Monthly Archive for May, 2004

May 1st 2004

statesboro

Published by Jeff 0 Comments

Today I woke up naturally without the alarm. It felt great.

I was also feeling much better. I’m not as sick now and feel well-rested. I also like the bed a lot better now too - it’s growing on me.

As I took a shower this morning I realized that I may need to adjust the water heater. I had to keep the tap on full-hot and it was just right. The orientation guy warned me that I may need to adjust the water heater because they keep it on the coldest setting by default.

I got a page from production control about a failed job. I called them back and had them force it complete. The job that keeps failing is one that reboots some of our tuxedo services every day to force a refresh of the database cache. It bothers me that we have such a sloppy method of refreshing the cache - especially considering that we have the ability to programmatically refresh the cache via a message. I’m going to look into this on Monday.

I packed up my car and left for Jen’s house. She was already home from school. On her way home she stopped at Target and bought some fun things for my house. I really appreciate all that she’s doing for me.

We left her house and went over to Chick-fil-A for an early lunch. I had my usual thing: A Chick-fil-A sandwich and an order of 8-piece chicken nuggets.

After lunch we drove over to Jen’s parents’ house and picked up her Dad as well as her dog, Chloe. We’re going down to Statesboro today to help Jen’s sister move back to Atlanta. Her Dad is going down there with us to drive the moving truck back. He’s taking Chloe along to keep him company while he drives alone.

Jen offered to drive part of the way and she started out. I got a call from Larry who updated me on all of his house stuff. Things are coming along quite nicely for him.

I spent a lot of time updating my journal in my notebook as we drove. While we were driving I sent out two emails from my notebook. I was able to do this by dynamically connecting my notebook to my cell phone via Bluetooth. From there my notebook connected (via dial-up networking) to the GPRS network on t-mobile to the internet and sent out the emails. The fact that I was able to do this while we were speeding down the highway in the middle of nowhere, Georgia was cool. Jen and I switched off about half-way there and I drove the rest of the way. It took us about 3.5 hours to drive down to her sister’s apartment in Statesboro.

It only took us about four hours to get everything packed up into the moving truck. The whole moving experience was pretty uneventful and we left Statesboro around 6pm.

I drove back the first-half and then we switched off half-way home. While Jen was driving we chatted and I worked on my journal some more in my notebook.

As we approached Atlanta it was raining. A car in the lane next to us somehow spun out and came close to hitting us. It was a scary moment but no harm was done.

We got home and unloaded my car. It was late and dark outside. I noticed yesterday that the window in the study is missing a screen. I decided to go on a covert mission to one of the other homes being built to borrow a screen from another window. Unfortunately the ones that were open had no screens.

Jen and I decided to bust in the new garden tub and take a bath together. She lit a lot of candles and we filled the tub up with hot water and some bath powder stuff that didn’t seem to do anything. We opened the blinds to the window next to the bathtub so we could watch the lightning storm the brewed outside.

It was very relaxing and enjoyable. The fact that there was lightning dancing across the sky outside made it even more enjoyable.

May 2nd 2004

unpacking

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Like yesterday I woke late again today. It was nice to be lazy and sleep in. Even nicer was to wake up with Jen in the bed next to me. I’ve decided that the bed is very comfortable - much more comfortable than my previous bed. My old bed was so bad that you could feel the springs pushing up against the top of the mattress.

After a nice shower I made cinnamon rolls in the new oven for Jen and me. We ate the warm cinnamon rolls and watched Harry Potter 2. While we did this, Jen and I unpacked stuff.

She worked on the kitchen and I spent most of my time downstairs in the study/server room getting all of the computers & other equipment positioned and hooked up. Now I have everything online and ready to go despite not having internet connectivity yet.

Jen took the stuffing out of the sofa cushions and washed the covers. This was probably a long-overdue task because I’ve had this sofa for six years now.

While the washing machine was going, Jen took a nap. I joined her for a little while. I got up and went back downstairs to start working on the grill.

It took me a couple of hours to get the grill all put together. It was harder work than I thought it would be, but rewarding. The manual was quite detailed and I didn’t run into any snags - which was nice. I realized that the gad tank was empty so I’ll try to get it filled after work tomorrow at the nearby U-haul place.

As I was finishing up, Jen came downstairs and worked on the sofa cushions some more. Eventually we left the house and drove westward on East-West Connector towards a nearby Target. We found a gigantic shopping district actually. It reminded me of a mini-Barrett parkway area actually.

First we went into Target. I was originally planning on getting a lot of stuff and then sign-up for the Target credit card to get the 10% discount. However I felt a bit overwhelmed and didn’t get a lot of stuff.

After Target we went next-door to Lowe’s and looked around. We got some more contact paper for the bathrooms as well as some WD40 for the windows. Some of the windows aren’t opening as easily as I would like.

It was getting late so we had a late lunch at an Italian place nearby. It was pretty good and nice to have some food in our bellies. After lunch we went home.

On the way home we stopped at the mailbox so I could check the mail. I got the official mail forward packet form the post office. To my great surprise there was a coupon from Home Depot for 10% an initial purchase. I’ve been obsessing about getting all of my stuff at Home Depot at one time to take advantage of a discount, and now I can!

I went through the house and oiled some of the windows which are hard to open. Jen wasn’t feeling too good and laid down on the couch. I did some work around the house for a while and she got up and was feeling better.

We had some drinks and leftovers for dinner. We also watched some programs I had TiVoed.

Eventually we left. I packed up some stuff and loaded up my explorer. We stopped at the dumpster on the way out and dumped off a lot of trash that had been collecting over the past few days.

Before going straight to Jen’s house we went to the Target close to where she lives. They were about to close so we didn’t get much stuff.

At Jen’s house we took a bath together in her garden tub and it was quite nice. Shortly after that we went to bed - I fell asleep right away.

May 3rd 2004

hacking MuVo

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Today we took Bob M. out for lunch to celebrate his 50th birthday. We went to a new BBQ place in a very scary part of downtown Atlanta.

After work today I went straight to Post Ridge to pick up my UPS package (the MuVo 4GB MP3 player). I also turned in all of my keys and officially vacated my apartment.

From there I went to the Speed Factory main office off Shallowford road and picked up the DSL Bridge. I could have had it shipped for me for $15, but it is actually on the way to Jen’s house so I decided to get it in person.

It was a small office with only two visible people working. They were nice and led me down a hallway and told me to wait while they retrieved the equipment from a closet. While I waited I noticed a door label ‘co location hosting’.

Because I was so close by, I went over to Jen’s house. I actually got there before she arrived from work. I did some work on my notebook and lounged around while I waited.

When she got home we cooked the ravioli stuff for dinner. It was pretty good. Afterwards we went to Target to buy yet more stuff. From there we went to my house.

I spent a little while working on the MuVo. I followed the unnecessary directions I got from the internet and dissected the MP3 player. Within minutes I had the Hitachi 4GB compactflash microdrive extracted and running in my digital camera! In RAW mode I can now shoot over 460 photos which is amazing. The $200 player yielded me a 4GB microdrive which sells for $500 - not bad.

May 4th 2004

wireless bridge

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I got a call this morning from John the builder. He informed me that the new refrigerator will be delivered sometime today and that he will call me within thirty minutes of delivery so I can get home in time.

I advised Carole about this and she was ok with me leaving on a moment’s notice if I have to. Carole is such a great manager!

Most of the day today was spent on conference calls working on performance related things in production and integration.

We had a big celebration today for Bob M’s 50th birthday down in the 10East conference room. Brian brought in some broccoli dish that was awesome. It had bacon and other things in it which made it quite tasty.

Later this afternoon I got a call from Bob the builder. He informed me that the GE delivery guys are on their way to my place now. I packed up my stuff and headed home.

I got home about fifteen minutes before the delivery guys did. I scrambled to unload everything from my current fridge so they could quickly replace it. It didn’t take them very long to swap the refrigerators out.

It was already late enough that I didn’t go back to work. Instead I drove over to CompUSA.

