It’s cool. I get to go to different branches, and install the new XP systems. Which is a lot of driving, but really fun in the long run.

This last week, from Tues the 29th to Wed the 30th, I went on a buisness trip up to Bethlehem PA, and parts nearby.

Tuesday the 29th

We left the commerce university building in our big bulky chevy astro vans, around two. I got to my first branch around 4, when we are supposed to get there, did the branch install until about eight, and then drove another hour to the hotel Commerce was putting us up in for the night. The hotel was a Hilton Suites, and at $141 a night, was pretty nice. I got two double beds, a nice TV, and Internet access, which was all very nice.

I relaxed in my hotel room for about an hour, when I got a call from my boss, Joe Kotwicki, henceforth refered to as just Kotwicki, since there are at least five Joes that I am in contact with on a daily basis. The call informed me that my coworker Percy was having big freaking issues at his branch, and needed backup. So at 10pm, Kotwicki and I left the hotel, and joined Percy at his branch. The second of two server switches had some kinda problem, so we had to move computers network ports back and forth in a really slipshod fashion in order to get all the computers installed and set up. We ultimaly let them with the bad switch, which NOC (Network Operations Center) fixed the next day. Point being, I didn’t get done that until about.. 11:30.

We all went back to the hotel, got changed, and then went out to Applebees, around 11:45. I rode in the back of one of the Commerce Vans, since they are only two seaters. When we got there, they were winding down for the night, but we got a seat anyway. Everyone chatted and had alcohol and steak (except those driving of course). It was awesome and very relaxing. I drank one too many Vodka Collins’s and staggered my way out to the van. As a quick tip, to any who plan to take roadtrips in the near future. If you plan on drinking and then getting a ride, don’t ride in the swaying back of a chevy astro. It’s not good for the equilibrium. At all.

Commerce paid for dinner too, which was also nice. Came to about $150 for the five of us, which isn’t all that bad, considering how much good food we got to eat.

So, I went home (to the hotel), watched about an hour of tv, lost three ID cards while wandering around the hotel, and then crashed in a drunken stupor.

Wednesday the 30th

I awoke, slightly hung over, when my alarm went off at 11. I got up, and discovered that I did not pack a change of underwear. Well.. That sucks, I thought. But no big deal. It might be a bit gross, but I can always wear the same pair again. So, I get in the hotel shower, which has this kinda bowed shower curtain rod, to make the shower seem a bit bigger. The curtain worked, in its intent to make the shower seem bigger, but what I didn’t realize is that the shape of it, dumps all the water directly onto the floor. Way to go shower curtain designer guy. Now, it’s not my house, so normally I wouldn’t care at all. But it so happens that my only pair of underwear got left on what is now a soaked floor. So.. I had to leave not that long thereafter, so I wound up going commando. I don’t know what you may have been told about going commando, but it is distinctly uncomfortable. Especially when driving.

So, I went out to the lobby, got the rest of my paperwork for the day, and the four of us (Kotwicki had to go back to the tech center) went out to Dennys, where we ate very well, again on Commerce’s money. Corporate credit cards rock! After breakfast, which ended at about 2:00, we all went out to our respective branches to do our installs. Mine wasn’t that far away. It only took me about a half hour to get there. I arrived at 2:30, which was way to early to start doing anything, since the branch was still very much active and busy. So they shooed me away, and I went to the nearby mall (which was rather impressive) and wasted an hour. Nothing of note happened there. Except for a very cool asian nicknack store which tempted me with soji screens and bruce lee posters, there wasn’t anything really special there.

