Bad Uno’s Experiance at lunch

The gang went to the Uno’s at 225 Sloan Avenue Hamilton, NJ 08619 for lunch today. We got there at around 12 and didn’t get served till 12:50 pm. We only got the food because I went to complain to the manager. Who went right back to the kitchen and wasn’t back there more than 30 sec when he came out with our food. The only compensation we were offered was free dessert for each of us. They also made the mistake of leaving 4 comment cards on the table so I filed them out. Not favorably either. Then when I got back to work I shot off an E-mail to the corporate office.

Here is a copy of the E-mail:

My party of 10 arrived at the Uno’s in Hamilton, NJ between 11:45 am and 12:05 pm. We placed our order around 12:15 after our waiter took our drink orders.

We ordered the following items:

3- Uno Burgers
2- Chicken fingers
1- lunch Fish & chips
1- Soup and Salad
1- Lunch Penne pasta
2- Pizza and soups

We didn’t get our meal until 12:50 pm and that was after I went and complained to the manager. There were 4 parties around us that were seated and orders were taken after we ordered and they received their food right away.

We usually go to Uno’s at least 2 times a month for lunch. And when we have a person leaving our company we usually have the going away party at the bar of the Hamilton Uno’s. Usually, we run a $500 to $1000 drink tab at these parties. This experience is making us look into going somewhere else for lunch and taking our party business to another location.

——
Now before you tell me how bad Uno’s is we don’t usually have a problem with service this bad before. Actually, the food is ok and good for lunch and the bar has good beers on tap and the happy hour starts early for parties.


Wow it’s been a busy time since Thanksgiving

Well as you can see I actually wrote a book review. I read a lot of tech books but “Time Management for System Administrators” really has helped me. I am one of those people who say yea I will remember to do that thing you want me to do but I forget or get distracted and forget to do it. So I figured I needed to write the review so others can be swayed to buy and read the book.

I have been working on getting RT up and running at work so I can go live with it on Jan. 2nd. It took me some time to get the auth part of it talking to our Active Directory/LDAP server. I found this site was a big help with this overlay it is working great. Now I can have my users send an E-mail to RT and it will generate a work ticket that they can track to see the progress of the problem resolution. I also got NAGIOS back up and running monitoring my servers and routers in all the offices.

At home Avery and I got the front of the house decorated and the tree into the house last weekend. Carolyn got the tree decorated this week and it looks real good. I will get some pictures up later once I get the digital camera working again. I still haven’t gotten my Christmas shopping started for Carolyn and Avery, I plan to go on Sunday and get it all done and not have to worry about it during the week. Carolyn took care of getting my folks and everyone else’s gifts that we are giving out this year..not that we are giving a lot we are on a tight budget this year but we are trying to get something for everyone in the family.


Time Management for System Administrators

Time Management for System Administrators
By: Thomas A. Limoncelli
First Edition November 2005
ISBN: 0-596-00783-3
226 pages, $24.95 US, $34.95 CA, £17.50 UK
link: http://www.oreilly.com/catalog/timemgmt/index.html

To save everyone the trouble, I’ll make the obvious joke: “I bought a book on time management, but I haven’t had time to read it…”

The thought of time management for system administrators is something that is thought of with a smile. We are interrupted and side tracked so much. So I bought this book with a little doubt and smile on my face. I ended up reading it twice in one weekend and started implementing Tom’s ideas the next Monday and already I am seeing more projects getting done and less things being forgotten.

There are many books out there about time management and I have read a few but they dont take into effect that System Administrators get interrupted. Tom, on the other hand, has lived and knows what its like to be in the trenches with ideas and suggestions that will work for the system administrator. This bookis very easy to read with a lot of real life experiences and stories that help show the point of the topic being discussed. It also sports a lot of UserFriendly.com comics in every chapter.

Time Management for System Administrators main goal is to get the system administrator thinking about writing things down and not trying to remember them in your head. Toms system is very easy to implement and to use. It is system-generic; whether you use a PDA (Personal Digital Assistant) or a PAA (Personal Analog Assistant) every thing mentioned in the book can work with and improve your current system.If you don’t currently have a system, Tom will help get you going in the right direction to better time management if you follow the cycle system discussed in Chapter 4 (which is the sample chapter on the OReilly web site: http://www.oreilly.com/catalog/timemgmt/chapter/ch04.pdf)

Hey its a great book that will help you get through the day and get you working more efficiently and not be so stressed at the end of the day. The worst that will happen if you read this book is you will know how to get into Disneyland and ride all the rides without standing in line.


What is Chambersburg?…Home of the best Tomato Pies Restaurant.

That was the question asked of me by my friend Iambe today in an E-mail she sent me. I listed a few things that it was but the main one was home to De Lorenzo’s…the Hudson St one. I grew up eating there. It was one of the first places I would go when I came to visit my grandmother. It was also one of the only places that would pronounce my last name correctly and when I heard it called I knew I was home.