I’ve been thinking long and hard about a home networking solution. I have three wired devices: The two desktops in the study and the TiVo upstairs in the living room. I’ve already looked into it and I don’t think it’s possible or desirable for me to go wireless on the TiVo. I looked into small wireless bridge access points, but they are all over $100.

One possibility I looked at was to have my DSL bridge sitting in the phone distribution panel in the garage. From there I would wire the outgoing Ethernet to all five ‘phone line’ cat5e cables. I would then re-crimp all of the terminating phone outlets to be Ethernet jacks instead. This seemed like a lot of work and still wouldn’t solve my TiVo networking problem because there isn’t a phone outlet anywhere neat the TiVo.

The next possibility I looked at was to run an Ethernet cable through the wall in the study, up the side of the house, and into the wall in the living room, providing Ethernet connectivity to the TiVo. Honestly that would be the cheapest solution.

Another possibility would be to have a second access point sitting next to the tivo. I could then connect my two access points together in WDS (Wireless Distribution System) in a form of a bridge/repeater mode. Fortunately my Buffalo WBR-G54 router supports this style of use. This is the solution I decided to attempt.

At CompUSA I bought the Buffalo WBR-G54 wireless access point. I was pretty excited about the prospect of having a bridged WiFi network in my home. When I made it back home (traffic sucks in the afternoon), I set up the new access point and got it configured in bridged mode with little problem. I currently have them assigned to different SSIDs but I think I want to use the same SSID to make roaming transparent. There is still some tweaking I want to do, but will do it tomorrow.

I had to reboot the TiVo in order for it to correctly activate on the network. I don’t think the USB/Network modules got loaded with the Linksys USB Ethernet device not connected. Once I got that fixed, I finally had my TiVo re-connected to the network!

I left my house around 6:50pm and headed up to Canton road to meet Jen at Old Time Pottery. Actually she was running late and met me there. It’s a huge place like Garden Ridge Pottery. Eventually Jen showed up.

This shopping expedition actually overwhelmed me. There was so much stuff and I wasn’t feeling that great. My lingering cold/flu has been taking a long time to wear off and I’m still dealing with the effects.

Jen and I got some stuff from the pottery place including a lot of cool baskets to use in the bathroom under the sink to store things because there are no drawers.

From there Jen and I went down the road to a bad where Damon is performing tonight in an open mic session.

We had some drinks and food (I ordered a BLT) and chatted with Damon. He seemed to know a lot of people there. Around 10pm Damon performed on stage for a few sets. For one or two of the sets he had other guys join him and they were like a band. It was pretty good.

From there we went straight back to my place. Jen followed me in her car. I did some work on my journal while Jen cleaned up and organized some things. She’s done such a great job I’m so thankful for her help.

Around midnight we went to bed.

May 5th 2004

DSL

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Today is an exciting day because my DSL line is supposed to be provisioned. I have all of the PPPoE settings configured on my router and I’m just waiting for it to be turned on. The letter I received stated that it would be activated at any point today.

I dropped my car off at the Boyd & Sons Tire Co this morning. I requested an oil change and tire rotation.

They called me a little while later asking if I wanted a new air filter because the current one was very dirty. I got this. They also wanted to know if I wanted new windshield wiper blades. I agreed to this too. Just this past weekend Jen and I noticed that the windshield wipers weren’t working that great.

The travel companion stuff still hasn’t shown up with Jen as a travel companion. I sent Melissa, the HR rep an email asking about this.

I did some research into the WDS wireless bridge thing for my WiFi access point solution. There is one drawback to the system is that the wireless bandwidth is halved because of the wireless communication that needs to occur between bridges.

I also called the Buffalo Tech support department to get some questions answered about configuring my access point. The guy I spoke with was helpful and answered all of my questions.

For lunch today a group of six of us went to Johnny’s pizza. I had two slices of pepperoni pizza as well as sweet tea. We ran into Melissa N. and her friend at Johnny’s. I chatted with them for a few minutes before leaving. A couple of years ago Melissa bought a townhome just down the street from where I now live.

After lunch I picked up my car from the oil change place. It was about $100 of work - more than I expected, but I guess it all adds up.

This afternoon I worked with some others on some problems we had in system test of the 1.4 release. In fact, it took a long time and I ended up working until 7:45pm. I was supposed to meet Jen up near her house for a nice of celebration and drinking for Cinco de Mayo. Unfortunately I was supposed to be up there around 7pm - 7:30pm. Because I didn’t leave work until 7:45pm it was impossible for me to make it up there in time.

I went home and looked into my DSL status. It appeared that things were still not activated. I cycled the power on the DSL bridge and there was no effect. I next unplugged and re-plugged the phone line into the bridge and that seemed to solve the problem. My router instantly authenticated me via PPPoE and I was connected!

I called Jen and we talked about this evening. We both decided that it would be best that I don’t go up to her area because of how late it is. I was pretty bummed about having to work late because I was certainly looking forward to hanging out with Jen and her friends.

May 6th 2004

praise

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Today was another day at work filled with conference calls. This morning was a bit different though. I attended the network systems Portfolio Architecture Team (PAT) meeting. I’ve been a PAT representative for several months now but haven’t been able to attend many meetings due to higher priorities (production issues, etc) precluding me from meeting.

This PAT meeting was just for the Network Systems portfolio (Delta Technology has four or five portfolios). The network systems PAT team consists of only about five people. My Vice President, Brent, was in attendance at today’s meeting. He proposed a new way to conduct the PAT and how we should function going forward. He invited feedback and suggestions about his proposal.

What perked me up during the meeting was that Brent described what PAT members represent. He said that we are the ‘up-and-comers’ being groomed for advancement beyond our current position. He cited me as an example. Naturally this type of praise made me feel great. I only hope I can prove myself worthy of such praise.

I had so many back-to-back meetings today that I completely missed lunch. I was in meetings from 9am until 2:30pm. I dashed out to Wendy’s after 2:30pm to get some lunch (I brought it back to my desk and ate while I worked). This is late for me because I normally go out to lunch at 11:30am.

There were some problems with the deployment of a build I did earlier today so I spend a great deal of time this afternoon working on that. Unfortunately we in the applications team have very little authority in the area where the problems occurred. I wrote up a very comprehensive and detailed email about the problem and sent it over to the release engineering group to see about getting it resolved. It turns out that we had an enterprise-wide problem with the deployments but we eventually got it worked out.

I left work around 4:15pm and went straight up to Jen’s office. Traffic was a bit thick on 285 around the Riverside Drive exit. It stayed pretty thick until I got close to Jen’s office. I arrived at 5:30pm.

Jen met me downstairs and together we went to Costco in my car. We got a lot of stuff (mostly all for my new place). Jen spotted some inexpensive Egyptian cotton towels so we got a few of those. They are very soft. It ended up costing about $220.

After Costco I went back to my house. Jen followed in her car but stopped at Publix to get some additional groceries for dinner tonight.

When she got to my place we fixed some drinks and I used my grill for the first time. We had some good food too: Portobello mushrooms marinated in balsamic vinaigrette dressing as well as some chicken-apple sausage on wheat buns. It was all quite good and I can’t wait to have it again.

After dinner Jen sat in front of the fireplace (I turned it on) and read. I worked on my laptop and watched some stuff I had on TiVo.

Jen spent the night tonight.

May 7th 2004

doing my part to help stimulate the economy

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It was another pretty busy day at work today. This morning I noticed that my home network was unreachable from the outside world. This led me to believe that there was some problem with my DSL connection. This made me sad & frustrated. I was anxious to get home so I could diagnose the problem.

I participated on a conference call regarding a TCP/IP change on the MVS side. While doing this I had to multi-task between this, the current production issues as well as the current system test issues. It was a bit difficult to juggle it all.

Today we had a noon lunch meeting to discuss the performance improvement initiatives. Alonzo facilitated the meeting and we went over five key tasks for improving performance.

