Need some help from Friends and Readers

This entry was posted in Personal and tagged John D. MacDonald Travis McGee used books on by
I am a person who likes a good used book sale or the book section of the Salvation Army or Goodwill.  I always look for books from the Travis McGee series by John D. MacDonald.     There are only 21 books in the series, but I am always on the lookout for them. I am looking for copies with the original cover art, but will take any copies.  So if you come across any please pick them up for me.

Thanks in advance….

Cooking and the Kitchen

This entry was posted in Food/Cooking Fun Stuff on by

I am going back to school next month. I am taking some culinary classes at the local community college..I can’t wait…the first class is a knife class which is a good thing since my knife skills are for crap these days. I am hoping to also find out about getting some new knives. The other classes are meat, poultry, and fish. It seems like a fun set of classes to take and the price was right. 🙂

On Saturday I worked on organizing the kitchen a bit. We also decided to convert the junk closet in the laundry room to the pantry and get all the canned and dry goods out of the kitchen cabinets and moved to the new pantry. I still have to clean out the big pot cabinet and get it reorganized so I can find things in my kitchen when I am cooking.

I have also added a recipe section on the site so you can see my recent cooking projects. You can find it here.

A New Grocerie Store….Anyone 3

This entry was posted in Food/Cooking Personal on by
So I have lived back in this area now for around 18 years. I have been doing my grocery shopping at the Acme in the Lawrenceville shopping center. The prices are to high and the store is dirty and they seem to be out of a lot of stuff when I am there. My wife has been doing the shopping for the last few months and she has been telling that the store has been getting worse.

Today we wandered over to the ShopeRite in the Mercer Mall. It was big and clean and the prices seemed to be better, but it was to crowded and the parking lot was a mess. I like the store and the prices but…

We are going over to the ShopRite on the Pennington Circle to see if it’s as nice a store as the one in the Mercer Mall.

If you live in the Lawrenceville, NJ area where do you shop for groceries?

I sure wish there was a Trader Joes close to the Lawrence area…I love to shop there.

What is your “thing”?

This entry was posted in Radio on by
I came home last night and my daughter was going on about how she didn’t have a “thing”.  I asked her what my “thing” was and she said my “thing” was computers…. Well I let that go, but it made me start thinking about my “thing”….was it really computers or something else?  Is your “thing” define by what you do or what makes you happy?  I sat up a little bit last night trying to figure out the answer to those questions…..I think it’s what makes me happy. 

So on the way to work and dropping Avery off at school I figured out that I have had many “things” so far in my life.  Computers might be my thing now but it will always be radio right to the sunset of my life that will be my true “thing”.  If I could get a radio job that pays the same amount I am making now…..but also lets me program my own music and not follow some format mandated by some person working for the man, but that’s another post. 

I explained to my daughter that it took me a long time to get my “thing” in life.  I don’t remember many people who had a “thing” when they were freshmen in high school and that eventually she will find her “thing” and that it will change as she gets older and the first “thing” might not be her “thing” later on.

I Finally Cleaned my Home Office Today…..

This entry was posted in Personal on by
I finally cleaned my home office today. It was a total mess.  People just throw there own stuff in there when they are done using it or company was coming over.  There was so much junk in the closet that the plastic guides on the floor snapped and the doors were bulging out.  But now I have cleaned and organized and thrown out all the junk and can now see the floor.

The desk was another story…I found 3 years of tax returns sitting there with a years worth of junk mail in between each year.  But I got most of the desk cleaned as well. 🙂  So we will see if I can keep the office clean through  the holidays and beyond. 🙂  Here are some photos of the office before and after can be found here.

 

Now to the people who feel they should call me at 6:17 in the morning….

This entry was posted in Personal on by

To the people in the world that read this site and feel they should call the main number at the house before 7am. If you want to get me that early call me on my cell!!! Here is the short schedule of my morning.

5:30ish – Get Up
5:40ish – Take shower – can’t answer any phone
5:45 – Getting dressed – Won’t answer the phone
5:50 – 6:20 – Take dog for walk and play fetch – I do have my cell with me so call that.
6:20 – 6:30 – Get stuff ready for work and get dog back in crate
6:30 – off to quick-check to get coffee
6:40 – arrive at work

So unless you want me to get yelled at by my wife and daughter because the phone rang and woke them up please call the main number between 5:30 and 7am. 😉 Now if it’s emergency that’s ok. Just keep calling we will answer if you just keep making the phone ring 🙂

Well I now can check a different box when I fill out forms

This entry was posted in Personal on by

Well on this day in 1967 a small boy was born in Marion, Virgina. Yes that would be me. 🙂 I turn 40 today…and you know it doesn’t feel that much different then being 39. I still woke up feeling like crap and not wanting to get up…but I did and am very happy I did. I was able to open my e-mail this morning and finding a whole bunch of Happy Birthday messages..of course they were from Borders, Toyota, and Alumni.net. So at least I know that the places I spend money and interne sites I have signed up for still love me. 🙂

So Happy Birthday to me…and to all the other people who have a birthday on July 19th.

Is this a forshadowing of what’s to come???

