What’s the Dabble Dee?

Posted on January 4, 2008 by Casey

So I’m in a quandry.

I received a $50 Amazon gift card (Thanks Jim and Deb) but I have a list of things that I want.

  1. New laptop hard drive for my old Dell Inspirion 600m (old one died, and more later)
  2. A Nvidia 8600GT – I purchased Team Fortress 2 over Steam, but the crappy video card in my desktop (Quadro FX 560) has shitty shitty performance.
  3. 4-8 GB USB Thumb Drive – just cause bigger is better.
  4. Planet Earth HD-DVD – although I’m fairly convinced that Blu-Ray is going to come out on top and all money I dump into HD-DVDs is probably going to be wasted in a year.

So of this exact moment since I don’t like brining my work laptop down from the office (cause I will end up working), I cracked open the old Dell and made sure it was the HDD that was bad. Sure enough the 80GB drive that came with it nearly 3yrs ago was certainly dead. So I thought I would use a Ubuntu LiveCD to browse the internet, IM etc. Well that didn’t work real well, so I found a good article on installing Ubuntu to a USB Thumb Drive.

So now I’m running Ubuntu on a 1.6Ghz 768MB Dell with no HDD, and its all running off my 2GB Thumb Drive. Not a bad setup really. Now if I could only get my wireless to work. It probably will after I download some INF files.

Did I mention we made it back from Austin…  I want to thank Justin and Robin again for putting up with us for nearly a week.  We had a great time and I’m fairly certain Kelly has a metric pantload of pictures.

Just in case nobody has seen the most recent update of the Beasite Boys Sabotage  check out this clip:

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LIlNKPFPTUU]

I will have to assume that link worked for now because installing Flash on Linux pretty much takes the slaughtering of a goat or two.

Once again we had a great time, hopefully we can visit again soon.

I’m really hoping that Kelly and I can get caught up on Heroes this weekend, we don’t have that much planned.  Although I do believe that I’m playing some Frisbee Golf tomorrow morning sometime.

Almost forgot… since the holidays I have put on a little more weight then I would have liked (not to mention the 20+ pounds since we have been back in CO) I’m back on the Calorie-Count regime. Hopefully I can lose some of the weight by our trip to Europe in the Summer.

Ok its time for bed now, perhaps I can get my act together long enough tomorrow  to upload the remaining videos that I have.  I took one short one of Team Fortress 2 freaking out on me.

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The Good Kids!

Posted on December 28, 2007 by Casey

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Iw5GC_8ZBMw]

Here are the three good kids, Stoli is behind the baby gates in the kitchen.  She is being a goon which comes as no surprise really she is just like her parents… antisocial.

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We have arrived!

Posted on December 28, 2007 by admin

After quite a journey yesterday we have arrived in
Austin.  I think Kelly said 15 hours or so, I don’t really
remember.  Stoli was being a complete goon to Justin and Robin’s
puppies last night, I hope she was just being cranky from being in the FX a=
ll
day long.  Of course last night Stoli didn’t sleep at all, and
instead decided to lean up next to me and pant all night.  Ugh.  =
So I’m
dead tired right now.

 

On the agenda for today is to finish up some lingering=
work
that needs to be done to finalize the project James and I have been working
on.  James worked his ass off yesterday after we took a nice ass rippi=
ng
from our new boss.  So we are determined to get this done, as mostly a=
“fuck
you� for the way he acted yesterday.

 

/sigh.

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Merry Christmas to All…

Posted on December 25, 2007 by Kelly

We just got home from another great Christmas! This is our first Christmas without Tasha and while it is bittersweet, we do feel blessed with the family and friends that we do have. We ended up with a smorgasboard of tasty foods and now are so full we don’t know what to do with ourselves. It feels like its already time for bed…We hope everyone had a vey Merry Christmas – we love you all!

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Merry Christmas

Posted on December 25, 2007 by Casey

Brrrrrr its cold outside right now and the wind is gusting 30+mph right now.  We are just getting ready to head over to Kelly’s folks house with our feast.  Prime-rib, Cheese fondue, rice dressing, green bean casserole, and the list goes on.

Before we reach our destination today we have to swing by the data center and replace a hard drive in one of our production servers.  Hopefully nothing else breaks today, or the remainder of the week as I don’t really want to have to go in again.

Ok, off to make some coffee, and find some leftovers for breakfast.  More later.

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Pictures!

Posted on December 20, 2007 by Casey

This is exactly how I feel about winter right now.

My next Halloween costume.

The Dude abides.

The irony.

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ITO = In The Office.

Posted on December 20, 2007 by Casey

So I actually had to come to work for a bit today.  We are trying to wrap up all of our loose ends when it comes to building this new customer environment.  This included configuring a Brocade fibre channel switch (its fibre not fiber), and our backup LAN configuration.

I also have my annual review today with my current boss.  HP is in the midst of a complete reorganization for the  Technical Services division so nearly everyone is getting a new manager and a pay cut.  Huzzah.

Change

That is pretty accurate.  My only hope is that I can get a promotion in the New Year to hopefully even out the pay loss that everyone is taking.  /sigh.

Well I’m still running Vista on both my work laptop and my personal desktop.  I’m quite angry about Vista and it not letting me control the fan settings on my laptop.  The fan hasn’t turned off once since I installed it, and its driving me insane.  To make matters worse my laptop has a BIOS password that nobody seems to know.

