jeffpollard.net

Slave to the grind

Things have been pretty steady and busy at work lately. With all of the new computers that arrived a few weeks ago, we've been steadily busy with installing the new computers and fixing the problems that always seem to crop up when our people switch machines.

We continue to unpack and try to organize stuff at the house. I hung mini blinds last night in the computer room and tried to figure out where I'm going to put a bunch of boxes of cable and random computer equipment. Anybody want a 486? How about an old 15" Apple monitor?

Mom's been in town for the last day or so for a librarian's conference at the Library of Virginia. I tell ya, she's a wild and crazy woman. Before she left Harrisonburg Wednesday night, she stopped by the local Toyota dealership up there to take a peek at their selection of new Camrys. And, a couple hours later, she drove off the lot (and straight to Richmond) in her brand new 03' Camry! Pretty spontaneous. But, even more spontaneous than that, get this: Jennifer fell in love with Mom's new car the minute she drove it, so what did SHE do? She went to McGeorge Toyota last night and traded her 98' Camry in on an IDENTICAL blue 03' Camry. So, now my Mom and my sister drive indentical new cars. What a pair. And now I know where I get my spontaneity from. It's truly genetic.

This weekend should be fun. Brian and Paul are coming down, Eric and Kelly are hosting a cookout at their new house, and Nascar's in Atlanta. How exciting. Best of all, it looks like the snipers have finally been caught. Now, we just need to figure out what to do with them. Any ideas?

Busy night..in the laboratory

With all the craziness happening in the Richmond area yesterday, I figured last night was a great time to tuck myself away up my computer room and get some real work done. What work you may ask?

One of my coworkers' husband contacted me a few months ago to build him a website. He's an artist (paintings, murals, etc.) and wanted another way to get his name out there. As with all of my other web project clients, we've spent the past couple of months working through the planning phase, the design phase, and now the building and content phases. This is usually where I have run into the most problems with clients. Here's what normally happens:

Me: Mr./Mrs. Web Project Client, I need some content for your website

Them: What kind of content do you mean?

Me: Well...words..pictures..the stuff that MAKES a website.

Them: Oh, I guess I have to figure something out. Ok, I'll send you something.

(Two weeks later...)

Me: Mr./Mrs. Web Project Client, have you gathered your content for the site?

Them: Oh, no, I've been really busy with other things. I'll send it soon.

(One month later...)

Me: Anything yet?

Them: Oh, I totally forgot about the site. Yeh, I'll come up with something soon.

Forget it. What I don't understand is how many people I've tried to help create a web presence for them and then they just kinda crap out in the middle of the project. Best of all, they realize 3 months down the road that their website isn't up and running and they subconsciously blame ME for not delivering on their site. Yep. My fault.

But, that has definitely NOT been the case with this latest web project. What has been the case is that the client keeps changing his mind about how the site should look. We traded screenshots of the photoshopped design for a few weeks and finally decided upon a look and feel. However, he now wants to change many elements about that design: Background colors, button labels, etc. But, I can't really complain. Why? Because every time he sends me a big, long email detailing what he wants changed, that just means that I'll spend that much more TIME making the site look exactly how he wants it to look. And folks: In my business, Time = Money. Bring on those changes.

Oh, and if you're curious, check out my work in progress.

Rack: Mounted

Here's a photo of my rack all mounted and looking pretty in my network closet. I feel like a proud father.

Now, when are we having that LAN party?

11 days later...

I think this has probably been the longest I've ever gone since my last entry. Jeez, even Olivia has been better about updating her site lately. I'm getting almost as bad as Eric. Now that things are settling down with the house, I should be able to get back to a normal routine, though.

Speaking of the house, we're making good progress. I got my rack mounted Saturday and finished up most of the jack wiring. Every single jack has appeared to work correctly..yay us! I've even moved my Airport downstairs so that we could get a better signal in the great room. Next project: get the surround sound system wired. That should be fun, since there's not much space to run wires between the baseboard and the carpet. Of course, the #1 priority is to keep Jaws from eating the wiring.

I guess everyone knows about the Ashland shooting that happened Saturday night. And, unless you've been under a rock this morning, you've heard that they've taken a man and a white Plymouth Voyager into custody at the intersection of Broad and Parham. Why? Because a woman spotted this white van in a school parking lot this morning. Since the schools are closed, this seemed odd to this woman. Oh, and she did mention that the men looked to be of "ethnic origin". So, let me get this straight: If you look like you might be of some kind of "ethnic origin", you're not allowed to drive a white Plymouth Voyager and (above all) you're not allowed to site in the parking lot of an empty school. Only time will tell if this is any kind of lead in this ongoing fiasco, but I suspect that it's not.

Either way, things are definitely a little a little spooky down here.

Whirlwind

Wow, what a whirlwind of activity over the past week or so. I know I've told a few of you this, but I just want to make sure that it is known: you can always tell when I'm jam-packed-busy because I don't update this site as often. And it tends to go in spurts. Just before last week, I was just beginning to find the time to update on here more often, and then the whole moving thing happened. Oh well.

As you may have read on some other people's sites, the move went really smoothly, thanks to the help of all of my wonderful friends. You guys are absolutely the best. Thanks to Eric for being the first one on the moving job-site and for helping me install our new microwave.