The one thing of note that did happen while I was there, I wandered into a Hot Topic, to see if they had anything of value to my semi-punk sense of fashion. They did not. But as I wandered around the store, the cashier, who was, eighteen or so I would guess, with really cute dyed pink short hair was looking at me with what I would classify as interest, especially since I was wearing my corporate drone outfit at the time. She was probably thinking that I had wandered in by mistake and was now lost. So I asked her if they had any BuckCherry shirts, and she gave me aconfused look, like she had expected me to ask where I could buy a blackberry charger. I sorta laughed and smiled at her and said “I’m not always a corporate drone. Just today. I spike my hair up too.” She smiled and relaxed a bit, and we chatted for a while, about music and hairstyles. She suggested a few good bands, which I should have written down, because I forget them now. After a bit, I checked the time, and made to leave, and she offered to have lunch with me, since she was going on her break soon.

Now.. for those of you that know me, you know how rare this sort of thing is. And how much, under normal circumstances, I would enjoy such an offer. But in this case, I thought it over, and decided to decline. For several reasons. One, I had no idea how old she was. I can never tell for sure. Two, I was technically on the clock, even though no one was around to care (not that my boss would have anyway if he was), and it would have been a bit weird. Three, Even if she was the coolest girl I had ever met, and I had become desperatly smitten with her, her home is, at the very least, two hours away from mine (on a day with no traffic!)

So, even though such an occurance is rare for me, I declined.

I left, went back to my branch, did the install with a minimum of trouble, and got done around 845, which, while not a time to brag about, is not that bad. The CSR’s let me out, and I went and threw my extra computers in the van, and got in. It was at this point I realized that my backpack, with all my tools, laptop, and other expensive commerce swag was tucked away inside the bank. Which was now locked and alarmed. Crap.

So, out came the trusty blackberry. I made a call to Kotwicki, who proceded to laugh at me, and then call the appropriate people to let me back into the branch. It took them about an hour to get there. Once I got my things back, I finally left, which was around 11, and drove home for an hour and a half or so.

I got home around midnight, and collapsed into my bed

Thursday May 31st

I got up at six this morning, and went into work. We were pulling servers today, which means driving to a branch that has been using XP for two weeks or so, and removing there old windows 98 server which they are no longer using. In itself, the removal of the server takes about fifteen minutes. It’s hot, nasty work to be sure, and the server is freaking heavy, but it’s really not all that bad. The bad part is that I was assigned 7 stores today. Yeah, I had Rupesh there to show me the ropes, but I did all the heavy lifting. Who needs a gym when you have a hundred and fifty pound Compaq ML800 to cart around?

After driving around and picking up servers for about four hours, we drove back to the wearhouse, and I had the distinct honor of pulling the big ass, blindspot riddled van backwards up to a loading bay. Which was nerve wracking enought with Rupesh there, guiding me somewhat. I have no idea how I will do that on my own next time.

But anyway, after backing in, I had the pleasure of lifting the very heavy and bulky servers from the back of the van, (about 2 feet off the ground) to the loading bay (about five and a half feet off the ground).  Now, while one is not bad, six is terrible. (One was a much lighter Blade server, and no trouble at all)

I got done that (somehow), got back into my van, all sweaty and dusty, and drove back to the Commerce University building. I smacked around Data Security till they fixed my laptop, (Seriously. I lined them up and slapped them Three Stooges style) did some paperwork, and then went home around two thirty.

I am so glad I get Fri Sat Sun off. Cause I have to do it all again next week. But the dif there is that I have to go and stay away the whole week. Yay. I’ll keep you posted on the goings on there, when I can.

Blogged with Flock

recently, and it was actually a good one. Normally, since my birthday
falls on May 10^th, it gets lumped into the family party we
have for Mothers Day. I’m mostly a simple guy, so I don’t really
mind. I don’t need nor do I really want a big flashy party. But I
have always felt like my family doesn’t really understand me, in a
general sense. And most of the time I ignore it, because it doesn’t
bother me all that much. In fact, I sort of like being the black
sheep in the family. But this deficit really shows the most around my
birthday.

My family always gives me either money,
which, while nice, is a thoughtless perfunctory gift, or something
really stupid. Like a shirt with some stupid saying on it, because I
had a stupid shirt faze when I was 10.

