Unruly Behavior

Ok, this is my nineth cube in 2.5 years at the job. I average about 3.5 months between moves. It takes about two days each move, so I've been paid now for about 18 days of moving.

Check it out, I have my main laptop with 2 19" displays. A small Thinkpad that I use for Network Analysis. A desktop with 2 17" Displays that I use for development and testing. And finally I have a Lenovo Ideapad that is mine from home I use for games and dinky stuff at lunch.

Labels: cubefarm, netbook, work

Or time to cut and run?

I'm in Dallas this week, taking the accelearated VMware training course that only the self loathing would sign up for in any case. Two 32 hour classes rolled into one 50 hour week. I'm just that self abusive.

So, I'm staying at the Lincoln Center Hilton, across from the Dallas Galleria, with no rental car. The hotel offers a free, hourly shuttle to the mall. Cool, I'll go there for dinner.

I wandered around for a bit, then saw a sign for the New "Grill on the Alley", sounded interesting, so I followed the signs and found the resturant. It looked nice, and had a menu outside.



So, I checked out the menu, hmmm.... Meatloaf, that sounds good. I'll have dinner here tonight.



So, into the resturant I went, only to be handed a completely different menu, no meatloaf, and signifigantly higher prices than on the menu outside. So I called the waiter over to inquire. He then informed me that the menu outside was their Lunch menu, and that Meatloaf was not available for dinner. So I left. $18.95 for a chicken pot pie? What the hell, it better have either real pot or be served by a stripper for that price. What a crappy way to do business.




So, back into the mall I went. I wandered around some more till I found a little Mexican place by the Sakting Rink, Mi Cocina. They had a menu up, with " Tacos de Camaron", or Shrimp Tacos. I love Shrimp Tacos, so into their resturant I went.



The meal started out with some killer, hot red sauce and really thick, crunchy chips. The shrimp tacos came out and were different, with some big, grilled shrimp and fresh avacodo slices. They were delicious. I also had a killer margarita with the meal that kicked my ass, I'm glad I was taking the shuttle back to the hotel, I couldn't have driven there.



So, the night wasn't a total loss, and maybe "The Grill On The Alley" can learn something from "Mi Cocina".

Labels: Dallas, dining, review, scam, tequila, travel, work

I've been freaking busy. There were issues at work. They have seemed to have been resolved for the time being. There are projects at work, I feel a bit like Sisiphus currently. Things have been damn good at home, but I've just been too busy to post much, or at all for the past few months. But I think I can make a stab at some regular updates soon. Both my readers will be so excited.

Labels: busy, work

On Thursday I went to a training sponsored by Dell, Double Take and Level 5.

It was at the baseball park downtown. Started out in a conference room, we got very good presentations from all three vendors. Then they fed us stadium food and gave us tickets to the game.

I had some productive meet-ups at the game. Learned a bunch, and met one other guy working in baking, with a system very similar to mine. Education is a good thing.

Minute Maid Park - 10:15 AM - 8-29-07

Train me out at the ballgame!

Labels: training, work

A real question, from a real user. Folks, I can't make this stuff up!

In our "Support" mailbox just now:

"For a couple of days, now, have been receiving junk e-mails. Rebooted on Friday before I left, and still receiving. Please assist. Thanks!"

Wow, if I had just thought of rebooting my PC to keep junk e-mails from arriving. What a great idea. I'm going to reboot every PC in the world and stop SPAM forever!

Labels: stupid users, work, wtf

Got the image above this morning in our support e-mail box. User asking, "Why isn't this application working today." So we requested him to send the user name and password he was using. Then we successfully logged in with them. So, what is the way to say, "Your application is not working because you are incapable of entering your username and password correctly on a consistent basis, please don't bother us with this any more"?

Labels: password, stupid users, work

Don't know if I should laugh or cry, but this describes things around here to a tee.

Labels: dilbert, work

We've got an outside company in this week, helping us write business contingency plans. So we took them out to lunch at Perry's Grille, for their incredible lunch pork chop special.

Look at this thing, it is really as big as the picture makes it look!

