pretty crazy around here with Lisa leaving for Florida just 4 days after returning from Seattle. We spent as much time
together as we could with my work being so busy and Lisa having to get 2 months of clothes and things into 2 suitcases for her trip.
Saturday we finished up a couple errands including picking up some new hiking boots for Lisa at EMS for our Tuckerman's Ravine
hike that we are planning for the weekend she gets back from Florida. While we were there we spent a while talking
with Jeff, a worker there that is planning to move to Seattle with his wife after he finishes up school. It sounds like
they have many of the same interests as us, even though they are a little more hardcore than we are. It would be cool to
catch up with them when we all get out west. Other than all that nothing is really new around here. We are making
progress in the new building at work, its slow but we're moving forward. After dropping Lisa off at the airport today I
spent a few hours in the garage working on my next project, a welding table. I got most of it finished, casters of some
sort still need to be added but for now I can use it to get started on my bike rack. I was wearing the new Carhartt flannel
lined work pants that I picked up this weekend, it was very cold outside but these things really came through and kept me perfectly
comfortable. Next weekend Isis is going to the kennel and I am going to Rochester with Brian for the CSH 30th anniversary
bash and to get my sleeve touched up by Jet. It should be a fun weekend, at least it will keep me busy. Have a nice
week, we'll talk again soon.
February 20, 2006: Lisa is on her way to Seattle, should be there in a couple hours. A recruiter
from Rite-Aid will be taking her on a tour of the area and a couple of their stores tomorrow morning and afternoon. After that
she will have some time to herself, she'll be checking out the areas that her other offers are in. Her flight back home leaves
Wednesday afternoon so her visit is going to be a little on the short side, at least she'll be able to see what the area is like in
the winter. After she gets back she will only have a few days before she has to leave for Florida. After she left this
February 18, 2006: Well, sorry again for the huge gap in updates, we are both completely beat. As of
this afternoon I have put in 61 hours at work this week and as of Wednesday afternoon Lisa finished the last big project she will have
to do before graduation. Not a whole lot of stuff has happened since we spoke last other than work, work, and more work.
On Tuesday Isis's vet from Tuft's Dr. Dodman called and needed a favor. He had been interviewed for the Paula Zahn show on CNN
about dogs loving their owners, a fluff piece for Valentine's day. Seperation anxiety came up in the interview and he showed them
the pictures we gave him of Isis and the old apartment when she broke out of the window. They wanted to show them on the air but
needed our permission first. We totally were cool with it and they showed a few pictures of the bloody house and of Isis on the
show that night. My parents then saw it on their local news the next night, I guess they share those fluff pieces with other
networks, a guy my Dad works with even saw it and didn't believe him when he said that dog has stayed at their house a bunch of times.
We keep joking with her about being a famous movie star now, she eats it up! Lisa is on break now and will be taking off for Florida
to start her 4th rotation a week from tomorrow. Before she leaves though she will be flying out to Seattle to see what Rite-Aid has
to offer, it's awesome that she gets to go but sucks a little that it has to be during her first break in a while. I'll be busy
at work so I couldn't get the time off to join her. Today she was able to shadow a pharmacist at Target for a few hours to help
her decide if she might want to take their offer. Other than that things are pretty normal. I did get to do some welding
last weekend and got the cart for my welder mostly built. I need to finish the tool shelf and add a few places to store grinding
wheels. I have some pictures under 'Projects' on the left. If I'm lucky I will be able to do a little more work on it tomorrow
or Monday. Have a good long weekend if you have Monday off, we'll talk again soon.
February 10, 2006: Sorry for such a gap in updates but things around here, well, have been far more insane
than ever. Lisa has been trying to get through this rotation and following her preceptor is like following a 2 year old with ADD,
all over the place and out of control. She has also been working the job offers at the same time. Target has stepped up to the
plate with an amazing offer and she is in the process of having Rite-Aid try to fly her out to the Seattle area for a visit, more on that to
come. I have been absolutely out straight with work. We have been running into so many problems in the new building that in my
opinion there is no way we will be moving the first servers there on the 21st of this month, no way. Here are a few examples of the
things we have been running into. Our $300K each Cisco network switches had only been installed for 12 hours when they started to overheat.