But this year, while I did get the same
level of non-understanding from my family, my friends compensated for
that by making me feel special in there own ways.

This year, the gifts I got where simple
but meaningful. A hug from Chris, a remote doohickey from White
Courtney, A hug and a smile from Greg, and a laptop cooler bit from
Kevo. Oh, and lets not forget the birthday sex. W00t!

But really, for me, the way the gift is
delivered is much more important then the gift itself. So those
people that only gave me hugs and best wishes are just as appreciated
as those who actually go buy a gift. It shows that they know what I
like, and that they appreciate me as a person.

So! Here’s to hoping I have a good
birthday next year. Lets hope I live that long, huh?

technorati tags:Birthday

Blogged with Flock

Before I had to worry about using too many because they cost ten cents each. Now I have to worry about going over 400. Oh well. It happens.

technorati tags:Text, Messages

H&R Block: They have commercials that loudly proclaim. “When you got H&R block, you’ve got people” Argh! Where to even begin!

I was at Wawa the other day, and I bought a sandwich, which was delicious. On the top of the receipt was printed “Gottahavea Wawa” I should do what to whom? And that was printed, so someone had to sit down, and program that into the computer at some point. What, no spell check? Your F7 broken buddy?

Maaco is a “Cosmolision Specialist” That’s catchy, sure, but since when are people allowed to make up there own words without being mocked?

And that’s just a few. I am getting tired of it. Kids watch TV. Children are expected to grow up, and be able to speak properly. How will they learn? With all the buzzwords, grammatically incorrect media, and a decline in reading for fun, how will they learn?

Why do I bring it up you ask? Good question! Normally, this kind of news is beyond me. Translation: I usually simply don’t care. But this time, I got into a very interesting debate with a coworker about coins.

He thought we should do away with all coinage. He claimed it would make things easier to purchase things. To some extent, I aggressor. It would certainly make things easier for the consumer. Rather then paying 5.32 for something, it would be 5, or maybe 6 dollars. You wouldn’t have to carry around all that change. Yeah, okay, that makes my life easier. But one of my best qualities is being able to see both sides of an issue. And in this case, I can see where it would make a huge financial and legal mess for company’s.

For just a moment, lets create a nation where all coins are banned.

I go to a store, In NJ, and buy a new pair of pants. They now cost 20 dollars, rather then the 19.99 they did before coins where banned. I take them to the register, and they ring them up. I hand over a twenty dollar bill. Much easier, right? Wrong. What about sales tax? It doesn’t just go away with the coins. And sales tax in NJ is 7%, right? Okay, so now my twenty dollar pair of pants costs 21.40. But I can’t pay the forty cents. Do I give the cashier 22 dollars then?

So again, the guy from work says “Let the manufacturer pay the sales tax” But he never said how. So it was left to me to figure that part out.

Alright, so now I’m a pants manufacturer, based in Jersey. I make ten thousand pants, that sell for twenty dollars each, under the new no coin state. So, heres the math. Lets say it costs me seventeen dollars a pair to make the pants. A three dollar mark up sounds reasonable to me.

Now, lets do the math on my investment.

Ten thousand pants, at 17 dollars each is an investment of $170,000. I will make a profit of $30,000, as well as getting my investment back. Thats not too bad. But wait, I have to pay the tax on someone else buying my product now, so they can pay a solid twenty dollars. So, 10,000 pairs, times the tax on 20, which is 1.4 dollars, is $14,000. Ouch! Well, now I make only $16,000 on my pants.

Now, thats not a very good inspiration for me doing business is it? And what if I want to sell my product someplace else? Someplace with a greater or lesser sales tax? Thats a financial nightmare, for any business.

Alright, so obviously the implementation of this is not at all simple. What else could we do, to alleviate the problem?