Labels: dining, meetings, work

Yesterday, on my flight from Las Vegas to Houston, Southwest Airlines lost one of my suitcases. They were very nice, brought the bag to my house at about 2 AM this morning. So I repacked it, I had to head out to San Antonio for work tonight. Got of the plane, went to the baggage caurosel, watied, waited, waited some more, and came to discover...

Southwest lost my fucking bag again! So I'm at the hotel, contemplating a trip to Target for underwear and socks. Haven't called Southwest again yet, I'm too pissed off at this point.

UPDATE:

Wednesday, 7:30 AM

Called SWA about 10 PM last night, they say my bag arrived around 8 PM, and has up to four hours to arrive at my hotel. Midnight - went to front desk, no bag. Got my 7 AM wake up call, went to the front desk - no bag. Called the local number, but no one answers the phone. Called 800-IFLYSWA - they told me the local office didn't open till 7AM. I pointed out that it was about 7:30, so that was no excuse, so now I'm on perma-hold while they try to track down my wayward luggage.

UPDATE:

Wednesday, 10:30 AM

Luggage has finally arrived. The bag is crushed, and one of the stands is broken off the suitcase. So I called Southwest, they told me to man up and pull out the dent, and they weren't responsible for any other damage to my luggage. Good customer services. Here is what remains of my suitcase:

Labels: bad support, SWA, travel, work

I'm waiting on Blackberry Enterprise Server and all of it's related stuff to download. At least Dilbert and my NoHoHon are having a good time...

Labels: BES, dilbert, work

I haven't been posting much here, not for the lack of things to post about, but just from being so busy I'm never sure if I am coming or going most of the time.

Kids are doing great, twins are over 10 months old and close to walking, and saying dada, mama, baba, ball, very simple stuff. I recently took my three year old to his first Astros baseball game. We had to sit in the cheap seats, but he had a great time. His favorite part of the game was the train that runs along the top of the outfiled fence when the 'stros hit a homer. Only problem is he really wanted to ride the train. My father in law went along on that day, and we all had a good time.



Meanwhile my lovely wife was spending the weekend in New York City with her sister and mom. Her sister lives there now and really seems to be doing well, so we're all very happy for her.



At work things are going well, I got a raise, then a couple of weeks later was promoted to Information Security Officer. Now I'm a bank officer, I got stock options, and lots more responsibility. Yeah! I'm still doing my old Network Analyst job till we find a replacement, I need someone like Jake for this job, but we aren't finding anyone right now. I hope we find someone soon, I'm gettting worn way out doing two jobs.

I went to a funeral for a friend's 21 year old son that was killed in a horrible car accident. Between the time I was 16 and 22, I had 8 friends die, and went to lots of funerals, so while this experience wasn't so new, it was the first time since I've been a parent. I'm also 39 now, and the sense of just what this young person had missed out on is very different from when it was my friends I was burying. All in all a very sad week.

I'm finally retiring the laptop I've had for almost 6 years. It was great when I purchased it, but it is starting to show it's age. I'm getting an Alienware Area 51 m5550 with an upgraded processor and DVD burner. I'm really psyched, it will be nice to have a modern, fast computer. It also comes with Vista, which I will try out, but expect to replace with XP Pro pretty quickly. Maybe for fun I will also load Office 2007. Never know.

Going to hit the road and go to Vegas next weekend. I need a vacation, can't wait to loose some hard earned cash in a slot machine. We also have tickets for They Might Be Giants at the Hard Rock Hotel and Spamalot at the Wynn hotel. Should be a great weekend.

Labels: entertainment, funeral, in-laws, laptop, review, travel, vacation, work

We're trying to do some power manaagement on our network as our crappy Samsung LCDs are burning in our network login screen. And before you e-mail me and tell me that LCDs are not supposed to burn in, I am aware of this fact and that is why I preceeded Samsung with the adjetive 'crappy'. In the meantime, I found this free GPO software from the Government, so I figured, hey, my taxes paid for this, we ougt to look into applying it to the network. Go Energy Star!

Power Management EZ GPO software : ENERGY STAR

Labels: active directory, freebie, gpo, microsoft, tech, work

Extracted from an actual e-mail in my inbox, just now:

"I will log off and you can fix it now…..while you are in there all my games are gone can you please replace them……my supervisor said this is all we have……how long will this take you."

