Sunday, August 31, 2008

BUSTED!!!

For years now Andrew has SWORN he went to Las Colinas elementary school with a kid who did the voice for Mojo Jojo from the Power Puff Girls. We told him over and over again we knew it wasn't a kid and we didn't believe him.

This weekend it came to a head and using the power of google, we found Roger L. Jackson. The voice of Mojo Jojo.


Looks a little older than 17 for some reason. Maybe he was held back.

Tuesday, August 26, 2008

Stealing From The Unstable Blogger Whole Stole From Others

Mine didn't turn out so well...




The Recipe For Houston Keys



3 parts Dumb
2 parts Annoying
1 part Cheesy
Splash of Odor


Throw out and start over!

Monday, August 25, 2008

Coming Home

I come home today. I am just about out-of-towned out.

Dayton is an OK town, Air Force Museum is UNBELIEVEABLE! I will have to post a few pics. Rental car is a new mustang so that is pretty nice (6 Cyclinder).

Ready to get home.

Coming Home

I come home today. I am just about out-of-towned out.

Dayton is an OK town, Air Force Museum is UNBELIEVEABLE! I will have to post a few pics. Rental car is a new mustang so that is pretty nice (6 Cyclinder).

Ready to get home.

Tuesday, August 19, 2008

Monday, August 18, 2008

Dallas Is Wierd

OK, so I see this on my weather updater...


I am so ashamed to be afraid of rain.

Danger - Pity Party Ahead

You know it really sucks to work hard and try to get ahead as a technical person. When you work hard and are dependable what happens is you get screwed over by management types.

Case in point, as you all know I am taking another job within PHONECO. This is a good thing as I am not happy with the way things are set up now which is way too much travel for the same amount of money I was making when I didn't have to travel all the time. I have to point out we have steadily had more and more shoved off on us for the same amount of money due to "Downsizing." We are bitter because there are lots of VPs, Directors and Managers getting promoted on a consistent basis while the geeks can't get a cost of living adjustment (but I digress). The bad thing about my new job is I am retaining some of the things I was assigned to anyway because now they will lack the resources to take care of what they have commited to when they had me on board. So basically they will subcontract out my new position to handle this old stuff.

WTF PEOPLE!!!!

So once I touch it, it's mine forever? I am THE ONLY PERSON at PHONECO who can do what I do.

ALABAMA people! I need to ask for an obscene amount of money because evidently I am the only person in the world who can hold this company together.

How much should I hit them up for?

Darwin Misses Again

OK, so we have all seen it where someone on a distribution list does a "Reply to all" and asks to be removed from the list instead of just "Reply." Today was extra special because the "Reply to all" person also requested a "Read receipt."

So now every time the hundreds of people on the distribution list reads the email, they will get a message.

Shouldn't these people have evolved out by now?

Friday, August 15, 2008

Customer Problem Solving

Customer is having problems out in the field, one of the troubleshooting steps is to eliminate lne appearances to verify they are not causing a problem. One of the guys I worked with told the customer, line appearances are OK, just to save that for the last troubleshooting step. Do everything else that was suggested before changing that.

Customer wants to know why to remove the line appearances if it is OK to have them.

Guy I work with explains the rules for line appearances and lets them know as long as those rules are met , it is OK to have the appearances.

Customer says, OK we will make sure the appearances follow the rules so they won't have to remove them for testing.

I am willing to bet CASH MONEY that they are breaking one of the rules and this is causing their problems. I cannot understand why people refuse to clear a problem that is causing me so much pain.

What Is Wrong With These People?

So anyway, here at PHONECO in the Training Center one of the PBXs I work on is being used to simulate a Central Office for trunks for a smaller PBX. It seems that every couple of months I get contacted to come over and reprogram the way the calls route through OUR PBX. This is because they keep having some other engineer go over and change programming periodically.

WHY???? (I scream into the night.)

Jeeze folks, we get it right, then you decide you want it changed, then you have someone else come in and program it and DO NOT document how it works now. THEN YOU FORGET WHAT YOU HAD CHANGED!!!!

Next comes the email that something needs to BE CHANGED RIGHT THIS MINUTE BECAUSE WE HAVE A CLASS NEXT WEEK!!!!!

Poor planning...

Keep Me Hanging On

I have never understood people who ask you to take care of something and then they want to keep you on the line while they think out loud.

Dude, you give me something to do, I jump on it to get it fixed. I don't want to listen to you sit on the phone and go "Uhhhhhhhhh..."

Hang up, let me go and I will get it fixed and call you back. Further conversation is meerly wasting time which is precious (not to mention billable). Once we make a quote that says I have X amount of time to do a job, I will get it done in X amount of time.

Thursday, August 14, 2008

Open Letter To Spammers

First off, I am a happily married man. I am not interested in meeting "Singles in my area."