In this, I have an idea. Those RF cards are gaining popularity. You know, the MasterCards you swipe across the pad rather then running the strip. My thinking is this. embed an RF chip in the skin of the wrist, or palm, that would be linked to a single, personal checking account. Like a debit card, sans card. Worried about getting your data stolen? Aren’t we all. Buy a lead bracelet, or something comparable. Something that would block RF signals.

Alright, so thats radical. But we have the technology for the wide scale implementation of that technology.

Well, this won’t be solved in the next few years. I’d set a benchmark at 2015, 2020, at the latest for America doing away with cash all together.

And that is something worth hoping for.

Now, understand, this was a Buddhist temple. Everything about it, profoundly Buddhist. Little Buddhas everywhere. So to me, ignorant of culture, I assumed the literature I loved so very much was Buddhist in nature. I have never heard of a Lao-Tzu, or any such thing as a Tao, or a Tao-Te-Ching. These concepts where unknown to me. So, in my mind, I decided that, well, I liked these teachings, and not knowing any better, I declared myself a Buddhist. Thankfully, it was an internal declaration..mostly.

From here, I sat down, and thought about what I knew about Buddhism. The only thing I knew for a fact about Buddhists, is that they are Vegetarians, because they believe killing is wrong. Hey! I believe killing is wrong! And I like this book, which, obviously, must be a Buddhist book, right? Sounds logical to me! C’mon! Lets swear off eating meat!

No, keep in mind that at this point, I was, on a daily basis, quite literally surrounded by Buddhists. If at any time I had asked, “Hey, whats this book?” This never would have happened to me. Whoopsy! Hindsight really is 20/20, isn’t it? But moving on.

So after a few days thinking, I decided, what the hell. Lets give up meat for a while. And so I did. For a little over three weeks, not a shred of meat touched my lips. And nothing that even had animal by-products in it either. Like Taureen. Know what that is? Check that can of Red Bull, hotshot. Taurine is the bile from an animals stomach. Mmm.. Makes you want to drink Red Bull now, huh?

I looked up what my body would be lacking. I bought some Centrum Complete, some Fish Oil, which is mostly B vitamin type stuff, and some Iron. And it worked. I felt good. At first..

Lets be me for a moment, during this time

You go to a restaurant, order a salad, and they bring it out, looking all tasty, with the eggs, toppings, dressing, and what have you. Mmm. You really want to eat that salad. It looks good. You’ve been waiting all day, or maybe all week to come here to your favorite place, and eat there food. But you have to have salad now. But that’s okay, it looks good. You eat it, and it was really good, so you don’t mind that your date just eat a steak. So the next day you go into work. People order Chinese food. Damn, that smells nice. But that’s okay. Cause you know what you have for lunch? Salad! Yeah! No, but it’s okay. Cause this one isn’t like last nights salad. It’s got different stuff, and a different dressing. Oh, and you have an apple too this time. Mmm.. Apple.. You eat it, and okay, that salad was good too. You go home and ask whats for dinner. Pork? Oh.. well, you can’t eat that you know.. well.. you’ll just have.. Well.. a salad.. I guess.

See where this is going? Yeah, I bet you do.
After a while, I started trying alternative foodstuffs. And that’s the only term I have for it. Veggie burgers, Tofu, things made out of soy. I gag at the mere thought. Do not listen to people that tell you veggie burgers “Taste just like the real thing”. That’s bullshit, plain and simple. Veggie burgers.. taste like veggie burgers. That’s it. No comparison. None. And yeah, that’s a good thing.

Oh, and one more thing. During this lovely period, I got what I like to call “A punch in the head illness” (I made that up just now! But I’ll use it from now on. Promise) Cause if you’ve ever been punched in the head, it sucks, yeah, but only for one, two, maybe three days tops. And then you pretty much forget you’ve ever been punched in the first place. However, if you don’t get your vitamins properly, a small punch in the head can turn into a week long gangster style beating. Every morning, the illness and my craving for meat would came over, throw me down and give me a couple kicks me in the face and yell “Hey jackass! Eat some meat, get your vitamins, and you’ll feel better! I get no respect.” And then they put on they’re Armani suits, lit some cigars, and pulled away in a late model Dusenburg. Um.. I dragged it on a bit, but you get the idea.

