Ben Rehberg's Weblog

Okay, Okay...

2010-02-21T22:16:00.000-05:00

There has always been this thought in the back of my mind, and here's a little evidence leaning toward it. I've been cautious to self-diagnose because it's just not something I do, but I scored a 77 on this 24-question test. Maybe I'll go ask a professional now.

Beth took the quiz and gave answers for me. She scored an 81.

Office Depot FAIL

2010-02-15T07:53:00.001-05:00

I went to Office Depot yesterday to pick up a printer for resale. I figured I could just walk in with my tax certificate, they'd put it on file, and I would walk out with the printer. No deal, I guess. I was told I'd have to fill out a form and fax it (seriously? It's 2010. I don't have a facsimile.) or send it to headquarters. In two weeks I'd have a "tax exempt" card I could then present if I needed to get something for resale.

The problem is that my business, however slow it may actually be, still runs a little faster than a two-week turnaround. Office Depot FAIL. Amazon.com SUCCEED. I'll have that printer in tomorrow, at a lower overall cost, even with one-day shipping. No more trips to Office Depot. I'll order markers and pens from Amazon if I need to.

This is number 500

2010-02-14T08:50:00.000-05:00

I just noticed that this blog has had 499 posts so far, which makes this one number 500. That's a lot of thoughts, but when I really think about it, it's not. I started this blog in March of 2004. 500 posts over nearly six years doesn't add up to a lot per day. If you look to the right at the archive, 2005 and 2006 were fairly active years. That's when I sat at a desk for a good part of the day, and I was learning a lot about my chosen field of work. I was also upset a lot.

Since then we've been busy. I'm a 31-year-old American, so I probably should be such.

Now I've forgotten what I sat down to write about. I guess that will be in #501.

Amiss

2010-02-12T10:33:00.000-05:00

I recently applied to the city of Loveland, Colorado as the computer support lead. I remember being excited because it looked as if the position description was written for me specifically. However, three or four weeks later, I got this:

Thank you for your interest in the Computer Support Technician Group Leader 112-09 position with the City of Loveland. We regret to inform you that you have not been chosen to continue in the selection process at this time.

We know that many applicants would like feedback on why their applications were screened out for further consideration. Unfortunately, due to the volume of applications we receive we are unable to respond to applicants with specific information.

Really? Screened out before the first contact? Sure, there might have been a lot of applicants with different qualifications, but I am fully qualified for the job. Not partially, not almost, but fully qualified. I could do the job in 20 hours a week. It was cake. It was also $20K more than I make now, and I wanted it. I even told them I'd pay to move out there. I will soon forget this, but right now I really want to know why I was immediately screened out.

I feel as if I've been lied to, and it hurts. Thanks, Loveland, for outsourcing your HR tools and ignoring qualified people. I wish you the best.

Dot4usb.sys

2010-02-12T08:55:00.001-05:00

I just had an issue yesterday that had me pounding out searches and wizards, trying to figure out how to get some driver files from a Windows XP CD. It wasn't actually getting them from the CD, but I couldn't figure out where on the disc the files were. Here's my story, and I hope it helps someone:

The Problem:
I was trying to install an HP LaserJet 1200 on a Windows XP Pro laptop via USB. No problem, right? I've never had trouble before. However, this XP install didn't seem complete because when I put my USB flash drive in, it went through the Add Hardware Wizard. That almost never happens, especially with XP.

Installing the printer seemed easy enough, but when it came time to copy the driver files to C:\WINDOWS\system32\drivers, it asked for the XP installation CD. I finally got around to bringing a CD, and when I popped it in at the requested time, the installation still didn't find Dot4usb.sys. Time for Google.

The Solution:
Google showed me a few sites that discussed the problem, and one site pointed to a download site to simply get Dot4usb.sys so we could just finish up and go home. Turns out that the site wanted $19.99 for it. What a racket! More Google, please...

