Things are moving quickly now. Brooke had her non-stress test and all looked well. The baby fell asleep half-way through the test though. It was interesting to watch, made me think of the earthquake graphs. :-)
I have most of my Christmas gifts ready for the holidays. I will be working on putting up the lights tomorrow as well as getting my car cleaned out and baby seat installed. I wish I could keep my car clean more easily!
As promised, a running total of Christmas bulbs knocked down.
Christmas Ornament totals:
Dec. 6 = 3 bulbs
Dec. 7 = 2 bulbs and 1 candy cane
Tuesday, December 8, 2009
Monday, December 7, 2009
December 6
Christmas tree is all assembled!! Just in time for the baby when she arrives later this week.
We strung up four strands if 150 lights. The only problem I noticed during assembly was spacial. We had the tree pulled out but still had to pass the lights back and forth around the fireplace. This made or some long walks around the tree in both directions. :-)
We have about four boxes full of Christmas ornaments as well. Not ordinary boxes either, one is an old Battery backup box, another is an old tree stand box, and the other two boxes are professional paper storage boxes. We can comfortable pack on about two boxes worth of ornaments. The downfall to all of this though, is the cats!
The tree survived last night with only the loss of three bulbs. Thankfully it was only the plastic bulbs we have on the first three feet. Last year we lost at least twenty bulbs. (Leading to the abundance of ornaments we now own.)
As the weeks wear on, I'll keep a running total of bulbs knocked off and bulbs lost altogether.
We strung up four strands if 150 lights. The only problem I noticed during assembly was spacial. We had the tree pulled out but still had to pass the lights back and forth around the fireplace. This made or some long walks around the tree in both directions. :-)
We have about four boxes full of Christmas ornaments as well. Not ordinary boxes either, one is an old Battery backup box, another is an old tree stand box, and the other two boxes are professional paper storage boxes. We can comfortable pack on about two boxes worth of ornaments. The downfall to all of this though, is the cats!
The tree survived last night with only the loss of three bulbs. Thankfully it was only the plastic bulbs we have on the first three feet. Last year we lost at least twenty bulbs. (Leading to the abundance of ornaments we now own.)
As the weeks wear on, I'll keep a running total of bulbs knocked off and bulbs lost altogether.
Saturday, December 5, 2009
Findings
Discovered some wonderful oddities today.
We decided the tree needs to be assembled before the baby arrives next Friday. I head out to the shed during the heavy part of the snow. After twenty minutes of searching, I have a flash back to early spring where we decide to throw out the tree because several branches were severly bent (FAT CATS!!) and a few rows of prelit lights were dead. They require th specialty bulbs so I couldn't repair them. Thankfully my grandparents have a tree they'd like us to use since they don't need it anymore.
I worked with a customer remotely, could not figure out why the VPN was not working. Logged into his laptop and found his laptop was using his neighbor's unencrypted wireless instead of the wireless of his VPN router! Fixed that issue to discover his VPN router does not even attempt to create a VPN tunnel with the office!! All other three VPN router work fine!
Running low on space on my computer. Have had a 1TB HDD in a box for about 9 months. Just haven't had any time to install it and move one of my HDDs over to it. Started to do that today to discover, right out of the box and static bag, the drive is bad. Fails the HDD manufacturers HDD tools and several other utilities. Setup an RMA and looked at archiving several GBs if data until I get the replacement.
Installed the car seat in my wife's car today too. Went over the directions a few times to make sure it worked. Picked up the wife from work only to find she didn't want THAT car seat base in her car, she wanted the original. Guess I'll have to switch them tomorrow.
Jut curious of the new things I'll find out tomorrow.
We decided the tree needs to be assembled before the baby arrives next Friday. I head out to the shed during the heavy part of the snow. After twenty minutes of searching, I have a flash back to early spring where we decide to throw out the tree because several branches were severly bent (FAT CATS!!) and a few rows of prelit lights were dead. They require th specialty bulbs so I couldn't repair them. Thankfully my grandparents have a tree they'd like us to use since they don't need it anymore.
I worked with a customer remotely, could not figure out why the VPN was not working. Logged into his laptop and found his laptop was using his neighbor's unencrypted wireless instead of the wireless of his VPN router! Fixed that issue to discover his VPN router does not even attempt to create a VPN tunnel with the office!! All other three VPN router work fine!
