I don’t watch a lot of TV, but lately I’ve noticed commercials like this one popping up here and there.  Take a look…

Does this bother anyone else as much as it bothers me?  It seems like credit companies are more and more desperate to reel people in these days, to the point where they use commercials like this to make the cash-carrying consumer look like the BAD GUY!

Now this isn’t a financial blog, but I need to rant on this a little.  There’s nothing wrong with a credit card that’s used wisely, but cash is (and always will be) a better practice.  It burns me up how credit card pushers try to make the use of cash look slow and inconvenient, and in this commercial’s case, even inconsiderate to others.  As far as I’m concerned, this is terribly deceitful.  “Life takes fast money” is such a falsity.

Life doesn’t require fast money, but it does require well-managed finances.  Make sure you don’t get the two mixed up.

I know I’m not supposed to be posting on IT stuff right now, but I came across this and couldn’t help but throw it up there.

It’s a promo video of some sorts for MS-DOS 5.0 (Original post here).  Was music really this bad back then?  This makes old-school DC Talk sound good by comparison (and I mean the FIRST album).

My vacation has been more relaxing by the day, and I honestly feel more and more disconnected from work as time passes.

Monday and Tuesday were comprised of nothing more than chill-out time.  I spent a fair amount of time watching TV, sitting around, and basically practicing laziness.  Pretty much the equivalent of this:

By Wednesday, I had cabin fever and was ready to do some fishing.  Jess came along with me and we had a great afternoon.  I actually think she caught more fish than me, too (I caught some fish AND a wicked sunburn).  Here’s an excerpt from her blog entry:

I caught the largest fish of my life…and the kicker was I caught it while napping. Fell totally asleep with the rod in my hand, and a 15 inch bass almost took my pole with him. He did get to keep the fake worm that was supposed to SMELL like a real worm. That’s what the package said, I didn’t smell it to make sure.

What Jess didn’t mention is that while I was helping her with her fish (the hungry guy had swallowed 2/3 of her lure; we had to cut the line), a similar-sized bass had taken hold of my bait and was slowly dragging my line out.  I looked over just in time to see my Ugly Stick starting to slide its way off the dock I was fishing from.  Fortunately, I was able to run back and grab my rig before it got pulled into the water.

Here’s what was on the other end:

Another fine 15-inch largemouth… a little fatter than the one Jess had hooked, but both were very decent.  These are two of the biggest fish I’ve seen come out of the pond in awhile, and it gives me hope that there are some even bigger ones in there just waiting to be caught.  That being said, we’re going back on Friday. 

Today (Thursday) was more of a utility day than anything, but it was still quite relaxing, and I feel like I accomplished quite a few things.  One of the highlights of the day was getting to cut down some junk furniture for burning (just trust me, you didn’t want it).  God bless the creators of the Milwaukee Sawzall.

More to come as the 2007 “What Servers?” Tour continues…

I’ve been shying away from social networking sites for awhile now, just because it has always seemed like a chore to keep it all updated.  After some consideration though, I decided to open up an account on Facebook.  It’s actually been there for awhile now, I just decided to update it today while I’m waiting on other stuff.

Check out my profile here and add me as a friend if you’re so inclined.  You know it’s the right thing to do.

It’s been said that a vacation takes 2 weeks.  You need one week to get your brain to turn off, and another to actually relax after that happens.

In an effort to make that happen, I started “disconnecting” this morning.  For starters, I deleted my Exchange account from my laptop and also disabled ActiveSync on my phone.  A little drastic?  Perhaps, but mail has a “Pavlov’s dog effect” on me bigtime, so it’s in my best interest to distance myself from it as much as possible.

I will most-likely continue blogging through vacation, and hopefully I’ll have some nice pictures to show through the next two weeks.  I seriously, SERIOUSLY doubt I’ll be talking about anything directly related to IT, unless it’s to comment on the slow dial-up connection that I’ll be using.

Oh yeah, and this location happens to be well out of wireless range.  Bummer…

Recently I bought a new pair of flip-flops…I know, it’s near the end of summer, but my old nasty sandals were at the end of their road.

Now I’ve always worn actual sandals in the past; scandals that were actually strapped on at bridge of my foot and at the back of my heel.  It makes them easy to walk around in, which is good because those who know me know that I tend to walk rather quickly.

So I change into my first-ever pair of flip-flops (really!) as soon as I leave the store I bought them in, and immediately I notice that I can’t walk around in them with my normal quick walk; I simply have to slow down.  If I don’t, the flips go flying off my feet.  After a few frustrating minutes, I finally get the hang of it and the new footwear stays on my feet just fine.  Honestly, it felt like I actually had to learn to walk again.

This got me thinking about life a little bit and how we sometimes forget how to slow down.  I will be the first to say that I have a very prominent GIT-R-DONE attitude at times, and I tend to blow through job after job without stopping to catch my breath or enjoy “simple life stuff.”