I finally stumbled upon some other post somewhere else that led me to believe the file I was looking for was actually in a cabinet file within the I386 folder on the CD. I recall having looked in there before, so here we go...

Dot4usb.sys actually exists on the CD at \I386\DRIVER.CAB. It's on every damn XP, Vista, Server 2003, and probably Windows 7 installation disc. I extracted the file and another one I figured I needed, and all was well. And to think someone wanted $20 for a free system file.

Also, the thread that lead me to the $20 site was on experts-exchange.com. That is surprising because Experts Exchange is usually a very reputable site. I think I found my real answer at tomshardware.com, another very good resource.

I hope that this post, in the archive, can help someone solve a similar problem, or at least remind them that XP might not look in DRIVER.CAB for something that it should otherwise know is there.

Studying for the Good of the Land

2010-02-10T23:37:00.000-05:00

So I'm in the shop tonight, installing WinServer2K3 to practice on. I want to be able to test for 70-290 in two weeks. Mark my words.

I really should have done the MCSE a very long time ago, but things happen - you know? Moving, college, kids, house, had-to-get-a-real-job, etc. Now I have decided to curb all of my small dreams and get back to what I really need to be doing - advancing my career. This state job isn't going anywhere. That's no one's fault, really - there's just nowhere to move up to. The state decided to privatize IT, the very place I had my sights on. So any job I might have been looking to score just disappeared June 1, 2009.

There is only one person above me and I'll never have his job. He's no longer a techie - it's a political thing now. I simply have to move on to better things. I'm not going to pay the bills brewing beer, creating Android apps, developing super-duper web apps, recycling bicycles, or consulting on the side, so I have to go back to school. The Rehberg Technology Institute, I like to call it. Right out in the back yard. And sometimes at the kitchen table.

My goal: to become the CIO in a large firm. It has to start sometime.

I'm Back.

2010-02-10T19:49:00.001-05:00

So there's another way to publish to Blogger, and I guess I'll keep it. I had to switch a few things (actually WAY more than a few), but I have a whole lot more time to get things worked out. Stay tuned.

The blog feed is now http://feeds.feedburner.com/BenRehberg if you're interested in subscribing.

Running Events Calendar

2010-01-26T17:05:00.000-05:00

I have published a new calendar today to remind myself of the running events in the area. I have placed 26 events that will occur after today. At an average $15 per event, I had better start pushing for a raise. Let's see that figure in writing: $390. Actually, that's not as much as I thought I spent every year. Anyway, get over to benrehberg.com/running to see the events I've put on there. If there is an event you want put on the calendar (because I can't ever find them all), get me the details. Some folks rely on a single source for their information; I suffered from that last year. If you want to participate in a run every Saturday and holiday, you should look around for more events and probably venture further. That's why I made this calendar public.

Enjoy!

New Year, New Rant (Actually, Old Rant)

2010-01-13T00:07:00.000-05:00

I got a card in the mail the week after Christmas inviting me to the Adel/Cook County Chamber of Commerce Annual Dinner. I've never been, but it's every January, it's $25/head, and it's usually pretty lame. This year it's in the High School Cafeteria. That about says it.

I got another card last week telling me that the deadline for RSVP to this event was extended to the 8th of January. The date doesn't matter, it's the fact that they can't find anyone to attend. The reason for the extension was that the Chamber couldn't get their shit together in time to send the original invites out.

I learned later that the President of the Chamber of Commerce, after holding the position for less than one year, had resigned. I knew instantly why she did such a thing.

The board sucks. I'm sorry if you're on the board at the Chamber of Commerce in Adel, but the board sucks. For several reasons. However, I can only name two.

1. The board is slow at making decisions. I know this because I, along with a few other businesses in Adel, submitted a quote for a website redesign in JUNE 2009. Nothing has been changed as of yet. Last word is that they have formed a committee to look in to it.

2. The president of the chamber has no power. I offered backup services (badly needed) for about $17 per month, and the president simply said she'd have to get approval from the board. WHAT THE HELL? What exactly does the President of the Chamber of Commerce get to do?

