Rich's Daily (B)Log

Some people know no bounds

2011-12-21T09:33:00.000-05:00

We recently attended Tyann's father's reception. We still haven't been told he was getting married. I'm sure her kids one about it but Tyann has never been his priority. We offered to help set up if needed but we were told they had it under control, no big deal. So the day finally rolled around at this point we still didn't receive an invitation, it was lost in the mail (or so we were told). That is possible but with her dad's track record I would be more likely to believe one was never sent.So the day finally rolled around and we got there about 20 minutes early. It's an hour or so drive which makes it hard to be right on time. But we got there early and they were still setting up with the help of her kids. This offended Tyann a bit, they were OK to help but not us. We asked if we could help with anything, but her dad just said to grab a seat. So we found a spot on the end and got Brystol's stuff set up.

While we were getting set up before everyone began to show quite a few people walked past and no one really said anything. Her dad only spoke to us after Tyann had stopped him and asked about everyone being dressed up. We were in jeans and regular shirts, we never got the memo. Eventually Gr came in and we asked if she was sitting next to us. Well she was supposed to sit at the reserved family table. Wow, what a slap in the face. This set the tone for the rest of the day which was cut short when her dad asked her to feed Brystol in the bathroom. Yes, the bathroom. Brystol is nursed, she eats some solid food but she gets her nourishment from nursing. Tyann asked if he was serious that he wants his granddaughter to eat in a dirty bathroom, where people poop. Potentially while Brystol would have been eating. Needless to say we immediately left.

Can you believe a grandfather would ask his granddaughter to eat in the bathroom. I knew he was not the best dad out there and expected the same performance as a grandfather but this was a surprise. Wow. What will she think when she finds out about this, and I'm sure she will. I don't see him having much of a role in her life. He'll learn, hopefully when he does Brystol is willing to give him a chance.

Loving the VFFs

2011-11-30T09:11:00.001-05:00

Well I have quite a few runs logged in my Vibrams and I must say that I wished I would have switched sooner. My average pace has improved by over 30 seconds per mile. I currently have the KSOs, they are my everything shoe. With a pair of the matching socks my feet have yet to get cold, even when they are wet. However after logging my first trail run I do want to get a pair of the Treksports for running off road and I do want a pair of Bikilas for road running. I am going to register for my first half marathon this February and I am planning on running it in my VFFs. It is a trail half so I will need the Treksports by them, the KSOs just don't have the traction I would prefer for trail running, especially for the hilly terrain I ran on last week. Glad I did slide down to the bottom of the trail, a few times I thought I was going down.All in all, I will never run in "running" shoes again.

Last was a scary week

2011-11-20T16:09:00.001-05:00

Last week we had a scare with Brystol. She had a lump in a place that there should be no lumps. After seeing our pediatrician and putting her through an ultrasound we determined that she had a hernia with some bowel protruding through. To make a long story short we had to go to Hershey Med that night, yes it was that urgent. The urgency just added to our fears. We were in surgery that night and out of recovery early the next morning. It made for a long and sleepless night. But we felt better once we held her afterward and even better when we saw her smiling and playing Wednesday morning. She made it out in one piece and hopefully there will be very little by the way of trauma or memories of the experience.

The end of a crazy week

2011-10-22T15:02:00.000-04:00

It has been a pretty rough week to say the least. I am just glad the weekend is here and that I can enjoy it pain free. Had my first kidney stone this week, more than likely it has been sitting in my kidney for some time (possibly a few years). It just decided to let loose this past week. Pain like I have never felt before, brought me to my knees, literally. I had passed the stone with little to no pain, just some minor discomfort, with a little bit of Vicodin help. But feeling much better now. Took the week off from working out and eating well. It has been a week of bad food and laziness. I'll get back into the routine stating Monday.

Set a new 5k personal record

2011-10-16T18:43:00.001-04:00

This past Saturday I ran a 5k. The last 5k I ran my time was 35:24. This was a different course but still a 5k, the elevation changes were comparable to the last. My time was 28 something. I am still waiting for the results to b posted, I glanced at the clock but did not see the seconds, just the minutes. Either way I dropped my time by about 6 minutes. Must say I am very happy with that.

Trying the Paleo thing

2011-10-08T20:19:00.003-04:00

As I have been talking about in recent posts, I am looking into the paleo lifestyle. Weight Watchers and exercise have been working very well so far. They have been able to take me from 240 lbs (at my heaviest) down to 179 (my most recent weight). This took about 3 to 4 years but I was intent on losing weight the correct way. I feel I have achieved just that. After losing our first daughter, I really didn't work out regularly for a few months. It was closer to a year until I began working out on a regular basis. During that year I maintained my weight, the lost weight did not come back. I attribute this to two things diet and lifestyle changes.Back to the paleo lifestyle. I am happy with what I am doing but would like to get more performance from my body if I can do so. Going paleo is more of a lifestyle than a diet. there is a whole change of attitude that comes along with modifying the foods that you eat. My family is actually rather close right now, as we eat as many fresh foods as possible and try to avoid the processes things.UPDATE:Well, just a quick update before posting this. I have convinced Tyann to try the Paleo diet. We will be starting on Monday. Looking forward to it very much.Wish us luck.

Still wanting to go minimalist

2011-10-08T20:17:00.001-04:00

As I have written before, I would like to go minimalist. Maybe not like some of you out there but just sort of dip my toes in it. Just enough to try it. We as a family have a lot of things that we do not really need or use. Some of these things could be eliminated without suffering any great loss. I have purged a few things over the years. The hardest was my computer gear. Much of it was too old to use but I just didn't want to part with it. Then finally it came down to needing to make some room for our first daughter. At that point it was a no brainer. I have paired down my computer gear quite a bit, but there may be more I can eliminate. Walking through our apartment I see many things that could be removed without causing us any heart ache. I keep bringing this up with Tyann and she pretty much shoots it down without batting an eyelash. I'll keep trying, maybe I'll have more luck when we move. The less stuff we have the less space we need to house it all. This equates to a smaller house which means less rent/mortgage. Although I won't hold my breath.

A great loss

2011-10-08T20:07:00.000-04:00

Not to jump on the bandwagon, but we lost a great mind this week. Steve Jobs was, is a one of a kind individual. He has forever changed the technology landscape. His vision will be with us for years to come and his influences will be here for much longer. Although, I did not know him personally I still feel the loss none the less.My thoughts are with you and your family.

Passed the PT test

2011-09-25T15:16:00.001-04:00

Took a PT test yesterday, and I passed it. Not that I was expecting to fail but there were to events that had me a bit worried. The five events were pushups, sit-ups, vertical jump, 300 meter dash and a 1.5 mile run. I was not worried about the pushups or sit-ups at all and the 1.5 mile run wasn't a concern either. The vertical jump had me a bit worried, just because I had never done this before, I passed it on the first attempt. The second event was the 300 meter dash, again I passed without any issues. I have been running for a while but my speed is still pretty horrible. The last surprise was the 1.5 mi run. I knew I could do it, but I came in about 2 minutes faster than expected. I finished it in 13 min 14 sec; I was expecting closer to 15 minutes, but it was a good surprise. I could have even pushed my self a bit faster, maybe knocking 20 to 30 seconds off my time.

Hoorah!!!

Gear Review - Black Diamond Spot

2011-08-24T21:25:00.000-04:00

So far so good. The light is comfortable to wear, doesn't bounce too much and throws plenty of light. No complaints as of yet, to date I have only used it on road runs, nothing on trails yet. But I do have some trail runs planned in the near future. I also have yet to test the water resistance. It is rated IPX4, which means it is resistant to spray from any direction but is NOT submersible. Again, not completely field tested but so far so good.

I guess I am runner after all

2011-08-17T19:44:00.000-04:00

I ran the equivelant of a 10k Sunday morning (well almost), it was close to a 10k, 6.46 mi to be exact. Just a bit shy of the 10k mark. I just wanted to run to the Accomac Inn, not for any specific reason, just wanted to run there and back. It was a good run. I actually finished it with more energy than when I started. I have my next long run picked out. Its another road route but I am looking for trails to run. All this time I swore that I hated to run and now I really enjoy it. No headphones or MP3 players just me and the run. Its almost meditative, within a few minutes into my run I am in my zone and that is it. Its not that I didn't like to run but I never really gave running a chance.

Gear Review - Arm Pocket Sport 20

2011-08-14T11:53:00.001-04:00

I have looked at armbands for my iPhone for some time. None of them ever fit what I was looking for and the reviews always seemed to support my assumptions. Then along came the Armpocket. I did my research and compared it to other armbands on the market. This seemed to be the armband I have been looking for. It is very comfortable, doesn't slip down while running and kept my iPhone away from my skin and sealed off from the weather. It has enough room to hold my iPhone, door key, ID and ATM card (or cash), pocket or two of energy gel all without getting too heavy and uncomfortable. It seems that after using the band twice I broke out in a rash, same thing happened when I first switched to my Vibrams. After a few days the rash went away and I can wear them without any issues now. The Armpocket did not wrk the same way, every time I wear the band I break out again. I may try to go a few weeks without wearing the band so my arm can totally heal then try again, just to be sure. I really do like the armband and don't want to give it up. This is not a fault of the Armpocket, I'm just allergic to something, I've even tried cleaning the band in hot water and soap, no luck. But despite the rash I love this armband and would highly recommend it to anyone.

His and her workstation

2011-08-08T13:12:00.001-04:00

Army Reserve

2011-08-07T20:50:00.001-04:00

Well, it is no secret that I have been considering returning to the military. I was looking at the PA National Guard, but decided on the Army Reserve. I really miss the military, just serving my country in general (if you have to ask, you won't understand). I am very close, just a matter of meeting the prior service weight/PT requirements. I have to lose a bit of weight, which I was already doing any way, along with dropping my body fat percentage. I was looking for combat arms, which I understood the Reserve did not have but luckily there is a 12B unit at the Gap.

Hopefully within the next month I will be ready to take a PT test (I have to meet the weight requirement first). From there I am pretty much on my way in. I believe that I may have to redo basic. I am not sure on this one, I did some reading on the recruiting command page and it sounded as if anyone who has been out for 3 or more years must attend basic training. That is fine with me, as it was one of the most fun and memorable times of my life. I bet I could get a lot more out of it a second time. Then it would be off to AIT, which for 12B is OSUT so it will all be at the same place.

Lately, I really regret getting out when I did. Although, if I didn't I would not have met my beautiful wife and had two wonderful daughters. If only I could have stayed in and met Tyann, that would have been the perfect life.

My next challenge

2011-07-19T19:58:00.000-04:00

Up til now I have been focusing on a local event, the Susquehanna Ultra Hike/Run. It is a 28.2 mile trail event. Participants can run or walk as long as it is finished in the allotted 12 hours. From what I have read the majority of the people walk and run the easier sections to buffer their time. While I still plan on doing this event, I have set my sights on my next goal or motivation, the Goruck Challenge, which plays right into the first event of 2012, the Tough Mudder. The whole weight loss, fitness thing has gotten addictive (in a good way).

Let's see , since 2008 I have lost about 50 pounds and 12 or so in the past few weeks. Every time I lift a 50 pound dumbbell, I think I used to carry this much extra weight. Wow...