Running low on space on my computer. Have had a 1TB HDD in a box for about 9 months. Just haven't had any time to install it and move one of my HDDs over to it. Started to do that today to discover, right out of the box and static bag, the drive is bad. Fails the HDD manufacturers HDD tools and several other utilities. Setup an RMA and looked at archiving several GBs if data until I get the replacement.
Installed the car seat in my wife's car today too. Went over the directions a few times to make sure it worked. Picked up the wife from work only to find she didn't want THAT car seat base in her car, she wanted the original. Guess I'll have to switch them tomorrow.
Jut curious of the new things I'll find out tomorrow.
Friday, December 4, 2009
It Begins
As the opening week comes to a close, I realize how much closer my daughter is to being born!! I'm excited and anxious, I cannot wait to hold the beautiful miracle in my arms. I can only begin to imagine what her life will entail and how it will broaden and fulfill my life. One week, and all will change, for the better.
I just hope the cats get over it ;-)
I just hope the cats get over it ;-)
December 3, 2009
Apparently my hope to link Loopt with my blog did not turn out well. I will post what should've showed up yesterday.
UUUUGHHGHHHHH!!!!!!!!! I cannot stand Comcast! Today is just one of the many examples. Allow me to extrapolate upon this statement.
I have a customer who has had intermittent Internet issues recently with Comcast. They called into Comcast because only the Internet was not working correctly, the internal network was working very fluently.
The phone technician logs into their modem and asks if they have a static IP address. He ASKS THEM!?!?! Why is this NOT in their customer records? It should not have to be asked, it should be known. The phone tech looks around their modem and says, "Hmmmm.... it looks like it wasn't configured correctly. You're looking at Pittsburgh, where are you located?" They give him their location. "I'm going to point you to Philadelphia since you are closer to that location." First, this sounds retarded, if they were setup to look at Pittsburgh to begin with (which I can only assume is the DNS settings, it is the only thing that makes sense from what that statement implies) that is poor configuration on Comcast's part and should have been addressed before now. This did not resolve their Internet issues.
Comcast proceeds to send out two useless technicians who grumble about missing lunch for the whole appointment. They test the lines but have no idea about the cable modem/router unit or how to access it. They fiddle with some network cables and take down the whole network. Thankfully my customer would not allow the technicians to leave until they got the network working. Even though the network is working, there are still Internet issues.
Comcast sends out another technician a few weeks later to check things AGAIN! This technician is just a cable technician who checks the line signals. All looks good there but he has to call into the office for help working on their cable modem/router unit because he does NOT know a thing about them or the setup of the units. He proceeds to test a few things but gets nothing and the Internet is lost.
My customer calls me to explain the new situation, it is already 4:30 that evening and they close at 5, I knew I would not make it to them before that, so I schedule to be out there in the morning. I arrive and bring along an extra switch and two extra routers, just in case. The router is a WatchGuard Firebox. All is configured and running properly. Their static IP settings were not reset or altered. I hook up a spare router to the cable modem/router and set the spare modem to receive an automatic IP from Comcast's unit. I use a spare PC and connect it to the spare router and test things. I can see the Comcast unit and the Internet. I log into the Comcast modem/router and look at the network configuration. I find some interesting things. The WAN IP on the modem/router is NOT what it should be** under a normal configuration. The WAN IP is set to 71.71.71.82 instead of the 77.77.77.76 it should be for their static IP setup. This is where more fun begins!
I call into Comcast business support, plug away through the phone menus to be met with a wonderful response, "We're sorry, no one is able to assist you at this time. The building is currently under emergency evacuation. We are sorry for the inconvenience." My reaction is ?!?!?!?!?! WTH!!! I try again, several times. Same response. I try different menus, plowing through trying to get SOMEONE! I called them several times in two hours, same response. First of all, that is poor business; having only one building handling business support? I could not get in touch with ANYONE who could resolve this issue. I ended up configuring the Firebox to use an IP issued by the cable modem/router for now while I worked on getting ahold of Comcast. I gave up after a few more hours of the same response. Since my setup got the customer internet for now, I let it go. I will try again tomorrow.
**Normally, the comcast modem/router is configured to be the gateway for business who require static IPs. The businesses router is setup with their static IP, they have a gateway IP that is the cable modem/router's WAN IP. So if I have a static IP of 77.77.77.77 the modem's IP is 77.77.77.78.
UUUUGHHGHHHHH!!!!!!!!! I cannot stand Comcast! Today is just one of the many examples. Allow me to extrapolate upon this statement.
