jeffpollard.net

Down, but not out

Well, here I am. I think. I took yesterday off from work because my throat was killing me. I must have inherited my Mom's bad sinuses. Normally it's not this bad, though. So, I went to the doctor and he prescribed Claritin D. Now I'm no doctor, but I felt like he didn't prescribe the right thing for me. he said it sounded like an allergy thing. He asked if I had a fever. I responded, "I don't think so..." He never even checked to make sure. Jeez, it's been more than 2 years since I've been to the doctor. And it's not that I dislike them, I just hardly ever get sick. Perhaps it's all the vitamins I take every day. That was just a little joke. My parents used to make me take vitamins and told me that I'd get sick if I didn't take my vitamins. I'll probably need those vitamins when I get old and frail, but for now I think I'm OK without them. :)

So, I'm back at work today, but feeling very disconnected. I feel like my head is in a fog. My right ear just now popped and I can finally hear out of it again. The drug has had pretty severe effects on me. I took it at around 1:30pm yesterday and within an hour or two, I was in a coma. I woke up when Olivia came home at 6:00 or so. I went back to sleep and woke up at around 8:00. By midnight, I was ready for bed again. Sleeping while taking this drug comes very easy, but it's a very weird sleep. I'm asleep, but sortof not asleep at the same time. Very strange. Let's hope this passes soon.

Tarheel Nationals

Enjoy some photos from this weekend until I have enough energy and time to write something meaningful here. :)

Bizzy Bizzy Bizzy

Shew. Pretty desolate here.

I'm backed up with work. Work that I stumbled my way into. Work like: Creating a living, breathing XMUG site. Creating CustomTacos flyers to hand out this weekend at the show. Putting up a 280-photo show coverage gallery. Putting up a tech article. Putting up an announcement about the next SoCal CustomTacos meet. Fixing the site so it doesn't give errors.

Putting up with a cat who doesn't understand the meaning of "NO" as he's chewing through numerous cables.

I'm fixin' to get some sleep. Night.

Contest?

It appears as though I am in some kind of wacky contest with Brian to see who can NOT update their website longest. Or perhaps we're both just lazy. Yeh, that's it.

PHP v. 4.0.6: You suck.

Well, part of being a man is admiting when you're wrong. Today, I admited that I was wrong. I had it set in my mind that mysql was the culprit in all of my latest headaches with the CustomTacos discussion forum. The InfoPop support guy disagreed, saying that he suspected that PHP had something to do with it. After some research and thorough testing today, I think I agree with him. You see, the server where my PHP pages are served from is running a really old version of PHP: 4.0.6. The latest version is 4.2.1. But, here's the compelling evidence: I never used to these errors when the PHP pages were served from www.CustomTacos.com. So, what version of PHP is that server running? 4.1.2. Not the newest, but good enough to not cause errors. So the task at hand is to get OLM to upgrade PHP on my forum server to at least 4.1.2. Here's the virtual conversation I had with their support folks today:

Damn right you'll have your supervisor look into it....

More Progress, YAY!

Things seem to be prgressing very nicely. The model building is now totally framed and roofed. It appears as though all water pipes are run and installed. We had looking around on the third floor of the house, since it is the first time we've been able to see the actual size of the rooms.

On the other side of the street, building A is progressing nicely as well. When we saw it last, it was nothing more than a slab of concrete. It now stands two stories tall and is expected to be under roof in another day or two. Simply amazing.

In other exciting news, Coke (along with the help of their favorite advertising agency) began selling their new product, Vanilla Coke, in stores today. And just how did those fine folks at Martin celebrate? With a party, of course! (duh.) Actually, it was more of a taste-testing session, but it got us all away from our desks for a while. So, Brian, this one's for you.

On the downside, CustomTacos continues to make my life a lliving hell with it's mysql errors. Ya know..if I could just solve this pesky little problem, I might sleep well at night. Too bad the fine folks at InfoPop aren't much help so far.

New Cubicle Photos

Some people have asked to see some better photos of my new cubicle. Here they are:

Click thumbnails for larger images

Cruises are fun! Right?

Wednesday, 7:50AM: My first alarm clock goes off. Still in my sleepy stupor, I slam it off and continue sleeping.

7:55AM: My second alarm clock sounds from accross the room. I drag myself from the bed, flip the switch to "off" and retreat back to the bed. Back to sleep. (Mental note: Why do I even set my 7:50 alarm??!!)

8:15AM: Olivia takes a break from applying her makeup long enough to fuss at me to get out of bed. I peel myself from the bed again. A shower, clothes, and a bowl of cereal follow shortly.

9:15AM: I arrive at work 15-20 minutes late, as usual. (Mental note: If I arrive this late every day, is it considered "late" anymore?)

9:30AM-12noon: I run various desktop support calls, fixing problems ranging from PowerBooks with batteries that don't charge to people stranded in OS X that can't find their way back to OS 9. I also continue to play with my OS X mysql server that may (one day) become the CustomTacos database server, if I can ever figure it all out.

12:30PM: Lunch at Padow's Deli on Main St. consisting of a chicken salad sandwich, Grandma Utz chips, and Mountain Dew.

