| Online Ordering |
[Feb. 4th, 2009|09:19 am] |
| [ | Current Mood |
| | undefined | ] |
Part of the draw of ordering something online is so I don't have to talk to anyone, this morning I got an email asking me to call to verify my order. First, I call and get placed on hold for 12 minutes and 32 seconds, They asked me a) to verify my shipping address, yes.. I did that twice during the order process.. then they asked me to verify my email address, wtf? of course it's right, I'm calling you because of an email you sent me! that's like someone calling me and asking me to verify my phone number.. Then they tried to upsell me accessories and warranties.. ugh, this is what I try to avoid by NOT doing it in person or over the phone! |
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| Verizon |
[Dec. 19th, 2008|08:15 am] |
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So I was having some trouble with my Verizon Wireless ExpressCard. I called Customer Service to get it fixed and they, of course, transferred me to Wireless Data Services. I explained the trouble (Authentication Failed) and asked him to look at my account. The tech said "Okay sir, I need you to reboot your computer please" to which I responded "I'm on a Mac, No." he said "Oh, yes you're right, no need. I'll look at my end." He found that there was an error on the account and corrected it, but I was still unable to connect, I either got a Modem Error or the Authentication Failure. He then said "Oh, I see that your contract ran out, I'm being told that we need to sign you up for another two year contract in order to re-activate the account" .. .ok, NO.. I explained that there was no way that I was going to do that as I am still paying and wish to remain month-to-month, we ended the conversation without resolution. I then called a friend who works at a Verizon retail store and talked about the situation. I had asked the tech at customer services if I should try to re-activate the device using VZAccess, he said no, but my friend agreed that it was worth a try, so I installed the app (which I really didn't want to do, since it's not needed for Leopard to connect, but oh well) ran the activation wizard and BAM everything fixed! *sigh* yay customer service! haha.. |
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| Awake |
[Dec. 19th, 2008|07:52 am] |
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For some reason, I'm awake... have been for a little while. I guess I'm up for the day. I considered going to the office but then looked outside and checked traffic, ew.. no thanks, I'll wait till it clears up a bit I think. |
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| yay stupidity! |
[Aug. 16th, 2007|12:41 am] |
Client: Yeah go track down why x.x.x.x IP isn't pingable and x.x.x.x/24 doesn't seem to route from outside
Me: uh ok... *checks router configs* hmmmm everything is fine...
Me: *calls ISP and explains*
ISP: Your IP isn't pingable...
ISP: Wait neither is our side...
ISP: uh.. your interface is administratively down... suspended for billing reasons
Me: okies, thanks much! *click*
Me: *runs off to punch accounting people in the face*
(x-post: personal and techsupport) |
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| Work! |
[Aug. 9th, 2007|02:41 pm] |
Okay so as you may or may not know I haven't worked since roughly March... by choice mostly =) I've been enjoying my summer for a change!
Well today was my first day at a consulting gig, they slated the whole day for me to get familiar with their network, decommission an IP block and activate another. Sooooo what I've done today:
Remove 117 IP addresses from server A
Remove 117 IP addresses from server B
Remove 14 IP addresses from server C
Remove all references to the above IP addresses from the Cisco layer 3 switches (access lists, VLANs, etc)
Create 117 IP addresses from the new pool on server A
Create 117 IP addresses from the new pool on server B
Create 14 IP addresses from the new pool on server C
Create all appropriate rules for the new block on the switches
* Find out why a server isn't responding to a configured IP address, bad switch port?
uh no.. documentation sucks, the server was plugged into FA1/0/6 not FA1/0/3 as the 'description' indicated.
Changed the VLAN on FA1/0/6 and WOW, the damn thing works.. put FA1/0/3 in shutdown and changed the description.
Documented the hell out of the rest of the config file on the two switches
Documented the hell out of the ifcfg-eth* files on the three linux boxes
Saved backup copies of the original and newly modified cisco configs, as well as the original ifcfg files.
... it's 14:30, I've only been here since 10:00 and we took an hour and a half for lunch....