Wayne Lapierre's address to the UN

2011-07-17T12:17:00.000-04:00

I just listened to Wayne Lapierre's address to the UN concerning the Arms Trade Treaty. He hit the nail on the head. The thought of a foreign body dictating our freedom and to what extents we will exercise such freedoms, is unacceptable. I find it hard to believe that this is even a possibility, but with the current administration anything is possible. This is one of the scariest times we, as a nation, have faced to date. The fact that our elected president is more concerned with representing the interests of the other countries of the world rather than represent the interests of the people and the Constitution which he took an oath to uphold and defend; this casts a dark shadow on the present and future of this country. At this point we can only hope that people embrace their right and duty to vote in the coming election and bring a truly deserving candidate into the White House.

Civic duty

2011-07-10T11:09:00.000-04:00

Well, I just contacted my senator about signing Sen. Moran's letter opposing the UN's Arms Trade Treaty. This really scares me, it could have drastic implications on all Americans if it were to go through and then be signed.

Small world

2011-07-10T09:08:00.002-04:00

Yesterday afternoon as we were picking up the dog from day care there was a couple in line in front of us. The man had a Navy EOD t-shirt on, I usually notice military t-shirts and I was wearing my Airborne t-shirt. We struck up some small conversation about our dogs and he asked if I was Airborne. It turned out he is a rigger at Bragg, in 847th. Small world, talked shop for a bit then it drifted back to the dogs. Brought back some good memories.

"All the way"

It's hammer time!!!

2011-07-04T11:45:00.000-04:00

While I have been hitting the P90 pretty hard the past few weeks. This week I am throwing the running into the mix. However rather than start the couch to 5k I am just going to do some running on top of P90. I will shoot for three runs per week, hopefully on the lifting days. The first of the three will be 1 mile, then 1.5 miles and finish with 2 miles. The goal here is to pass the run portion of the Army PT test. I will be moving into the couch to 5k program to get me ready forthe Tough Mudder in the spring. One thing I am trying to do is to keep myself fluid. Don't want to get caught up in the "how" but keep myself focused on the "why".

Getting closer to my goal weight

2011-06-27T06:46:00.000-04:00

Friday Tyann bought me some new shorts, my current shorts are too big.
So she went out and hit a sale and bought me some size 36. After
trying them on they were a bit on the big side, plus intend to loose
more weight. So went to the mall and I tried on some 34s, they fit
perfectly. It has been a while since I wore 34s. Plus this morning I
weighed in at 193.

Woohoo!!!

--

Rich Hess

Sent from my iPhone 4

Getting back into shape

2011-06-26T11:18:00.000-04:00

Well, this has been a theme in my life the past few years. Since our wedding, I have slipped but managed to maintain each time. I am again back on the workout kick. Actually its more than a kick. I am serious this time and have the drive and habits formed that I need to succeed. I have been doing Weight Watchers and P90X together for about four weeks now. They work very well together, I was initially concerned about getting enough calories. No problem there, I typically eat my allotment for the day and on some days was not able to eat all my points. For the days that I need the extra points there are the flex points and extra points for working out. I typically do not track the workout points. I may just have a small snack and not count the points but usually the standard points are more than enough.

So far, the results are awesome. I am looking great and felling much better. My last official weight was 196 and this morning I was 192. Starting tomorrow I will be adding a second workout three days a week. I am starting the Couch to 5k program Tuesday afternoon. I have done this once before and really liked it, and it worked as advertised. This time I will be hitting it with a bit more fervor. I have some some real goals this time. I have a list of races/challenges ranging from 5k to 100 miles in length. I have ran two 5k races in the past two month. One was just a 5k and the other was from my list, the Warrior Dash. The second goal is to get myself back into shape for the military. I am speaking to a Army Reserve recruiter about getting back in.

More to follow.

It's been a while, time to catch up

2011-06-26T10:58:00.000-04:00

Well it has been a while since my last post. To summarize what has happened in the past few months. Well our baby girl, Brystol Rea Hess, was born on March 4, 2011. Since then we have switched to parent mode. Most people say that having a baby really changes your life. It is a life changing event, but all positive. We still do the same things we did before having a baby. We really aren't party hounds, the main things we do are shopping, relaxing in coffee shops and going out to eat. All of which are family friendly, although some times we have to cut the trip short because Brystol just isn't in the mood to hang out. No worries, its just part of having a family.

The wait is over

2010-10-31T17:19:00.000-04:00

Well, only a few days left until we find out if we're having a boy or girl. Believe me when I say I really don't care either way. So long as I can watch my baby grow and take his/her first steps. But, I would like to have a little girl, plus everything we have is for a girl. It would just be a more economical situation. I'll update once we have the results.

Later...

Trying to figure what is missing

2010-10-24T14:32:00.002-04:00

The past few months I (we) have been through a lot. Having our first daughter, losing our first daughter and all of the stress and emotional issues that go along with those things. Relationship wise, we are closer now than before, now issues there. Actually, we are into the second trimester of our second pregnancy and looking forward to having our second child. Where I am having the personal issues are on the career front. I'm not sure I am truly happy with where I am at right now. It could be any number of things or a combination of them all. I just don't fell as if I am making a difference in the grand scheme of things. I mean I go to work and just do things, they don't really contribute to anything other than keeping/putting money in the company's pocket. If I would decide to go somewhere else, I know I have formed some bad habits working here because of how we manage things. I just don't really have any interest in what it is that I am doing anymore. Part of me is ready to move away from the help-desk type stuff and focus on one thing and start to specialize. I think Active Directory or straight server administration would be interesting. I am tired of the calls for changing toner and simple things like that. The things I do on a regular basis go well beyond even that. Vacuuming out PC cases, crawling around the floor (especially in the warehouse) and what ever else gets thrown our way. I just want to get away from the lower level task, especially the non-IT tasks and focus on something that I can build a career on.

Taking it one step further I even wonder if moving to a strictly admin job, like mentioned above, would actually satisfy me. The last job that I had that gave me that sense of satisfaction was the military. I am too old to go back in at this point, plus I would not put Tyann through that. Would a simple position/job change make me happy? Or would it take a more drastic career change satisfy me? I really don't know that answer to that one. I have been in contact with a National Guard recruiter and getting back into shape, as I let myself go the past few weeks/months. That will go part way to filling a void. People, primarily Tyann, ask me why I would go in, especially now. I really can't answer that, I could try to explain it but if you need to ask then you really wouldn't understand. I am also looking into the PA State Police as a possible career change. I have already applied to the police academy, at this point I am just waiting on the offer to come and getting/keeping myself in shape. I have spoken to Tyann about all of this and she is behind me 100%, an said we will do what ever it takes to make it work. She just wants me to be happy. How lucky am I to have a wife like her?

Let's just see where this goes.

Off to the range

2010-09-26T09:40:00.003-04:00

Well, after purchasing a Kel-Tec P11 a few weeks ago, I am finally getting around to shooting it for the first time. I am looking forward to it. I have owned a Kel-Tec P32 in the past and loved it. I put a few hundred rounds through it without any issues. It was fun to fire, even for extended periods. I am sure the P11 will have a bit more punch behind it, but I do not expect any issues. I have 100 rounds to put through it this afternoon, then a thorough cleaning. The only mod a foresee for the P11 would be night sites. Not a necessity just a nice t have.

Hopefully, I am at least decently accurate with this. If not, that's why we practice, right?

Does your employer control when you carry concealed?

2010-09-11T21:17:00.004-04:00

Many of us choose to carry a concealed (or open) weapon to ensure our protection and wellbeing. However during the work week most of our employers prevent us from carrying. This means that an unfortunate turn of events on the way to or from work could result in our demise. I can understand the employer not allowing us to bring our weapons into the office. However, we have a constitutional right to protect ourselves and I do not believe an employer should have the right to countermand this.

I do believe they have the right to dictate what is or is not brought on to private property as long as it does not interfere with our constitutional right. There must be some type of compromise that can be reached. I feel that if an employer does not allow an employee to CCW at work (which I can understand), we should at least be able to keep our weapons locked in our vehicle.

Their concern is work place violence, this is a real concern, but I don't believe the person contemplating an attack applies and waits for a concealed carry permit. As usual with most gun control, it only affects the law abiding citizen and the true criminals are left to do as they wish. In the event of some type of work place violence, imagine if someone in the office was actually carrying a concealed weapon and could defend themselves and there coworkers, preventing any unnecessary loss of life.

For many of us this removes our ability to protect ourselves for most of the week.

Minimalism, sounds good to me

2010-07-24T08:49:00.001-04:00

This is something that I have long read about but never had the urge to actually pursue. However in lieu of recent events changing how I see and value possessions; I would like to down size my personal inventory. These things that I have always clung to (many of which I really don’t use or touch) really no longer has any value and serves no other purpose but cluttering things up. Now getting Tyann on board with this is going to be something different, she will not go peacefully.

Something to work on in the future.

We are pregnant again, woohoo!

2010-07-19T14:11:00.000-04:00

Well we recently found out that we are pregnant again. Our due date is just about a week after Paityn's. They will be roughly a year apart. So that means that next March will be an emotional roller coaster, with The baby just around the corner and Paityn would be celebrating her first birthday.

Much like the first time it really hasn't settled in yet. We know were pregnant, but it just doesn't seem real. It will probably get more real when she begins to show. For now we are doing everything we can do to ensure he/she is healthy. As for the things we can't control, we will just keep a positive attitude and be tee for each other.

Rest in peace, Paityn, mommy and daddy loves you

2010-03-26T15:40:00.001-04:00

Yesterday was the service for our beautiful daughter Paityn, she was born Saturday, March 20 at 5:37 AM. Regretfully she was born without ever taking a breath, this does not change the pride and love we have for our little girl. The service was amazing, during which we laughed and cried (some tears of joy and others of sorrow). The whole thing was written for by friends and family, nothing was pulled from a book. For the brief time she was with us, we showed her love, care and compassion. She will live on forever in our hearts and minds.

My birth story – the birth of my daughter, from my point of view

2010-03-24T17:31:00.001-04:00

The night started out about 9 PM, taking Mary’s advice we tried using the evening primrose to help (naturally) induce labor. I placed the primrose inside Tyann’s vaginal canal, she laid down and I went back to the living room. After a bit she called me and said she was feeling some contractions and that I should get some sleep, advising that it may not be an option later on. I told her to get some sleep and that I would be in after a while. Usually I come to bed, bouncing and full of energy resulting in her waking up. I was more concerned with her being rested than myself.

At 11 PM Tyann called me into the bedroom explaining that she was having contractions. We started timing the contractions at 1130 PM and they were averaging 6 minutes apart and lasting for 60 to 90 seconds. This continued until about midnight at which point they were down to 2 to 3 minutes apart and lasting roughly 1 minute each. Finally at 11:45 PM we called Mary and explained the contraction and timing. She told us to take a walk, eat, drink and take a nap. We tried doing so and continued timing the contractions. Tyann was unable to sleep, she did try eating but this made her nauseous and dinner soon came back up. At this point her back was beginning the bother her so I ran her a bath and we moved to the bathtub.