During the meeting I had to excuse myself to go help with some system test issues. It’s been a pretty busy day. After I completed my system test work, I went back to the meeting.

After the meeting concluded I stuck around for a while to give my opinion on some of the issues to Dave, Rick, and Carole.

Some of the developers had made some headway on the system test issues and it now looks like we’ll have to make a code change. I think there is a lot of pressure right now because the 1.4 system test initiative has been slipping behind schedule due to the fact that we’ve had more problems than we expected with this release.

At 4pm I left for the day. Anil was still working on the code change and will page me whenever he’s done. From home I’ll take care of the rest.

I called Jen to give her an update. We were supposed to meet at Home Depot after work but it looks like we’ll have to change our plans since I’ll be waiting on Anil’s call. The system test team is going to stay late to test this change, so I’m in the critical path and can’t delay getting my work done once Anil is ready.

When I got home I investigated my DSL problem. I took my time and tried to be unobtrusive as I looked around such that I could find the root cause of the problem and not do anything drastic which would potentially cover up the root cause of my connectivity issues.

I fist verified that I was, indeed, not connected to the internet. I next looked at the Buffalo WBR-G54 router logs and saw the following:

[code]May 7 03:00:59 buffalo-downstairs pppd[226]: No response to 6 echo-requests
May 7 03:00:59 buffalo-downstairs pppd[226]: Serial link appears to be disconnected.
May 7 03:01:17 buffalo-downstairs pppd[226]: Connection terminated.
May 7 03:01:17 buffalo-downstairs pppd[226]: Connect time 44942.9 minutes.
May 7 03:01:17 buffalo-downstairs pppd[226]: Sent 12953654 bytes, received 97176187 bytes.
May 7 03:01:17 buffalo-downstairs pppd[226]: Sending PADT
May 7 03:01:25 buffalo-downstairs pppd[226]: Sending PADI
May 7 03:01:27 buffalo-downstairs pppd[226]: Re-sending (1/4)…
May 7 03:01:31 buffalo-downstairs pppd[226]: Re-sending (2/4)…
May 7 03:01:39 buffalo-downstairs pppd[226]: Re-sending (3/4)…
May 7 03:01:39 buffalo-downstairs pppd[226]: recv PADO
May 7 03:01:39 buffalo-downstairs pppd[226]: Sending PADR
May 7 03:01:41 buffalo-downstairs pppd[226]: Re-sending (1/4)…
May 7 03:01:41 buffalo-downstairs pppd[226]: recv PADS
May 7 03:01:41 buffalo-downstairs pppd[226]: Tag error TAG_SYS_ERR (No more sessions allowed for this host)
May 7 03:01:41 buffalo-downstairs pppd[226]: Failed to negotiate PPPoE connection: -1
May 7 03:01:47 buffalo-downstairs pppd[226]: Sending PADI
May 7 03:01:49 buffalo-downstairs pppd[226]: Re-sending (1/4)…
May 7 03:01:53 buffalo-downstairs pppd[226]: Re-sending (2/4)…
May 7 03:02:01 buffalo-downstairs pppd[226]: Re-sending (3/4)…
May 7 03:02:25 buffalo-downstairs pppd[226]: Re-sending (4/4)…
May 7 03:02:25 buffalo-downstairs pppd[226]: Connecting PPPoE socket: 00:03:4b:9d:50:02 0000 eth1 0×10024000
May 7 03:02:25 buffalo-downstairs pppd[226]: Couldn’t get channel number: Transport endpoint is not connected
May 7 03:02:31 buffalo-downstairs pppd[226]: Sending PADI
May 7 03:02:31 buffalo-downstairs pppd[226]: recv PADO
May 7 03:02:31 buffalo-downstairs pppd[226]: Sending PADR
May 7 03:02:33 buffalo-downstairs pppd[226]: Re-sending (1/4)…
May 7 03:02:33 buffalo-downstairs pppd[226]: recv PADS
May 7 03:02:33 buffalo-downstairs pppd[226]: Tag error TAG_SYS_ERR (No more sessions allowed for this host)
May 7 03:02:33 buffalo-downstairs pppd[226]: Failed to negotiate PPPoE connection: -1
May 7 03:02:40 buffalo-downstairs pppd[226]: Sending PADI
May 7 03:02:42 buffalo-downstairs pppd[226]: Re-sending (1/4)…
May 7 03:02:46 buffalo-downstairs pppd[226]: Re-sending (2/4)…
May 7 03:02:54 buffalo-downstairs pppd[226]: Re-sending (3/4)…
May 7 03:03:17 buffalo-downstairs pppd[226]: Re-sending (4/4)…
May 7 03:03:17 buffalo-downstairs pppd[226]: Connecting PPPoE socket: 00:03:4b:9d:50:02 0000 eth1 0×10024000
May 7 03:03:17 buffalo-downstairs pppd[226]: Couldn’t get channel number: Transport endpoint is not connected
May 7 03:03:24 buffalo-downstairs pppd[226]: Sending PADI
May 7 03:03:26 buffalo-downstairs pppd[226]: Re-sending (1/4)…
May 7 03:03:30 buffalo-downstairs pppd[226]: Re-sending (2/4)…
May 7 03:03:38 buffalo-downstairs pppd[226]: Re-sending (3/4)…
May 7 03:03:54 buffalo-downstairs pppd[226]: Re-sending (4/4)…
May 7 03:03:54 buffalo-downstairs pppd[226]: Connecting PPPoE socket: 00:03:4b:9d:50:02 0000 eth1 0×10024000
May 7 03:03:54 buffalo-downstairs pppd[226]: Couldn’t get channel number: Transport endpoint is not connected
May 7 03:04:01 buffalo-downstairs pppd[226]: Sending PADI
May 7 03:04:03 buffalo-downstairs pppd[226]: Re-sending (1/4)…
May 7 03:04:03 buffalo-downstairs pppd[226]: recv PADO
May 7 03:04:03 buffalo-downstairs pppd[226]: Sending PADR
May 7 03:04:05 buffalo-downstairs pppd[226]: Re-sending (1/4)…
May 7 03:04:05 buffalo-downstairs pppd[226]: recv PADS
May 7 03:04:05 buffalo-downstairs pppd[226]: Tag error TAG_SYS_ERR (No more sessions allowed for this host)
May 7 03:04:05 buffalo-downstairs pppd[226]: Failed to negotiate PPPoE connection: -1
May 7 03:04:11 buffalo-downstairs pppd[226]: Sending PADI
May 7 03:04:13 buffalo-downstairs pppd[226]: Re-sending (1/4)…
May 7 03:04:17 buffalo-downstairs pppd[226]: Re-sending (2/4)…
May 7 03:04:25 buffalo-downstairs pppd[226]: Re-sending (3/4)…
May 7 03:04:49 buffalo-downstairs pppd[226]: Re-sending (4/4)…
May 7 03:04:49 buffalo-downstairs pppd[226]: Connecting PPPoE socket: 00:03:4b:9d:50:02 0000 eth1 0×10024000
May 7 03:04:49 buffalo-downstairs pppd[226]: Couldn’t get channel number: Transport endpoint is not connected
May 7 03:04:56 buffalo-downstairs pppd[226]: Sending PADI
May 7 03:04:58 buffalo-downstairs pppd[226]: Re-sending (1/4)…
May 7 03:05:02 buffalo-downstairs pppd[226]: Re-sending (2/4)…
May 7 03:05:10 buffalo-downstairs pppd[226]: Re-sending (3/4)…
May 7 03:05:26 buffalo-downstairs pppd[226]: Re-sending (4/4)…
May 7 03:05:26 buffalo-downstairs pppd[226]: Connecting PPPoE socket: 00:03:4b:9d:50:02 0000 eth1 0×10024000
May 7 03:05:26 buffalo-downstairs pppd[226]: Couldn’t get channel number: Transport endpoint is not connected
May 7 03:05:32 buffalo-downstairs pppd[226]: Sending PADI
May 7 03:05:34 buffalo-downstairs pppd[226]: Re-sending (1/4)…
May 7 03:05:38 buffalo-downstairs pppd[226]: Re-sending (2/4)…
May 7 03:05:46 buffalo-downstairs pppd[226]: Re-sending (3/4)…
May 7 03:06:02 buffalo-downstairs pppd[226]: Re-sending (4/4)…
May 7 03:06:02 buffalo-downstairs pppd[226]: Connecting PPPoE socket: 00:03:4b:9d:50:02 0000 eth1 0×10024000
May 7 03:06:02 buffalo-downstairs pppd[226]: Couldn’t get channel number: Transport endpoint is not connected[/code]

Something happened around 3am which cause my router to time out. For the next five or six minutes it attempted to reconnect and then finally gave up - for whatever reason. I don’t have anything set on the router to ‘give up’ after a while.

