Fire In The Hole!
Posted by Steve | Filed under Work
Well, this has been an interesting week to say the least. There was a fire on our floor (6th) of the building my company is located in. Apparently a computer at Mary Kay Cosmetics caught fire and it demolished their entire suite. Something sounds fishy about a computer getting that hot but thats their story and I guess they’re gonna stick to it. We were not there at the time, however there was no real damage to our offices other than smoke and soot. The firemen destroyed our front door to get in and thats when most of the damage occurred.
Regardless, we have not been able to work in the office at all. At first I thought this would be a nice couple days off while the building management cleaned up. The first day I was able to stay in PJs and just get everything done by phone. Instead I’ve spent the whole week driving to homes and making sure everyone can access crucial applications from home. As luck would have it we recently outsourced our email, website and CRM database to external providers. The only thing they’re really missing is print functionality and the phone system, but even that could be worked around. We have VOIP and it’s possible to give everyone VPN access; then they could make/receive calls at home using the company phone system. I’m not sure I want to go down that road…actually I’m positive that I don’t. It’s been a real PITA already because some of the people apparently have computers purchased during the Reagan administration. I’ve worked harder this week than I do when I’m actually in the office.
At first the building management said we’d likely be back to work on Monday, if not Friday. Well, I found out this evening we won’t be able to go back for TWO MONTHS!!! We may end up moving since being being out of our office for 30 days gives us legal cause to break our lease. My boss hates the management anyway so thats been debated for a while now. This could be the straw that broke the camel’s back.
On the plus side we have been able to do business extremely well considering the circumstances. We have hardly lost a step so far. Our disaster recovery plan has worked better than we could have imagined. As the Network Admin I’m feeling like I really earned my keep this week. It’s almost unheard of for a company of ten people to have a full-time Admin but they have had one for over ten years and right now they are glad they do. I still need to get a portable drive as a secondary off-site data backup. I may take everyone’s computer to their home along with a CD/DVD containing the shared files.
Very important to shine right now since my annual bonus will probably be decided within the next ten days. Keep your fingers crossed.
New monitor
Posted by Steve | Filed under Technology
I finally replaced my 75+ lb 19″ CRT with a 22″ LCD. It was a little tricky getting the widescreen configured with Linux. The xorg video driver I was using didn’t support 1680×1050 so I had to go to the closed ATI binary. That was a blessing in disguise since I was having trouble running Google Earth anyway. Now I’ve got plenty of screen real estate and much better 3D performance to boot. Next I’m going to use some of my Christmas bonus to get a new computer and an LCD HD-TV. 40″ should suffice. My six year old computer (dual 1.8Ghz Xeon processors with 1.5GB RAM) is still plenty fast but I really want another Shuttle mini. I used to have 6-7 computers in my bedroom but now I want a really small technology footprint now. I’m pretty much done with the whole geek phase.
The SEC still reigns supreme
Posted by Steve | Filed under Football
A month ago everyone was going on and on about conference parity and how strong the PAC-10, Big East conferences were. Every year there a few pretenders that try to crash the party but you can’t get through an entire season on emotion and hype. At the end of the day talent rises to the top. Right now you’ve still got five SEC teams in the top 25, just like always. 10 of 12 SEC teams have winning records versus:
- 8 of 11 Big Ten teams
- 7 of 12 ACC teams
- 6 of 12 Big 12 teams
- 5 of 10 PAC-10 teams
- 5 of 8 Big East teams
- 4 of 13 MAC teams
Duane “Dog” Chapman
Posted by Steve | Filed under Books, TV & Film
So dude dropped a few n-bombs. Is anyone really shocked by this? I mean, look at the guy. Is the persona of white trash. The whole family is kinda like a Hawaiin version of Beverly Hillbillies. Let me tell how it is in my world, peeps.
1. Dog has the right to think and say whatever he wants (except BOMB in an airport)
2. The rest of us have the right to call him a racist for saying it.
3. he doesn’t owe an apology to anyone other than his son and the girl, if even them.
4. As should have been done with the Don Imus situation, let the market decide the punishment. A&E doesn’t need to cancel his show. If enough people are put off by what he said the ratings will go down, advertising revenue will decrease and it will be canceled on it’s own merits.
That concludes this episode of “Life According To Dubbayoo”. NEXT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Posted by Steve | Filed under General
Japanese Keirin Racing
They look ridiculous but the racing is very cool indeed.