After soaking in the tub for (what seemed like) a long while our contractions were at roughly 1 to 1 ½ minute intervals and lasting out a minute, consistently. With Tyann still in the tub I called Mary and gave her the timings, she replied that it was time for her to come over and exam Tyann. We began getting Tyann out of the bath tub and getting her dried off and ready for Mary to exam her. Mary gave her an exam, letting us know she was fully dilated. Tyann commented that she didn’t have the urge to push and we began to prep the birthing pool. Mary continued the exam and was unable to find a heartbeat with the Doppler. Considering that Paityn was posterior this wasn’t unheard of. Mary did an internal exam and was able to feel her pulse on the top of her head. We moved Tyann to a position on her hands and knees, to help motivate the baby to reposition herself.

The pool filled much faster than we expected so we began moving Tyann into the kitchen to check the water temp. She checked the water and said it was fine, and that we could just add more hot water as we went along. Tyann went in to the pool and assumed a position on all fours. The contraction were coming a regular intervals but Tyann was taking them with great stride, she made the whole thing look so easy. I was in a position behind her to apply back pressure during the contractions, and to catch my little girl is she came out to the rear. Everyone took turns scooping out the floaters in the pool, giving Tyann water and rubbing her hair. Eventually, she said I have the urge to push. By this time everyone was there, after some short unscheduled detours, and actively helping with various tasks and taking some pictures. Once she began to crown we all to turns feeling her head and all of her curly hair. Out of the blue Tyann began belting out her rough, impromptu rendition of Johnny Cash’s “Burning Ring of Fire”. A little while later, out came her head, shoulders and then the rest. I was right there and caught her with Mary guiding her into my hands. Her lips were blue, almost purple, never having been at a birth before I was alarmed not scared at this point. We pulled her up and I placed her right on Tyann’s chest and the cord was cut as soon as it finished pulsing.

Immediately Mary and Gigi began trying to resuscitate her, and Tyann was telling her to wake up and cry. I was just standing frozen with fear. Mary then said to call 911 and send an ambulance. I immediately grabbed my wallet, glasses and shoes and was ready to ride with her to the hospital. As soon as the ambulance got there I said by to Tyann and gave her a kiss on the head. As I turned and walked away I noticed the blood in the water, it looked like a lot but I was concerned for my little girl and nothing else. I followed her outside and did my best stay out of the way while never letting her out of my sight. They asked me where we wanted to take her, I told them whatever is the closest. That was Memorial Hospital in York. During the ambulance ride I glanced back at her once or twice but the color of her skin made my heart sink and I couldn’t bear to see her like that. We stopped at the Wrightsville exit and sat for what seemed like an eternity. I asked why we were sitting there; they told me that due to her size they had to be parked to stabilize her. While stabilizing her they said we need to transport her to York, they have a NICU, a few minutes later they exclaimed that we need to switch back to Memorial and get her there now. As soon as we arrived at the hospital I said I need to be with her, she is not to be alone. They took her in the emergency entrance and I went into the main emergency room entrance. I waited and the door to the ER for a bit and they took me back and stood me outside of the room to watch while they worked on her. They were explaining what was going on and then asked if I wanted to go in to her side. At this point I realized that this was not going to end the way we wanted. I told them yes I want to be with her, they cleared an area for me to stand and said I could rub her foot. I was speaking to her asking her to wake up and breath. They eventually pronounced her dead about 6:30 (approximately). I asked if everyone could leave us alone and they began leaving one at a time. The last nurse swaddled her best she could, but told me they had to leave the tubes and everything in until the coroner was finished. She wrapped her in a blanket and handed her over to me. I gave her a kiss on the cheek and sat down hugging her tight. I wanted Tyann so badly, because I didn’t know what to think or do and I still had the image of Tyann and the pool full of bloody water. For a little while my biggest fear was that I would have to bury the 2 most important people in my world. I never asked how Tyann was doing before I left, I wasn’t really worried about her I was concerned with our daughter and nothing else at that moment. Tyann asked if she was OK and what was happening with our daughter. The only words I could muster we “just get here now”. I sat there in the chair rocking Paityn, talking to her and singing “Rock a bye baby” over and over again.

Tyann eventually arrived and I handed Paityn to her, we cried together and eventually Tyann was admitted and we were moved to room in the maternity ward. We took Paityn with us and spent the night holding and cuddling her.

Even though things did not turn out the best, but I got to deliver my little girl, give her the first bath and spend the night with her before saying our final good-bye. March 20^th, 2010 was both the greatest day and the worst day I have ever experienced. I felt the joy of a new father and the horror of a parent facing the death of their child.

Study break

2010-03-13T10:23:00.003-05:00

Well just took a little break from studying to refresh my cup of coffee and did a little Eee PC mod.I upgraded the video drivers to give me 1024x768. works just fine and gets rid of my biggest annoyance.I've done this once before but I remember having issues last time. The text is super small at this res, but still usable and even more functional.

Any day now

2010-03-13T10:04:00.000-05:00

Well, we are down to the wire, Paityn can be here any day now.
Everything is set up and ready to go, plus we are very anxious. I have
an exam coming up Monday morning then it is free and clear until my
little girl decides to show up.

I can't wait, I just hope that I am good dad.

Everywhere I look

2010-02-04T21:06:00.003-05:00

Everywhere I look around the apartment there is baby something. Stroller, swing, jumper and car seat among others. As much as I hate the clutter, I think it's awesome because it's my baby stuff, well actually Paityn's. Everything is pink, brown and very cute.

It's been a few days since I started the post, and now everything is set up. Well all except the crib, which we don't have yet. But we will soon enough.

A change in plans

2010-01-29T05:44:00.002-05:00

After one of our last pre-natal appointments we received some concerning news. Not really bad news, just something that needs our attention. We have been diagnosed with gestational diabetes, while not a game stopper it is something that requires our attention. Tyann immediately found out what it would take to control this without any medication and began taking steps to get her numbers under control. We have been going over a week now and she has kept her numbers in line. The latest communication with the midwife was positive. We are good candidates for a home birth.

So it looks as if there will not be a drive to the hospital, just a relaxed labor at home surrounded by family. I will be able to catch my little girl, I'll be the first person to have skin to skin contact with my daughter. How awesome is that.

The next project – the nursery

2009-11-29T13:22:00.001-05:00

Well, the (soon to be) nursery is starting fill up with baby stuff. However, it’s still full of my stuff, most of which is going to get thrown away. Need to get this done, or at least started, well before Christmas or we run the risk of not getting this done in time. Not that we’ll be working on the nursery after Paityn arrives, but we don’t want to be working on this on the last month or two of the pregnancy. At that point Tyann probably won’t feel like it any more. This is more on me to get this started, it’s my stuff clogging up the room in the first place. I want to clean out the closet first, then go from there.

A new soft spot

2009-11-15T11:27:00.002-05:00

Admittedly, I have always been emotional, in other words I am a cry baby. I have no problem crying or admitting to others that I cry. It can be annoying at times but hey better that than no heart at all right. I read an article this morning about the various forms of child abuse, the common abusers and how the child is not always believed and in some cases shunned and harassed for the statements. Before this article would have gotten me fired up, child abuse is not cool, especially having grown up in that atmosphere myself. But this morning after reading the article my eyes started well up with tears. Now, with a baby girl on the way, anytime I read something like that m first thought is about Paityn and I immediately have a feeling of dread. As if it was my child going through this (what ever I am reading or seeing). For example last night Tyann and I were at the book store. There is a specific book she wants for the baby, she found and read it to me. It is a very cute book and rather touching at the end. Of course after she read it to me and looked up, she asked "Are you crying?". I answered no, which I wasn't yet. But my eyes were again bloodshot and red. She and most of her friends think it's cute. Me I find it both annoying and some reassuring.

Homework for our birthing class

2009-11-12T20:55:00.001-05:00

Watching the Business of Being Born for our birthing class. A lot of surprising fact and statistics in this movie. Tyann is really interested in home birth. I was anti intervention before but even more so now. I can't wait until March and hopefully everything goes smoothly.

Too much excitement, the time is going to move slow slowly.

The Bradley Method – Husband Coached Childbirth

2009-11-08T10:33:00.001-05:00

This is our choice for the birth of our child. I personally do not know anything about the method other than what I heard in the first class. I did do some very brief reading online (Wiki) after taking the first class. This was primarily Tyann’s choice. Knowing that she would not do anything to harm Paityn (how cool), I support her 100%. So far the method seems to be legitimate, it is just based on letting the body deal with childbirth naturally, without any intervention. In the end this allows the child to be born without any stresses or other hindrances that can have affects later in life. I guess my won’t have a really opinion until after the birth is over, but so far everything I have seen and heard seems just fine. I have received some negative accounts of the method. However, Tyann and I have already discussed this and have a plan to prevent this scenario. Based on how the situation was explained to me, it was more with the individuals involved not so much the method. Not passing judgment on anyone, just commenting on what I have heard. The only downside is the schedule and location of the class, not the most convenient but this is very important to Tyann and I. To sum up the idea of the Bradley Method (very watered down), the husband (coach) helps to keep the mother focus on relaxing and letting the body deal with the birth process naturally. Keeping the mother calm and relaxed without the aid of any medications that can negatively affect the baby. Thus bringing the baby into a stress and anxiety free environment. Before the pregnancy it focuses on keeping the mother and baby healthy and low-risk to prevent the need for medicinal and surgical interventions.

Further reading: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bradley_method_of_natural_childbirth

The wait is over, Paityn Reese

2009-11-02T09:22:00.001-05:00

This morning we had our 20 week ultrasound and found out the baby's sex. We are having a baby girl. The whole 'gonna be daddy' thing just got a bit more real. The next landmark for me is to feel my little girl kicking. No we are off to register and start shopping for the nursery.

20 weeks and counting

2009-10-29T17:48:00.000-04:00

Getting rid of the clutter

2009-10-10T14:32:00.003-04:00

After having gotten rid of much of my computing gear to make room for the nursery, my work space is much leaner and uncluttered. How much further can I take this? Do I really need a dedicated desk? Do I have to have a hard drive full of (expensive) applications? Could I get along using primarily online based tools? I have online tools for a while now, but only a fraction of the time. I am thinking of making a move to using them full-time. Coupled with a few locally installed apps, just what I need to get the job done. Am I willing to trade in Office Pro for Google Docs & Evernote (with a little OpenOffice sprinkled in). Add to this a few additional apps that will be installed locally and moving to a new PC should be relatively painless. I will keep OpenOffice installed locally for when I need the additional features and power, but for the most part the online tools have enough functionality. I will be moving over to online in the next few weeks, hopefully all goes well.

Is there a way to mass upload files into Google Docs?

Less than 4 weeks until the next ultrasound

2009-10-07T06:51:00.001-04:00

Counting down until Nov 2nd. We will be able to find out if it a boy or girl. After that we are going to start shopping the nursery and register at Babies r’ Us. I originally didn’t want to find out early but it would be next to impossible to without knowing. This way we get 2 surprises, the first is when we find out if it is a boy or girl and the second is when we finally get to see our baby for the first time. It’s win/win, can’t go wrong there. Otherwise I have moved my office to free up the room for the nursery and condensed the whole office into a single corner of our bedroom. This has given me the itch to slim down a few other things, but I have yet to sell Tyann on the idea. I am already looking in to some new tech gadgets, I mean having a baby is a great reason to outfit myself with some new mobile gadgets. Right? Plus, I have to start my little geek of right.