I told it to ‘reconnect’ and as soon as I did that, everything worked:

[code]May 7 16:55:18 buffalo-downstairs syslog: CONFIGURE: Login - Client:192.168.1.2
May 7 16:55:23 buffalo-downstairs pppd[226]: Hangup by User
May 7 16:55:29 buffalo-downstairs pppd[226]: Terminating on signal 15.
May 7 16:55:29 buffalo-downstairs pppd[226]: Exit.
May 7 16:55:31 buffalo-downstairs pppd[1765]: pppd 2.4.1 started by (unknown), uid 0
May 7 16:55:36 buffalo-downstairs pppd[1765]: Using interface ppp0
May 7 16:55:37 buffalo-downstairs pppd[1765]: Sending PADI
May 7 16:55:37 buffalo-downstairs pppd[1765]: recv PADO
May 7 16:55:37 buffalo-downstairs pppd[1765]: Sending PADR
May 7 16:55:37 buffalo-downstairs pppd[1765]: recv PADS
May 7 16:55:37 buffalo-downstairs pppd[1765]: Got connection: 399
May 7 16:55:37 buffalo-downstairs pppd[1765]: Connecting PPPoE socket: 00:03:4b:9d:50:02 9903 eth1 0×10024000
May 7 16:55:37 buffalo-downstairs pppd[1765]: Connect: ppp0 -> eth1
May 7 16:55:41 buffalo-downstairs pppd[1765]: local IP address 66.23.211.83
May 7 16:55:41 buffalo-downstairs pppd[1765]: remote IP address 66.23.221.1
May 7 16:55:41 buffalo-downstairs pppd[1765]: primary DNS address 66.23.208.138
May 7 16:55:41 buffalo-downstairs pppd[1765]: secondary DNS address 66.23.208.142[/code]

This didn’t make much sense to me. I went through every single router config relating to PPPoE and didn’t see anything out of the original. I did disable ‘keepalives’ in hopes that maybe it erroneously thought the connection went down and then got into the state I found it in at 3am. My ISP, Speed Factory, touts that they have no timeouts set for their PPPoE connections (unlike most other DSL providers with PPPoE). Therefore I should never lose my static IP connection.

I searched around the net and didn’t find much info on my problem. I composed a very detailed and thorough email to send to my ISP in hopes that they have some idea about what happened.

Jen showed up at my place around 5pm. Also around this time I got a page from Anil. The code changes are done. I logged in, labeled the code, merged it over to the release branch, and kicked off a build.

I was having some trouble with my VPN client not staying connected. It would disconnect with a complaint about something modifying the routing tables. This is something I want to try to get fixed.

While waiting for the build, I grilled up some dinner for Jen and me. I grilled the extra mushrooms left-over from yesterday as well as more chicken-apple sausage. It was pretty good but I think I grilled the mushrooms for too long this time.

Eventually the build completed. I deployed the code to ddt21m as well as dst200 and activated it. As soon as that completed I called Lee and Jean to pass the torch to them so they can initiate testing.

Finally Jen and I could go to Home Depot. We got there around 8pm and went up & down most of the aisles. We loaded up two carts full of stuff. Some of the larger items I got were four ceiling fans, a garage door opener, and installation for the opener.

We didn’t check out until about 10pm when the store was closing. I used my 10% off coupon and still the total cost was $800. That’s a lot of stuff.

Both Jen and I were very tired. We drove back to my place, unloaded the car, and went to bed.

May 8th 2004

whirlwind

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When I woke up this morning I saw Jen sitting up in bed next to me reading her book. She’s been reading Neil Stephenson’s “The Diamond Age”. She was in a great mood and got excited when I woke up.

After Jen went downstairs to get some coffee I dressed and headed downstairs too. Jen and I talked a little about what we want to do today. We decided to start with the closet.

We took some stuff upstairs and worked on installing the closet rods we bought last night. The stock, normal, closet shelving sucks because the rods to hang clothes from are interrupted every foot with a support brace. We bought some special clamps and rods to allow hangers to move the entire length of the rod - which is great.

It didn’t take much effort to complete that task. After the closet, we installed a towel rod in the master bathroom above the garden tub. We also installed a second towel rod next to the mirror above the sink but it was too long for the space on the wall.

I had to use the hacksaw I bought last night to shorten the rod. While I worked on this, Jen installed the new shower head. I bought the same kind she has. I really like it because you can do a normal stream or hit a switch to make the wide head shower down the water like a gentle rain.

Jen had difficulty getting the shower head to install completely and it leaked whenever she turned on the water. I helped out and managed to get it tightened up all the way so that it didn’t leak anymore.

In the guest bathroom we installed the towel rod hanger thing as well as the toilet-paper holder.

Next we installed a ceiling fan in the master bedroom. This took a while but we didn’t have a lot of issues.

I got impatient with the screwdriver and decided to use Dad’s old drill to screw in the long bolt in the ceiling. Dad’s old drill is so old that it isn’t variable speed or reversible. It sometimes shoots out sparks from the side when used, and it much older than I am. As I attempted to use the drill (with a Philips-head driver) to screw in the long bolt, the head stripped out before I knew what was going on. That wasn’t so fun.

After much effort, I got the stripped-out screw removed and used a different screw to complete the job. Eventually we got the fan installed.

With that done we got cleaned up and took a shower with the new shower head. It felt great. It was also nice to get clean after doing all of the work around the house.

We got some things together and left the house. We stopped by Rhodes furniture to look around. Jen showed me a sale they had on bed frames and we wanted to take a look at one as well as the sofas since Jen is still shopping for a new sofa. We also looked at dining sets.

From Rhodes we headed up towards Jen’s house. Much to my dismay there was a lot of traffic on I-75. Today there was an air show at Dobbins and I think traffic was bad because of that. I have a feeling that people might have been stopped along the highway & exits to watch the show. What a horrible sight that must have been - people clogging up the highway.

We took back roads to get to the area near Jen’s house and went to Target. We bought some stuff and Jen picked up her contacts prescription. After Target we went to Kohls to look at silverware, dishware, and glasses. We found some cool silverware and bought two sets of the basic items.

After Kohls we went to Lowe’s so Jen could look for a raspberry bush for her mom for Mother’s Day. I returned some unused contact paper and bought a couple of items. I got a flagpole mounting kit + flag. I’m pretty excited to get it mounted and hung up in front of my house. I also looked at power drills. I ended up succumbing and buying a DeWalt cordless drill/circular saw kit (14.4v).

$300 later we left Lowe’s and went to Jen’s parent’s house so she could borrow their lawn mower. While Jen did some Mary Kay stuff with her mom, I talked with her dad for a while.

We were there for about thirty minutes. Jen’s father gave me a quick tutorial on how to operate the lawn mower and helped me load it into the back of my explorer.

From there we went to Jen’s house. Jen pulled weeds and watered the plants while I mowed her lawn. I didn’t want to get my sandals green and nasty so I did it in my bare feet.

Before I finished, Jen went inside to do some work on the computer and pay bills. When I was done with the lawn, I went inside and washed off my green feet in the tub.

I took the opportunity to play with my new toy, the power drill. I charged it up and read the manual for both the drill and the saw. I can’t wait to use these new tools!