What did YOU do today?! =D
oh PS it sounds like they are putting together an offer letter for a full time role! |
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| uh yeah |
[Jul. 20th, 2007|04:10 pm] |
I'm in Chipotle, drinking Jamba using Caribou's wifi....
woot! =) |
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| Dinner at Cajun's Wharf in Little Rock, AR |
[Nov. 20th, 2006|11:26 pm] |
I was pointed down to Cajun's Wharf by a local here in Little Rock and I am so glad that I found this somewhat off-the-path location. The directions I was given on how to get there were not quite accurate or easy to folow, and I barely spotted their blue neon sign in the dark, but I did and found it nestled back behind several other buildings right on the Arkansas river. Entering the rustic building I was greeted by a friendly and upbeat host who immediatley escorted me through the large dining room, past several large fish tanks with lively and intersting fish dancing around, to a table by the window overlooking the river. But enough about location, on to dinner!
Cajun's house salad (mixed greens, pine nuts, purple onions and feta cheese with their dijon mustard vinaigarette dressing) was excellent, though I personally found the dressing to be slightly on the oily side, it was still a perfect fit for the rest of the salad.
Cedar plank salmon - A generous Salmon filet prepared and served on a cedar plank infusing a wonderful smoked cedar aroma and flavor to the fish. Served with their homemade cajun mashed potatoes, a flavorful blend of horseraddish and jack cheese mashed in with the potatoes. The mixed vegetables were just as tasty as the rest of the dinner. Their honey butter and bread are also noteworthy.
My server, Jennifer, was very cheerful, helpful, prompt and attentive to making sure my meal was satisfactory.
I highly reccomend this venue for your next visit to Little Rock, AR.
Oh, and value. All of this and an iced tea for around $25 excluding gratuity left me fully satisfied and |
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| Hotel remodeling |
[Nov. 20th, 2006|08:07 pm] |
Seen in my hotel room on an info card...
(Sledgehammer)
Known to induce pounding headaches within and 86-ft radius.
Please pardon any decibel increase as we continue to change our hotel for the better.
(Toolbelt)
Known to be worn by men who are confused about the location of their waistline.
Please pardon our appearance as we continue to change our hotel for the better. |
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| v1 |
[Oct. 5th, 2006|08:21 am] |
| Dating Strengths |
Dating Weaknesses |
1. Flirtiness - 87.5%
2. Varied Interests - 85.7%
3. Independence - 85.7%
4. Adventurousness - 75%
5. Kindness - 72.7%
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1. Arrogance - 75%
2. Vanity - 58.3%
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| Dating Strengths Explained |
Flirtiness - Flirting is a good way to break the ice, and you are a pro at it. Being flirtatious will open up many dating opportunities.
Varied Interests - You don't limit yourself, and that's a dating asset. Your varied interests make you available and interesting to a wider range of men.
Independence - Your strong sense of independence comes in handy while dating. You are not held back or tied down; you are free to pursue your interests.
Adventurousness - You are willing to try new things and be spontaneous. You want to get out there and really live, and you will attract people with a similar love of life.
Kindness - You treat other people with empathy and goodwill. This positive trait helps you stand out and draw people into your warmth.
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| Dating Weaknesses Explained |
Arrogance - You are a bit full of yourself. You need to practice a little humility now and then, as arrogance can be a turn-off.
Vanity - Learn to put a lower priority on looks. Appearance is, of course, important, but vanity is undesireable. The only people you will attract are the superficial.
