LOPSA

This summer is going to be a busy one

Wow it’s almost July.  I am working on getting things ready at the house for the 4th of July picnic.  After that picnic I have to get into La Vigna Picnic mode.

My uncle and I are meeting on Monday for a quick breakfast and picnic planning.  We have some new ideas for this year for the kids that should make things fun and exciting.  I am looking forward to this years picnic more than usual since we have a few more people helping with the planning and work this year.  I am still going to run the 50/50 and the seed spitting contest. I love seeing my family and hanging out and just taking it easy.

In the last few weeks I have been made the committee chair of the LOPSA Education Committee.  We are in the middle of getting the training schedule and trainers together for OLF and OLFu.  I also LOPSA-button 1stepped up and volunteered for one of the empty board seats on the LOPSA board.  Last night I had my first board meeting.  I have gotten the feel of how things work on the call and got some ideas that I need to flesh out to help fix some of the issues that are plaguing LOPSA.  It also looks like I will be going to a face to face board meeting in August.

As well as the picnic and LOPSA, work, LUG/IP, LOPSA-NJ and PICC I have been working on a new web site with my friend John LeMasney.  It’s going to be a food based web site that will explore the making, buying, cooking and eating of the food of Central New Jersey. We want to be the premier destination for those interested in Central New Jersey food.  I hope to go live in the next few weeks.  We are looking for writers who have a passion for food in Central New Jersey. So if you want to write for us send me an example of your writing and a little bit about yourself to wbilancio@centraljerseygoodfood.com. 

So some family news Avery is now a senior in high school and has her drivers license. This is great I don’t have to drive her all over the place to her friends and dance or back to school, the down side is I don’t get to spend as much time with my daughter.  Otherwise every thing is going great and I am looking forward to a hot humid summer.

After six months and a ton of e-mail it’s over

img_1625 After six months of planning and tons of e-mail the Professional IT Community Conference 2010 is done.  We had over 80 registrants and everyone seemed to enjoy the conference.  Now that the it’s over I took a long look at my e-mail and realized that I had over 250 e-mails in my inbox.  As the planning of the conference moved forward I was real good at labeling and filing all conference e-mails, but in the first few weeks I wasn’t that good at it and a bunch of the first ones sat at the bottom of the pile.  So this morning I decided to start organizing and replying to and trashing all the email in my inbox.  After two hours of this I am down to two e-mails in my inbox… Yea me.

As I make the final payments to my people and hotel and get things finished for this years conference, I am going to take about two months off before starting the planning of next years conference.  I am looking for a conference chair to take over the running of the 2011 conference so I can focus on the back end planning (dealing with AH, the hotel, LOPSA board) and the training track for next year.

This conference couldn’t have come together without the great group of volunteers who came together and worked hard to make this a local and community building conference that was a great success.  I couldn’t have done it without you so thank you for all you guys did.

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

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!

Hey who put my name in for this????

Well it seems as though arcterex isn’t the only one who got nominated for this one. But I have been named geek of the day yesterday….of course, a dog was picked today. They changed my program I would like to be I had killed.

Well, there you go, geek of the day, for March 30, 2005.