That's not my decision to make.

Anyway, I'm not going to the dinner. Mostly because I don't have the $50 to pay for myself and my wife, and I don't want to leave the kids with anyone else. And because I don't like anything that happens in a high school cafeteria.

I just wanted to express my opinion on a local issue. Also, the local "legal organ," A.K.A. the newspaper, or the Adel Tribune, is garbage. There is no progressive news in there. Just police reports, forclosures, and poorly-written reports and op-eds. Don't waste your money. I could get so much more done passing a letter-size piece of paper around every week.

Can you believe they wanted me to pay to put a computer help column in? Well, I didn't have to pay, but I would have to get the column sponsored. How about "your paying subscribers sponsor the column?" No. Maybe I'll publish my own newsletter, then.

[Disclaimer: Ben has been drinking. Ignore errors in type. There are no errors in judgment.]

2000 to 2010 - from WiFi to Who Cares

2010-01-12T23:34:00.000-05:00

I just looked down at the time on my computer and noticed that 2010 looks a whole lot different from the number 2009. It kinda sticks out.

I began to think about how I was living in 2000. I was in the barracks on Fort Carson until July that year, then I got married and we got a crappy little apartment. I was setting up the only computer I had at the time with Windows 2000, and I was loving the new (to me) operating system. Wireless networks didn't exist. 802.11 was completely unknown to me. In fact, I had never had broadband access, and didn't until sometime in 2001.

I had a 17" CRT monitor and a 350MHz Athlon processor. It was fast enough. It wasn't just something I had, though - no computer was back then. It was installed. It had its own room. Not like the huge mainframes you see in black and white pictures, but back in '00 my computer deserved a desk with speakers, printer, and a scanner. Plus a telephone cord leading to it all.

Jump to 2003, when I got my first laptop. This new wireless thing was catching on, and I paid $120 for an 802.11g router from Dell with my computer order. The laptop had a PC card for the WiFi (it was just before they began building it in) and I was amazed at it. Finally - no wires. I remember running outside the apartment to put my computer on the hood of my truck to test the range. What a night!

Jump to 2010, and I find myself standing at the kitchen counter in my slippers, blogging away. There is no desktop or laptop plugged in to the network. We simply don't need it. WiFi has become so prevalent that we don't even wonder about it anymore. Where was I going with this?

That's it - I'm on one of two computers in the house (besides the Windows Home Server) and neither one of them are installed. This notebook I'm on now goes with me everywhere, and I don't ever think about my connection anymore. I'm just in the kitchen at the moment.

That statement is to remind me of where I was at the beginning of 2010, so I can look it up in the beginning of 2020 for comparison. I really do wonder where computing is headed. I think it starts somewhere around here.

More Infrastructure Ignorance

2010-01-05T16:36:00.001-05:00

Here we are. Twenty-ten. No flying cars yet.1 Nothing special to mention. I am, however, writing to fuss again about the contractors at work.

Disclaimer: I am about to go on a rant about something I am only assuming, but my hunch tells me it's real. That's why I'm here.

So this company that is responsible for uptime and such on our servers isn't very efficient. Today I got word that one of our servers was down. That wouldn't be so bad today except for the fact that this was about the fifth time in two months that service had been interrupted. The server got back up within about three hours or so, and all the while I have no idea why it even went down in the first place. I am definitely a concerned party, yet IBM doesn't have any way to let me in on the conversation. That's for another rant.

This server in question has been down a lot lately. I understand that one of the outages was a critical hard drive failure, and those things happen. Five times in eight weeks is not a good record. My question is whether IBM is tracking this server and noticing any trends. I also want to know why they depend on my users calling the help desk to know when something's wrong. I believe that a good directory services implementation should be able to monitor its servers. Someone should be banging away at a terminal on the server before someone on-site calls the help desk.

But it's only 2010. We can't expect ourselves to employ all the technology available yet, can we?