I have a customer who has had intermittent Internet issues recently with Comcast. They called into Comcast because only the Internet was not working correctly, the internal network was working very fluently.
The phone technician logs into their modem and asks if they have a static IP address. He ASKS THEM!?!?! Why is this NOT in their customer records? It should not have to be asked, it should be known. The phone tech looks around their modem and says, "Hmmmm.... it looks like it wasn't configured correctly. You're looking at Pittsburgh, where are you located?" They give him their location. "I'm going to point you to Philadelphia since you are closer to that location." First, this sounds retarded, if they were setup to look at Pittsburgh to begin with (which I can only assume is the DNS settings, it is the only thing that makes sense from what that statement implies) that is poor configuration on Comcast's part and should have been addressed before now. This did not resolve their Internet issues.
Comcast proceeds to send out two useless technicians who grumble about missing lunch for the whole appointment. They test the lines but have no idea about the cable modem/router unit or how to access it. They fiddle with some network cables and take down the whole network. Thankfully my customer would not allow the technicians to leave until they got the network working. Even though the network is working, there are still Internet issues.
Comcast sends out another technician a few weeks later to check things AGAIN! This technician is just a cable technician who checks the line signals. All looks good there but he has to call into the office for help working on their cable modem/router unit because he does NOT know a thing about them or the setup of the units. He proceeds to test a few things but gets nothing and the Internet is lost.
My customer calls me to explain the new situation, it is already 4:30 that evening and they close at 5, I knew I would not make it to them before that, so I schedule to be out there in the morning. I arrive and bring along an extra switch and two extra routers, just in case. The router is a WatchGuard Firebox. All is configured and running properly. Their static IP settings were not reset or altered. I hook up a spare router to the cable modem/router and set the spare modem to receive an automatic IP from Comcast's unit. I use a spare PC and connect it to the spare router and test things. I can see the Comcast unit and the Internet. I log into the Comcast modem/router and look at the network configuration. I find some interesting things. The WAN IP on the modem/router is NOT what it should be** under a normal configuration. The WAN IP is set to 71.71.71.82 instead of the 77.77.77.76 it should be for their static IP setup. This is where more fun begins!
I call into Comcast business support, plug away through the phone menus to be met with a wonderful response, "We're sorry, no one is able to assist you at this time. The building is currently under emergency evacuation. We are sorry for the inconvenience." My reaction is ?!?!?!?!?! WTH!!! I try again, several times. Same response. I try different menus, plowing through trying to get SOMEONE! I called them several times in two hours, same response. First of all, that is poor business; having only one building handling business support? I could not get in touch with ANYONE who could resolve this issue. I ended up configuring the Firebox to use an IP issued by the cable modem/router for now while I worked on getting ahold of Comcast. I gave up after a few more hours of the same response. Since my setup got the customer internet for now, I let it go. I will try again tomorrow.
**Normally, the comcast modem/router is configured to be the gateway for business who require static IPs. The businesses router is setup with their static IP, they have a gateway IP that is the cable modem/router's WAN IP. So if I have a static IP of 77.77.77.77 the modem's IP is 77.77.77.78.
Wednesday, December 2, 2009
It's a Small World
When the ultrasound technician not only knows your father from highschool she knows your dentist who was you father's roommate in college, the world feels very small. The ultrasound technician also knows your grandparents because she worked at thier hospital they frequented. Her sister had your elementary gym teacher as her softball coach too.
All the things you learn as your wife gets an ultrasound. :-)
In other news. I am definitely working on keeping blogs upcoming everyday. The ability to post something useful helps. I've been working on several background stories for my Vampire/Werewolf campaign. I have so much back history that I thought I should post it up here to get things worked out. I'm hoping the story itself is cohesive, we'll find out.
All the things you learn as your wife gets an ultrasound. :-)
In other news. I am definitely working on keeping blogs upcoming everyday. The ability to post something useful helps. I've been working on several background stories for my Vampire/Werewolf campaign. I have so much back history that I thought I should post it up here to get things worked out. I'm hoping the story itself is cohesive, we'll find out.
Tuesday, December 1, 2009
Construction
Road construction in York itself is horrible! Jahhhhh! Is it that hard to keep a general flow of traffic when there is construction?
In other news, do people HAVE to fly around lines just to get in alleys to drive around construction?
In other news, do people HAVE to fly around lines just to get in alleys to drive around construction?
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