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| Take the Dating Strengths and Weaknesses Quiz |
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| Race Committee |
[Sep. 10th, 2006|09:35 pm] |
so today I went out with the Chicago Yacht Club on Race Committee for the One Design sail races. My crew, who has helped me several times before, was seasick and expunging his breakfast before we set the first mark, but he stuck it out until we got all five marks at the starting area set, then we called the Signal boat and indicated that we were headed to shore. The ride in was better, we were going with the waves rather than against them, but it still was not fun for him. We were 4.5 nautical miles south east from Belmont harbor, so it was a long and wet ride. On a 20ft Shamrock Pilothouse, you get wet no matter what the weather is, and it was raining and waves were coming over the gunnels faster than the bilge pump could keep up, at 0.9 nm from Belmont harbor, the engine quit. I pulled the throttle back and put the boat in neutral, turned the key off then tried to start it again, nothing... so I flipped on the blower, nothing.. I did a quick check to make sure we still had power (radio, yep.. GPS, yep.. bilge pump, yep... running lights, yep..) hmm, no blower and no starter, so I get out of the pilot house and turn to the engine compartment to find myself standing in water, the engine compartment hatch floating above the rear deck, which was underwater.. This is when you say "OH CRAP" grab a radio and call for help! which I did.. and they sent another Shamrock to come get us. In the meantime, we were both wearing our inflatable PFDs anyways, but we set anchor, I emptied our cooler and used that to bail water out, then found the hand-bilge and started pumping. The other Shamrock arrived and towed us into the harbor where we secured the boat, my crew headed home and I got on the other boat to go back out to the race course. About the time we got out on the lake again I said "hmm, perhaps we should check the engine compartment of this boat?" so we came to a stop, I opened the hatch and we decided to go back in as the engine was over halfway under water. So the driver of that boat and I sat on our respective boats, in the harbor, and pumped them out, by hand, then I found that the reason my engine died was not due to being submerged. A plastic bag had gotten inside the engine compartment when it was open and wrapped around the EXPOSED propeller shaft. As the bag got sucked in, it took the wiring harness with it, thus killing all power to the engine.. (no sparky-no runny) .. so the maintenance guy has some work ahead of him to get that put back together, the harness was pretty well tore up.
So that was my day.. I got home, got out of my wet clothes and into bed, slept for a few hours, now I'm doing laundry in preperation for my trip ti Pittsburgh tomorrow for work. |
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| fixed! |
[Sep. 9th, 2006|11:32 pm] |
Okay so my Windows PC has been broken for three months or more.. (yeah, I know, good!) and I decided to finally fix it.. (because I have a select few things I need windows for, financial software for one, and the massive storage on that machine because the lappie just isn't cutting it) anyways the MacBook Pro will still be my primary computer, but I fixed the winPC.. first I replaced the power supply, which was indeed fried, but when I powered it up I saw a bright glow followed by a trail of smoke from the motherboard.... grr, when ya let the magic smoke out, electronics don't work anymore.. So I went back to microcenter and got a new mobo (same model as before) and rebult the box.. I went with a DVD ROM and DVD/RW drive and left out the CDRW, since I was out of IDE channels and really don't need a CDRW with a DVDRW installed...
so it is an AMD Athalon XP 2100+ with a gig of RAM and over 1TB of storage (two 500g SATA combined into one drive letter, and a 250g IDE boot drive)
anyways its running again.. and aside from some intermittent wifi issues, the only thing I have left to do is provision a crappy windows box for torrents/p2p stuff and finish building servers with ![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif) astevenson. |
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| Holiday weekend |
[Sep. 3rd, 2006|11:38 am] |
So I went to the Renaissance Faire yesterday with doomsey, nekosensei and the monsters.. err.. I mean children =)
We had fun, even though I arrived later than they did because I stopped at Chicagoland Hobby to pick up another charger and two more batteries for my RC Boat.
We wandered around for a bit, then got mutually distracted by one thing or another and split up for a while, I watched some of the Wit of Will (2nd link), and then the Moonie show.
One of our favorite vendors to stop and harass.. err I mean patronize is Bald Mountain, unfortunately we found out that this is their last year at the faire, due to reasons described on their site. They may be back next year with only the leather items, but not shoes.
I was standing in Pendragon talking to one of the girls there and another customer about needing new garb for next year, the customer commented about not being able to find people to come to the faire with her, I said "Oh, I never have a problem finding friends who want to go" just then the guy standing behind her looked up at me and said "Joe??" it was Paul, one of my friends from Chicago. Apparently this was his first time at the faire, but I'm sure not the last!
Some photos were taken of the group, but they haven't been posted yet....... (stares at jharter41)
I've got one from my Treo 650 though.