1. I know we have flying cars, but they're not exactly as prolific as the Civic, are they?

[Agency] is Hosed and Everybody is a Victim

2009-12-17T06:31:00.000-05:00

So I have this problem at work. I am an IT consultant (of some sort) and operate in the interest of my organization. IT for the entire state has been privatized, all IT personnel have been taken on by the contracting companies, and I am left as a state employee - the guy on the inside. I now find myself in a defensive position - we fight constantly with the contractor about service levels, response times, help desk attitude, consistency in practices, communication, and worst of all - IT best practices.

I have this thing now that I might become known widely for. Let me explain:

I handle issues for about 20 sites. 19 of those sites have their own server, which the workers log in to every morning. It handles directory services and network storage. Without this, well - I won't discuss client/server architecture vs. peer-to-peer networking here. I'll just say that the server has to be up all the time. Wouldn't you agree? There is also a bunch of networking equipment, namely the Integrated Services Router (ISR) that handles DHCP and provides a gateway to the Internet and the virtual tunnel to the centrally-located state-operated services. I can safely assume we'd want that to stay on all the time too.

These items get their power through an Uninterruptible Power Supply (UPS) so if the power blinks for three seconds or is out for five minutes, the server and network systems do not shut down or have to reset. Zero network interruption - everything goes back to normal when the power comes back on. Computers boot up and everything is available.

Our UPS devices are over five years old. We all know from our iPod experiences that batteries don't last forever, and at least three of the 19 that are in place have gone bad. The technician from the multi-billion-dollar company came out to look at it and said "Your UPS is bad." The conversation went like this:

Me: "Okay. When are you going to bring a new one?"
Tech: "Uh... I don't know. We don't know who's going to pay for it."
Me: "I'm sorry?"
Tech: "Yeah... There's some confusion on who is going to replace the UPS."
Me: "Why?"
Tech: "I don't know. We plugged the server into a surge protector and it's back up. Bye."

That was three months ago. After asking several people and not getting a straight answer, only "We're looking in to it..." and "[this person] agrees that [the contract] should cover it", I get a simple reply from above: "[contracting agency] flat-out states that UPS devices are not covered by [project]."

Okay. I will publicly make the assumption, given that statement, that our contracting agency does not think UPS devices are necessary. They now own the infrastructure - the servers, LAN, WAN, client systems. If they don't cover UPSs, then they don't feel that power protection is important to their systems. I am told that my sites, with their limited budget, should buy the UPS for their server. Problem is, it's not their server. It's [contracting agency]'s. Sure, it serves that office, but responsibility for uptime, service level agreements, security, and data backups of that server fall on the big (stupid) guys. Yes, I said stupid. They know not what they do. When the server goes down, and it does so weekly, no one cares that the entire office is impacted.

From what I hear, one of the services on one of the servers requires human interaction to finish the boot/startup process. I don't know this for sure because I'm never there when the power blinks, but if that is true, we have to have someone on-site to press the F1 key every time. That brings up another good point - we have storms at night. What else runs at night, you ask? The backup. What happens if the backup process is interrupted? What happens if that power failure causes hardware failure? What happens if no one knows it? There is no monitoring service - I get calls from the office saying "There's a message on the server about backup somethingoranother..." Shouldn't IT already know there's a problem? Why does our infrastructure depend so heavily on our users?

Service is interrupted too often. Sites are short-handed because there's a hiring freeze. More people need benefits these days, so enrollment in our programs is up. Efficiency in our work has never been more important, and [stupid agency] wants to bicker over a $500 device to keep the server up. Every time the power goes out (keep in mind we just went through hurricane season) the office is interrupted for at least an hour. I could go on and on about how we could virtualize the desktops and maintain our environment so much easier and operate more efficiently (and probably cheaper), but all I want today is the fucking server to stay on. Is that too much to ask?

I'll keep asking, and I'll keep writing, and maybe one day I'll get what I want. Then we might actually get what we need.

