10.20.2009
8:00am

Yesterday we had a bit of an emergency at work. Can't really go into specifics, but needless to say it resulted in a very quick decision by high-level people to invest another half-million into the HSX datacenter.

This past weekend I was out at CCI helping with the concrete work on their picnic pavilion project. Saturday was the official "work-day" and we had about 8 people working on cutting/nailing some 2x8 structural pieces, then afterward we mixed and poured concrete into some 12" forms. They quickly found out that they mis-read the table on the side of the forms, and we didn't have nearly enough bags of concrete. The rental equipment was due back on Monday though so that presented a bit of a problem. On Sunday, Cody and I went back to help Doug finish but we had to go over to Lowe's to pick up 2400 more pounds of concrete. Fortunately the palletized kind that they forklifted into the 2 pickup trucks we brought. We finished filling the forms pretty quickly considering that it was just the 3 of us.

Before leaving we got to visit with a couple of the servals with Doug and Kim's escort. Cody bought some more mozzarella for the wolves so we fed them, they absolutely love the stuff. He and I decided to follow Kim and Jessie to grab some dinner in Mebane, unfortunately we didn't make it to the restaurant. Jessie was driving in front of me on 119 and she turned left into an oncoming car. Both directions were green lights but she didn't have an arrow so should have yielded. The rest of us pulled off to see if everybody was ok, Jessie was shaken up a bit but the lady driving the other car had hit her head on the side pillar of the car and had a small cut that the EMTs took care of. Neither car was drivable so we waited until the fire crew finished cleanup and the tow truck hauled off the cars. Kim gave Jessie a ride back to her apartment and Cody and I headed home.

10.09.2009
7:12pm

This morning I was echoing the same sentiments as my friends on facebook. Obama is a peace prize winner? What the hell? In case anybody missed the fine print, he got nominated after being in office only 2 weeks. Yeah.

Microsoft wants people to party it up for the release of Windows 7. Oh yeah, I've been running it (legally) for a month now. So far it does not appear to be quite as stable as Windows Vista, although I'm pretty confident it's driver-related and not the kernel.

Although HSX is not giving raises this year, we still had to go through the regular performance review process. I had my one-on-one with Steve this evening and received a rating of high performer, which is better than my last 2 reviews. I am happy about that especially since I was a new member of his group. He wants me to go to training for VMware certified professional, so that should be a nice addition to my skill set.

Mom came to visit last weekend, and on Saturday night Aunt Carmen and Uncle Carl came over to join us for barbequed spiedies. I finally got a LP tank for my grill, and also bought a couch and loveseat for my living room since I didn't have any furniture in there. They got to hear the LS-6 speakers that I bought recently on eBay... I am really loving them so far. No subwoofer needed.

I found out today on twitter that one of the elderly tigers at CCI passed away on Tuesday. She was having a number of health issues and wasn't eating much when I was there 3 weeks ago.