You know why I finally quit? Not out of lack of faith. Not because I truly wanted to. It was because I was starving myself, and because I could not get better.

So I went back to that damn restaurant, and I ordered that steak I wanted. I could have it now! I got it medium. I opened it, and it was red inside, but wait.. somethings changed. Whats this feeling? I looked at it, and saw not a hunk of meat, but something that was once a living creature. This animal, this living breathing thing, that never did anyone harm, was killed, so that someone could cook it for my plate. For the first time, in my life, I felt bad. And just like that.. I didn’t want it as much as I thought I did.

Unfortunately, at a restaurant, having an attack of conscience does not excuse you from the bill. So I ate the steak anyway. But I felt so bad that I threw it up later. True story.

Since then, even thought I am no longer a “Buddhist” or a Vegetarian, I still limit my meat intake. No more super greasycheese steaks. No more 16 oz steaks with a cup of chili on the side. One meal a day has meat in it. And in my head, I thank the spirit of the animal. He died so that I may live.

I urge everyone, religious or not, take a week, or two weeks off from eating meat. See how it effects you. I’d be willing to bet, at the end of your two weeks, you look at that slab of meat on your plate differently.

Anything thats not covered here, comment with a question, and I’ll be happy to help any way I can.

Pros:

• The story line. Beautiful so far. Didn’t think I would like the wolf parts, but it’s pretty cool.
• Lots of upgraded weapons. If you’ve played a few Zelda games, they’re pretty much the same. These are the same, just redone to make them cooler.
• A horse, and the ability to teleport. I get sick of huge platformers where I have to run around from town to town. At least this way it’s somewhat faster.
• Link is a bad ass. And he hates animals. That’s right. Within the first couple of minutes of the game, you body-slam a charging goat, sick a hawk on a monkey, and knock down a beehive just for laughs. While all that is true, seriously, he’s more anti-hero then I’m used to. And I love it.

Cons:

Lets be clear. The game is damn cool. I am happy with it already. But yeah, it could be a bit better.

• I dislike the sound coming from the Wiimote. I wish I could turn it off. Every time I swing the sword, you get this poor, MIDI quality sword sound. It reminds me of those five dollar light up swords you can buy in any department store, and it just cheapens the experience for me.
• Not having enough hearts. For the first couple hours, I sucked. Big time. Getting used to the new controls, the camera angles, it took some time. And I only had three hearts. Which kinda limited my fun, since I kept dying trying to fight the most basic monsters.
• The sound overall sounds a bit cheap to me. Wheres the sweeping orchestra music?
• No voice acting. I think I’ve gotten spoiled on characters having voices.
• To much guidance. While I don’t like wandering for hours, I do like a little bit of freedom. In WindWaker, you could do the first couple boards in whatever order you wanted.

So, overall, I agree with IGN. This is an awesome game. Go buy it. If you have a computer, got get Oblivion while you’re at it. And pick me up some chips while your out.

Revisit

I’m still playing Twilight Princess, and I’ve noticed a few things that are.. odd. To say the least.

1. Link has no bed. Go to his house. Look around. Wheres the bed? Does he spend that much time body-slamming goats, that he never sleeps?
2. The forest maze is back. From the original Zelda.. Oh how I hate the forest maze.
3. Remember the chicken swarm from Link to the Past? In this one, hit a chicken enough times, and you take control of the chicken. It lets you move the chicken around, and hit A to use a freak out/jump. What, did the game designers decide that instead of some Divine Chicken Retribution, they’d try to instill a little empathy for the poor bastard, by literally putting me in his shoes.. er.. claws ? I want to get attacked by chickens, damn it! It’s tradition! Don’t mess with tradition! And don’t even think about singing that damned Anne song either, or so help me, I’ll slap the taste out of your mouth!

