Bobbis.net

I got to bed at around 11:30 last night. That is un heard of for me. Though, the past two days I haven't been feeling the greatest at night for some reason. Nothing too serious, maybe a little fever. Though Meri pointed out that I may have pink eye. I'll have to keep an eye on that.

During my free time at work I have started on a user system for the blog. I imagine that my friends can get an account here and will be e-mailed my blog entries as I post them if they so desire. I will also attempt to have a persistent login so that they will not have to login every day to read and post. I'm doing this all from scratch, with just a few sample tutorials to help me. Doing stuff this way is good because it allows me to expand my knowledge while challenging myself. When I really want to learn something in computers, I don't want answers just handed to me. I enjoy figuring it out on my own. When I do that it makes sure that I know why it is that way and I can have a much better understanding. It also makes me more confident in my skills. It's a good feeling to solve a problem on your own.

To tie up some loose ends. I decided to not vote last night. Though I do appreciate the work it takes to make it possible, I just don't want to make a decision I can't justify. Also, who is Cristina? I have gotten random e-mails from people about my blog entires, but wha? I do appreciate your comments.

I'm going to go relax now.

Apparently, today is the Iowa primaries. Meri let me know by her MSN name. She and I discussed the election. As I was looking up information so that I could possibly make an educated decision when voting, I realized something. There are barely any choices on the ballot. Also, there is really no place to get information about the candidates. Looking up the incumbents and polling place here, I realized I barely knew who most of these people are. A few of the names ring a bell, but I have no clue what they sand for. Between the lack of choice for some of the positions, and the lack of information about the candidates, I can not make an informed decision. I don't want to be voting for someone that does not represent my best interests and I don't want to be voting along party lines. I want someone I think will be best for the job. If I don't have much of a choice between candidates and I don't have much information about these people's positions I can't make a decision that I can be confident in.

In other news, I really like the new cart we got for our office. I moved someone's computer and two huge laser printers from the 1st floor to the 3rd floor in one trip, without breaking my back. Also, I got a copy of some Lewis Black stand-up from one of our other users. I know a few of you love his stuff. I did.

It's time for me to go home.

Yeah, can someone tell me how many comments are associated with this entry?

Nick persuaded me to do it the easy way rather than the less server intensive way of doing this. I got most of the way doing it the hard way when I asked if it was a good idea. I figure running 11 queries on a page load is not going to kill my server that is bombarded with heavy traffic.

Also, for those of you with GreatestJournal accounts check this out.

Next up... User accounts and the option to get an email when I post.

The weekend continues. I was thinking about getting up at 1:00 when Meri called about getting a bunch of people together to see Harry Potter. I also mentioned that we should see Shrek 2 as well, as it is also a good movie. Meri, Colin, Adrienne and I saw a matinee of Harry Potter. After that snacks at B-Bop's. We met up with Walter for the 7:25 showing of Shrek 2.

After the movies I went home talked to my bro a little bit and watched a few episodes of Stargate. I am tired, so I am going off to bed now. This has been a kickin' rad weekend.

This was an awesome weekend, and it's only the end of Saturday.

Friday:

Last night we figured since people had some stuff that had to be done in the afternoon we were not going to meet up until around 4:00 to leave Ames. I had already took the day off work, but I went to work anyway after class. I drove my co-workers to lunch and back for Wendy's. I left after that.

Tom will be gone next week, and there are a few things that need to get done at the office while he is gone. The PC guys have to figure out how to configure and migrate our users to active directory. Once they figure that out I have to figure out how to get the macs to integrate into that system. I am really looking forward to that. There have been a few time that I tried to look up documentation about AD on the Mac, and it is really sparse. Also, I have to figure out a problem with our Mac NAV users that is requesting that their subscription to LiveUpdate needs to be renewed. I have to talk to Symantec about this problem since our license should have covered LiveUpdate. Grrrr.