“Simple life stuff”…usually that’s anything that you don’t usually do, but once you take the time to do it, you’re glad that you did:

• Walking without any particular destination.
• Sitting on the porch and enjoying the breeze.
• Having a conversation and joking around with your parents or other family.
• Going out on the boat and fishing.
• Teaching someone else how to fish properly.
• Firing up the grill and cooking.
• Going driving with someone with no other agenda than to just talk.

These (and many other things) are all things that I’ve failed to do well.  I have a tendency to get too fast for my own good.  Once that happens, I have trouble shutting my brain off and not thinking about stuff that involves work.  Having certain mindsets doesn’t help either.

• “No” and “Not yet” are not valid answers.
• Unless it’s working exactly like it’s supposed to, it’s just not working.
• I’m not stopping until this is done and done right.

These are thoughts that I struggle with constantly because I’m one of those people that can’t accept failure, and this makes me forget “how to walk” sometimes.  I want to do better at walking, so that when the opportunity comes to slow down, then I can because I remember how do to it.

I’m just getting ready to enter into a 2-week-long time of rest.  This has been on the edge of my thoughts for 2 months now, and I’m so excited that it’s finally here.  For 2 weeks I’m going to have nothing to do but remember how to slow down and ”just walk.”  I’ll have my new flip-flops on, too; in fact the only time I’m not going to be wearing flip-flops is when I’m on my motorcycle.

I hope this wasn’t too confusing of a post… it’s just been on my mind for a couple days now and I wanted to get it out there.  Being able to take things slow is important, and nowadays in our society it’s becoming more of a lost art. 

May you never forget how to slow down from a run and “just walk” when you need to.

I was cruising through Google Reader the other day and happened upon this post from Cool Tools.

I’m a big fan of carbonated drinks, so much so that I have no problem putting away soda or even straight tonic water.  It’s not the healthiest thing to be a fan of though.  This is something that very well may get experimented with during my vacation.  Make your own soda?  Imagine the possibilities.

This was too cute to pass up…

This past weekend I had the opportunity to play with the worship team for the weekend, and I thoroughly enjoyed it.  It reminded me of why I got into music long ago in the first place.  I simply love it.  I don’t think there’s anything I’d rather do, honestly.

Anyway, after the weekend, I got a reaction from young Mr. Carson, who is definitely the cutest 2-year-old I know.

He thinks I’m a rockstar…poor little guy.  It’s still cute though.

In the spirit of Dave D’Angelo’s blog, I’d like to post my own latest experience with Don’t Be That Guy.  (NewPointe staff, rest easy:  None of you are That Guy.)

I’ve had 2 separate occurrences of this in the past month.  I would be in the same “air space” as a person that apparently wanted my attention, but was in conversation with another individual.  This person, knowing that I was already engaged in work OR walking to a new location, would drop my name in their conversation with the other party — a TOTAL third-person reference — in order to get my attention while I was still in said air space.  Once I heard my name, I would naturally turn around to see what was up.  The person, now having my attention, would break their conversation with their original party in order to give me the details on what they wanted from me.

This is slightly rude, and borderlines on passive-aggressive.  Don’t be That Guy.  If you want someone’s attention and they’re in the room, address them directly.  Failure to do so can only result in the possibility of more rudeness, such as your “target” actually ignoring you.  Not that I’d ever do that, but I’m just saying…

Keep it real, spread the love, converse directly, and don’t be That Guy.

One of the best pieces of troubleshooting advice I’ve received was something I got from Ed during this ordeal with the video and backup servers:  Write down everything you know about the situation, [no matter how minute] and draw pictures if you can.  Use this knowledge to aid in your troubleshooting.

I noted each and every little detail about the situation that I could think of, and then started hammering away at the variables.  Shortly after lunch I came across an avenue that hadn’t yet been explored:  This whole time I had the same NIC assigned to the backup network, and I had treated the connection to the core network like the “problem area.”  What if that wasn’t the case?  What if the problem wasn’t with the connection to the core network, but the backup network connection instead?

So after thinking through this, I unplugged both NICs from the network, swapped IP address assignments, and plugged both cables back in to their cards according to their new assignments.  Lo and behold, the CommVault server opened a stream to our video box and the data started flowing freely. 

“And there was much rejoicing…”   -Monty Python and the Holy Grail

 

To say that some weight has been lifted off my shoulders would be an understatement.  I was seriously a couple “elimination steps” away from doing a rebuild of the video server.

So what was the problem?  Windows network services was trying to access the “core network” NIC ahead of the backup NIC.  This is why the backup server could initiate a connection from the backup server to start a backup request, but would not open a stream.  Apparently the stream is initiated on the client end, and the video server was trying to do this with the wrong NIC.  There’s a way you can avoid this using Windows settings that I didn’t even know existed until today.

1.) Go to Control Panel -> Network Connections.  Click on the Advanced menu and select Advanced Settings.

2.)  From here, you can set the order in which your network adapters are access by Windows.  Set the order however it suits your needs and click OK.

I felt a little silly for not exploring Windows a little more than I did before uncovering this, but nonetheless I’m very glad to have this new piece of knowledge in my arsenal.  You can bet I’m going to be spending some time later this afternoon checking the rest of the servers that are attached to CommVault and make sure their settings are correct.