Forwarded this to the bank president, told the user "No, you are not supposed to have games installed on your PC." I can't believe I had to tell them this.

Labels: games, stupid users, work

My last three jobs all promised "Comp Time". You know, you work extra today, we'll give you some time off in the future. First one laide me off with about 40 hours of comp time never given. Second one I got my comp time only by going into a coma. Last one I got one of the Comp days I was promised, but left with about a week of comp time due.

Now, at my new job I've been working 50-70 hours per week since day one. No promise of comp time, just doing what needed to be done.

My boss made me take today off as a comp day becuase I have been working so hard. That's right, made me stay home and do nothing today. And I have done nothing!

Well, I did answer some surveys over at Gaming Lagoon to get some points towrds free stuff, but I didn't do much else. Played some XBOX and browsed on the internet. Overall a a great day.

Now it is time to go drink some beers with some friends and eat some seafood. Boiled Crawfish are in season! Yum!

Labels: beer, boss, cubefarm, dining, freebie, work, xbox

One of the most annoying things at my last job was not being able to own a pair of Scissors. You see, Carlos would take any pair of scissors he found and use them to scratch his body. His armpits, chest, arms, neck, head, etc. As a result, you didn't really want to touch any scissors at the office. As a result, you had to carry a pocket knife or something along those lines if you needed to cut stuff on a regular basis.

This week I got new scissors at my new job, and I'm no longer afraid of what my co-wokers will do with them.

Labels: work

Every year my boss' wife goes to Las Vegas to see her parents. Why he doesn't go to Vegas is beyond my comprehension, but he takes a few days off by himself when she goes. So last night he had the house to himself, and he had the whole IT Department over for beers and pizza. It was a great time, here is a view from his back porch, he over looks Clear Lake, which is on Galveston Bay here just south of Houston.



After drinking way too many beers and eating way too much pizza, I made my way home. As I pulled into the subdivision, I saw someone had just put their Christmas tree out in the trash. Shit, I thought I was lazy.

Labels: beer, boss, christmas, lake, pizza, work

That's right Bitch! I'm the goddamn Guest Of The Day at the Comfort Suites Airport North San Antonio tonight! I can park in the reserved place, I got a cool tumbler, and I continue to kick ass and take names everywhere I go these days.

I'm in San Antonio for three days, opening a new branch. We're up to 20 branches now! We kick ass!

Labels: award, hotel, san antonio, travel, work

Ok, I have a problem with a Compaq dc5700 desktop computer. HP/Compaq wants you to go to their website now and login for support. So I go there, and get the following error, saying that my model is not supported, but here is a list of computers that are supported. Guess what, my model is in the first friggin section.

It took over an hour to get phone support on the line. Compaq/HP you suck at support. I hate calling India!

Labels: bad support, compaq, work

Ok, I'm at the office today, catching up on paperwork and such.

One of the jobs I've been assigned is setting up computer policies for the entire bank. Lots of fun. I was given some templates to clean up and revise to get me started. Here is the best paragraph ever written to assign a task to a network administrator:

It is responsibility of the administrator to understand the purpose and function of each file on the bank’s computers. This record will be updated monthly and compared to the record of the previous month in an attempt to identify any logic bombs within a computer, which the virus scanner cannot detect.

Ok, sounds reasonable, so I have 25 servers, just checked my Domain Controller, it only as 18,089 files for me to memorize.

Yeah, think I'll strike that paragraph from the template.

Oh, I've been posted to 25peeps.com, so click on the link, go there and see if you can find me there. I know you really want to see what I look like!

Labels: audit, work

Ok, a friend of mine sent me this, the user complained their computer was runing slowly when the accessed the internet.



Ok, the use has loaded, Weatherbug, Google Toolbar, Yahoo Toolbar, MSN Toolbar, Google Desktop, AOL Toolbar, and My Web Search. You have to diable the pop-up blocker on 4 of the toolbars if you go to a site that requries pop-ups be allowed.

Best part, the end user doesn't want to get rid of the toolbars because they "need" them for things they want to do on the computer.

Labels: stupid users, work