After I picked up Colin, I just did not keep good track of time after then. I figure we left Ames around 4:30 or so. I cooked hot dogs and potatoes on the grill. I believe I have been designated the official griller for my group of friends, though this was only my second experience with the grill. The grill there was difficult to turn on. After consulting with the neighbors (who also helped us get into the house) we decided that the ignitor for the grill was not working, so we took out the lighter to get it going. After dinner we hung out for a bit on the dock. Meri and Gaila took a swim. Gaila splashed me a couple times and both were picking on me to get in the corn cob and assorted debris filled water. The rest of the night was spent watching Family Guy and the Italian Job. Meri was quick to fall asleep, but I don't think we bugged her too much, though we thought about it. She deserved rest. That is what this whole trip was about. We all got to bed around midnight or one o'clock.

Below are the pictures I got. I really was not much of the shutterbug that I probably should have been. Maggie got a lot more pictures, but with a film type camera.

Saturday

I actually woke up around 6:30 or so on my own accord. Most of us were planning on sleeping in 'til perhaps 10 or 11 at the earliest. Most of us were up and about by 7:30 / 8:00. Meri was the last one to wake up and Colin took his time as well. Nick cooked us omelettes around 10:00. We watched Kll Bill: Vol 1. I checked the weather forecast on the internet using my trusty laptop and cell phone connection since the Weather Channel was more focused on when to plant your tomatoes and the Local on the 8s did not have radar. The agony of 1.5KB/sec. Nancy came by during the movie, but she was cool and stayed mostly out of our way. A special thanks to Meri's aunt Nancy for being cool. She got the flowers and an earlier purchased thank you card.

We attempted to have some outside fun before it rained. That didn't last long. During the most of that outdoor time, Meri and I went into town to get some flowers for her Aunt Nancy (person who was letting us use the house) and another thank you card for the helpful neighbors. By the time we got back, everyone was back inside watching Monty Python and the Holy Grail. We stopped the movie in the middle to go check out the lake from the boat driven by Nancy. When we got back it was raining again, but we managed to start a fire in a chimnea (is that right?) to roast marshmallows for s'mores. We went back inside and finished Monty Python. Mel made some sandwiches, and by that time Meri wasn't feeling too well. I guess that explains the extra sleeping. Shortly after we packed up and left for Ames.

I invited everyone over to my place to hang out some more (since we were going back for the sake of Mel). Walter, Colin, and Gaila stayed and watched Die Another Day. By 9:00 we were all too pooped to do anything else and we went home.

As you can see, it has been a long weekend. Thought it was a very enjoyable weekend. The skies are clear, so I think we may have missed out on some good camping weather tonight. Oh well, roughing it in that house with the AC and big screen TV really wore us out. Perhaps later this summer some of us can camp at Sailorville and we can take the boat out for the day or half-day.

Thanks everyone for a wonderful time.

Tomorrow is the trip to the lake. Looking back to when this trip was just an idea I really didn't think it would result in anything. I think that the reason this actually happened was that Meri took the initiative to organize it. Thanks Meri for doing this for us. Also thanks to her aunt for letting us use the lake house.

The original plan was to stay Friday at the house and then at a campground Saturday night to return home Sunday. Though, the camping part was removed due to the probability of thunderstorms. People thought that hauling camping equipment and having the possibility that we wouldn't use it would be wasteful. I was the only one to think that it would be worth hauling it for the possibility of camping. Oh well. Thanks goes to Scott who is not able to make the trip, but was willing to loan us tents for camping.

I've got to get to sleep now so that I'm awake tomorrow.

Beautiful day today. I think I did ok on the test this morning, but there have been so many times in math classes I feel good about a test and end up doing poorly on it. I don't like it when people ask me how will I did on something before I get the grade back. The assignment that I should of had done for Tuesday was actually pretty easy, but it was a lot of busy work. Though, the teacher in this class said that practice is very good for this subject. I will take his word for it.