Jen and I made rice, bean, and cheese burritos for dinner. It was pretty good, but Jen didn’t like them too much. Lisa and Alan came over briefly to borrow the lawn mower.

Jen and I sat outside on the front porch and had a glass of white wine. I don’t think I like white wine too much.

Lynne came over and we chatted with her for a while. Later, Jen and I packed up some things and left. We drove back down to my house. Lisa called to see if we wanted to go with her and Alan to the movies. We were pretty tired from all of the stuff going on today and declined.

We stopped by the Publix grocery store near my house to pick up some supplies for breakfast tomorrow but it was closed.

Back at my place Jen unpacked books to put into the book shelves while I worked on my journal. We got a tremendous amount of stuff done today.

May 9th 2004

ceiling fan bloopers

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This morning around 8am I was woken up by a very excited Jen. She bounced up and down on the bed on top of my saying, ‘wake up, wake up, wake up!’ I love it when Jen is so energetic like that. I also absolutely love it when she wakes me up that way.

Jen and I quickly dressed and headed out for Publix to pick up some supplies for breakfast. On the way back home we drove around the town home community to see how everything looks. I haven’t done that before so it was fun.

We cooked breakfast together. It was great fun. I fried up some maple-flavored bacon and Jen prepared the French toast. Breakfast was absolutely wonderful. The French toast had strawberries, whipped crème, and syrup on top. Jen actually tried a piece of bacon too.

After breakfast I seriously cleaned up the kitchen - something I rarely do. Hopefully I won’t break that habit.

Jen and I decided to try to hang up the fan in the living room. I was excited to use my new drill/screwdriver thing. I had some serious issues with some of the provided screws. I ended up stripping one out so bad that I had to replace it with something else.

We decided that we weren’t too happy with the overall quality of this Hampton Bay fan and took it (along with the two other Hampton bay fans) back to Home Depot for an exchange. This time we’ll get only ‘Hunter’ brand fans.

The return at Home Depot transpired with no incident. We picked up a cool 6-inch hunter fan for the living room, which is 8-inched larger than the other one we had. We also got the same fan for the guest bedroom that we used in the master bedroom.

We must have been sending out some unusual signals today because we were stopped by two different people in the store who just wanted to talk. The first was a couple (around our age) who were very chatty and insisted that we engage them in conversation. A short while later another guy came up to us and talked with us about the fan he was buying and complaining about his wipe back home who would undoubtedly not like whatever he chose. It was a little unreal.

I saw a great fan for the study. It has a cool like and an airplane-looking three-blade design. Unfortunately it is only available for special order so I’ll try to get it later.

I also picked up a 1/4-inch carbide-tipped masonry drill bit and Jen found some special concrete screws & anchors that I can use for my new flagpole mount outside.

After our adventure at Home Depot, we went back to my place and installed the fan in the living room. It comes with a separate remote control thing that you can mount anywhere. Unfortunately I couldn’t get all of the wiring and remote receive to all fit inside the canopy at the top of the fan against the ceiling. This was extremely frustrating and I decided to forego the remote control.

The whole operation ended up taking 4-5 hours which was way too long. It shouldn’t take that long to install a ceiling fan. Shortly after we completed the work, Jen left and went back home.

I spent the rest of the afternoon unpacking and organizing stuff. I took a shower, packed up, and left my place around 10:15pm. I went straight to Jen’s house. On the way there I picked up some food. Jen wasn’t home yet - she was hanging out with a friend. She got home a little while after I got to her place. She took a shower - I sat in the bathroom & talked with her to keep her company.

We hung out a little while and then went to bed. It was a long day today.

May 10th 2004

more blood work

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This morning I left Jen’s house around 8am. I left late today because I have a doctor’s appointment to give another blood sample. I didn’t have to pay my $20 co-pay because I never saw the doctor, only the lab technician.

From there I went straight to work and got in there a little after 9am.

Today was full of meetings. This morning Carole paged Jegan and I to head to a conference room downstairs where they are meeting with some new IBM consultants.

Two DB2 experts from IBM came over to analyze our setup & provide recommendations. The meeting went fairly well. Jeff C. gave them an overview of the system as well as the current issues.

For lunch today some of us went to a new place that opened up next to Johnny’s Pizza. This place is a sandwich shop called ‘Rising Roll’. Brian really likes this place and was quite excited to be eating there. I had the ‘BBLT’ which is a BLT with lots of extra bacon. In fact I think there was too much bacon on it.

The owner of the restaurant (franchise) came over to our table with some free cookies and asked us about our experience. He indicated that he bought the ‘rights’ to certain territories in Atlanta which cost him $200,000. He had to spend that much just to be able to build & operate a franchise. That sounds like a lot of money.

Back at work we did some production TCP/IP changes but didn’t see much effect. I had a meeting with Anil, Casey, and others to talk about restructuring the proration engine.

I left work a little after 5pm. I used my new drill bit to drill four holes into the masonry on the outside of my house. I then inserted the plastic anchors and screwed in the flagpole mount. It was pretty secure when I got it all screwed in. I was happy with the work and mounted my cool American flag into the mount. Now I feel patriotic.

Jen came over to my place around 7pm. I grilled some sausage and veggies (squash & zucchini) for dinner. Jen and I watched the Survivor finale. I don’t think she was as excited about it as I was.

I called up Craig to wish him a happy birthday. After that I cleaned up the coffee table and organized many papers. I did my weekly bill stuff in MS Money. I’m still frustrated because I need to set up my mortgage loan, home equity loan, and house asset as well as somehow accounting for all of the closing costs and such. I’ve been doing some research on the newsgroups and people make it out to be a very complicated procedure.

We went to bed around 11:30pm.

May 11th 2004

don’t call us, we’ll call you.

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I was good today and got into work around 7am. I had a PAT meeting about the ‘food for sale’ initiative. That was a little crazy because of the proposed changes & impacts to the revenue pipeline system.

After this I went to the core team meeting. Nothing of note happened there.

Brian wanted to go back to Rising Roll for lunch today. Casey and I weren’t up for sandwiches so we went to The Varsity.

I was stuck in bridge calls all afternoon. I built, deployed, and activated a code change for system test. I also prepped for the impending integration test for the 1.4 release.

Before I left today I called up Post Ridge to find out about my apartment. The property manager promised me that if they could rent out my old apartment before the end of June that I would get some of my money back - since I vacated it on May 3rd.

I didn’t speak with John the property manager but instead with another sales girl. I explained the situation to her and she assured me that they would call me if they get it rented out before hand and that I don’t need to call them anymore. Somehow I don’t think I’m going to hear from them.

Today I left work at 4pm and went straight to Jen’s house. It took me 1 hour, 15 mins. to get there due to traffic - I hate that drive up I75 and I575 in the afternoon.

When I got to Jen’s house, she was going through some clothes in her bedroom. I laid on the bed and talked with her while she went though her clothes. She was cleaning out her closet and getting rid of a bunch of old stuff.

Around 6:45pm we left Jen’s house and drove over to her parent’s house. On the way there we stopped at a liquor store to pick up some special tequila with a worm for Jen’s sister Katie.

We arrived at Jen’s parents’ house for dinner around 7pm. Katie did most of the cooking. Jen helped Katie in the kitchen with the margaritas.

Jen’s father invited me to sit with him in the living room and we chatted. Katie made some really great homemade salsa with lots of cool stuff in it. We munched on chips & salsa while we waited.

Jen and Katie finished making the cool margaritas. They tasted a bit funny but once we added some more sugar, they were right as rain.

Dinner was good. Five of us sat down and ate the complete meal. The desert was quite good too. I’m writing this journal entry 12 days later so I can’t remember what exactly we ate other than it was good.

After dinner Jen and I went downstairs into the basement so Jen could show me around all of the cool stuff they have. It was pretty impressive down in the basement. They have around a dozen Cisco switches and other networking components as well as many computers running. It was like a little ad-hoc server farm. I had a fun time looking around at the various pieces of equipment.