On the road

2009-09-18T09:29:00.001-04:00

Just getting started, on our way to Pittsburgh for the weekend. Spending a few days visiting Jay and celebrating our anniversary. I love road trips, my dream is to take a few months and just drive around the US and Canada. No real destination or route just going which ever direction catches our eye. Till then, we'll just enjoy the short trips.

Later...

Finally, time to start the nursery

2009-09-07T19:46:00.001-04:00

Living in a two bedroom apartment, the second bedroom is currently my home office. I don’t work exclusively from home, I really don’t work from home at all, but have to remote in occasionally and have quite a bit of personal hardware. First, I have been looking into down sizing my stuff lately, mainly for this very reason but also to simplify my overly complicated layout. This room will be the babies room so we are moving my workspace into a portion of the bedroom. There is not enough room to move everything so I have to be frugal about what goes and what stays. This should be easy for the most part, if I haven't used it in the past few weeks it either goes into storage, gets thrown away or donated if possible. Once the workspace is moved and hopefully tastefully integrated into the bedroom, the fun of getting the nursery together can begin. We still do not know if it is a boy or girl, not quite that far along yet, but we are just getting the general stuff together. Mainly the furniture and getting the room baby proofed.

Well, I have finished moving my workspace into the bedroom. I haven’t cleaned out the old office yet, there is still plenty of stuff in there. The remaining thing to do is to go through and decide what gets packed away, what gets donated and what gets pitched. That can take a few weeks, still have some time there. The next item is to get my final MCSA exam knocked out. I am about a quarter of the way through the book. Al in due time.

11 weeks and counting

2009-08-26T19:25:00.001-04:00

We have now hit 11 weeks into the pregnancy. The baby is now the size of a lime (according to Tyann). Luckily the nausea is starting to subside. Now the issue seems to be headaches, a head massage helps but only temporarily. Almost into the second trimester. The first is supposed to be the worst for both morning sickness and the associated dangers of pregnancy. We have been window shopping and just looking at furniture for the nursery. not really looking for what we want but more to see what is out there to help us make our decision when it is time to buy. I think the most fun is looking at the baby clothing all the cute outfits (both boy and girl). We have officially picked the names, I don’t see us changing them unless there is a really good reason. Well I am preparing for my last MCSA exam, then I can commit most of my time to helping Tyann through the next few months and getting ready for our new addition.

Later…

Weighing my options

2009-08-12T22:25:00.001-04:00

With my new responsibilities I have an urge to get things in order, allowing me to provide for my family (it feels good to say that). I have a couple options that I am currently considering. The main thing that I am considering is re-enlisting in the National Guard. I am close to hitting the 20 year mark (only 6 to go) plus they will pay for a large portion of my student loan.

The big push here is that as long as the loan is over my head, I don’t see us being able to buy a house. That is going to be my priority in the next few years. I would like to buy a house by the time she (Tyann is positive its a girl) starts school. But not if the student loan is still lingering around. Along with this we have some plans for the short term to get other obligations taken care of. Hopefully when the baby arrives we will have a clean (mostly) financial slate.

There are a few other option that the National Guard will bring to the table. The extra cash, not much but every bit helps. The next big one is that I’ll be able to finish my degree. As long as I am in the Guard I can attend any state school for free, the only cost to me will be books. Not only will I finish my BS, but I may start working towards my MBA. Just some ideas I/we have been throwing around lately. Right now my mind is full of random ideas and other junk just bouncing around in there. I am a planner so I am trying to plan it all out, even though I know it really doesn’t work that way.

We have an apple seed.

2009-07-18T21:18:00.005-04:00

According to Tyann the baby is now the size of an apple seed and a heartbeat is there but very faint. We are both reading baby books, her more so than me. I intend to read the book, I actually have bought a book "for the new daddy". But I plan on waiting until I finish my MCSA exams before picking up the book to read. We are going to be looking into birthing classes and some kind of baby preparation training for the dog. I don't think there will be any problems there, he is very good but has a slight jumping problem. He is great with kids, you can tug and pull anywhere, grab his tongue and even grab and play with his feet. Not only does he just lay there and take it, he almost seems to enjoy it. I still can't talk about it without getting teary eyed, everyone thinks that is just so cute. These are truly tears of joy.

Starting to think like a dad

2009-07-16T22:12:00.003-04:00

The title is kind of corny, but what the hell.

Well, it has been 2 days since I found out we are having a baby. Still really excited and ready to get things started. I am learning that the first trimester is the most difficult of the whole pregnancy. This is where things can go wrong, so I need to focus on the moment and just be there for Tyann as much as possible. Over the next few months I'll be taking a bigger and bigger role in the house work and other chores, that means I'll even eventually have to do the grocery shopping. I am cringing at the mere thought. But I that is what she needs me to do, then I'll do it with a smile. Now more than ever I want to get my MCSA exams knocked out so I can focus completely on the pregnancy and Tyann. I also want to knock out my degree, that will enable me to make a better living for my family. Overnight my priorities have changed, I now have a child to think about. I still want it all, but now it will have to wait, as I have other priorities. I also have the baby book and a lot of learning to do. I have never even seen a diaper changed let alone changed one myself. I guess this is how all new parents feel, I'm not the first and surely won't be the last.

An awesome surprise, I’m gonna be daddy.

2009-07-15T06:05:00.001-04:00

Yesterday after work Tyann called me into the bedroom. Having just started a movie I was a bit reluctant, but I slowly lumbered into the bedroom. She handed me a card, I had no idea what the card could have been. She tends to do cute, random little things out of the blue. I opened the card. It read:

“Daddy, Mommy wanted to tell you in a really geeky way that she’s so excited that I am in her belly, but she couldn’t think of anything geeky but to buy you a gift. I can’t wait to meet you! Love, your baby.”

It didn’t sink in right away, hell it still hasn’t, but I immediately started to cry and gave her a huge hug and kiss. I kept asking, are you sure? We have had so many close calls in the past, then she showed me the pregnancy test. and told me about how she just knew. Well the doctor appointment is pending to put the official confirmation on it. I have often thought of this moment but know it is here. All the reservations I imagined I would have, I didn’t. I have to give up my home office and I don’t care, I am actually excited to set up the baby’s room. I am starting to cry as I am writing this post. This is by far the happiest I have ever been.

Balancing my personal, work and tech lives…

2009-07-11T13:25:00.001-04:00

So many things to do and such little time to do them all. There are many things on my ‘things to do’ list. Currently I am pursuing my MCSA certification and preparing for the exams takes up my evening family time. I also plan to go back to college and complete my B.A. this fall, again taking up much of my family time. Being that the only courses remaining are 2 credits of a foreign language, there will be a significant time investment. I also want to get my MCSE, Network+ and Security+ certifications as well. Along with this I want to spend time with my beautiful and awesome wife (among other family), rebuild my dad’s van and start a consulting business (after the degree and certifications). I know everyone has these same issues and much worse. It is just hard to prioritize things at times. Along with all these things I have to go to work, luckily I enjoy my job very much. Not everyone can say that. Maybe , I’ll win Powerball, allowing me to commit myself fulltime to completing my education and certifications. Then I can finish the van rebuild and get my consulting firm started. Considering I really don’t play the lottery this is nothing more than a fantasy, but a nice one none the less.

Imagine, the wife wouldn’t have to work and I would be working out of the house giving us both the maximum amount of time to spend with our children (when we have them). Plus, not only would I have most of the gadgets that I want, I could justify them in most cases. Time to wake up and get back to work.

Planning a cross country road trip

2009-07-11T12:54:00.001-04:00

Finally figured what I am doing with Sam’s (my dad’s) van. After restoring it, most of which will be fairly stock. Nothing crazy, just a few extra comforts and some color changes. The extra comforts will be geared towards my geekier side and set it up as a good road trip vehicle. Once this is all finished Tyann and I (plus the dog, can’t leave him behind) will be taking a cross country road trip. I am thinking the end point will be San Francisco, what we do in between is still up in the air. Either way it should be an awesome time.

Bringing back the Eee PC

2009-06-20T20:33:00.002-04:00

Despite the fact that I have a relatively small and light 12" laptop, it is still too big to carry all the time. I was one of the people who bought the first Eee PC. I loved it from the time I first saw it, and just had to have one. Well, I did buy one. My wife said that I had better not just let it sit around and collect dust. She had ridden along to pick it up, a 3 hour drive and she was extremely sick that day. I could have ordered it online, but I light my instant gratification.

After a few months the novelty wore off but I still loved my little Eee. The only 2 limitations are the screen resolution and the storage. The resolution you can work around and deal with; the storage limitation is a bit harder to get around. Granted you can use an SD card, which I did. I have a 16GB SDHC. Works fine but it isn't the same. Some apps install to the C drive and do not give any other option. Also, it eliminates the idea of updating the OS. But it is still a great little machine when used in the proper capacity. I recently dug mine out of the closet, dusted it off, reinstalled the OS and put on my favorite/necessary applications. I am actually looking for an extended battery to give it a bit more longevity. The combination of this and my HTC Fuze make for a decent mobile kit. I would like a newer netbook but really appreciate the size and form factor of my 4G. Although I have been eyeing up the old Aspire One, not much bigger than mine but has some additional horsepower. For now I will make due with what I have.

MCSA exam 2 passed, on to the 3rd

2009-05-16T16:21:00.001-04:00

Well, despite the system crash, I passed my exam. I was worried a bit. I felt confident that I did well, but there were a few questions and one simulation that I really wanted to review. The thing about the Microsoft exams is that the questions are not always worded straight forward and there isn’t always an obviously correct answer. I wanted to review the questions to make sure I read and understood them correctly and I wanted to work back through the simulation. No such luck, as I said the exam software crashed as I was starting the review. The same thing happened to someone the day before and Prometric told the test center it would not happen again. So 2 down and 2 to go. The exam I am preparing for now is the smallest of the exam guides, although not the easiest. I am already looking into what I will do next, either continue on to the MCSE or the Security+ and maybe the Network+. Not sure which I will do, the MCSE may be more valuable but I personally would enjoy the Security+ more. In the end I would like to have them all, then maybe look into upgrading my MCSA/E to the 2008 series. Seems to be a never ending cycle. Although my current employer will be on the 2003 platform for a few years yet. Wouldn’t hurt to get ahead of the game.

Later…

My new project

2009-05-05T21:12:00.001-04:00

This was my dad’s van. It is in good shape, just needs a little TLC and some minor cosmetic work. For the most part it is fine as is. My goal is to build it in to the ultimate road trip vehicle and the perfect geek vehicle. I think the two will complement one another. It would also make a nice vehicle to take camping. There is plenty of room for tents and other camping gear, not to mention the back seat folds out into a bed. Perfect for more impromptu camping trips. It is a Chevy G20 conversion. It actually has real wood accent in the interior. Although the look is not totally me, it does look pretty good. I am thinking more along the lines of carbon fiber. But that is down the road, mechanicals come first, then the rest. It will hopefully be ready for next summer.

