Wednesday, June 29, 2005

I lost a friend tonight

Dezi and I took my cat Oreo to the emergency vet tonight, but we didn't bring him home. We told the vet that he was his actual age of 4.5 years, but the vet came back and said his system had been ravaged and he appeared to be closer to 10-12 years old. Oreo had lived a rough life. He was well acquainted with the vets office and even came home wearing an alien costume that consisted of a cone around his neck and the whole back half of his body being shaved. I made the decision to let them put him down instead of prolonging what I perceived to be his torment. I hate that the doctor said that was a logical decision.

Oreo was a good cat. He was the brains in my Pinky and the Brain operation. He's the only cat I know that would drink out of the toilet. He managed to figure out all the little tricks and then teach them to Ash. I'm sure it was only a matter of time before they succeeded in taking over the world. I'm sorry that he had to go, but I'm happy he'll be in a better place. God speed my little friend. I hope you continue to wreak havoc in heaven.

11:18 PM Posted by Big Dave | 2 Thoughts

Monday, June 27, 2005

I hate Mondays

It's days like today that make me hate Mondays. I've been going nuts with network problems since I got here. And I love the customer service we get when we call our ISP. (Since sarcasm doesn't translate very well into written word I'll inform you that the last statement was dripping with disdain.)

We had a lot of fun this weekend. Thank you to George and Clayton for coming this weekend. And a special thanks to Josh for organizing it. I have to admit I was completely along for the ride. I usually plan and gather people for most camping trips I've been on, but I had nothing to do with this one. It was an odd feeling.

It was an eventful weekend. We didn't take anything seriously. Much less ourselves. Tubing was a lot of fun, but a tree ate my tube early on the first set of "rapids" and I had to float down the rest of the way on my back. Let me say three rocks right on your rear end hurt. I traded with Clayton who took the tube we were using for cokes and things. Somehow I managed to puncture that tube and it started deflating rather rapidly. Josh and I switched and at one point he was barely floating in his tube. We reached a halfway point where we could switch tubes with people going back early and continue on our way.

After tubing we went to our campsite to set up. Even though Josh had made reservations and confirmed those reservations, they didn't have any room for us when we got there. We made one of the other groups make room for us and we took a barren little corner of land where we could set up a tent and have a little room to sit and talk.

With the campsite set up we made our way into Gruene and ate at the Gristmill. When we arrived and were told there would be an hour wait I was surprised, but the hour passed rapidly since they had live music and we ordered something to drink and some chips and queso. Right at an hour we were escorted to our table. George, Clayton, and I all ordered the chicken fried steak. I judge restaurants by the quality of their chicken fried steak and I would give the Gristmill a fair rating. We sat by the windows overlooking the Guadalupe. At one point I saw a raccoon climb down out of the tree maybe a dozen yards in front of me.

We talked about going to Gruene Hall and checking out the band, but I think we were all exhausted. We made our way back to camp where we stayed up for a little bit longer, but we all succumbed to the sound of the river and fell asleep pretty quickly. It was a perfect night for camping and I even had to climb inside my sleeping bag at one point.

The next morning we packed up and headed to IHOP for breakfast. The whole weekend was a nice change of pace. I got frustrated and annoyed before we went, but the whole weekend was just about as nice as it could be.

I decided that if I ever am at a point where I want to switch careers I might go down to New Braunsfels and open up a bed and breakfast. Dezi can be the greater and I'd cook. Wouldn't that be fun.

2:17 PM Posted by Big Dave | 0 Thoughts

Wednesday, June 22, 2005

Anyone for tubing

Anyone want to go to Gruene and go tubing with us this weekend?

My buddy Josh and I are still talking about going tubing down the Guadalupe this weekend even though all my other buddies have punked out. It was originally supposed to be a number of my guy friends going down and having a good time and hanging out. Since I didn't want to do the typical stipper thing, this was going to be my Bachelor party. However everyone is either doing something else or hasn't responded. While I understand we all lead busy lives I have to admit I'm disappointed no one else is going to come.

1:48 AM Posted by Big Dave | 1 Thoughts

Tuesday, June 21, 2005

Don't make yourself a target when you're wrong

I have discovered something new about myself. I love to argue. More to the point I love to argue when I'm right.

Ok, so that part isn't exactly news, but this part is. Arguing makes me feel better. Even when I'm not directly interacting with a person.

I came home tonight to find a late payment notice on my door for the utilities that my apartment is supposed to pay when I pay them. Well I paid them, but they didn't pay the bills and I got the notice.

Well needless to say I wrote a bittersweet letter to the managemetn of my apartment complex in which I included images of the checks with the memo to direct the remaining funds to the utilities. Since I have to be at work before the office opens I found their fax number and faxed all the information to them.

I included all the evidence to rub their noses in it like a bad puppy. I'm sure they will say I didn't do something quite right, but for the time being I'm quite pleased with myself.

Now I think I will go kill some aliens on the Xbox.

9:08 PM Posted by Big Dave | 0 Thoughts

Wednesday, June 15, 2005

Catching up

So much has happened over the last month that it would be really hard to catch up on it all. I've been working some nuts hours and when I go home I usually don't want to sit and type at a computer.

Brief Highlights:

Memorial day weekend Jenni and Mike invited a bunch of us over for a Luau. Dezi looked very cute in her bikini and grass skirt. Saw a lot of friends I hadn't seen in a while and played water volleyball until I was too pruny to play any more.

The weekend of June 3-4 I worked all weekend. We changed our production environment from Windows to Linux (Fedora Core 3). This includes changing an application server, a web server, 2 database servers and an ftp server to Linux. Each and every on of the servers gave us a hard time. Three of us worked from 8:00 Friday morning to 8:30 Saturday night non-stop. At one point we had given up, but we decided an act of God made two of the computers start to work for us.

That weekend was particularly frustrating because my mom, brother and his wife Sam were all in town and I didn't get to see them. Fortunately I get a second chance this weekend.

I took last Monday and the previous Friday off. Dezi and I had plotted and schemed about where we would go and what we would do. In the end neither of us had the energy to plan an excursion so we just enjoyed quite time. One of the few remaining opportunities before the wedding.

However relaxing does not mean I won't go buy myself a new toy. I bought a DVD burner and connected a computer to the TV in the living room. I now have a ghetto media center. I'll put all my mp3's on that computer and connect to my PVR to watch shows. I tried out the DVD burner, but I don't know that I'm as impressed as I wanted to be. I'm sure I'll use it, but just not sure how much. For some reason it took 4 hours to burn 2 TV shows to a DVD. Seems a little long to me.

I think I'm getting the hang of being a manager. A large part of it is that we've really worked hard to get our tasks under control. Things will still blow up every now and then, but I'm learning where and when to push back on some of the requests. The guys that are reporting to me work very hard and I really appreciate it. It makes my job easy when they do theirs so well.

Across from the new office is an LA Fitness center. I joined as part of my work benefits and have been trying to get over there at least twice a week. I'm still doing Jiu-Jitsu on Monday's but I've added the kick boxing class on Wednesdays as well. Dezi says she can tell a difference, but I'm waiting on the scale to tell me something positive. It's not that Dezi would lie, but I like to have definitive proof for myself.

7:40 AM Posted by Big Dave | 0 Thoughts