Secondly, I DEFINITELY DO NOT want to hook up with "Hot married women who are looking for a fling."

Do you people have any idea how much a divorce costs? Or that in Texas you can legally pack heat? I don't want to be shot.

No more spam please.

That is all.

Thank You

Thank you to everyone who has written to congratulate me on the new position (no Sam it is not THAT KIND of position, it's a JOB). I sincerely appreciate the thoughts, goodwill and prayers.

H

Tuesday, August 12, 2008

JOB UPDATE!

Just got word, I was made an offer for a position in the lab and I have accepted. Starting September 8th I will become a "Lab Rat."

Right now I have one more trip to attend to and then off to the lab.

Ahhhhh... Memories

Had a co-worker stop me in the bathroom to ask me a question on how to do something with our database in raw format. I think for a second and I give him the amswer I feel is correct.

He kind of beats around the bush and it is obvious he doesn't like my answer and is trying to figure the logic of the system out so he can verify what I told him.

I suggest he ask two other people (developers / programmers) to verify what I told him and we part ways.

The longer I thought about it, the more aggravated I became. Here is a guy who has no business dealing with raw data anyway, who understands a lot of the processes but is unclear on this one questioning me. What I found out I got by sitting down with an offline system and hacking and reverse-engineering the PBX. I asked questions and sometimes didn't believe what I was told, but it was usually because what I was told didn't match up with the logic I discovered in the programming and data.

I am very tempted to start telling people to go fly off and do what I did, invest the time to learn it yourself rather than asking a million stupid questions and wasting everyone's time by never implementing anything.

Oh well. I guess I should get over it.

BTW, still waiting on word for the job. I also forgot my backpack, so no workout today.

I Am Such A Good Husband

74
As a 1930s husband, I am
Superior

OK, Little Better This Morning

OK, sorry. I felt terrible yesterday afternoon. I have too much time twiddling my thumbs right now and I often find that I get grouchy if I am sitting with nothing to do. It is always better for me to be busy (but not frantic) at work.

I would watch the Olympics, but since it is in China I am semi-boycotting (not really vowing not to watch, I just don't care).

I am supposed to get an answer back on the job today. Wish me luck.

Monday, August 11, 2008

Not Much Happening

Sorry, not much going on right now.

We upgraded PHONECO's PBX to our new BETA system with much success and fanfare last Friday. Unfortunately lacing the cables and everything up aggravated my carpal tunnel and I had pain and numbness in both hands all weekend. Also I was out of it all weekend on pain killers for my back.

Good news is hands hurt much less today. Back is actually pretty good today (better than usual).

I am still waiting for word on the job. I am supposed to know something by tomorrow. We'll see.

Wednesday, August 06, 2008

I'm Workin' Out

OK, so my back is SCREAMING today and my right foot is still hurting like all get out so I decided to roll on the stationary bike for today.

Did about 5 and 1/2 miles in 25 minutes and still worked up a pretty good sweat.

Pre-workout weight was 314. I have been rounding up to the nearest pound on my weight, so yesterday I was really like 314 and 3/4 but I said 315. Today I was 314 on the nose.

Now if the doggone breakfast tacos don't catch up with me...

Tuesday, August 05, 2008

August 5th Workout Report

I am posting this to try to shame myself into continuing to work out.

Yesterday, I walked/jogged/shuffled/crawled on the treadmill 1.33 miles in a 22 minute workout. Pre-workout weight was 316 pounds (EGAD! Unfortunately I did once weigh more, thank God I don't weigh that now).

Today I did 1.25 miles in a 22 minute workout. Pre-workout weight was 315 pounds.

Trying.

Working Away

Seems that I am back in the groove as I am helping tech support calls again. Still no word on my interview, I don't know how things went still. Everyone who said they were goig to ask is not getting back to me so I don't know what that means.

ICK.

So since I am not in tech support anymore my boss mentioned billing back the TAC center... Don't want to go there as far as how relationships could go. I understand his point since I am supposed to be a money maker now but wow.

I just can't get used to this way of thinking. I guess someone who is still in TAC will have to step up and fill my old spot if that is the case.

Friday, August 01, 2008

UGH

Well, the interview was... I don't know. The vibe wasn't great, but it wasn't horrible and I left not really knowing anything either way. I chalked my bad feelings up to nerves and tried to go on with my day.

Later I found out a good friend of mine put in for the same job (supposedly). My friend has his CCNA which I do not.

BINGO

Basically I think we are pretty even otherwise, but the CCNA puts him ahead of me in the shot for this job. So I am pretty depressed right now and not really in the mood to talk about the job or anything else.

I guess I will use the downtime I have (of course I am sure I won't have any more now) to start getting my Microsoft certs so I can move on. Oh well.

I know, I know, nothing has been decided yet... I just don't know. I just don't have any hope at this point.

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