MCSA test number 2 – tech support fail

2009-05-05T06:53:00.001-04:00

This past Saturday I took the second of the 4 MCSA exams. I got most of the test completed. I answered every question on the exam, what I did not get to do was finish the review before the exam crashed. I could have cried. The good part is that I do not have to retake the exam. However, I have to wait and call Prometric to get my score. If it would happen that I fail, I am going to demand a free voucher to retake the exam. Although all the questions were answered, I was just getting started on the review. I had a couple of questions marked for review, there were 4 questions in particular that I wanted to go over again. Those are the questions that have me worried. Now I need to call and get my score plus maybe argue for a free voucher. In the mean time I’ll keep my fingers crossed.

A final farewell to my dad

2009-02-03T19:33:00.001-05:00

This past few weeks have been rather rough. My dad recently passed away. It was very sudden, no one was expecting this. He was in, what appeared to be, perfect health up to the end. The last morning he was a prankster and just as happy as any other. He was so excited this past week being back to work after missing a couple of months after his surgery. I spoke to him on the Friday before and he was excited and ready to go back to work. He wasn't cleared for mechanical work yet but he was able to drive. Which was always his first love, he drove truck most of his life and on and off the past few years. He has said many times that if he has to go he wanted it to be at the wheel, but he didn't want to hurt anyone. He got his wish, he was doing what he loved and coasted to a stop without hitting anything but the guard rail. In the end it was very quick and there was no suffering.

It took a few days for it to settle in that my dad was gone. I have excepted the fact and now I am being strong for my mom. She needs the support and I have no idea what she is experiencing. I have never experienced loosing a parent before, this is new to me. Something I knew I would face at some point, just not this soon.

I look back at the things we did and those we talked about doing in the future. Just remembering the little things that I am going to miss. I remember working on my vehicles with him. He always told me he wouldn't do it for me but he would show me how. Some of my best memories were while working on cars (or trucks). Although it has been a while since we have done it, it is one of my favorite memories. The last time was actually, just him helping me glue my mirror back to my windshield. I think the best memory was him taking us out the night before my wedding. I am just glad I was able to share that with him. Sam was the only dad I ever knew; I will miss him very much, more than words can say. The important thing is that I did get to share some of my life with him. I will have my memories and they will always be with me.

Looking back over the years, there are many things he tried to teach me, some I just didn't get at the time and others I was too stubborn to listen to. Many of those things make sense now that I have grown up a bit and have a family and responsibilities of my own. Yet others have taken new meaning over the past few days.

This may seem like some incoherent babbling but there was a lot of thought behind this. There are many things I would like to say, much more than I have written above. Anything that I did or want to say, Sam (although he was and is my dad, I always called him Sam; although I referred to him and introduced him as my dad) already knows.

You will be missed, loved and never forgotten.

Here's to 2009

2009-01-02T23:58:00.001-05:00

Well, another year has come and gone. Looking back, I must say 2008 was an awesome year. I got married, got back into shape and started working toward some professional certifications. I finished the year better than I started, what more can you ask for.

Looking forward to 2009, I have set some additional fitness goals, getting myself organized (sounds familiar) and to get back to college and finish my degree. I may set some smaller goals as I go but these are my mains goals to accomplish this year.

To the new year, cheers!

MCSA classes = all done

2008-12-21T10:15:00.001-05:00

That is just the classes, I have yet to start taking the tests. The last word I got was that the testing systems are not yet ready, they have been having trouble getting the systems installed and configured. It looks like I won't be taking any tests until after the new year. The MCSE track starts on Jan 13, just not sure if I'll be taking that one. First I have to sell it to my employer, which may be hard having not taken any of the MCSA tests. Secondly, I'm not sure if I am comfortable starting a the second track without finishing the first.

I don't have much time to decide, I'm going to call and check on the test system status this coming week.

Just about finished the MCSA course

2008-12-13T19:03:00.001-05:00

Only a handful of classes left in the MCSA course. I have yet to schedule any tests yet, I will probably wait until after the holidays before taking the first test. That will give me some additional time to study and prepare. I'm not really sure what the test will be like, so the first test will be rough not knowing exactly what to expect. I usually test fairly well so I am not totally worried but mildly concerned, as I will have to pay for any retakes.

It's over, regretfully

2008-11-05T06:58:00.000-05:00

Well the election is over, I must say that I am sad to see the outcome. How can someone with such disdain for the country and lack of patriotism be our commander in chief. He has openly disrespected the country and its symbols. His promised tax cuts and spending increases just don't add up. He'll placate the masses today but we'll all pay for it tomorrow. I hope he learns the true meaning of patriotism and to respect what it means to be an American, and takes the country in the right direction. He openly has and probably still has relations with multiple anti-American people, feels the National Anthem is a symbol of war mongering and that the flag is too intimidating. In addition to this he wants to give illegal aliens the ability to get a drivers license and free health care. At our expense of course. I have a feeling we are headed for some rough times ahead.

Good luck to us all.

Tomorrow we'll have been married one month

2008-10-19T21:21:00.001-04:00

Tomorrow we'll have been married for 1 month.

Here's to many more years together.
Love you, baby...

Eee PC, still lovin' it

2008-10-19T20:50:00.000-04:00

I've had my Eee for about 4 months now and I still use it almost daily. I just installed Ubuntu on it again. It is both a tool and a toy. I think I like it better with Linux, specifically Ubuntu. This time I spent some time tweaking it for better performance. Plus I removed Gnome and installed Xfce. Its lighter and more importantly takes up less disk space. Not much less, but with 4 GB, every little bit counts. I am going to spend some time with it and try to see what I can do to slim things down a bit more.

The Honeymoon Synopsis

2008-09-28T12:57:00.001-04:00

For our honeymoon we decided to just take a road trip through New England. No itinerary or plans, just the two of us and a few days to travel. Food ended being a large part of the trip causing us to take 2 side trips for specific foods. We went up through New York into Connecticut the into Mass; coming home we took I-95 down the coast then came across I-78 central PA. We started and finished our trip with breakfast in the Harrisburg area. Below is a list of the places we went and what we saw/did while there. The cities in bold are the places where we spent the night and restaurants in underlined text. Gloucester was by far the high point of the trip, so much that we are planning a second trip this spring. The food, we already have the restaurants planned for the next trip, was amazing. I have never tasted NE clam chowder like I had at the Gloucester House. Tyann doesn't like clam chowder at all but liked the chowder (or chowda) served at the Gloucester House. I also got a 1 1/4 pound lobster, after eating the lobster I was stuffed; I didn't touch my side items at all. I will never be able to eat at Red Lobster again. For breakfast we ate at Sugar Magnolia, again excellent. On the menu the 2 thing that caught my were the eggs and crab cakes and the lobster omelette. They both sound pretty good, but I was on a pancake with maple syrup mission. Having a large Portuguese population, they also served linguiça - a cured pork sausage seasoned with onions, garlic, and paprika. It was different but good, they compared it to kielbasa but spicier. Tyann ordered a sample platter called the Greasy Pole, each single item on the platter was a meal unto itself. I couldn't even finish both my pancakes, again they were huge. This was definitely the best trip I have ever taken, due largely in part to the company. We are looking forward to going back to Gloucester in the spring, the whale watch will be the highlight of the trip.

Connecticut
- New Milford
  - Lovers Leap State Park
- Meriden
  - Ted's Famous Steamed Burgers
  - Craig Castle and Hubbard Park
- Hartford
  - Bushnell Park
  - Mark Twain House
  - Half-door Irish Pub
- New Haven
  - Yale
  - downtown
  - Louis Lunch - closed
  - Bru Rm at Bar
Massachusetts
- Saugus
  - Trader Joes
  - Hilltop Steakhouse - passed but never went back, will visit on the next trip
- Gloucester
  - Stage Fort Park
  - Downtown
  - Sugar Magnolia's
  - Gloucester House
- Essex - drove through
- Ipswich- drove through

Down to the final hours

2008-09-20T12:25:00.000-04:00

Well, it's 12:30, the photographer will be here in 1 hour. The wedding is in 3.5 hours and my stomach is starting to get queasy and I can't seem to get warm. I am fully recovered from last night's activities, the alcohol is out of my system. Well the ring bearer just showed up and is getting ready. So I am signing off.

Later and wish me luck...

The big day

2008-09-19T11:40:00.000-04:00

Well tomorrow is the big day and the rehearsal is in a couple of hours. The rehearsal dinner is at Texas Roadhouse (my idea) then the guys are staying there for beer and what ever else we can get in to. We have a room within crawling distance of the Roadhouse, safety first. Tomorrow t 4PM the ceremony starts, it should be over by 4:20. We wrote our own vows and everything else, with the intent of keeping the ceremony short and to the point. We should be at the reception hall by 5:30 or so, after the wedding photos. The late start also means a late night. We have the room from tonight for a second night. Then we'll leave from there Sunday morning. No real plans or itinerary for the honeymoon, we are just hopping in the car and taking off. Not even sure if we are heading north or south, our original plans were to head north to New England. We have also considered heading south; I guess we'll have to decide on the fly Sunday morning. No matter what we do, this will be a road trip (adventure) in the truest sense. No where to go or schedule to keep, just what ever looks interesting at the time.

Now for my geek side to show. I already have my go bag packed and ready to hit the road. Of all things I am using a CamelBak, minus the water bladder, it is a perfect fit and very comfortable. Not sure what we may be doing, potentially we could be walking at some point so I wanted a comfortable bag to carry my gear. At the center of my gear bag is a Asus Eee PC running XP. This will llow me to offload pictures from the camera, email and blog along the way. Plus we'll be on Google Maps regularly to keep track of where we are and help us figure out where to go next. I also have an assortment of USB flash drives (plus a 16GB SDHC in the Eee), camera with charger and sync cable, power cable for my iPhone (with wall and 12VDC adapter) flashlight, Swiss Army knife and small pair of binoculars. That is about it for the tech gear, add to that a book to read, a Moleskine and writing utensils and lastly and umbrella. She swore up and down I wasn't taking a laptop on the honeymoon but it makes so much sense, plus the Eee is perfect for such a task. When I make my next post I'll be married.

Later...

The big day

2008-09-19T11:17:00.000-04:00

First week finished - Couch to 5K

2008-09-14T22:19:00.001-04:00

I decided to start the Couch to 5K program from Cool Running.com. For the past few weeks I have been running but that is all, no plan or program just running for a bit. Now that I have myself in shape where I can actually run enough to get a workout from it I needed something with a bit more structure. I looked around and couldn't really find anything, then I remembered a routine I found before and dug it out. I looked good, so I decided to try it out.

Keeping track of the intervals seemed to be a challenge. All I have is a chronograph. My digital is an all metal watch, not the most comfortable to run with. Even so, it gave me the count down time but had to be restarted after each interval. But I was determined to stick with it so I started looking for either running cadences or some good running tunes. I have seen plenty of running podcasts, so I checked them out too. I actually found a podcast for the Couch to 5K program. It is set to music and the is a narrator or coach taking you through the whole workout. It starts and finishes with a 5 minute warm up then cool down, something I have never been very good at. The workout itself is excellent, he instructs you through the whole thing and it is set to music. This is much better than what I was looking for, it is perfect. I also found another similar routine that goes up to a half marathon (roughly 21K), this one is a 12 week program. I believe I can make it through the Couch to 5K in the time allotted, not that it would be an issue to extend it, but I am sure I will extend the second program. I also found a podcast is just music to run ( or workout to). It is mixed so that the BPM of the music will loosely correspond to an interval type run.