I have been getting pressured by folks to start playing World of Warcraft again, but I don’t think I can go back to it.  I rather enjoy just sitting down and playing some XBox for a bit, then going to bed early.  Perhaps when the new expansion comes out sometime next year I will pick it up briefly, but I can’t go back to the way I played before.  The game is quite addictive, but after years of playing it, it felt more like another job then a game.

Phhhhhhfffftttttttttttt!!!!! <with thumbs in ears and hands waving>

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Randi’s here!!!

Posted on December 20, 2007 by Kelly

Yesterday afternoon Randi and her family (Chris, Carlee, Alex, and Owen) got into town! I drove out to here sister’s house in Peyton to visit for awhile with everyone and see the new baby, Owen, who was born in October. I forgot to bring the camera with me over to Cassi’s house but did take a few pics at Texas Roadhouse after we ate. Hopefully I’ll be able to get more pictures of everyone next time we see them.

no images were found

Before meeting up with Randi, Casey finished assembling the chairs for our dining room set. They were already partially assembled as of Sunday but we didn’t have a screwdriver long enough so were waiting to pick one up from Lowe’s before we finished up. The table isn’t assembled yet because there’s no way we could put the table together in the basement (where we’re staining) and get it up the narrow stairs without messing it up. I did a second coat of stain on everything yesterday but the color still isn’t quite as dark as I want. So now I’m most likely going to pray that I have enough time to get a third coat on and on the underside of the table before we polyurethane everything and then hope everything is dried by Christmas Eve dinner. I’ll post before and after pictures once its all done and brought upstairs.

I have yet another interview today. This one is for an IRB Specialist at Memorial Hospital. Now I don’t remember when I applied for this job so I have no idea what this position is even for. When the person from HR called yesterday I asked if the req was still posted and she said it wasn’t but that it was only a blurb on the website anyway so she would give me a full job description when I came in. Still no call back on any of the other three jobs which I would most likely rather have than what I’m interviewing for today. So I sit here on pins and needles anxiously awaiting to hear *something* from *somebody*.

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Slacking

Posted on December 18, 2007 by Casey

Have been slacking on posting over the last few days.  Have been busy / depressed about work as of late, but hopefully some resolution will be forthcoming.

I’m trying to get Blackberry Enterprise Server installed in the new environment, but SQL is giving me hassles.  Hopefully a round of reboots will correct any the issues.

We are leaving for Vegas in a week or so, don’t really recall the date, but the break from work will be great.  Plus hanging out with Joe is always a blast.  Hopefully we will get to see the UFC fight while we are there.  I have been wondering if Mandalay Bay puts a blackout on the PPV fight to the other casinos.  I’m hoping that we can hang out in the Caesars or perhaps the PH sports book to get drinks and watch it.

Guess its time for bed.  Not much to say I guess.

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Already?

Posted on December 18, 2007 by Kelly

Ten days without posting really crept up on me. I’m making sure to post today so the hiatus doesn’t continue on any longer.

I honestly have no idea what is going on and why all of a sudden I’ve got all these interviews. I’m not complaining or anything but its been months with no interviews and during the holiday season I’m suddenly being contacted so it’s kind of strange. Last Monday, I had my interview at ITT AES. I arrived early and was able to catch up with my old coworker, Martha, before going in. I thought the interview went really well but here its been eight days and I haven’t heard anything. A time table for deciding wasn’t given to me either so either they’ve decided to pursue other applicant’s or they just aren’t moving very quickly. Tuesday I had a phone interview with HDI (a lot of three letter companies) which I thought I had bombed. I was only on the phone for about 10 minutes and I just didn’t feel like I was providing the answers I would have liked to. Did I mention I hate interviewing? HDI ended up calling me back and I had an interview with them yesterday and again I thought things went really well. I was mostly happy with the answers I was providing and the position sounds like it’d be a lot of fun. With this position, they’re supposed to let me know either way by the end of the week and the final contestants will go for a second round of interviews before starting in the new year. Rewind back to Friday and I had an interview with the local Fox and CW affiliate (both stations are in the same building). I’m thinking I was the first of the interviews (mine was at 9:30) and the manager said he had eight to do but that he would be calling for a second interview some time this week from his final candidates. I was pretty happy with my performance and think I might have even gotten some brownie points by knowing how the CW was created. The guy was off yesterday but said would be reviewing things today and scheduling second interviews for this week and extending an offer on Friday. I’m just happy I don’t have to get my hopes up for one job and then not have anything else for months. At least there’s a greater chance I’ll get *something* from all of this stress.

I was waiting for Casey to post his review of ‘I am Legend’ before I said anything as I’m not the greatest at writing film reviews but I’ll give it a shot and take it for what you will. I haven’t read the book or the graphic novel like Casey has so my opinion is based solely on the movie. Casey did say that the only two things that are the same between the book and the movie are the title of the film and the main characters name. The set design was remarkable and Will Smith’s intensity in this performance really impressed me. It was very entertaining and I thoroughly enjoyed the first 2/3 of it. The last third of the movie you just have to go with. It didn’t seem cohesive and felt like everything needed to be wrapped up just so, no matter how plausible it might be.

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