1:15PM: Return to A/V editing room where I continue working on getting the footage ready for burning some presentation DVDs for a large New Business cruise that a few of our new business honchos will be leaving for Thursday at 9:30AM. 45 AVI movies must be opened and then saved as Quicktime movies. Good thing I'm using a dual-800mhz G4!

2:30PM: Begin constructing menus for presentation DVD.

5:15PM: First complete DVD burned. Looks great on the portable DVD player and Eye-Trek glasses that they will be showing the DVD on.

5:45PM: New business' Chris Shumaker arrives to preview the completed DVD and bestow his blessing on it. He loves the format, but wants "a few small things" changed on the DVD. He wants a few "highlight reels" from existing movies, join similar spots together to make a single movie, etc. It appears as though the changes he asked for will require an additional 5 hours of work. I promise him that I will have it done before he leaves in less than 16 hours.

6:15PM: I leave The Martin Agency and go home. Woof down some leftover Trak's food and find out how Olivia's day was.

7:45PM: Arrive at Jennifer's apartment with iMac in tow. Install iMac, transfer data from old computer, install new apps, and give quick tutorial on MacOS X, iTunes, and iPhoto.

11:00PM: Drop Olivia off at home and head back downtown (in her car) armed with magazines, movies, and quarters for the drink machines to keep me awake.

Thursday, 4:35AM: Complete editing video clips and begin process of encoding and compressing video for DVD. iDVD estimates 161 minutes to encode the videos into MPEG4 format.

4:45AM-5:45AM: Assist Amy and Kevin in burning 60 CD-Rs..also for the new business cruise. Nervously pace and continue checking time remaining on iDVD's timer. Just under 100 minutes remaining.

6:15AM: Sun definitely coming up. Realize that Olivia will probably need her car to be able to go to work in an hour or two. Drive home, drop off car, and return downtown in my truck.

7:15AM: First (revised) DVD finishes burning. Check it with player and glasses. Looks great, although everything is kinda fuzzy right now.

7:30AM-9:30AM: Continue burning copies of the DVD with each burn taking 21 minutes. Eyes very heavy and napping occurs while waiting for DVDs to burn. Coworkers find humor in discovering me passed out waiting for DVDs to burn. Photos are taken and my boss sends out a company-wide email commending the efforts of all employees who worked on this cruise project.

9:30AM: I leave The Martin Agency and arrive home. A shower and a bowl of cereal follow. I hit the bed and enter into a deep coma.

5:45PM: I wake up to the sound of Olivia coming home from work.

I guess it's back to business as usual tomorrow.

Oh yeh..and my Airport Base Station died tonight. It's a good thing that it's a known issue at Apple. The phone support guy had no problem with getting a new one sent out to me tomorrow. :)

Gittin' Crap Done!

Olivia just saw me open my blog system and she asked, "What are you gonna write about?" I sat back and thought about it for a second and then responded, "I don't know, but it'll be exciting!"

Actually, I am pretty pumped. I had a pretty productive day, considering I woke up at noon, just in time to watch the continuation of Saturday night's race that got postponed to today. It was a pretty exciting race, lots of wrecks.

Jennifer came over Saturday night for food, fun and (of course) the race. She's not a race fan (yet), but we made tacos (no, not the custom kind) and had a good time. He iMac has now arrived at Martin and I'll be installing that for her on Wednesday night. I'm so excited for her. I KNOW she's going to absolutely LOVE this computer..and OS X. :)

Back to today....I purchased a set of 4Runner tweeter pods last week through Toyota and hadn't had a chance to install them..until today. You see, the 4Runner and the Tacoma are very much alike in body, engine, and interior. This is really a good thing because the 4Runners come with an upgraded sound system that includes cool little tweeter mounts in the top corner of the door. It just so happens that those mounts fix (almost) perfectly in a Taco! The installation went pretty smoothly although I had to hack at them a little more than I expected. I wrote a tech article on CustomTacos for those interested.

I also had a chance to give my truck a good thorough washing, including washing out the bed. Ever since I cut my bed for the notches, the bed has become a depository for dirt, pollen, and pebbles. I knew this going into the deal, so it's no surprise. It's funny how a hole in the bottom of your vehicle can make a tremendous vaccuum.

And that, folks, is my exciting news for tonight.

Dealing with childish crap

My evenings have been occupied with cleaning up after immature kids posting abusive material on CustomTacos lately. It started Sunday and has been a evening ritual since then. What's kind of calming is the realization that it's taking them lots more time to vandalize my forum than it's taking me to clean up after them and ban their IP addresses. Actually, it seems as though all of the vandalism is coming from the same range os IP addresses. I've already written the ISP and reported the behavior, but since it has continued, I'll be making a phone call tomorrow. I want results. I don't really know what kind of results I want, but I want some kind of satisfaction. It does give me satisfaction that I know they'll come back to do the same thing tomorrow and be met by a "You have been banned on this website". What frustration they'll feel.

That's about all that's exciting that's been happening in my life. Babysitting sucks. My truck is dirty and I'm too lazy to clean it lately. Where has all of my energy gone?