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| beach... |
[Aug. 1st, 2006|09:54 pm] |
ok I know it has been a while since I posted.. and when I post I am usually bitching about one thing or another..
this post is no different =)
I went to the beach .. the first time I've been to the beach in Chicago... ever (aside from the dog beach, whcih doesn't count)
I put put my http://www.traxxas.com/products/marine/villain_ex/trx_villain_ex_over.htm in the water, no swimmers were in the water and hardly anyone on the beach as it was.. the lifeguard RUNS over to me yelling that I "Can't launch any vehicles from the beach". Vehicle? a 28" radio controlled boat is not my idea of a vehicle.. so I asked him why, expecting him to say something like being a danger to the (nonexistant) swimmers, but no, he says "because it might die out there and you would want to swim out and get it"... I looked at him and said, with a fake surprised look: "Oh my! you mean I might want to go... swimming? in the lake? in the swimming area?" yeah, he didn't appreciate that too much and suggested I could take it to a non swimming area. So I walked up the beach to the end of the swimming area, and beyond, put it in the water and sat down on a boulder. Another lifeguard, this one in a rowboat, blows his whistle at me and yells at me to "get off the rocks", now I can understand why they don't want people climbing on the rocks along the beach, especially on a rough day, you might slip and get your leg or foot stuck, or fall in and get smashed against the rocks.. by my feet were on dry sand about 10 ft from the water, and the lake was glass today! ugh, ok so I stood up and he was fine. I took my shoes off and stood where the water meets the sand and ran the boat arond a bit, then I noticed a shoe about 10 yards out from shore... MY SHOE... so I waded out to get it, the water was about the level of my knees.. another lifeguard comes running over and tells me I can't be in the water because I'm outside the swimming area. I said "but my shoe drifted out" he explained that it wasn't safe because the water was deeper than it looks. I looked down at the water lapping at my knees, looked at him and said "it appears to be about 16 inches deep here, I think it would take a lot of talent to drown in 16 inches of water".. now I could see a drop off that might make the water about waist depth about 20 yards out from where I was, but I was clearly after my shoe, which I had in my hand, and was headed back to the sand. He continued to fuss at me about how I was't allowed in the water, so I took my shoes and my boat and went home..
that was my first, and last, experience with the Chicago side of Lake Michigan meeting sand...
any previous and further experiences will begin and end in a harbor or... be when no lifeguards are on duty |
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| mornings |
[Jun. 5th, 2006|03:21 pm] |
| [ | Current Mood |
| |  sleepy | ] |
ok I'm bored so I'm making a post about this morning..
I vaguely remember hearing the door close when Jason left for work.. shortly thereafter Sammie started whining, a full hour before my alarm was set to go off.. so I dragged myself out of bed, went into the bathroom, came out a moment later and she was laying on the floor in the office, showing no signs of wanting to go outside.. so I sat down at my comptuer and checked email, LJ, etc etc.. Then I went down to the basement to get laundry out of the dryer and move the last of the stuff along.. came back up and she was still sleeping on the floor in the office.. so I got her up and took her for a walk. We got outside and she didn't seem to be in much of a hurry to do her business.. we got back about the time my alarm went off telling me to get up ... WHY did she whine ??? just being a pain I suppose..
oh well
now I'm tried, but I'm planning a gym trip after work, let's hope I follow through and make it! |
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| (no subject) |
[Jun. 3rd, 2006|09:10 pm] |
| [ | Current Mood |
| | impatient | ] |
I got out of bed entirely too early for a Saturday, 7:45am, and did my very best to postpone leaving till the very last minute, thus maing it impossible to ride my bike to the harbor as I had planned, oh well.. I still got a great day out on Lake Michigan pulling anchors and setting marks for the One Design races today for the Chicago Yacht Club. We had 16 Etchels, 6 Shields and two luders. We were on the water shortly after 9am and my boat had to come in around 2pm because one of the other RC members was having an argument with his breakfast.... oh well, it was still a great day!