The data centers are designed for devices that pull cold air in the front and blow hot air out the back, everything in the room does that
but these switches. The ironic part about that is if the switches aren't running then it doesn't much matter if anything else is!
Huge changes to the air conditioning are being made to solve this problem. The $30k in fiber optic patch cords that were provided by the
data wiring contractor have about a 25% failure rate and the only way we have to tell which ones are bad is with a flashlight I converted to use LEDs with
a special connector on the front. A $10 home made tool to solve a $30,000 problem, I know, I AM a genius, please hold the applause (my boss certainly
did, thanks for nothing I say to him). Other things like the fiber optic cable that was ran to this buiding and broken along the way and
the cables we need to connect the servers being on the list of things to be ordered after all the servers are supposed to be moved have slowed
down progress considerably. I'll put it this way, I haven't had a beer on a weeknight in months but I've gone through near a case in the
last two weeks, you decide if I'm stressed out a bit. The fact that our CIO came by this morning and said that the whole company was waiting
for us to finish the network so they could start the move just proves that we are under the most pressure of the whole project. Did I forget
to mention that there are only two of us responsible for all of this? Minor detail. Anyway, I'm off tomorrow but working every Saturday
for the next two months starting next week so tomorrow is going to be relaxing, very relaxing. More info on the job offers to come, have a
great weekend!
February 1, 2006: No rest for the wicked, that's what we've been saying anyway. Lisa's rotation has been
keeping her very busy, long days and lots of work to do at night. It's all starting to pay off though, she got a couple offers this
week. One from Walgreen's and one from her dream company, Target. The Walgreen's offer isn't really in the area we
want to be but the Target position is in the exact area. She will have her choice of two new stores, one in Redmond and the other
in Everett. She's going to wait to hear back from a couple more companies but Target is looking very good, more to come on that.
The weekend went by in a flash, the work we did on Saturday went fairly smooth, nobody's lights went out so we consider it a win.
I was able to get both vehicles cleaned up inside and out on Sunday, between rain drops. Other than that we did nothing all weekend
other than sleep. I did make it out to pick Lisa up an early Valentine's gift, an iPod Shuffle. She will be leaving for Florida
for her next rotation in just a few weeks. She wants to do a lot of jogging and working out and carrying around her iPod video isn't
really an option. We have an older Rio flash player but since Itunes took over our music libraries it has become a real pain to get
that music into any player not made by Apple. I have to hand it to them though, this Shuffle is pretty damn slick. It is even
easier to get music onto it than the video, it has a great look and has very simple controls. We give it two thumbs up for sure.
Other than our cable modem being out all week it has just been more of the same, work for me and work for Lisa. Have a great week.
morning I put on about 4 layers of clothes and finished the last few details of my welding cart. I found some steel mesh this
week and the pieces were perfect to be used as the bottom shelf. I also added some hangers for grinding and cutting wheels and
touched up a few of the welds. The pictures have been updated under 'Projects'. Now it's time to get started on my next project, a welding table. After the table is
complete I can start on the bike rack for the back of the ridgeline. Working on the floor is really hard on the knees and back
so the table will make things a lot easier and will give me a nice level surface to work on. Finding and getting the 1/2" thick
steel plate for the table top is going to be a little tricky but I'll have plenty of free while Lisa is away. Work should be a
bit more reasonable, through all the mishaps and problems we still were able to get the network in the new and old buildings tied
together Saturday morning. Now our job changes from building the network to supporting it as the sysadmins move in the 400
servers from the old building. Lisa spent a few hours with a Target pharmacist on Saturday and absolutely loved it, it looks
like she will be accepting that offer later this week. After that the official countdown begins! Have a great week.