Work today was very slow. I had to contend with the people in orientation (all those red bags all over campus) for lunch at the union. I got the iMac ready for the user, but the user is not ready for the iMac. If I could have just taken his computer for an hour I would have it all taken care of. I set up the new label writer, Tom got our office it's own two wheel car that converts to a 4 wheel cart. I took a nap between 4:30 and 5:30 or so until I had to leave for church.

Food at the church on Wednesdays has always been good. Everyone seemed to be in a much better mood than they did last week. Meri brought the gift certificates everyone bought a while ago for olympiad. After church Adrienne, Jen, and I went to get some ice cream at Dairy Queen.

When I got home there were a lot of emails that I need to respond to. Why didn't they all come in before? I really wanted to set down immediately and get though a few more stargates and relax.

I am looking forward to the weekend trip to the lake with my friends. I hope everything gets organized quickly. It is already Wednesday night and we are planning on leaving Friday afternoon. Adrienne started her own blog today with a recommendation from me. This reminds me that I have to work on a few new features to my blog, like comment counts on the main page and perhaps threaded comments. Perhaps next time I'm bored at work.

Okay, I have set study schedules for myself before and never followed them. I am going to create one right now anyway. I will study at the following times.

Tuesday and Thursday: From the time I get home 'til dinner.
Sunday: for 2 hours straight during the day.

If there is a schedule conflict I will make up the time lost some other time within the same week. If there is an assignment due the next day I will work until it is done, but work on the assignment should be progressive throughout the week. Also, full day of study before tests, that means that I don't do what I am doing now.

Wish me luck on my test tomorrow morning.

A lot got done this weekend. I finished season 4 Stargate. Mowed the lawn, set out deck furniture, tore out a sandbox, built a shed, cleaned the basement, cleaned the house and had a grill.

Yesterday was fun. Nick, Maggie, Colin, Gaila, Walter and Adrienne showed up. I did a good majority of the grilling, and I believe I did a good job for the first time grilling without assistance. The burgers were nice and juicy. Nick brought some really good homemade rocky road ice cream he made himself. We then played Apples to Apples, which is always a good game to play with a lot of people. After Nick and Maggie left we watched a few episodes of Family Guy.

At work I will be getting a dollar raise starting July. Since it is the end of the fiscal year in academics, there is a lot of purchasing going on. There are currently four PCs setting getting built for their users. Luckily no Macs at the moment for me to work on. Though, with the end of the year Tom is looking for ways to spend the rest of his budget. This time of the year here always seems like Christmas. Tom got himself a G5, we got a 1U fold out display, keyboard, and mouse unit for the server rack, a new Dell server to replace the current file server. On order for the rack is also and xServe G5 and a 1.5 terrabyte xRAID (DROOOOOLLLL). Also, today I got a surprise present from Tom to use at work. A 250 GB FireWire 800/400 USB 2.0 drive. I will be able to use that in conjunction with the 60 gig pocket drive Tom got earlier to be able to image systems and store backups. This is indeed a day of drooling.

I don't know what happened to cause this problem I got earlier to day with Eudora. Apparently, it was not deleting the messages from the server when retrieving them. Now, it decides that it needed to download all of them again. I got over 1500 duplicate emails in my assorted mail boxes. That was a lot of fun to clean up. I hope I don't have to take care for this problem with other people's machines. Also, my computer doesn't seem to be NetReged in Curtiss. It works just fine elsewhere, but when I plug in at Curtiss I get the NetReg page. It's really not that big of a deal for me here because I have an IP address assigned to me statically, but it gets a little annoying if I need to check on something real quick and I have to change locations.

Today there was homework due in Stat. We just handed in an assignment on Friday and we had another assignment of similar proportion due after the a holiday weekend. I will have to take the late points deduction for this :( . Also, there is a test tomorrow in Stat, so I will be working on the assignment and studying for that test tonight. Yeah for me keeping up with the work that needs to be done for class. I am a lazy bum. How can I motivate myself to do school work?

Oh wow! The SA forums are 100% FYAD and Gas Chamber tonight. LOL. I'll assume it has something to do with the move to the new servers.