After sending off my reply to Iambe I decided to do a search online to find out more things about Chambersburg and stumbled on this great review of both De Lorenzo Restaurants. Just reading the review made my mouth water…


Comment posting problems 1

I seem to be having problems when people using Linux as their OS are trying to leave comments. They get the following errors when they hit post.

Odd number of elements in hash assignment at lib/MT/App/Comments.pm line 68.
Use of uninitialized value in list assignment at lib/MT/App/Comments.pm line 68.
Odd number of elements in hash assignment at lib/MT/App/Comments.pm line 68.
Use of uninitialized value in list assignment at lib/MT/App/Comments.pm line 68.

If you are using windows you don’t have a problem. It’s a cookies problem I think. I will try to get this worked out in the next few days.

UPDATE: I sat down and did a reinstall of MovableType and relized I had forgotten to remove the previouse version of MT and that was what was causing the problem. So a clean up and a reinstall and all is fixed.


Say it isn’t so!

IT workers dubbed ‘worst dressed’

After around the area of 15 e-mails pointing this article out and having it on /. Yesterday I must complain.
Even though the article states:

“Help-desk staff were named as the worst offenders, followed by those working in technology start-ups, many of whom had continued to wear T-shirts to work as a consequence of the casual web culture of the ’90s.”

I must complain that not all IT workers dress like slobs..l do wear jeans and t-shirts most days but I know that when clients are going to be in the building I dress better. Here is the link to the story:http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2005/11/17/1132016909640.html


Very disapointing Halloween

It was a very disappointing Halloween this year. We got about 40 to 50 Trick-or-Treaters this year. I guess it could have been because it was a Monday. I also think it has to do with the mentality of the country these days. My daughter school wouldn’t let the kids wear costumes but the high school was what is up with that? Anyway, the TOTers that we did get we scared and a few jumped back when they saw Billy Bob in the car. With the number of people we got is making me rethink my ideas for a haunt next year since we didn’t get a lot of people, but we will see.

Ways to confuse TOTers

1.. Give away something other than candy. (Toothpicks, golf balls, bags of sand, etc…….)
2.. Wait behind the door until some people come. When they get near the door, jump out, wearing a costume, and holding a bag, and yell, “Trick or Treat!” Look at them, scratch your head, and act confused.
3.. Fill a briefcase with marbles and crackers. Write on it, “Top Secret” in big letters. When trick-or-treaters come, look around suspiciously, say, “It’s about time you got here,” give them the briefcase, and quickly shut the door.
4.. Get about 30 people to wait in your living room. When trick-or- treaters come to the door, say, “Come in.” When they do, have everyone yell, “Surprise!!!” Act like it’s a surprise party.
5.. Get everyone who comes to the door to come in and see if they can figure out what’s wrong with your dishwasher. Insist that it makes an unnatural “whirring” sound.
6.. After you give them candy, hand the trick-or-treaters a bill.
7.. Open the door dressed as a giant fish. Immediately collapse, and don’t move or say anything until the trick-or-treaters go away.
8.. When you answer the door, hold up one candy bar, throw it out into the street, and yell, “Crawl for it!”
9.. When you answer the door, look at the trick-or-treaters, act shocked and scared, and start screaming your head off. Slam the door and runaround the house, screaming until they go away.
10.. Insist that the trick-or-treaters each do ten pushups before you give them any candy.
11.. Hand out menus to the trick-or-treaters and let them order their candy. Keep asking if anyone wants to see the wine list.
12.. Get a catapult. Sit on your porch and catapult pumpkins at anyone who comes within 50 yards of your house.
13.. When people come to the door, jump out a nearby window, crashing through the glass, and run as far away from your house as you can.
14.. Answer the door dressed as a pilgrim. Stare at the trick-or- treaters for a moment, pretend to be confused, and start flipping through a calendar.
15.. Instead of candy, give away colored eggs. If anyone protests, explain that the eggs are the only thing you had left over from Easter.
16.. Answer the door dressed as a dentist. Angrily give the trick-or- treaters a two-hour lecture on tooth decay.
17.. Answer the door with a mouthful of M & M’s and several half-eaten candy bars in your hands. Act surprised, and close the door. Open it again in a few seconds, and insist that you don’t have any candy.
18.. Put a crown on a pumpkin and put the pumpkin on a throne on your porch. Insist that all of the trick-or-treaters bow before the pumpkin

I need a warm body

So Saturday night was our Haloween party at the house and the guy in the previous post was sitting in my car in the front yard. Most of the kids in the neightborhood got to see him and checked him out. Now I need a warm body to put on the mask and costume and sit in the car and scare the trick or treaters tonight.

The New Employee at my job

I was on my way to work this morning and at the light I looked over and saw this scary guy at the light. I was quick with the camera and snapped a quick photo .


I didn’t think much of it and headed to 7-Eleven to get a cup of coffee and by my loto ticket. I took my time getting to work. When I got in I found that the doors were already open and that we had a new employee. He sure looks at home in his new office…..