I am thinking of entering a 5K to give myself a goal. I'll think that one over a bit more.

Later...

First week MCSA course

2008-09-14T22:01:00.000-04:00

First week of the MCSA course down, so far so good. The instructor seems to know the material very well and he keeps it interesting, allowing us to go off topic every now and then. I know it isn't going to be easy, right now we are on the XP Implementation and Support course. This class looks to be deceptively easy. I already have a system down. The day after class I am reviewing the material, performing the labs a second time (or more if needed) and taking notes in a second notebook. This notebook will be my primary study guide. I also plan to buy a practice exam suite. From what I am told these are very valuable in gauging my test preparedness. Plus it feels good to be back in class/school. I actually very much enjoy being in class.

I am going to miss a whole week of class for the wedding and honeymoon. This is a good reason, no doubt about that. The good part is that it is in the easiest of the classes, but I will still have to make sure I review and understand the material.

Later...

Google Chrome - the beginning of the Google OS

2008-09-02T20:51:00.000-04:00

I downloaded the Google browser today, so far I am impressed. Searching is lightning fast and it renders the pages quickly. One of the web apps we use at work, loaded much faster in Chrome than in IE and a bit more quickly than Firefox. The browser is awesome, but it is far from dethroning Firefox or IE. Some of the points that I am interested in are that it's multi threaded and that a crashed tab won't take out the whole browser. Couple this with a smaller memory footprint that FF and they have a solid contender. The one question I have is with the task manager. Why would you put a task manager in a browser? Unless this is the initial stages of the much hyped Google OS. It has Gears built in. Imagine a minimal Linux install, just enough to run Chrome, Picasa and Google Earth. That would give you all you need, especially for a net book style laptop. That would be the basis for the cloud computing OS that everyone predicts is coming and Google is positioned with a whole field of these web based tools. Combine this with their coming Android phone, this could be a very interesting time for Google.

A few months with the EeePC 701

2008-09-01T09:40:00.000-04:00

I have had my Eee for a few months now, and I still use it almost every day. I have 2 other PCs. My main PC is my Toshiba laptop, that really doesn't leave the desk al that much any more and an older Dell Dimension that has its OS changed almost monthly. The Eee is so easy to carry around and can be packed up in a minute and ready to move. There are times that I would prefer my full size over the Eee but these are very few. It mainly stems from the keyboard, which I have grown very comfortable with. I hunt & peck, without looking, rather than touch typing (which I can do). I wasn't sure how I would feel about the Eee after a few months, I knew I would still use it but just wasn't sure how often. I am starting class in the next few weeks. I am pretty much set on using the Eee as my main note taking tool, along with my Moleskine.

The performance is never an issue, I only use for web, email and productivity applications. I save the more demanding tasks for my Toshiba. With the Eee I always have a PC within reach and that is the reason I wanted it in the first place.

Just a couple of emails.

2008-08-30T13:19:00.001-04:00

Yesterday at work I was playing with Zenoss in VMWare Player. I had
trouble getting it to auto discover anything, despite it having a
DHCPassigned IP. Being unable to get the VM version running I decided to
use our old Red Hat server. It ran our IBM Universe before switching it
to the Windows server platform. It has been running this whole time so I
killed the cron jobs (relating to the Universe system) and tried to
update the system and install Lynx. Well after about 20 minutes or so a
few random emails came in, then they started to flood the IS manager's
inbox. She asked what we were doing and to stop it right away. It didn't
take but a few minutes to discover that the emails were coming from the
Linux box. These are the queued emails from the Sendmail server. The
emails were all from 2006 and 2007. We laughed at it at first then we
realized some emails were going to customers. So I took down the network
card,but they still kept coming in. The other admin was at the sever and
just issued the shutdown command. The server shutdown and the emails
stopped; after sending about 300 or so emails; only a few went to
customers (this brought a end to the laughter, until we had the emails
contained). Two people were copied on all of them, and they both called
me. They vowed to forward every email they received to me, just to share
the love. In the end no harm was done but we did laugh for the rest for
the day, at my expense of course.

The end to the perfect Saturday

2008-08-16T17:18:00.000-04:00

Well, after replacing the RAID controller, memory DIMM and battery the server is back up and running. With zero data corruption, really didn't want to rebuild a server this weekend. Then there was an issue with mobile syncing with Exchange, however my phone worked the whole time. Not sure why, other than it's an iPhone. In the end I just had to recreate the virtual directories and that brought the mobile users back online. I have received confirmation from 2 of the 4. That's not all the mobile users but the major users. Time to kick the feet up and relax.

Later...

The perfect Saturday

2008-08-16T12:14:00.000-04:00

Last night the call came in, the Exchange server is down. There was an error during the start up. The funny thing is that it shouldn't have been restarted. More on that later. The error pointed to a dead battery on the RAID controller. I instructed the caller to hit the "any key" and continue with the boot up process. Well, this didn't work, so we powered the server down and rebooted that way. Same thing, the error appeared again; clearing the error just eventually cycles back through the start up. I told the caller that I would be on site in about 20 minutes. He told me not to worry about it, since it was late Friday evening. Just come and take care of it in the morning.

I woke up bright and early Saturday morning, and was on the road by 8am. First stop, caffeine then the office. I arrived at the office about 8:45. Went in and looked at the error and rebooted the server. I watched the boot process go through the post and there it was the error. It was a battery error on the RAID controller. Didn't know that RID controllers had batteries, so I learned something new today. Called in to Dell support and we ran through a few tests nad finally tried to reseat the memory module. Again the error appeared, so Dell dispatched replacement parts and a repair technician. It's now 12:30 and the tech is about 1 hour out. Hopefully the hardware swap gets the box up and running. If not, there is probably some data corruption, so I'll call Dell support back. If this is the case we'll run chkdsk, fixboot and/or fixmbr. Hopefully it doesn't go any further than this, because we don't back up the full system state, just the Exchange store. So if there is any major data corruption that means rebuilding the box from scratch and the restoring the mail store. That would take a while. So knock in wood, hopefully that is not the case. I would send updates on Twitter but it is blocked at the gateway and I don't have signal on my cell to update via SMS.

Later...

Getting back on the wagon

2008-08-16T12:10:00.001-04:00

The beginning of this year, like every other, I committed to get back
into shape. We'll this time I stuck to it, so far I have lost 25lbs
(with a few more to go) and I look and feel much better. But the past
few weeks I have gotten out of the habit of getting up and working out
in the morning. Right now I am fighting to get myself back in that
habit. My weight has gone back up to 208, frightening. Tyann says I'm
crazy and look fine the way I am but she supports me all the way. I am
thinking of giving myself a monthly Army style PT test (hey, I miss it)
to gauge my improvement along with weighing myself; this isn't about
straight weight loss but getting myself back into good physical shape.
Along with the physical improvement, I am getting mental and
professional self in order. Not that I am out of order, but everyone can
always use a little self-improvement.

Later...

Changing my fitness focus

2008-07-21T19:26:00.000-04:00

Up to this point I have been focusing my fitness goal on appearance. Don't get me wrong, I have made some excellent progress. I have lost about 25 lbs so far. That's great, I am very close to my original goal. But along the way I have got caught up in the whole gym/muscle thing. Some where my goal went from getting into shape to getting big. Not that there is anything wrong with that; that takes a life style change that I am not willing to make. So I have been thinking and reading, the fitness I am looking for is not just physical but also mental. I mean this is the happiest point in my life.

I am engaged to a beautiful women that I will be marrying in just 2 months. My career is doing great and my home life couldn't be better. Along with getting myself into physical shape I want to be in shape mentally and emotionally. I want to be the best husband, and eventually father, I possibly can be. That means I need to have my life in order both the physical and mental aspects. Not that I have an mental issue, I don't, just I need to be mentally strong and in shape. If that makes any sense.

Later...

Wedding is just around the corner

2008-07-13T13:27:00.000-04:00

We are getting very close to the wedding day and still have so much to plan/do. We started planning early in the game, we just didn't keep up with it like we should have. The 60 days will be very interesting and busy. We still have to write our vows and I need to get fitted for my tux.

iPhone 1.0 to 2.0 upgrade

2008-07-13T13:16:00.000-04:00

Well, I couldn't wait for the official upgrade so I applied the leaked upgrade. All went well, I didn't notice any bugs or issues (not to say they aren't there). Both upgrades went well, the leaked and the actual release. My phone worked flawlessly after each upgrade and the new apps are awesome. The best do far is Super Monkey Ball, very addictive and worth every penny. I really like the Twitter, Evernote and Facbook apps, as I use all 3 services. The one app that is missing is a terminal app, which I did not expect to see. Of the added features the best are the dedicated contacts application/icon and the more accurate mapping application. When accessing the 'current location' feature on Google maps, the cell based triangulation seems much more accurate. This makes me even more willing to keep my current 1.0 iPhone. The 2 mains reasons I wanted to upgrade were the GPS and the extended battery life. The 3G is nice but not yet available were I spend most of my time. All in all I am very happy with the upgrade. The only features that re still missing are the ability to cut/copy and paste, this one is a gimme, should have been there from the start. The second feature I would like to see is the ability to save an email as a note. Other than that, there is nothing left to want. After upgrading I really can't recommend upgrading to the 2.0 iPhone if you already own the 1.0; unless the 3G speed is that important, but remember this speed comes at the cost of reduced battery life.

Exchange is up and running

2008-06-23T20:20:00.000-04:00

Well, it seems that my idea was way off. It wasn't an SSL issue, not sure what the issues was really. But all it took was 1 or 2 failed attempts, eventually we just deleted the virtual directories and rebuilt them. I still want to figure out what caused it, I'll keep working on it.

Exchange madness

2008-06-22T22:34:00.000-04:00

Saturday morning started with a phone call coming in about 8:30 or so. I didn’t recognize the number right away so I didn’t answer it. A little later I checked the voicemail thinking it may be work related. It was, the on call person for the weekend (a programmer), he received a call about PDAs not syncing with the email server. He then called me. So I VPNed into work and checked things out a bit. Nothing looked out of order, so I just rebooted. Everything came back up fine. I shot out an email, explaining what I did. I figured if I didn’t get any more calls on this the problem is fixed. Back to the weekend.

About 430PM the second call came in, mobile Activesync is still down. I was told that it isn’t an emergency, so it could wait until today. So after dinner and once Tyann went to bed I started looking into the issue. I must have sat up for hours researching and working on the server. I found a way to connect but it’s not a fix, just a work around. Sunday morning I went in to check the firewall and a few other odd and ends. I didn’t expect ny of them but it didn’t hurt to check. After about an hour or so I called it a day and went home, I’ll try again tomorrow. I posted to Microsoft newsgroup for some answers. Still lost and looking for a solution. On the bright side a call came in this morning that I was able to fix quick and easy. A machine wouldn’t start, a critical machine that has to be up. I turned around and headed back in. Checked out the machine and nothing, it wouldn’t power up at all. Seemed like a the power supply was bad and there just happened to be an old machine in the corner that hasn’t been used in a long time. Same model, perfect match; just a quick fix and the machine was back up again.

Batting .500 for the weekend, not bad; just have to figure out the Exchange problem and it all good.

