Personal

Well another Thanksgiving has come and gone. This year we had a few people in for a great meal. I think this was the most low-stress one I have had yet. The turkey came out perfect…I cooked it on the grill this year so it freed up the oven so I could cook the stuffing and a great sweet potato casserole that came out so well. So that was Thanksgiving… 😉

Let the Christmas craziness begin…

We all stayed away from the malls and stores yesterday…Carolyn and I headed to an early showing of the new James Bond movie – Casino Royal. It was great and there was no crowd. 🙂

I have jury duty next week, I don’t have to report Monday morning but have to call in around 11:30 am to see if I have to report in for the afternoon session. I hope I get called in on Monday and get rejected or not used so I can have the rest of the week to get ready for the LISA conference in Washington DC the first week in December.

I have fallen off the wagon

Well, things have gotten crazy at work and I realized the other day that I was at the same weight when I stopped drinking soda. So to calm my nerves and to get a cold caffeine high I decided to have a cold coke.
Well, a Coke Zero…the jury is still out on whether I will keep drinking it or go back to the Classic Red can coke.

It’s my birthday today.

It’s my birthday today. I am a happy 39. No party this year but I have been promised one for the big 40 next year. The card my wife got me says it all…. 🙂

Still no FiOS for me

Well now my uncle has FiOS and my boss just stopped in to say they were installing it at his house today. So I decided to call Verizon and see when it will be available in my neighborhood. I was informed that it will be a few more months. So my question to them was how come my uncle who lives in Lawrenceville has it and I can’t get it. It’s because I am on the Trenton CO and they aren’t doing Trenton yet so I am stuck for a bit with no new technology in my house for the summer. Bummer…..

Listening to: Funeral For A Friend / Love Lies Bleeding – Elton John – Goodbye Yellow Brick Road Disc 1

A rule that I think should be followed….

A buddy sent me a list of rules that George Carlin put out and the last one hit it right on the head. I bitch about this all the time and I glad to see that others feel the same way.

New Rule: When I ask how old your toddler is, I don’t need to know in months. “27 Months.” “He’s two,” will do just fine. He’s not a cheese.

A good way to End the YEAR!!!!

For the last 3 years, I have accompanied my cousin Henry to New York City 2 nights before New Year’s Eve to see the hot band Gov’t Mule and this year was no different. It rocked. The setlist says it all.

First Set:
Mr. Man > Perfect Shelter> Lola Leave Your Light On>
Livin Lovin Maid She Said > Tomorrow Never Knows Jam (with a verse of vocals at the end)
Tastes Like Wine
Banks of the Deep End
Suffer
32-20 Blues with Ron Holloway

Second Set:
Game Face> Mountain Jam> Game Face Johnny Bratton Jam (from Miles Davis Jack Johnson Sessions)
Hunger Strike> Dear Mr. Fantasy> Hunger Strike
Wandering Child> Drums> Devil Likes It Slow w/ Ron Holloway (and a smokin’ solo from Warren as always!!)
Oh Well Little Toy Brain
Lively Up Yourself
Mule

Encore:
John The Revelator (Danny on Trumpet Playing the Outro as he comes across the stage)

This was the first show in all my years of going to shows that I actually wore my earplugs the whole night. I bought a pair of ER*20 High Fidelity Ear Plugs a few years back from Etymotic Research and they were great. They deadened the sound but didn’t affect the sound quality of the music. They were worth the money. My hearing isn’t the greatest any way from playing my music too loud all these years and going to shows with unprotected ears. It’s been getting so bad they are ringing even after I get out of the car with the radio on to loud. So it’s time to change my ways and turn the volume down……

Merry Christmas

It seems like just the other day I was wishing you all a Merry Christmas. Yesterday was spent doing some last minute shopping and then ended up at work for a few hours. Then headed out for dinner with Avery, Carolyn and my sister-in-law at the Chines Buffet. Yes, I ended up at work on Christmas eve…I decided to get the server room network cabling redone. I used 3 different colors red for Public network(Internet) nics, Orange for the DMZ nics and Green for the LAN NICs/servers. I had to get this done, I was stepping on network cables that were lying on the floor. I also got the KVM wires cleaned up and put an IP KVM on my 2007 wishlist the KVM wires I have now are too bulky and too hard to get routed the way I wanted them.

Well, I have to go and start cooking Christmas breakfast and then start dinner after opening the gifts with the family…… 🙂

Again MERRY CHRISTMAS!!!!

Christmas party and new monitor

Saturday was my companies Holiday party. A good time is had by all that go, the down side being I have to wear a suit and tie, it confuses the users though so it makes it worth it. This year I was celebrating being with the company for 5 years. At this company you get $500 for 5 years of service, $1000 for 10 years and so on. So this year I got my money which I just spent on a DELL UltraSharp 2005FPW 20.1-inch Wide Aspect Flat Panel LCD Monitor for my office at home. I have been using a 19″ monitor that is slowly going bad and it has a big scratch in the middle of the glass. I have been looking at these monitors for a while but the price has been to high. But they dropped to bellow $500 dollars with a 25% special and free shipping so I couldn’t resist….Now if I could only get my company to buy me one of these.

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.

It’s been a busy month since last we talked

As I said it’s been a busy month since last we talked. I have had my birthday, Family in town, Picnic Prep, La Vigna Picnic, Working on the XP rollout and Server 2003 testing and roll out ideas.

Birthday
My birthday ended out well. We went out for dinner and then to a movie. We saw the “Fantastic 4”. I thought it was an ok movie but as all first Marvel-based movies it was deep in background short on action and adventure. Then we had a nice meal at Chevies the Mexican place. It was a nice birthday maybe one of these years my wife and daughter will throw me a big surprise party.

Family in Town and picnic prep
The last week of July is always busy. My uncle from Michigan rolls into town and heads to the Jersey Shore for the week with his family. I usually don’t get to the shore when he is there so I don’t get to hang out much but this year I made it a point to take my daughter to the shore and hang out with my uncle and his family. The day went well Avery and I had 2 great meal s and got some sun to darken our skin and a swim in the Atlantic. 😉

The rest of the week was taken up preparing for the La Vigna Picnic. It was a quick hot week. My uncle Dean was under the weather so he was limited in what stuff he could do so I picked up the slack.

La Vigna Picnic

This year’s La Vigna Picnic was great. We had the highest attendance in a long time and everyone seemed to have a great time. the weather was cooler and less humid. Dean was still under the weather so Fran and I ran the games and took care of the MC duties for the day. I ended up selling the 50/50 tickets and making the most money ever in the history of La Vigna Picnics. I will now be stuck doing the selling for a long time…

Working on the XP rollout and Server 2003 testing

Finished the rollout of Windows XP in all the satellite offices and am working on getting it done here in the corporate office. I am also working on testing Server 2003 and Active Directory for the server upgrades. I am in the process right now of building the AD network in parallel with the NT network here in the corporate office.

This week Carolyn and I went to see Huey Lewis and the News on Tuesday night. It was a good show and better then I thought it would be. Huey is a very good showman and very fan friendly. I would go see him and see if he does a totally different show.

We are getting ready to go see Jimmy Buffet next weekend in Philadelphia which is unlike any other concert experience that I am used to. It’s one big party check out last years comments on the show. We are also getting ready for the final big picnic of the summer on September 4th so if you are in the Trenton NJ area on that day drop me a line and stop by….. 🙂