Some Advice

2009-12-07T14:17:00.000-05:00

I just read an article about Google providing public DNS servers for everyone to use. I thought, "why?" There are enough ways to provide DNS resolution, and most ISPs provide pretty good DNS service, so why would any corporation or individual need the services of Google for DNS resolution?

I still haven't answered that.

Anyway, I looked in to starting up my own internal DNS server and went looking on the boards to see how I might go about it. I was presented with a problem that most people on those boards experienced - I didn't have enough experience and didn't know what I was doing. I noticed that folks on the only site I looked on were having trouble with the little example there, and directly asked for help.

I'm not so interested anymore and I don't have the time (or the server), but if I did I wouldn't subscribe to a single post, follow examples, and ask for help directly. Some of the comments lead me to believe that the folks asking questions actually work in the IT field and can't go somewhere else to find what they need to do their job. I would recommend the following for you if you are the type of person who asks for help on free examples:

Find another example. Plenty of times I find that some dude's code is crap and another site has better examples to follow. Viewing other sources and hacking away with more information is much better than waiting for someone to answer a question about something they wrote over a year ago.

Read about the technology. If you want to set up a specific service, be it DNS, Secure FTP, CVS, or whatever, take a minute to read about the technology itself - are there standards you can learn about? Protocols? Specific requirements? If you can find out how something works, it will be easier to configure a server to do it because then you'll know what all that extra stuff in the .conf file is, and you might actually remember some of the settings if you need to change something later.

Go to the source. If it's a service on Ubuntu, there is definitely some documentation on it. In that documentation you can find out a lot of configuration information, syntax, and security practices for the service that you might not find out on Bob's FTP tutorial.

Help yourself, people. I'm glad I don't write tutorials.

I Have Two Legs

2009-12-06T10:47:00.000-05:00

I was having trouble thinking of a name for the software company under which I'll release my apps for Android. I really like Fog Creek Software, and I could only think of that genre of name. Bear Creek Software came to mind, but I don't really connect with that and it's nearly a copy. And there's already a Bear Creek Technology company somewhere and they have the domain name.

It hit me in the car last week, I think. I have been battling recently with the fact that I haven't actually produced anything - I've just talked about it. I've talked the talk. Now it's time to walk the walk, to exacerbate the cliché.

So was born Two Leg Software, where we produce software that helps folks get things done. All the apps fit the name, in a way. This might work. Everything I've thought of so far will help me my life easier, so I deem those the best apps to produce and sell.

Now that I have a name and a domain, I need someone to donate their time in to building a site there. I don't suck at web design, but I don't have the time. I'll write it out and someone else can implement it. Any takers?

Tifton Kiwanis 5K and Valdosta Winterfest 5K

2009-12-06T09:19:00.000-05:00

If they do it again next year, and I run all the time until then, I'll do it again. If I take a break, hurt myself, or stop training for any other reason, I probably will shy away from running two races in one afternoon. But I had fun and scored two t-shirts, so I can't say it was all for nothing.

I'll have to say I'm proud of myself for not walking (as I had done many times in the past) and for actually finishing the second race faster than the last time I ran that course. If I happened to tell anyone, I ran a 34:18 on July 4, 2009 and today I ran that same route in 31:00.

I only wonder how fast I'd have run it if I hadn't done the Tifton 5K. Oh, well. There's always July 4, 2010.

More New Beginnings

2009-11-24T07:28:00.005-05:00

I pre-ordered John Mayer's Battle Studies last week and got it Tuesday (release day). To make the order more fulfilling, I got a book I've been meaning to buy for some time now: Joel Spolsky's Joel on Software: And on Diverse and Occasionally Related Matters That Will Prove of Interest to Software Developers, Designers, and Managers, and to Those Who, Whether by Good Fortune or Ill Luck, Work with Them in Some Capacity, a great guide to running a software company.

