, who agreed.

Now, the wait.

I called LIPA 40-million times (it seemed like that anyway) and didn’t get much of a response. Saturday, we had a nasty storm, and because of this, alot of power was out throughout Long Island. Saturday night, no power. What do I do? Hey, can’t stay home, right? So, we went to home show at Sports Plus.

The show was disappointing, but at least it was free to get in. I signed up to get an estimate for central air from Sunray Systems, and am having someone come to clean my chimney next weekend.

Afterwards, had a snack at John Harvards with Carl and Michele. It was fun, and the food was pretty good. I recommend the Bavarian Laguar if you go….

Sunday morning: went to church, and then to the American Waffle house for breakfast. That place sucks. The food comes right out of a box, and is more expensive than local towny diners that actually make the food. I won’t be back.

Then, the spending spree begins: Off to Home Depot to buy a new stove and range hood. It costs what I thought it would, so I’m not phased. Delivery in two weeks – we will definitely bake a lot of cookies this holiday season!

We get home, and the LIPA guy comes. Really nice guy. The does something on the roof of my house, but then pulls the meter and sees that the wire is severed inside. This is my problem. So, it looks like I need a new “meter pan”, and some new cable. He was very nice, and hooked up the entire house to the one remaining phase. This means that I am now running “unmetered” – I have all-you-can-eat electricity – WooHoo! Unfortunately, I have to fix it in 5 business days. 🙁

Then, I finally do the deed. I really wanted a laptop, and broke down and did it. Dell Outlet had a really good deal on an Inspirion 5150, and I was going back and forth, until I found a coupon on the net. That pushed me over the edge, and I bought it. Elissa was Ok about it, and I haven’t bought any computer gear in a while, plus I could really use it – I can’t wait.

Afterwards, we went and got some shelving, and started moving things into the basement. Tacos for dinner (Yum!) and then we watched “Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back” on Comedy Central.

Didn’t get half of the things done that I thought I would, and spent way too much $$$$. But, that’s how it goes….

I’m pretty sore.

We moved all of our junk from my parent’s yesterday. We rented a 15 foot truck, and packed it all in. I’ve never driving anything that large before. It wasn’t too bad though, you just need to make wider turns.

Well, my fellow work geeks are going to splish-splash today, while I will be moving the remainder of my junk from my parent’s house to mine. I’ve been storing it there for years, and now, finally, most of it is coming home.

The course I’m teaching, Intro to UNIX, has been given a new dynamic. I’ve come to realize, thanks to discussions with my students and friends/co-workers, that I can add alot to the class by using Knoppix. I have understood for quite some time that it gets boring for students to use the command line (although it is VERY important), so this will give them a way to explore what Linux is all about. I’m excited!

My RES program is starting to take shape, and I hope to have something (somewhat) usable by the end of the weekend. We’ll see.

I just lost yet another game at Bocce. This is really starting to suck. I think I’m on a four or five game losing streak. I really need to consult the Bocce Buddha.

so I figured I would post. I have a million things to do, but it has been way too long.

I’m sitting watching Bush speak at the Republican National Convention. It makes me angry. But not for the “typical” (at least I consider them typical) reasons one may think. To put it bluntly – I’m tired of all the crap.

Bush or Kerry? It doesn’t matter to me. And it shouldn’t matter to most of us. We all seem to expect one person to change everything. We’re all looking fot the next JFK. Everyone liked JFK when he was alive, everyone LOVES him after he died. He didn’t really have the chance to make his mark. What if he had lived? I’m sure he would have been OK, but I doubt the results we would have seen would be amazing. It’s only guy, folks.

What I don’t get is this: People in the U.S. are thinking about retirement in their mid-fifties, early 60’s. They are ending their careers, not likely beginning. So, why the heck do we have presidents who are over 50? More likely over 60? John Kerry – 61. George Bush – 58. What is this? Presidents should be 40! An age where you still have your wits about you and you’re still in good physical health, yet old enough to have experience and command respect.

Why don’t I care? Because I feel we’ve come to a time where we can’t trust or count on anyone. Or at least it seems that way. People don’t trust big corporations or politians. Most view public sector employees as lazy. Really, do you think one person is going to fix all of this? Think again.

Four years from now will most likely be the same regardless of who’s elected. I don’t really care for Bush or Kerry. Who am I voting for then? Well, I voted for Gore 4 years ago, as I thought Bush was an idiot. Since I still do, I will vote for Kerry, but not because I feel he’s any better. I just think I’d rather roll the dice this time around then stick with what I already know about Dubya.

I have lots of other things I’d like to rant about, but I’ll save those for another day….