It was getting late. Jen and I left her parent’s house and went back to her place. We went to bed early around 10:30pm.

May 12th 2004

grumpy

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I woke up early today, around 5:40am and left Jen’s house by 6:15am. As a result, I managed to get to work by 7am. That was great timing!

Due to me being in the office early, I managed to get some things done. Eventually I went to the 9am staff meeting.

For lunch today the group wanted to go to Captain D’s. I don’t like Captain D’s, so I went out to lunch by myself. I picked up two big macs from McDonalds and ate at my desk.

When I got home, I caught up on some shows I had recorded to TiVo. I spent a great amount of time working on my finances stuff. I’m still extremely confused about how to properly handle my house loan stuff in MS Money.

Jen came over a bit late and was a little grumpy. We went to the store to get some food for dinner. It was rainy and nasty outside. We were originally going to grill some food but decided against it in light of the weather.

We had merlot wine, ravioli spinach-cheese pasta stuff, and some new spicy hash brown potatoes I got form the store. It was a pretty good dinner.

While we ate, we listened to the new song by the Yeah Yeah Yeahs (Maps) as well as the popular Modest Mouse song. I’m interested in hearing some more stuff from those two bands.

Again we went to bed early today, around 10:30pm.

May 13th 2004

memory corruption?

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Like yesterday I was able to get into work early today at around 7am.

During the 8am vice-president meeting (I did not participate), it was decided to put the new version of ticket retriever into production. As a result, this spawned a bridge call to get the code tested in SI. This took a lot of time.

During the day, Larry informed me that they got rid of Buster & Coco. This was very sad news because they’ve been apart of their family for the past six years. The dogs were so well behaved and such a joy to be around. He said that they felt guilty not being able to spend any time with them or give them any attention. He assured me that they are now at a nice home. It’s such sad news.

For lunch today some of us went to BBQ kitchen. I had meat loaf and cucumbers. The cucumbers are so good! I also had some tasty pineapple pudding for desert.

This afternoon we finally put the new version of ticket retriever into production. Everything seemed to go smooth with that.

Mariah from Beazer called me back and left a voice mail. I need to call her back to see about the missing screen as well as the rust problem on the outdoor railing.

We had a problem in system test with the 1.4 code. The problem was elusive and inconsistent. The symptoms were identical to the problem we had last week. In fact, the problem area was in the same library and the same method as before.

A few of us ended up working late to try to solve this problem. I’m worried that we’re dealing with a type of memory corruption issue which would explain why it is difficult to reproduce the problem and only happens in some environments sometimes. A couple of people focused in on the size of our libraries. I couldn’t explain why two of us looking at the same code would produce libraries of different size - I’ll be investigating that tomorrow.

The ‘fix’ revolved around this snippet of code:

pCurrency->setEffectiveDate(RWDate(atoi(szDay),atoi(szMonth), atoi(szYear)));

If we move the ‘RWDate(atoi(szDay),atoi(szMonth), atoi(szYear))’ outside of the constructor and assign it to a separate RWDate variable, and then pass that variable into the setEffectiveDate method, the problem goes away.

This doesn’t make much sense, but the ‘fix’ we came up with for the same problem last week was just as shady. I don’t feel that we actually solved the problem yet, but we’re going to build the change and see how it goes.

Some think that the problem is related to the newer version of the compiler that we’re now using. I’m not 100% sure, since the only problem we’ve observed has been in this one method. I feel that if it was a compiler issue, we would be seeing more problems all over the place.

I left work around 7:30pm. I was very preoccupied driving home thinking about this problem. I sometimes get obsessed with things like this until I can fully understand it and come up with a solution.

When I got home, I noticed that Mariah dropped off the touch-up paint kit and other things.

I continued to work on the build for the code fix we did this afternoon. Shortly after I finished that, I got a page from Jeff C. about some production problems. I was involved with that until around 9:15pm.

I was actually planning on meeting up with Jen tonight but that never worked out due to all of the work crap I had to do. Instead I spent the rest of the evening doing some work around the house.

Before it got too late, I called Dad about this weekend. Everything is set for Jen and I to go to Texas and I’m looking forward to it.

Around 11:30pm I went to bed.

May 14th 2004

clearcase configspec woes

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While this journal entry is for May 14th, I’m actually writing it on May 25th because I’m SO FAR BEHIND. I’m writing this from my seat on a plane bound to Los Angeles on my way to Hawaii for a nice vacation.

Because I worked so late yesterday I took my time getting ready for work this morning.

On the drive into work, I was still thinking about the library-size issue from last night and then the reason hit me: Clearcase config specs. We ‘include’ another file with more detailed cspec info. This is both good and bad. It’s good because all changes happen in one place. It’s bad because each user must ‘refresh’ their config spec to pick up the changes. Fortunately these changes don’t happen very often.

It turns out that Casey and a few others were still pointing to an old cspec. I had Casey refresh his config spec (‘cleartool setcs –current’) and that made his libraries compile to the correct size.

With this, I considered the implications. We had some developers compiling against slightly older versions of reference libraries and more importantly, a slightly older version of the aCC compiler.

I updated everyone’s cspec and then drafted an email to send out to the development team outlining the issue. Anil thinks the compiler could be the reason behind the mysterious bug we dealt with last night. His theory is that the newer version of the compiler either breaks the existing code or exposes a problem with it. I countered that if the issue was with the compiler, then we should be seeing problems in other areas of our code and not the same method of the same class every time.

It looked as if my DSL connection went down again today, but the router logs showed that it successfully reconnected – unlike last time. I’m happy this happened, but am still worried about it happening again. I still haven’t heard a response from Speed Factory about the email I sent them a week ago. I’m a bit disappointed in this.

During the day today I helped Jen research a new camera to buy. We both decided that the Canon Powershot S410 would be the best thing. The local retail stores sell it for $400 plus tax. She can get it from Amazon.com for $350.

Just before lunch today I had a meeting with Brian S., his manager, Scott E., and Rick L. to discuss the Revenue Pipeline disaster recovery plan. I brought some printouts of the logical system diagram as well as the component architecture diagram. We all went over the system as a whole to identify which pieces needed to have DR plans and which directors were responsible for each piece. It was a fun exercise.

I went to lunch with the whole gang today. We went down to the Southlake mall area to Smokey Bones. I had the full rack and it was absolutely excellent. They did not have any sweet tea brewed which made me and Alex very unhappy.

As soon as we got back to work I dashed to the 1:30pm DB2 meeting up in the LaGuardia conference room. There were a lot of people in attendance. We actually got a lot accomplished and it was a productive meeting. During the meeting we decided to revert the ticket retriever changes back to what they were before. There was some concern about a possibly locking condition on some tables.

Following the meeting, Jegan and I worked on the production ticket retriever changes to drop back to the previous version.

Brian and Casey were at Alex’s desk watching that video of the guy being beheaded in Iraq. I don’t understand why anyone would want to see that sort of thing. We all know what happened – why see it? Who would want to see that?

It was getting late, so I made the car rental reservation for the trip this weekend. I checked Alamo and Avis. Alamo wanted to charge a $40 to return the car to San Antonio. Avis didn’t have this charge. I went with Avis.

Before leaving work I booked the flight to Austin for me and Jen. I stopped by the ticket office near the admin building and purchased her ticket.

When I got home, I saw that the flight pass card for Jen arrived in the mail. I got directions to Dad’s house as well as Craig’s house.

Jen came over and we had some cereal for dinner and then afterwards we packed up clothes for the trip.

At 7:15pm we left for the airport. We waited quite a while for the shuttle bus to arrive. When we got to the airport, I had Jen check in and do everything by herself so she could get used to the process of standby travel. She’ll be traveling alone on her way back from Hawaii so this is good practice.

We sat together on the flight – seats 23A & 23B. During the flight I used my laptop to work on my journal.

When we arrived in Austin, we made our way to the Avis rental counter. There was a long line. I saw a sign directing ‘preferred customers’ to go outside where the cars are being held.