I had seen the book every once-in-awhile when shopping in the programming sections of bookstores, but never really realized what it was. At the time of discovery, I would not have read it - the book is full of software project management and all that garbage related to schedules, estimates, supervision, etc.

After all the research I performed during my undergraduate studies, however, I have a renewed interest in software projects. Having learned what I did about software design (I have a degree in Information Technology with a concentration in Software Systems Engineering) I like the higher-level design and also like to code when I know what's going on. I discovered early on that coding directly from an idea in my head really results in wasting time and cognition. Even my little JavaScript project that generates MD5 and SHA1 hashes from strings took hours because I didn't have an end result in mind. That single page should have taken about 30 minutes to set up, but I admit that I was simply playing with DOM manipulation and just happened to think of something to do with it.

I have always supported design-before-build practices, and now that I have finished school I have an appreciation for the same principles applied to fabricating software. The whole management thing is interesting now; I haven't had the chance yet to "manage" formally, as long as you don't count the "Team Leader" position I had at the auto parts store just after high school. I supervised two people. Ten years later, I haven't done it since.

The most super-cool thing about creating a software company is creating something that changes the way people do things. Writing computer programs that many people use is the most powerful thing I can think of within my ability range. When I write a little ditty that saves someone 45 minutes of manually editing an Excel spreadsheet, the user shares that with someone else, and it goes down the line. I alone am able to save my current organization literally hours of time every week, with just a few lines of code. I want to do that for the public, and I want to have at least some impact on how people use computers - whether they realize they're using a computer or not.

My main development focus at this point is on Android applications (sorry, iPhone users) because the platform is so open and I can do anything within the limits of the device. I have to get it right the first time, though; the majority of folks who to post reviews about apps are not nice when they don't like the app, and don't seem to give much constructive feedback. There's a lot to learn about the Android platform and the market, but there's even more to learn about customers.

I'm off to run five miles now, in an effort to get ready for yet another one of my ideas: joining the FBI. Is that random enough for you?

Directions Please

2009-11-22T09:51:00.005-05:00

I used to have a floppy disk I used to keep ideas on. I wrote on the disk: "Ideas for my Engineering Career." I think I might have it here somewhere, but today I couldn't find it to add something to. Also, I no longer have a floppy drive.

I thought of something yesterday that might help a group of people in a certain way (the ambiguity is intentional). I just wrote a quick summary out in my Maker's Notebook instead of typing something. The project has been named Furious Plutonium (more ambiguity there. You're welcome.) Now here's the dilemma:

How will I ever remember to build a prototype or perform further work on the project? I need to conduct more research, but after that I have to get to building and tuning. I am scared now that it will fall into my personal /dev/null, where all my other projects have gone with the exception of those I completed within a number of hours one can count on a single hand.

I've been saying for years that I need a proper workshop - I have nowhere to build anything, and no tools either. Time is a rare commodity these days as well.

Blog posts are supposed to come to some conclusion or provide some kind of solution to the stated problem. I have no solutions, because I can't pinpoint the problems. This post is getting off-topic, so I'll quit.

2009 Winterfest 5K

2009-11-17T14:43:00.002-05:00

The Winterfest 5K in Valdosta will benefit Toys for Tots. The registration form was just released, and you can click here to get it.

Keep in mind that if you're crazy as I am there's another race that day in Tifton at 2:00pm, and you can finish that in time to get to the Winterfest at 4:30. Contact the Tifton Kiwanis Club for more information on that race.

30:33. Record Time.

2009-11-15T12:23:00.002-05:00

I'm no track star, but yesterday I ran the fastest 5K of my life thus far. Either it was a good lung day or it was the 15 miles I ran in the previous ten days. The running seems to help, so I'll be running for the next four days, take Friday off, and see what happens at the 5K for Missions on the 21st. Today I'll just bask in my own glory.

Blazer Corps 5K

2009-11-05T11:59:00.002-05:00

The form is here if you want it. I'll be running and I expect to get a much better time than I do on average. From my previous six 5K races, I'm averaging somewhere around 33 minutes. That's horrible, given that I need a much faster pace to join the FBI. I'm running every day until the 14th, so I'll see where that gets me.

