http://www.cnn.com/2004/US/12/09/nightclub.shooting/index.html
Although there is no definitive report, it appears that he is dead.
I am speechless.
Category: General
On the car front, I decided to go with the Infiniti. However, finding the exact one I want, on the east coast is a much bigger challenge than I anticipated. Apparently, Infiniti made the decision to send mostly AWD 05 G35 sedans to the notheast, because thats where the market demand is right now. And I would have to agree to an extent. I would get an AWD, if I didn’t just get the outback for Steph. That was one of the main reasons that we got that car. However, I don’t want to spend the extra money for an AWD car, that’s also gonna get even worse gas mileage than the already less than steller mileage on the RWD G35.
So I went to the dealer near me on Monday to try and get a deal setup for my car. It turns out that all they have is 5 05’s in stock, all AWD, and they wont be getting more until March! I try to get them to order me the car I want, or have it transferred. They try to sell me on an 04. I’m like screw you hippies! I’m out. So I start calling all of the infiniti dealers within a 150 mile radius to try and find the exact car I’m looking for. The dealer in Alexandria tells me that they have located the car in Miami, and can try and get it transferred for a fee. I’m like HELL YEAH! So I waited around there yesterday for a couple of hours waiting for the GSM in Miami to call the GSM in Alexandria to confirm that they will transfer the car. After several attempts to get ahold of him, the GSM at Alexandria tells me to just go home, and he’ll call me as soon as he hears from him today.
So keep your fingers crossed. If this falls through, the only other location they found that had the color/specs I want is in TX, which would cost a lot more to transfer. IF it does work out, I’ll go in today and give em a deposit and the car will go out on a flatbed today/tomorrow and should be here within 24 hours. The waiting is killing me!
I’ve been having a ton of problems with my servers lately. It’s getting to the point where I am constantly proactively monitoring them, in addition to my automated monitoring which pages me when theres a problem. People can’t write secure code to save their lives, so I’m in a battle trying to keep the script kiddiez off my hosting server. I keep trying to deploy a secure kernel patch that should help mitigate the problems, but I keep running into issues where certain necessary services wont start up properly. I have a maintenance window scheduled for tomorrow night to do some upgrades, so one way or another, I’m gonna make this shit work right. Otherwise, I’m gonna have to go through all of my customers code to find their shitty PHP upload script that is allowing the malicious code to get in.
It’s shit like this that makes me want to sell off my business.
Straight smack a nigga right in the face like this was handball…
On Friday, the company where I’m working my contract at, offered me a permanent position for substantially more money, and a shit ton of benefits. I of course accepted it, so as of Jan 3rd, I will be a permanent employee here.
In other news, I made the decision to get a new car earlier this year depending on finances. Since all is good on that front, I could have a new car as earlier as this week! I took my car over to carmax to get a quote, and they gave me a quote just over blue book, with all my after market parts still installed. I’m gonna try and get the dealer to match their quote, if not, I’ll just go sell it to carmax and cut the dealer a check.
I was all about the new Acura TL for the past year, but after test driving it, and the Infiniti G35, I am really leaning towards the G35. The TL has a few more bells and whistles inside, but the G35 has a lot more power, and tighter suspension. On top of that, I can get it fully loaded for a few grand less than the TL with the A-spec package, which is the only way I’d get the TL. So I’m going back to infiniti to drive the G35 again, and talk some numbers. If they give me what I want, I could drive out of there in a new car. Most likely I’ll hafta order my car though, so I may have to wait a week or two, but I’m so stoked! I love my teg, it’s been good to me, and I’ll miss it. But I’m getting older and I want something bigger that can still go fast.
Dolla Dolla Bill Yall!
Why do people who don’t know me, feel the need to knock on my office door, and ask me where someone else in another office is? That’s like going to your friends house, knocking on their door and getting no answer, so you go to the house next door and ask them if they know where your friend is…..
How you doin?
Ramble on…
Been a while since I updated this thing, so I thought I’d say hi. Not a whole lot has been happening as of late. Work has been cool. I am basically the resident linux ninja now, which is both good and bad. Obviously it’s good because I am needed. It’s also bad, because I am needed. Luckily we don’t deal with production equipment much, so most of our machines are not critical. The only times I have pressure to get stuff done ASAP, is when someone is trying to do a demo (which has kept me here 12 hours one day, and 15 another day). I don’t really mind though, cuz I enjoy what I do.
Steph & I went to Philly last weekend as a mini vacation. It was nice to spend more than a few hours there for once, and actually get to see the city. As usual, we walked A LOT. We have a problem using transportation on trips, and always end up walking miles and miles everyday. We took a tour on The Big Bus which was cool. It takes you all over town to the major attractions, with a guide who tells you about everything along the way. You can get on and off wherever you want throughout the day. It made it a lot easier to visit all the places we wanted to go in a single day. We stopped at the art museum, and the zoo. Both were cool, but overpriced in my opinion. I guess I’m just spoiled from living in the DC area. We stayed at an awesome hotel called sofitel. They are really big in Europe. There service was fantastic, and the hotel was beautiful.
