Crazy Weekend

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….