Damn, WiFi card

2008-06-18T06:05:00.000-04:00

Someone hit an AP in the warehouse and damaged the antennas. I just had assess the damage and determine if we needed to replace them. On the way back to my office I was flagged down. I was getting close to the end of the day. Perfect time for a problem. They explained the issue to me, we have some machines using USB WiFi cards and someone caught the cord and unplugged the card by accident. This caused the machine to loose connection. So I tried to reconnect to the network and nothing. Being such a simple problem I just played with it for a bit still nothing. I checked another machine that was free to copy the configuration and searched our documentation for the WEP key. Came back with info in hand and reconfigured the WiFi card. Still nothing, it could see the networks and get the Windows "limited connectivity" but could not fully authenticate. By this time they were done with the PC so it was time for a reboot. Same still. They switched the machine to bypass mode and used it without the LAN.

The next day I was back at it again. I called a support person that was recommended for Wireless LAN related issues. I called and explained to her what I had done so far. She already new our network and VNC'ed to another, similar box. After about 15 minutes and a few questions she asked if I switch the card with another machine and tested that way. I told her no, and explained that up to that point the machine was under use and I couldn't have taken the machine down or restarted. Plus, the card saw the wireless networks and was sending/receiving packets. At this point I would have tried anything. I switchedthe cards and the machine connected and the other connection issue was now on the other machine. Feeling some what stupid, I thanked her and slowly made my was back to the office. Happy the problem was finally solved but upset I didn't try such a simple solution. Now I am just ordering a new network card.

Plus, I found the cart has a short, ouch....

Blogged with the Flock Browser

Finally tried the Flock web browser, I am sold!

2008-06-15T19:38:00.000-04:00

I have come to know and love the social web. But the social web browser, otherwise known as Flock just never caught my eye. That was until today. I have been using Firefox longer than I can remember. I have heard good things about the new version of Opera. I have used it before, it was fine, but did't give me a reason the leave Firefox. I used Opera for a day or so and again it is a fine browser but not enough of a reason to leave Firefox, plus every time I go to Google Notebook i get an unsupported browser error. I here Flock mentioned every so often, usually Veronica Belmont on Tekzilla. I figured I'll give it a try, after all it's basically Firefox with a little extra, right? After just a day I am loving it. I may just have to switch browsers. It has a lot of extra functionality built in to it. It has everything built right in, it just makes everything easier to do. I can post to Twitter and Facebook, write a blog entry (how I am doing this one) and get my RSS feeds all from the browser without navigating to separate pages. The only regret I have is that it seems to be a bit much to run on the Eee.

Blogged with the Flock Browser

Busy day

2008-06-01T17:18:00.000-04:00

The day started earlier than I expected, with a call to the on call line. It seemed that the phone connected to the MSI was emitting a horrid screeching tone. I could hear it coming across the phone, it was pretty bad. This was about 8:00am, immediately I checked the MSI order lines; each line picked up with the handshake. This meant I had some time; it was more of a comfort issue than a system issue. It was around 9 when I left for work, I got there right at 9:15. I could hear the phone as soon as I walked in the door. It would be an easy fix, I went and grabbed a spare phone and switched out handsets; problem solved.

Before I left I wanted to jot down the call so I could log it tomorrow. While at my desk I opened Outlook and checked my email. There was a UPS/backup system issue on Friday, that I had assumed corrected itself over the weekend. Friday when I left the UPS was reporting a power spike and the RAID connected to the backup was showing a power supply error. The building would be manned until later in the evening, I asked to be called if the error was still showing that evening. I checked my email a few times through out the evening Friday; I last checked around midnight, I assumed all was well. I was wrong.

There was an email in my inbox from this morning stating that there was still an error, but it changed to a different status. I shut down the UPS and servers, then brought everything back up. The UPS error was now gone - problem 1 solved. Next I began booting the backup systems and the attached RAID. All seemed to be going well, the RAID was going through the self test, then suddenly it hung. Rebooting the RAID ended in it hanging in the exact same place. Wonderful, this cannot wait until tomorrow. I made the appropriate phone calls and placed a support call. Would you believe that there is no after hours support on Sundays!!! What, the hell is that? We pay for support, but we cannot get support after4PM Saturday. That is crazy, unbelievable. So, here we are with a critical system completely down. Not operating at all and we are unable to get any support. So at this point the only recourse is to move one of the LTO drives to another server and run the backup jobs manually. No problem, but it means that I have to monitor the job's progress and manually change tapes and start the next job. Not the best way to spend a Sunday, but it goes with the territory. I am calling them first thing in the morning, I think we can get support on Mondays.

On top of this 2 of our large printer/copiers went down. One of them requires a service call, I know what needs to be fixed, it's just 2 belts jumped off their rollers. I could putt them back on but cannot find the roller they go around. I'll have to call in a service tech tomorrow morning to fix it. It will take the guy all of 5 minutes to fix. The other printer gave an error code but I have no way of deciphering the code. I did look it up on line but could not find a solid answer, I'll tack this one on to tomorrow's service call. Just about time for me to head back and check the backup job.

Later

Monthly bandwidth cap?

2008-05-28T21:44:00.000-04:00

News in the blogosphere is saying that Comcast (and other ISPs) are considering setting a monthly limit on usage. Total BS, they have yet to deliver the promises that were made in the past. Instead of trying to change how things are, they should invest and build the infrastructure to deliver the Internet we were promised.

Of course this would require them to actually spend money and turn away higher fees. This would never happen. If they are going to go down this path, they could at least open all the ports and let the subscriber use the bandwidth as they choose. For example, port 80 was closed so people wouldn't run web servers eating up tons of "free" bandwidth. If bandwidth is limited and any overages will incur excess charges, the customer should have the right to use the bandwidth as they see fit. Once again this will come to the ISPs having to spend their money to build up their infrastructure. They do not want to foot this bill, even though they had committed to it years ago.

Patiently waiting for FIOS.

My on call week

2008-05-27T21:12:00.000-04:00

Once again it is my turn to be on call. It's been very quiet so far, just took me a while to leave work. As I got to my car the phone rang, looking at the caller ID, it was work. Printer issues, the spooler service kept crashing for some reason. Restarting the services seams to get things going again, a few test print jobs and I am on my way home. Being on call isn't an issue, especially now that it is a shared responsibility. So I'll have to put Indiana Jones 4 off until next week, Murphy's Law, you know.

Here's to a quiet week.

Day 2 of the Memorial Day weekend

2008-05-26T02:02:00.001-04:00

Today we found ourselves in Gettysburg. The day started off with breakfast at Bob Evans, then we just headed down the road. Again, no real destination just a direction. The only thing that was in our path was Gettysburg. So that's where we spent the day. Checked out the battle field, walked around down town and then lastly hit the outlets. Just a simple day enjoying the weather with my baby. Tomorrow BBQ at Gram & Pap's.

Finally, time for bed. Night all.

Full week with the Eee PC

2008-05-26T01:17:00.000-04:00

So far so good. I have carried the Eee pretty much every where I have gone the past week. It's so light and compact, how could I not. Tyann doesn't seem to share my enthusiasm about its portability, but she understands my addiction (to technology). I still have some adjusting to do in respect to the keyboard. There are quite a few typos so I have to check and double check everything I type, but I should do that any way. From my use so far the WiFi reception seems awesome better than my $1500 Toshiba. If I could only find a decent messenger bag, one small enough that the Eee doesn't float around in but big enough to carry the Eee and a few other odds and ends. Till then I have a portable DVD player carrier that I bought a Circuit City. It isn't very attractive but it is totally functional. So far the Eee is totally living up to my expectations.

Awesome Saturday with my sweetie

2008-05-25T22:25:00.002-04:00

It started with a morning drive with no destination, eventually we decided to go to the (not so) local Ikea. Just a short 2 hour or so drive. We went and Tyann went crazy; I couldn't let her have a cart or she would have broke the bank. She still left with a bag full of stuff and a smile. After which we started discussing lunch. The only thing we new was no chain restaurants, we didn't come this far to eat at an Applebee's or Chili's. "What can we get here that we can't get at home we thought." Philly is just down the road, how about an authentic Philly cheese steak? So I hopped on the iPhone and got directions to Philly. Once in Philly we parked the car and walked around for a little, very little. We made it back to the car and again grabbed the iPhone and got directions to Geno's. Didn't know much more than we saw it on the Food Network and they had the original Philly cheese steak. So off we went. The directions were dead on, as we rounded the last corner there was the big Geno's sign. The line was long, as we expected, but moved very fast. Once we got to the ordering window Tyann slowly gave her order. A little lost we paid for our cheese steak, I got a whiz with onions and she got the American with onions. We noticed the next window down was for fries and drinks. Once we had everything a bench opened up right next to the window, perfect timing. We sat down to eat,they were the best cheese steak we have ever had and the cheese fries were amazing; or so Tyann tells me. She had most of them down before I had a chance to taste them. After about 4 hours of driving we stopped for cheese steak, sound crazy but it was well worth it. We just may have to do it again.

After finishing our cheese steak we got back on the road, still having no real destination we decided to head towards New York City. It was getting late but hey, it's the city that never sleeps. We found our way to 95 and jumped on the north bound side to continue our adventure. Soon the gas was finally getting low and we stopped to fill the tank. After filling the tank and getting some drinks we started discussing if we really wanted to go to NYC or not. Sounded good but it was getting late and we wouldn't of had much time to spend; plus that is a destination that is better suited for a planned trip. We decided to go home, with no specific route in mind we jumped back on the road and went home. Although we did make two more pit stops, King of Prussia mall and Bruster's. After that home and bed. I must say, that was one of the best days I have had Just me, my sweetie and no place in particular to go.

Good times indeed!

Finally got my Eee

2008-05-18T11:58:00.000-04:00

I love it. Exactly what I wanted; small, light, very mobile and plenty of computing power. It's not my Core2Duo, but that is not what it is for. This allows me to have access to a real PC no matter where I am. My iPhone s very adequate for mobile computing but there is alot it cannot do. Enter the Eee, small enough to have on me all the time and big enough to do real work. The perfect compliment to my mobile arsenal. The only issue I had was finding a bag to carry it in. I want a bag that is small enough that the Eee wouldn't swim around in but big enoughto carry a few extras. What I setteld on is a Targus portable DVD player case. It basically just looks like a mini laptop case. I also want something a bit more stylish and litte less geeky looking. I m still looking for one of those. I found some nice bags but they are well out of my price range. I would like something similar to the bag Johnny Depp crried in the 9th Gate. Classic and it would look fine with either shorts and a t-shirt or kahkis and a polo. I am getting teased by my friends and co-workers for carrying a purse; but I am comfortable enough to carry one.

Back to the Eee. The first thing I did was free up some HD space, I am ordering a 16 GB SDHC for additional storage this week. But For now I have 1.85GB free on the internal SSD. I came with MS Works 9. I may look at MS Office 2007 Home and Student but in the mean time I will try Works. It may give the functionality that I need, and it's already paid for. So far I have added AVG Free (gotta have AV), Foxit Reader (replaced the preinstalled Adobe Reader) and Notepad++. Once I have my SDHC I'll add: NetStumbler, Pidgin, 7Zip, FIreFox, Putty and VLC. After I have the SDHC I will upgrade the RAM from 512mb to 2GB. That will allow me to disable the swap file freeing up a little more disk space. That will be the last piece of the puzzle as I promised the next computer purchase will be a new latop for Tyann.