Other than that, time is just flying by at an unbelievable pace. We finally bought some bikes, and have been trying to get out as much as possible. As soon as I get a rack for the car, we’ll start hitting the trails in the fall. I have been trying to make time to hang out with friends, but it’s been really hard to get together. I have zero interest in going out to clubs these days, which seems to be the same old meeting place. I think I need to have a party or something, to get everyone together.
I’ve been working at my new job for a week now, and It’s been pretty cool. I have finally gotten most of my shit setup, and I’m just waiting on a couple of little things to get done. I’ve spent most of this week setting up a PXE kickstart server for our labs. One of my ongoing projects is upgrading (reinstalling) an asston of legacy RH servers, as well as migrating others. So this was the first thing I wanted to get done, as it will save me lots of man hours. People pretty much leave me alone and let me work, so It’s a nice change. I have some summer hire sitting in my office right now, but hopefully she’ll be leaving soon, and I’ll have the entire office to myself. I don’t like having to turn lights on, and keep my music low for other people. At least she’s nice, and doesn’t bother me.
I’ve been working about 7-4 all week, and It’s been working well for me. I’d like to go in a little earlier, but so far it hasn’t really happened. It’s been nice to actually see Steph everyday, and having a full weekend together is awesome. We’re gonna buy some bikes soon, so we can go riding a lot in the fall. And if all goes as planned, we’re gonna take a weekend trip down to OBX around the end of the month or early next month.
I’m starting to ramble my random thoughts again, so I think it’s time to end this. How is everyone else?
( ! )
So I found out late on Friday, that there was a mixup in HR as to when I was starting. Originally they were told the 29th, but on my offer letter I said the 26th. So they weren’t ready for me to start yet. I might start tomorrow or Weds, but maybe not till Thurs. Which is completely fine by me, as I have plenty of other shit to do to in the meantime. This weekend, I caught up on some sleep Saturday, but then completely lost it again Saturday night. I hopefully made up for it today, and will be on track for a “normal” schedule this week. I finished building all the new furniture with the exception of a shelf that I need to get more anchors for today. I also need to swap out Steph’s two shelves with the new one’s. There are still a ton of books on the floor in here, but they should be put away fairly soon. I have to move all of my shit from the old drawers into the new one’s, and that will pretty much be it. The new furniture looks awesome, and it really makes the room look bigger even though it takes up more real estate.
Yesterday I helped some friends move to their new apt. It went a lot quicker than we all expected, but I’m definitely a bit sore from going up and down 3 flights of stairs about 100 times. The cool thing is that they moved right around the corner from my new job, and Steph works around the corner as well, so hopefully we’l all get to hang out a lot more.
Today, I am going to pick up some shit from ho depot, and try to finish up in the office. Hope you all had a great weekend.
Random Thoughts
Last night was my last night at work. I didn’t do much work, nor did I stay all night. I got my shit all packed up, and left at about 3:30am. I’ll be starting my new gig on Monday, so I actually have a full weekend to get shit done. I slept about 4 hours this morning, so I shouldn’t have much trouble sleeping at night tonight. My goal today, is to get my desk built and my old one out of here. I’ve gotten pretty much all of Steph’s stuff done, so everything else is waiting for my side of the office. The new furniture really looks nice too, so I’m looking forward to getting rid of my old non functional desk. The only thing I’m going to miss is the amount of storage space this desk has, considering it is basically a full dresser (chest of 6 drawers) and 2 night stands. I have so much computer shit stacked up in these drawers. I don’t really know where I’m gonna put it. I’ve already sold some of it off, but I should really auction off some of it.
Anyhow, enough of my ramblings… How you doin?
Out with the old…
So for the past month or so, I have been actively pursuing a new job. I love Rackspace, and they have been good to me, but I felt it was time for me to move on and put my talents to better use. I had been contacted by a few people about potential jobs, and my resume is all over the place. A couple of weeks ago, a recruiter contacted me about a Linux sysadmin position that I might be interested in. I gave them a call thinking that they were gonna offer me some windoze admin job with a little unix/linux. Instead, it turned out to be damn near exactly what I was looking for. We finally got an interview setup for yesterday afternoon, so I went in on my few hours of sleep for the week, and had a nice long 2 hour interview with some of the other admins, and the director. They were all awesome, and I wanted to stay and talk with them even longer. They told me they were in a hurry to fill the position, and would decide soon. I got home from work at about 8:30 this morning, and they called me at about 10:00 and said congratulations! I received and faxed back my offer, and sent off my resignation letter this morning.
I am beyond ecstatic! I have been extremely stressed out at work over the past couple months. The hours were really beginning to tear into my time with Steph. So I will finally be back on a “normal” schedule, get an ass-ton more money, and do what I’m actually good at. I can’t wait to start!
Sunday Sunday Sunday!
Appearing live in person, the fabulous Steph& worlock! We will be heading back into LA late afternoon Sunday, from San Diego. The plan is, stay in LA Sunday nigt and Monday, then head up to Santa Maria on Tuesday. We’ll head back to the bubble on Thursday evening, then leave for home on Friday. So that being said…. Where’s the party? I’d love to go chill somewhere and knock back a few beers on the beach (Insert J here!). So holla peepz! In case you don’t have it already, my cell is xxx.xxx.xxxx. We totally expect to see you people there. If we don’t, Steph will come and kill you all.
That is all.