Dec 28th Update: The Wii seems slightly cooler today, after having slept on it.

Daily Pro’s:

• I was able to connect it wirelessly to my WLAN, in all of 20 seconds.
• Auto updates are fast and simple

Daily Con’s:

• My freaking arms hurt! I feel like I worked out for an hour yesterday, instead of standing in my room and playing my new Wii. The controler is not that heavy, but swing it for hours, and you will feel the burn.
• After connecting to my WLAN, I was treated to a five minute load, just so I could agree to an EULA
• Lack of Abe Lincoln. I want to make a Mii of Honest Abe, but without the hat, it’s just a guy that doesn’t shave.

So far I have two games. Wii sports, and Twilight Princess. Right now, I am not feeling the Next Gen love. It just hasn’t amazed me yet. When I first bought my Gamecube, I set it up, popped in Pikmin, and immediately lost the next eight or ten hours of my life. I turned off the game, and my reaction was, “Wow. That was freaking awesome. Hey, what day is it?”

So I popped in Wii Sports right off, and started loving it. The game is great with the Wiimote. Except for one thing.. They ignore the traditional rules of the game. In baseball, if the ball bounces and then someone fields it, it’s not an out. In Wiisports, it is. Weird. But that’s my only complaint, other then that I suck at golf. But that’s not the games fault. I love having a bowling alley in my room. I anticipate wasting many an hour fake bowling.  More about Wii Sports, if it comes up, in another post.

My other game is Zelda, Twilight Princess. It’s a good game so far, no doubt. But is it truly Next Gen? Eh.. Jury’s still out on that one. More about TP in another post.

What does this mean to you, the everyman? Well, thats a post for another day. But for now, let me address an issue that has been bothering me lately.

I have never been comfortable with the idea of Christmas. That is, I have always disliked celebrating it. It’s never been fun for me like it has for other people. Even as a child it was always a disappointment. I’d come down Christmas morning, and open a gift. A toy. Hooray! A toy. But that euphoria wears off quickly, and then I’d think, is that all Christmas is? Giving and getting gifts? There has to be more to this holiday, right?

So for years, I’d grudgingly celebrate Christmas. I’d get the gifts, I’d wrap the presents, and put things under the tree. But it never made me happy. I never felt the spirit of the holiday.

And so, this year, I finally found religion. Not in the general sense of organized religion as most think of it. I’m a Taoist now, so I seek personal enlightenment. What this means in context, is that now I finally have a reason to abdicate Christmas. Now that I had a religion, that was in direct conflict with Christmas, I decided that this year I wasn’t going to participate.

I have gone the whole of December thus far without saying “Merry You-Know-What”, and I am proud of that fact.

But let me get to what has really confused me this holiday season. Today, the 26th, everyone at work has asked me the ubiquitous “How was your Holiday?”, to which my answer is “I don’t celebrate Christmas” They generally pause a moment, and after a moments reflection, they ask, “Oh. Well, how was your Hanukkah?”

Can someone please explain to me why not celebrating Christmas automatically makes me Jewish? Don’t get me wrong. My mother was raised Jewish, so classifying me as such is not necessarily wrong. I have celebrated Hanukkah in my past. I do not deny that. However, there are other religions out there people! Not being Christian does not automatically make me Jewish.

At the family Christmas party, I sat and got nothing. And for the
first time, I felt happy. Like I had accomplished something. I had won
over the Christmas oppression, and gave that day an equal chance to make me happy, like all the other 364 days of the year.

How many of you got gifts? Did you get everything you wanted? If you did, how long will it really make you happy? And since the spirit of the holiday is, ostensibly, giving, do you think you could have gotten nothing, and still been happy? I really doubt it in this commercialized Christmas culture we have now.

In the future holiday seasons, and in the rest of our daily lives, lets
try to have a little bit of sensibility, and ask before jumping to
conclusions about religion. I know for myself, this year has certainly
been a learning experience.