Jen and I made our way out to the parking garage and we saw a board with my name on it and the stall number with the car. It was a very quick and painless process to get the car. I’m impressed with Avis.

We followed the directions and headed towards Dad’s house. While we were driving I called Dad to let him know that we made it into Austin and were on our way to his house. We wanted to stop at Taco Cabana for a snack but couldn’t find one.

We got a little lost driving towards his house but eventually found the right way. When we arrived at Dad’s house, Jen and Dad met each other for the first time.

Dad showed us around his house. I greeted Hicks and Tex. It was great to see Hicks again – he’s getting so old now. I certainly do miss spending time with him. We got him around when I was twelve years old.

It was very late and we went to bed around midnight (CST). Dad had the guest room all made up for us which was very nice of him.

May 15th 2004

Austin & San Antonio

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Jen and I woke up around 8am CST which felt like 9am EST so we slept in quite a bit today – although I guess we were up pretty late last night so it all balances out.

Dad left a note for us that he went to Wal Mart to pick up some things and would be back soon. Jen and I each took a shower and got dressed. By this time dad was back from the store.

He bought a new plastic table to put in the back yard. The three of us sat outside and talked with Dad for a while. We also played with Tex.

Later, we went out for breakfast to a nearby local Mexican place. I had two breakfast tacos with bacon, eggs, and potatoes. It was extremely delicious and I certainly miss having breakfast tacos.

After breakfast we went back to Dad’s place and hung out some more. It was nice to spend some time with Dad.

Jen and I wanted to go out for a while so I could show her around Austin. We invited Dad to come with us but he declined, citing that he had some things to do around the house.

We left and went over to highway 360. We crossed over the beautiful 360 bridge and onto Mt. Bonell road which led us to Covert Park.

Covert Park is a special place with such a great view of Downtown Austin as well as a view down onto Lake Austin and the huge houses that line the bank.


(View of Lake Austin)

Jen and I walked around some and snapped some photos. From there we headed towards downtown but almost immediately Jen spotted a place called Mayfield-Gutsch Gardens. We decided to be adventurous and check it out.

After parking in the small parking-lot we walked around. Most of it was a little overgrown, but the ponds area was pretty cool. There were a lot of peacocks who had a liking to climb around on top of the trees and make funny sounds.

I saw a photographer taking a portrait of a couple. It looked like a fancy setup; he had at least one light gun and a bouncer.

We took some photos – mostly of each other in the lush garden area and then headed out. It was a nice stop and I’m glad we went there.

From there we went over to downtown Austin towards the University of Texas campus. Despite being a Saturday it was pretty crowded and parking was at a premium. I think finals just completed and people are moving out this weekend. We actually got lucky and found a parking space near the Simkins dormitory just as someone was pulling out.

Jen and I walked around campus. I showed her all of the sights. It was great to be back on campus – I really miss it. It was also fun to show Jen all of those things which meant a lot to me, I think she appreciated it.


(Jen in front of the UT clock tower)

While we were walking around the base of the clock tower, I saw people up on top. They must have re-opened the observation deck. I insisted that we go up top and led Jen inside the main office. Next to the elevator going to the top was a metal detector and a bored-looking security guard. He advised us that we need tickets to get up top. They are sold in the student union.

In the student union we saw a fat-looking guy who told us that we need reservations for the tours which occur every hour. We didn’t have time for that so we decided to pass. I told the guy that I used to got to school at UT and he asked if it was last year or the year before. When I told him that it was back in 1996-1997, he didn’t believe me. When I told him that I was 27 he said that I looked younger than him. I’m not sure if I should be flattered or not.

From there we walked around some more. When we passed by Littlefield dormitory (also called the Virgin Vault because only freshmen girls went there) I thought about Tara.

We made it back to the car and drove over to 1st street so we could have lunch at the mecca: Iron Works BBQ.

Jen and I had a great BBQ lunch. She had chicken and I had chopped beef. We sat outside and relaxed while we took our leisurely lunch. It was a great day outside today: sunny with no hint of rain.

I called Craig to coordinate about tonight. Shortly after that we headed back to Dad’s place.

Dad asked me to help him move a bookshelf from the study into the garage. After that we all sat outside and talked for a couple of hours.


(Jen took this photo of Dad and I)

Eventually Jen and I had to go. We left Dad’s place around 5:30pm. Before getting on the highway we stopped at a liquor store so I could buy Craig a $50 bottle of good scotch for his birthday.

It only took us about seventy-five minutes to get to Craig’s house. Alex and another one of Craig’s friends were there. I introduced Jen to everyone and Craig gave Jen and I a tour of his house. We hung out in the living room with everyone else while they got stuff ready for the party. Craig used a gigantic air compressor to fill up balloons with air.

Eventually people started to arrive and the party started. It turns out that four of Craig’s ex-girlfriends were at the party too. The dynamics were quite interesting.

The party was a lot of fun. Jen and I each had a Red Bull, Vodka, and Grenadine drink. Someone gave Craig a cool rotating shot dispenser for his birthday. It always dispenses the correct amount for a shot. We all did several shots of some Captain Morgan’s stuff which was really good.


(Craig getting crazy)

Jen and I took some photos with my camera. The party went on until very late. At some point Jen and I went to bed. Craig was gracious enough to let us sleep on his bed in his bedroom. The party continued even after we went to bed.

May 16th 2004

post-processing at 30,000 feet

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We woke up around 9am. Everyone else was still asleep. Jen and I took a shower in Craig’s custom-made master bathroom. The oversized shower had two shower heads – one on each wall. We were drenched with water from every direction – it was a bit overwhelming.

After this we got dressed for the airplane travel and woke Craig up (he was sleeping in the guest bedroom) to see if he wanted to go get some breakfast with us. He declined, citing that he was entirely too hung over and might get sick if he sits up.

We said our goodbyes to Craig and left. On our way to the airport we stopped at Taco Cabana for breakfast. We each had two breakfast tacos with orange juice. I was disappointed in the quality of the food and the orange juice was frozen.

From there we drove to the airport, dropped off the car, and checked in.

It was very crowded and chaotic in the gate area (typical for the San Antonio airport). It looked like we might not make the flight. However as luck would have it, we both got seats up front in first class. Unfortunately we weren’t seated next to each other. I was in 2A and Jen was in 4B.

Another lady on standby approached us and asked if we would be willing to trade seats because she is sitting in 1D but can’t sit there with her cat carrier due to it being a bulkhead seat. This worked to our advantage because we were now closer together.

As we boarded I asked another lady sitting next to Jen if she would prefer to have a window seat. She seemed happy with that idea and traded seats with me. Jen and I were able to sit next to each other on the flight back which was very cool.

Jen was very excited about flying in first class. She had a couple bloody marrys. The lunch they served us was pretty good. We had a chicken wrap and grapes, strawberries, and cookies. Jen noted that the food tasted much better than the stuff we bought on a flight from San Diego from the ‘food for sale’ program. I have to agree.

While we flew, I used my laptop to upload the photos from this weekend from my camera. After that I went through all of the photos and post-processed the ones I liked best in Photoshop. Jen watched on as I explained all of the different steps.

Before we knew it we were on final approach to Atlanta. The time flew by while we worked on the photos. What a great use of time. This is one of the primary reasons I wanted to get a laptop.

Once we arrived in Atlanta there was some trouble with the jetway. This delayed us for about fifteen minutes. Eventually we deplaned and managed to catch the shuttle bus right away. We went back to my house (Jen drove my car). She indicated that she had a great time on the trip. I have to agree, we had a very pleasant and successful trip together – I certainly look forward to future trips with Jen.

Back at my place we unpacked and started laundry. Jen did some work on her laptop. She logged into Amazon.com and bought the camera. In order to insure that it arrives in time for Hawaii, she had it sent 2nd day air.

I uploaded the photos from this trip to an album.