I came home and took a nap, now I'm planning to see huckiemi and dailybinx whenever they are done with their wedding stuff... which was supposed to be an hour ago, but oh well.. I can be patient....
sometimes....
latah! |
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| (no subject) |
[Jun. 3rd, 2006|12:22 am] |
| [ | Current Mood |
| | sleepy | ] |
I went with boredevilperson and roissy747 to see Bare Naked Lads (no that is not a typo) at the Bailiwick theater in Lakeview this evening.. it was a great show! very entertaining, and cute guys too! Then we went to Flat Top Grill across the street for dinner.. Thanks again roissy747 for dinner! it was great! and nice to see you guys again, it's been too long..
gotta go to sleep now, got boat races in the morning,,, |
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| Stupid headhunters |
[Jun. 2nd, 2006|03:28 pm] |
So I got a call from a guy from a recruiting agency about 28 minutes ago asking if I was still in the market.. I said "yes I am" he gave me the job description and salary, it is in Downers Grove and the salary is right on with the other offer I posted yesterday. This one is for a Solaris Admin position. I asked him to shoot me an email. My exact words were "I have an emergency here and can't talk, please send me an email" The recruiter expressed urgency and that the client wanted to see a resume by 3:30, so I kept an eye on my email.. nothing.. I just got a call back from him saying "You asked me to email you a job description, I don't actually have one" (well then what the %@$@ were you reading to me?) "is it ok if I submit your Resume?"
well, I said that was fine but that I wanted him to send me an email with the company name (though he had already told me, I like to have that in writing) and a brief description or even just requirements.. he asked "when would you be available to interview?" I said "Next week.. Please send me an emal to confirm" he went on to try and get me to give him an exact time, so I finally said "I'm not in a position where I can talk right now, please send me an email" and hung up on him...
I finally just now got an email from one of the guy's associates saying "I'm emailing you on behalf of [recruiter] though I'm not sure why..."
My response:
I asked [Recruiter] five or six times to send me an email to discuss this, preferably with a job description, but the reason for email is that I am currently at a client site and unable to speak freely on the phone! I tried to convey this to [Recruiter] without saying so outright.... anyways.. I have a current gig downtown Chicago that I am normally at during business hours, is there any way the interview could be shortly after hours? or early in the morning? Also, how accessible is this site to public transit? (Metra / Pace bus)
I would prefer not to knock hours off of my work day if I don't have to, since this week has been short due to the holiday and all.
Thanks!
so yeah.. another example of how few brain cells it actually takes to be a recruiter =\ |
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| Links in emails! |
[Jun. 2nd, 2006|03:10 pm] |
kill me
kill me now!
So one of the employees at the client site I've been working for a few weeks now wanted to send out an email through the listserv. No problem, that's what it is there for!
The problem is that his email included a URL.. the URL was correct
http://www4.whatever.org/whatever/survey
but the LINK was not..
http://www4.whatever.org/whatever/survey
I'm still not sure HOW this happened, the only thing I can think of is that he is using Word 2000 and Outlook 2000 .. when I checked the word document he copied this out of, it is correct.. but when we pasted it into Outlook it was broken!
At any rate, 34,998 people got the incorrect email..... so now the net is getting another 34,998 messages with the corrected hyperlink
=(
as I said, KILL ME
x-posted to techsupport |
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| Job offer |
[Jun. 1st, 2006|02:18 pm] |
| [ | Current Mood |
| |  excited | ] |
So I just got that today and went in to talk to my client about it. I am giving them 3 weeks +2 days notice, which is quite nice for them, I should get lots of projects banged out in that time... I also inquired if they would be interested in offering me a perl position here, the director of IT said "oh I'm sure we would, but not until about two weeks after you start your new job" he also couldn't tell me what the salary range would be, but his guess was a decent clip lower than the offer I just got ..
I am giving them until Monday before I respond to ST and accept the offer, but they won't be able to make a decision by then. There is a board meeting on July 10th which is when a new position could be opened, if it is even available..
Thats all I ahve for now!
Oh wait, I also asked the IT director about something I needed him to do and he said that he would, then I said "Now I've sent you a few emails about this, are you ignoring me again?" his response was "I haven't had a chance to open Out look yet, once I do that and see your emails, THEN I'll ignore you!"
(uh, it's 14:25, and he hasn't opened Outlook yet?????) |
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