The house is awesome..and I still can't believe that it's mine. It still feels weird to come "home" to THAT house rather than our apartment, but it's starting to feel more familiar.

I finally got our cable and broadband worked out. It turns out that since I brought our old cable modem over from the apartment that the installer guy needed to do some things to make sure that it all worked properly. Either that or tell ME how I could do it. He did neither. So, I spent a few hours going through the hell that is AT&T Broadband tech support. I checked TCP/IP settings, rebooted, checked TCP/IP settings again, rebooted again, uplugged the modem, plugged in the modem. It's really a shame that it took me calling 4 times and about 6 different people to solve this problem. And it wasn't even them who clued me in to the REAL problem in this situation..it was Eric who suggested that I run the CD and register my modem with my new account. Seems like just ONE of those AT&T people would have thought to ask me about that. Instead, I was instructed to reinstall my "drivers". I asked the support rep: "What drivers?" "Your NIC drivers. You do have a NIC installed, right?" "Yes, but the drivers are part of the OS, not like Windows where you might have to load and reload your drivers depending on how Windows feels that particular day." Her response? "Well, then you'd better call Apple to get this resolved." Give me a fscking break. And that was a TIER 2 tech support representative. Sad. Very sad. But, now it all works and it's time to wire my jacks, hang my rack and punch down my leads. WOO HOO!

Our new machines came in today at work. I'm now running a 800mhz Titanium with a beefier video card that runs 1280. Ahhhh..some much-needed screen real estate. Never underestimate the power of (screen) real estate. Oh..and it's fast, too. Weeeeee!!! :)

That's about all for now. I would spend more time talking about what I NEED to be doing, but that would just waste time that I could be actually doing those things.

Long time, no toy

I couldn't resist. We went to Wal-Mart the other night and they had a great new selection of remote-controled trucks. Cool ones, too. Escalades, Avalanches, and a Nissan Frontier double cab. So, I stood there in the toy isle and tried to reason with myself. I tried to justify why I should (or could) afford to buy such a frivolous thing when I had better things to spend my money on. My entire financial state flashed before my very eyes: Monthly motgage payment, truck payment, insurance, student loans, bills, AHHH!!!!! And then I realized something that I knew all along. I haven't purchased anything fun (other than a new house, of course) for myself in a pretty long time. I could spend $50 on a toy to play with out in my new back yard, right? So I bought the Nissan truck. Ain't it pretty?

Gizmo is totally freaked out by it. 9.6V of pure electric power, baby. Too bad it's not a Tacoma. :)

Cleaning up..

Long day yesterday. Actually, every day is feeling pretty long now that I get up a bit earlier and arrive at work about a half hour earlier. Funny thing about it is that I've been arriving home at the same time as I used to. So, I'm going in a half hour earlier, but getting home at the same time. Bummer.

After my XMUG meeting last night we headed over to the house with some cleaning supplies. Since the cleaning crew didn't make it Monday night before we got there, they weren't able to clean the house. And, since we used our keys to get into the house, their generic keys wouldn't work, so there's no way they would ever be able to come in and finish their job. No big deal.

We got to the house and noticed that the light was on upstairs. We both looked at each other and asked "Did you leave that light on?". Strange. Neither of US left that light on. We unlocked the front door, opened it, and found a very spotless house. Hmmm. This was bad. Good that it was clean. Bad that they cleaning crew was able to get into the house after we supposedly "set" our locks so that they couldn't get in anymore. I'll be asking them about this today.

Olivia wiped out the cabinets and I wiped down the insides of the windows and watered the back yard. Ryan gave us a hose and a lawn sprinkler, so I set it up and managed to get myself pretty soaked in the process. Yeh, I'm an amateur at this. And it definitely felt strange to pull a hose out into MY back yard and water MY lawn (well, what will become MY lawn. Right now, it's hay and seed.).

Only a few more days until our big moving day. I'd better get back to pumping iron in preparation.

It's over. Or has it just begun?

Well, 8 months of stress, deciding, and waiting are over. We closed. It's ours.

And, we couldn't resist doing something to change it on the very first day, so we went to Lowes and purchased our new knobs for the kitchen and bathroom cabinets and installed them. We also purchased a couple replacement (brushed nickel) interior door knobs to see how they would look. You see, everything in our new house is either shiny brass or gold. Not exactly what either Olivia or I would choose. Here are a few photos of the new knobs in the kitchen: 1 | 2 | 3 (old hardware)

The closing wasn't as long or as much paperwork as either of us expected. It was about an hoour and a half long and the paperwork was over before we knew it. We took our keys and ran!

Before the closing yesterday, we went back to the house to meet with the builder one last time to make sure everything had been done to our satisfaction. The wood flooring guy was just finishing up as we walked in the door. The floor looks absolutely wonderful. They said the cleaning crew was to come back in early last night, but when we went over at 9PM, there was evidence that they still had not arrived. And they won't be coming in now because we've put our keys in all of the locks. Looks like we'll be doing the final cleanup. Oh well. No big deal.

We took my tripod with us last night and shot some panoramas of the dinette, kitchen, and great room. Here they are: Dinette | Kitchen | Great Room

You'll need QuickTime to be able to view these panoramas, but I think it's worth it. Enjoy!