AD and SYSVOL out of sync

2008-05-04T10:42:00.000-04:00

In my last post I mentioned that our AD and SYSVOL were out of sync after correction a replication issue between the domain controllers. As I said there were 0 issues coming out of the two being out of sync. After doing some research and asking an associate I found (or rather received via email) the answer. It seems that the version number on the SYSVOL side could just be manually changed to match the AD side. Being a little leery of changing this manually I tested it on a minor GPO and let it go for a few days to see if anything seemed to be affected. A quick run of 'gpotool' showed me that the policy was now in sync and and as expected the change was synchronized to the other DC. A week went by and nothing, confident that I could now change the other out of sync policies I went in made the changes, again ran 'gpotool' and all was well. It has been 2 weeks now and there have been 0 problems and everything is running great.

The fix was simple, just navigate into the SYSVOL/domain/policies (if memory serves me right). The folders will be labeled with the non human friendly policy name. So you'll have to know which policies you want to change. Inside the policy folder is a GPT.ini file. Just open this in notepad, change the version number to match the AD version, save and close the file (make sure you don't accidentally change the extension) and that is it. The change will replicate to the other domain controllers. Problem solved.

iPhone calendar sync in Windows, non-existent

2008-05-04T10:23:00.000-04:00

After a year of drooling and envying those who already had one, I finally bought myself an iPhone using my Christmas money. I was instantly in love, the interface and especially the browsing experience was like I have never seen before on a phone browser. This is not breaking news, it has been written about over and over again. I immediately set it up on my PC, running Vista. I really love Vista. I have and still do run OS X, Linux, XP and Vista. I must say that Vista is a decent operating system. I'm sure someone not everyone agrees with me on this one, but there is a hater for every platform out there. So, I am going to avoid the "which OS is better" topic all together. Back to my point; I use Outlook at work and it is great. At home is another story, I use the built in Vista calendar, contacts and mail. These work great for what I need at home. I do not need the features of Outlook nor do I want to spend the money to purchase Outlook. I mean I already have tools that do exactly what I need them to do. The iPhone allows me to sync my contacts, mail settings, photos and links. The missing piece is the calendar sync. Initially I used Google calendar, which is a good option; Google calendar is an excellent calendaring tool. However, I like the feeling of having my calendar data saved to my local machine. This way I am responsible for backing up my data and it is availability does not depend on an Internet connection. This did work very well with the iPhone, my data was available on my phone, computer or from any browser. This worked great but phone interface was not as full featured as the standard interface, nor could I edit events on the iPhone. The iPhone has an excellent calendaring application and I would love to use it but I cannot. Come on, Apple & Microsoft get it together; not everyone wants or needs Outlook to manage this their data. Give us a choice. I had the same problem with my Windows Mobile, it didn't support the built in calendar either. I just think you should take better care of your customers, rather than push them into something they may not want. In the mean time I will just keep my fingers crossed and hope that some one pulls their head out of the sand and adds this functionality that should have been there form the get go.

GPO replication issue

2008-04-19T15:04:00.000-04:00

Only a few days into a new job I stumbled into a GPO replication issue. A helpdesk ticket was entered into the system. I pulled it up and went to the PC's in question (there were two reports of the same issue). I arrived at the first PC and asked the user what the problem was and to show me exactly what they mean. They explained the issue and showed me what they meant. I hoped on, rebooted the machine and checked a few things including the event log. Here I found 2 errors I have seen before, the first was and SceCli 1202 error and the second was a Userenv 1030 error. The SceCli error had a Windows error code of 0x534. I have seen these errors before, they are related to a GPO error. The last time I saw these had a different Windows error code though. I wrote down some notes and headed to the next PC and found the same errors. After a little research I found that the error is a replication error. It seemed the error had been going on for long before I started there, this was just the first thing that pointed to it.

The AD was replicating fine but the SYSVOL wasn't. A little more researching and running various utilities (dcdiag, gpotool, gpresult, ntfrsutl, ...) I found that one of the 2 DC's was not a member of the replication set. Great, I thought, should be just a matter of adding the DC to the replication set. Well, it wasn't just that easy. I had to change one of the attributes, fRSMemberReference under the AD object. Well this would not work; I could change the attribute but not change it. "Not a valid member reference name", error (or something similar) would pop up each time I tried to save the edit. A little more research and dabbling I found I had to change the same attribute under the CN=System branch of the tree for missing member DC. Still nothing. Eventually it hit me, why would I change this on the missing DC so I tried to change it on the 'good' DC and it took the first time. I felt like and idiot. Then I forced a replication and let it go for a day then checked the logs. Perfect the errors were gone and the problem systems are running as they should. Problem solved, or so I thought. The replication is running fine, and all the problems that I attributed to it had gone away. I ran the utilities once more just to check and is well, except now the SYSVOL and AD are not in sync. Aaarrgghhh!!!!

So now I am looking in to this problem, although it doesn't seem to be affecting any of the systems. "Knock on wood."

First Post

2008-04-19T12:54:00.000-04:00

This will be a diary of my career as a System Administrator. I have no real goal or agenda, just a place for me to post about my day. I may post solutions to issues come across or just a humorous story. Keep an eye because you never know what I may post.

Good bye Windows, forever.

2008-02-25T12:20:00.000-05:00

I made the switch to Linux (specifically Ubuntu) a few months ago, October to be exact. I have ran Linux exclusively since. Tyann uses an Apple and I use Linux, there is only one Windows PC in our house. That is my desktop used strictly for iTunes, I don't use it for anything else. I plan on upgrading to a Mac Mini as this will give me more functionality for my iPhone and I want to drop Windows entirely. For some unknown reason I reinstalled Windows XP on my laptop a couple of weeks ago. Within one day I installed XP Pro, had about 4 crashes and ran screaming back to Ubuntu. That was the final straw, I am strictly a Linux (and Mac) user. I have not missed a single thing from Windows since the switch. The reason I put Windows back on my laptop was to get better iTunes performance (old desktop). I can no longer live in a Windows world.

Long Live (your distro here) Linux

Influencing change

2008-01-28T10:22:00.000-05:00

In the past few months I have made the switch from Windows to Linux. I have loved every minute of it and haven't looked back. Along the way I convinced one of my buddies to try it out. He has tried it in the past but has never stuck with it. He has been running it for a few weeks now and it working on replacing his current Windows boxes with Linux boxes.Just this past week another friend of mine has caught the fever, he tried the live CD first and promptly installed it to the HD. Due to work he, like most of us, cannot leave Window behind completely. But he is very impressed with the stability, hardware support and speed of Linux. The first time he had to boot into Windows it crashed during the boot process. He immediately gave me a call. My Linux rants were always laughed at. Now, more people are taking Linux into consideration as a serious alternative to Windows.

Thank you Vista.

iPhone = Wow

2008-01-10T09:22:00.000-05:00

I said I would never get one but now I am the proud owner of an
iPhone. I can't rememeber the last time I have been so impressed with
a tech gadget. This is why Apple is what they are. Their devices come
with a very solid and polished user experience. It is a true
convergence device, the only one of its kind. I can only come up with
one complaint, not a show stopper, the lack of copy & paste. That is
it, the only thing missing. I don't mind the lack of 3G at all; it
just cuts down on battery life and 3G isn't in my city yet. While, I
am curious to see what the next generation iPhone will entail I'm in
no hurry to replace my current iPhone.

Sent from my iPhone

____________________________________________________________________________________
Never miss a thing. Make Yahoo your home page.

http://www.yahoo.com/r/hs

Your data, on demand

2007-12-10T20:40:00.000-05:00

The days of the floppy disk are long gone, even the flash drive is of limited use these days. I keep my email online along with my calendar, tasks, some of my photos and some documents. No need to carry them around aon a flash drive or to be limited to checking email on one specific computer. Where ever I go my data is accessible via the web. Either from a WiFi hotspot or over my phones data connection, my data goes everywhere I go. As I have said in previous posts I prefer Google tools, but there are others. Such as Yahoo, MSN Live, Think Free Office and Remember the Milk. This eliminates the dependency on any one OS, all you need is a browser and a net connection.

Have net, will travel.

Ubuntu 1, regular phone 0

2007-11-25T08:37:00.000-05:00

First off, the switch to Ubuntu is going strong. At this point I am confident in saying that Ubuntu is my OS of choice. I am getting the speed from my hardware that Vista didn't deliver and the stability it never could. So far, I have found a replacement for every app I used on the Windows side. Most are just as functional and in every case 100% cheaper.

As far as leaving my Windows Mobile smart phone behind in favor of a standard cell phone and web apps; that lasted about 1 week. Sending SMS messages was a chore due to the numeric keypad. Viewing web pages on the smaller screen was painful, even for mobile based sites. I have been spoiled by the larger screens on smart phones. The final straw was sitting in traffic and trying to Google directions. It was both slow and cumbersome, in the end I gave up. I switched back to my smart phone the moment I got home that day. I may look for a smaller smart phone but I will stick with the smart phone genre for now.

Saying goob-bye to my (large) smart phone

2007-11-07T10:59:00.000-05:00

I am finally considering moving back to a more standard phone. I have used a smart phone ever since the Treo 650 came out. I got my Treo on the 1st day it was released and haven't looked back since. It was by far the one of the best phones I have ever owned, it is tied with my Sony Ericsson T616. Now I have moved all of my personal data to the web, mostly Google, I do not need a traditional smart phone to accesss my data, just a web browser. The only thing that I will really miss will be a full keyboard. But, for the weight savings I will gladly readjust to a regular phone style keypad. The downside is that there aren't any standard phones out right now that really catch my eye. I do like the RAZR2 but it is a bit pricey for a normal flip phone, I can get a Treo 680 cheaper. Although, that would defeat what I am trying to do. Right now I am using my old w600i, a decent phone but it has a small screen and very cramped keyboard. I welcome the switch back to a normal phone, but much longer with my w600i and I will be running back to my 8525.

Zimbra, where is Yahoo going?

2007-10-07T22:14:00.000-04:00

Now that Yahoo has acquired Zimbra, what are its plans? Will Zimbra be an extension of the Yahoo online application? A desktop counterpart to its "Yahoo 2 Go" mobile application, this could be a good idea for some and possibly troubling for others. I am in the process of moving to using the Yahoo PIM applications, so for this could possibly be a good thing; as long as they continue Zimbra's Linux support. For any IT administrator that may have just invested in Zimbra as a corporate solution, there may be some concern. I don't see Yahoo offering corporate level services, but I may be wrong. Some one probably said the same thing about Google at one time. All we can do is wait and see where this goes, hopefully it remains a cross platform application.

Ubuntu Day 2

2007-10-05T20:58:00.000-04:00

Well I am on my second day of switching. I was able to effortlessly connect to my WPA protected WiFi network. The one issue I still have to correct is that my display is defaulting to the wrong resolution. I have a wide screen 1280x800 display but it is defaulting to 1024x768. So everything on screen is squat and fat, not a show stopper but annoying when looking at pictures. Tried modifying the xorg.conf file but this only resulted in crashing X. A little time on Google should fix this.

915resolution seems to have taken care of my resolution issue. My display is now running at a proper 1280x800. Smooth sailing.