Georgia Bike Rescue

2009-10-11T21:43:00.003-04:00

New Project: a community-based, nonprofit venture that may actually get somewhere. If I get the support it needs.

I have started Georgia Bike Rescue, a little organization (just me right now) that accepts old bicycles to make new and give away. In celebration of this first day of the organization, I swiped the first bike out of someone's trash this evening. Kinda just happened upon it.

Anyway, gabikerescue.org is up and running, complete with analytics. The Facebook page has been created but no content yet. Please become a fan if you can stand the idea.

I had been thinking about doing this for a few months now, and the time came today to start something. I know I've started a lot of things without finishing them and I will never deny that. I just think this one can continue even without me, with the help of many local supporters.

What I can imagine happening is:

I get a group of people together who like this kind of thing and feel that it would benefit the community.
We collect bikes that are donated from around the county and maybe further.
We get the good parts from the donations and make complete bicycles.
We take the bad parts to the scrap metal place to get money.
The money is used for inner tubes, cables, materials, etc.
The finished bikes are given to local charities who then choose a recipient (in December).
We do it all again the next Christmas season.

So there it is. We need some things from supporters, however. We (I) currently do not have anywhere to store the bikes or perform the work. We (I) could use some storage/work space that is at least semi-secure. I don't have any bicycle-specific tools or equipment, so those things would be nice. For now I'll try to garner support and resources from the interested people and I'll see where that gets us (me). It is hoped that I will have more to report at some point in the near future.

5K For Missions

2009-10-08T14:00:00.003-04:00

There will be a 5K race November 21 at 8 am to benefit Liz Norris on the World Race. From the form:

The World Race is an 11 month mission trip to 11 different countries. I will leave in January 2010 and return in December. I have to raise a total of $14,000. I am reaching out to the Valdosta community to help make this happen. For more information, visit liznorris.theworldrace.org.

You can get the registration form by clicking here.

St. John Road Race 2009

2009-10-08T13:31:00.003-04:00

The St. John Road Race 2009 is being held on October 31 in Valdosta. The form is available on this site. Click here.

Think Pink 5K

2009-10-08T09:55:00.002-04:00

I had some trouble finding the registration form for this one, so I'm sharing it.

Click Here. Hurry and register!

The End of the Weekend

2009-09-07T05:25:00.002-04:00

It sucks thinking about it - back to work tomorrow. Due to furloughs, I had a four-day weekend and it seemed pretty long. I thought I'd have forever to get things done, but reality is to the contrary. I'm getting ready to run the Labor Day 5K in Valdosta, and then the day is pretty much over after that.

What's worse is that I don't enjoy my job anymore. When you don't look forward to going to work or talking to people about the work, it may be time to move on. My career is at a standstill at present and has been for some time now. I'm not allowed to touch computers in fear of a contract violation (sounds like a court order, doesn't it?) and I don't manage anyone. I manage information that is painfully extracted from those who care about these things less than I do. I see the job now as a futile effort to get things done and make things right. IBM has hosed this all up and there is almost nothing else to take apart. I'll say this: it takes at least five days to install a desktop printer and there is nothing I can do to make that any faster. Everything is officiated and nothing is efficient in State Government I.T.

So I just don't like it anymore. All we've been doing for three months is bitch and moan about how IBM/Dell/AT&T have come in and screwed everything up and GTA let them do it. And nothing has happened as a result of it. We are absolutely powerless. The things we say make a whole lot of sense, but no one hears it. It's like telling the CEO that the server has a security issue, to which he replies "...hmph. We'll have to look in to that," while never making eye contact. He doesn't care what you're saying. The sun is up and people are at work, aren't they? Everything is grand!

I am beginning to feel as if I'm rambling. I am losing the organization of my thoughts and that means it's time to quit writing for now.