I researched backpacks. I think I want to get a pack called ‘Recon’ from The North Face. It has all of the features that I want.

Jen and I made dinner together. She prepared a great salad. I cooked up an old Cascadian Farms rice & beans thing. Jen suggested that I chop up some of the previously-cooked sausage and add that. Sure enough, this made the dish ten times better.

For desert we baked cookies (the slice & bake kind). Jen did Yoga while I worked on my laptop still researching backpacks. Jen is going to stop by REI during work tomorrow and pick up the Recon pack for me.

I watched some TiVoed stuff and wrapped up the laundry. Jen worked in the kitchen getting everything cleaned up. We went to bed around 11:30pm

May 17th 2004

feeling out of it

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At 5:30am this morning I was awakened by my alarm. At 6:10am Jen climbed out to bed to take a shower. Ten minutes later I got out of bed and joined her.

I felt pretty groggy this morning as I got dressed and ready for work. I packed up my things and took the trash down to my car. Jen and I both left around the same time.

This morning I worked on a production RFC. The Monday PAT meeting was canceled, but I had another DB2 meeting around the same time so it all worked out. The TRR was rescheduled for tomorrow. If the PAR meting and TRR meeting weren’t canceled/rebooked, I would have been triple-booked. That wouldn’t have been much fun.

For lunch today we went to ‘Q’s’ restaurant in East Point. Had chicken fried steak, rice, mashed potatoes, gravy, and macaroni & cheese.

All day long I’ve been feeling pretty out of it - I don’t know why. It’s almost like I didn’t quite wake up. It’s a strange feeling and I don’t like it.

I left work around 4pm. When I got home I called Larry and then Jen.

Jen and I didn’t hang out this evening. I spent a great deal of time working on getting some prints made from mpix.com. Just in case they take too long to arrive, I had them shipped to Jen’s house.

May 18th 2004

RET documentation

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Today I had tons of meetings. We had our ‘Howells Heroes’ lunch outside in the Feld Pavilion. It was nice to have a BBQ lunch with all of my co-workers outside. Brent brought along his homemade pecan ice cream. It was pretty good.

I spent the rest of the day working on the official RET documentation for Veena and Curtis. In fact, I worked pretty late - not leaving until 8pm.

Tonight Jen’s friend Damon is playing an open-mic night at a bar in Canton. I went straight there to meet her. Her sister, Katie, was there too as well as her cousin.

After the open mic thing Jen and I went back to her house (it was late). I spent the night at Jen’s house.

May 19th 2004

scam-artists

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This morning I had an 8:30am dentist appointment at a new place called the Vinings Dental group. I switched my dentist to these people on Scott’s recommendation.

I scheduled a cleaning. However, I did not get a cleaning. Instead the dental assistant girl was very rough with some tool to measure my gums. Next they took about a dozen x-rays of my mouth with an old-looking x-ray machine. After that they printed out a detailed list of all the stuff I need done.

The list included several procedures spread out across four appointments. Apparently I have I problem with my gums and the only way to correct it is to spend $1,030 worth of procedures. Strangely enough, insurance doesn’t cover this. I left the dentist office with a sore feeling in my rear and a $20 bottle of glorified Listerine. Only later did I marvel at the fact that I went in for a cleaning but did not get a cleaning, instead a laundry list of stuff that is supposed to cost over $1,000.

I think I’m going to get a second opinion.

Today was another super-busy day at work. I think Jegan was annoyed with me for some reason, but I can’t put my finger on it.

We got an email about some high-level management changes across the street at Delta. I’m not sure how this will affect me.

This afternoon we had a PAT meeting with just the portfolio group and Brent. We went over some more of the upcoming changes and dove into more detail around this.

I purchased tickets on Hawaiian Air from Honolulu to Lihue for Jen and I. The tickets were much more expensive than I planned: Jen’s round-trip ticket was $220. This is for a 30-minute flight between islands. Jen’s travel-companion ticket from Atlanta to Honolulu was less than that.

May 20th 2004

frames

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I spent most of my time at work today working on an updates system flow script & HTML for the performance page. It now includes CPU usage stats as well as contention stats on the minute-by-minute throughput page. I also created a new rrdtool database to include cpu stats as a separate database.

Now everything is ready to go when we put 1.4 into production.

This afternoon was pretty busy. Jegan went to an IBM DB2 meeting to discuss the performance improvement recommendations. At the same time I participated in the integration testing.

I had to leave at 3pm for the garage door installation. I previously cleared this with Carole, so everything was good.

The garage-door opener installation took two hours. After the guy finished installing the opener he gave me a speech about his religion/church and encouraged me to go.

It was great to finally have an automatic garage-door opener.

Jen came over a little while later. With her was my order from mpix.com. It arrived faster than I thought. The photos looked great. I was, however, disappointed with the frames. I ordered two 8×12 photos to be framed with matboard. There didn’t appear to be any matboard and the front of the frame didn’t have any glass or plastic protecting the print. I was sorely disappointed in this.

I need to find an inexpensive 8×10 and 8×12 frame solution for my prints.

May 21st 2004

accounting

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I got into work today around 7:15am and didn’t leave until 6pm. I tried to get a lot finished since I’ll be out next week. I went over the disaster recovery plan with Carole, Brian, and Scott.

Ever since the recent DB2 changes (migration of some disk arrays to new EMC drives), production performance has been better.

When I got home, I spent all of my time obsessing over getting my mortgage stuff correct in MS money. It took me so long because I was trying different techniques posted on the newsgroups. Some of these were very elaborate, involving setting the system clock back to the day before closing and then entering the loan information as a $0 loan, but then recording a transaction against the loan for the amount of the loan, etc.

Eventually I just did everything the way it seems best and it all works out ok. The only thing I’m a bit annoyed about is my home equity loan (which I took to help with the down payment) is considered by Money to be a credit card type account. Even worse is that it is counting all of the money from that loan to be equity in my home. These are minor things. At least it now seems to account for everything correctly.

While I was working on this, Jen called to see what time I could come over. My work took too long and I didn’t get to her house until 11pm. She was already asleep. I climbed into bed with her and fell asleep.

May 22nd 2004

chores

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Being a Saturday, I woke up late - around 8:30am. Jen was already awake. She and I did some things around her house.

Eventually we left and went to Bath & Bodyworks. There we got some fun bubble bath and lotion. After that we went to Target and bought some more things.

Once we were done buying things we went to Jen’s parents’ house to borrow the lawn mower. While we were there Scott, Jen’s brother, showed up. Jen and I played with the dogs for a while and then went back to her house.

For lunch we made the special home-made salsa that Katie made for us a while back. With the salsa and chips, we also had bean, rice, and cheese burritos.

After lunch I noticed that rain clouds were on the horizon so I quickly mowed the back yard. I only had enough time to finish the back before it started to pour down rain.

Jen and I cleaned off our feet in the tub using the satin hands stuff - it felt really good.

We did some more cleaning around her house and afterwards we hung up some pictures in a new frame she bought.

I looked through a Kennesaw continuing education catalog that Jen received in the mail. One course caught my eye: ‘The Art of Seeing Photographs for Digital Cameras‘. It had a prerequisite of ‘photo 1′ but I think I could still get qualified for that course. I’d like to look into it more.

Lisa and Alan came over. They had some of our leftover lunch and chatted with us for a short while.

Jen and I cleaned up and took a shower. By this time the sunshine was out for a while and the lawn was somewhat dry, so I finished mowing the lawn instead of waiting to do it tomorrow afternoon.

We packed up our things and went back to her parent’s house. This time we stayed a bit longer. We had angel food cake with Jen’s parents.

Eventually we made it down to my house. Along the way we encountered some heavy construction on I75 so we exited and took back roads until we finally reached South Cobb Drive.

Once at my place we made some drinks and grilled the rest of the veggies and two sausages. The result was a pretty tasty dinner.

While we ate, Jen and I watched Xplay on TechTV. Jen finished reading her book while I worked in my journal.

May 23rd 2004

Sweetwater Creek

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