This entry was posted in Technology on by
Yesterday I took the day off to wait for Verizon to come to my house to install my new FIOS connection. OF course, they gave me the normal “the tech will be there between 8a and 5 pm.'” So come 7:45 AM I moved the cars out of the driveway so he could work on the wall to put the equipment in and then I hung out. I played with the dog in the back yard, I sat and played with the dog in the house. I watched TV, I also sat in the back yard and read my book. The whole time watching for a Verizon truck to stop in front of the house. Around 4:30 I thought I was going to call Verizon and see if they were over booked and were just going to bump me to the next day. I got on the phone and navigated my way through the Auto attendant from hell and got a live person whos name was John. I told him I had an order number which he took and I explained I was wondering when or if the tech was going to show up today. Well he told me to hold and he would check to see what was going on. So I listened to some really bad music on hold for about 3-5 min and John came back on and told me that the tech had been to the house but no one was home. I told him he was wrong and that no one was rang or knoked on the door. He told me there should be a note on the door….so I went to the door with the phone to look and there was no note. I even looked on my neighbors door thinking that the guy might have been knocking on the wrong door..No note. John was all I’m sorry about this and that. I asked when the tech was supposedly at my house…John was unable to tell me that. He told me someone would call me back right away and get this situation cleared up…by this time I was ready to explode…I had just wasted a vacation day and never left my property and the tech never shows up. Well I got off the phone with John and decided to wait till I got the call back…which never came…

So fast forward a few hours.. I am on my way to take the dog out for a long walk and met up with my neighbor…he had come over to see how the install had gone…I gave him the story and he started to look worried..he told me that his install for FIOS is today. I also found out that he is getting the FIOS TV as well and I was told back when I ordered FIOS that the TV wasn’t ready for my neighborhood yet. So when I got back from taking the dog for an hour hike I called the FIOS number and told them my tail and was told to call the local business office…cool I did that and got the damn auto attendant again..and finally got a nice woman who tried to help me out but the earliest date she could reschedule me for was July 30th. That I informed her was not going to work…she told me then I was going to have to call customer service..so I asked to be transferred but was informed that their hours were 8 am to 6 pm. So I now wait till the clock strikes 8 and I am going to get this all straightened out.

So stay tuned for the next installment of the FIOS install tale…….

To all sysadmins in the PA/NJ/DE/NY/CT area..

This entry was posted in LOPSA on by

If your boss won’t send you to Usenix/LISA because it is too expensive…

The League of Professional System Administrators (LOPSA) now offers an accelerated-learning-style conference at a lower cost to participants. This unique two-day program was specifically designed to reach system administrators, particularly those who work at smaller and mid-sized organizations. The compression of the time spent in classes means attendees will only be out of the office for two to three days but will have an opportunity to take four classes, thereby lowering hotel and travel costs, as well as the direct impact on business needs.

Sysadmin Days will be held on August 6-7 at the Clarion Hotel and Conference Center, Cherry Hill, NJ. The workshop will feature 12 industry experts who will teach 16 half-day sessions on a variety of topics, most with an emphasis on practical tools and face-to-face advice from other professionals in the field.

Registration fees are under $1,000 per participant, and LOPSA offers discounts for members, students and educational institutions. LOPSA believes the net effect of this unique program will be to provide system administrators with more training and tools to do their jobs.

“LOPSA wants to reach as many system administrators as we can because that’s what LOPSA is about,” David Parter, a LOPSA board of directors member, said. “Our goal is to serve the profession and to help our members grow in their careers.”

“LOPSA knows that the informed system administrator can raise issues about critical business needs and better serve customers,” Parter said. “This training is focused on imparting practical and valuable knowledge.”

http://lopsa.org/SysadminDays

Register soon!

Stuck in the house…and no dog to play with

This entry was posted in Personal on by

On Thursday morning I took Karma out for a long walk since I was taking the day off and head to NYC to check out the 7-11 that had been turned into a Kwik-E-Mart. I was going to get a squishie and a buzz cola and what other Simpson stuff the had. But on our walk Karma and I got tangled up running across the street and I fell and renched my back. I have been laid up in bed and in the house since Thursday. After the first day I realized that Karma was going to drive my wife and Avery insane so I called Karen over at Goosebusters and see volunteered to take him while I was laid up. I really appreciated it since I can’t stand up straight and get around real well. It also looks like I won’t be heading back to work on Monday…I am hoping to be able to go back on Tuesday.

This has been a real bummer…since I have been losing weight I haven’t had any back problems in about 4 years. I hate when this happens it seems like have this happen when I want to do things. My uncle and cousins were in town till Sat morning and I only got to see them on the 4th of July for about 2 hours. His oldest was supposed to go to the city with Avery and I on Thursday and then I was going to spend some time with my uncle on Friday night, but I couldn’t even get out of bed. I won’t even be able to go to the shore to see them since I am missing work for the next few days.

I am missing the dog more then I realized when I finally made it down stairs yesterday and he wasn’t lieing at the bottom of the stairs waiting for me.

Well that’s all I got for now…think healing thoughts for me. 🙂