First day of “class”

Well today I am taking my first day of “class” online with the U o P. In 2.5years I will have a bach in IT… not bad… not bad at all and thats not even the fast track. Thankfully high school & some college took care of the first 0.5 years. God I am not looking forward to the programming units that I have to take. I know I have to take a few courses in C++ (bleh… I hated this in HS and still hate it now), C# (MS’ attempt to kick out Java… its working VERY slowly), SQL & PHP (yes combined, very odd). Hopefully I’ll get through it. Being that I am already 50% Order Desk / 50% MIS (management information systems), one day it will be 100%… who knows..

At work we shut down early as we had to run monthly sales figures and it basically requires the db to be frozen for it. I worked some in the warehouse as they were short staffed and their comps needed fixin’.

Last night Cam and I hung out. It is always great to see her. She is so pretty and a great girlfriend. I hate it when we argue and/or fight but I suppose it is healthy in any good relationship to fight. It teaches you about one another. I am more worried about the relationships that never argue. You can love only when your willing to fight for it like Romeo and Julliet. Forbidden love is like not being in love at all… a lesson I had to learn this past summer. Being with Cam I don’t have that. Sure her culture is a little different then mine, but its workable. Plus Cam and I are willing to fight for one another.

Lately I have been thinking and looking back at the fact that I was quick to judge in many of my former friendships. I hold grudges pretty long up until the point where i just stop even talking to the person completely. Thankfully I have been talking to Sarice again. Which is good because she is a great friend and during high school saved my sorry fat ass from many encouters with the evil sob named Albrecht.

Welp…

Time for me to do some relaxin’!

Yvo

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The type of hits

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Back on line….

Today I installed my alternator with my dad after spending 2 hours just trying to take out the old one. Mazda really wasn’t thinking ahead on the engineering aspect of the car, especially for those DIY’ers that are trying to perform maintainance on their own vehicle. But the alternator is in and the car doesn’t fade in and out anymore. It also seems more quiet. The only thing I need to improve is the fricking idle speed. I have got to turn that up. I’ll have to look into that. At the same time I pumped up my tires to 35psi today. My front drivers was 10psi!!! That is not a lot at all!! I also filled up my fluids so I should be okay for my business trip on Wednesday!!

Valentines & Cam’s bday is just weeks away. Unfortunately my pay day is the day after Valentines. I’ll figure it out. I want to take her something special!! Hopefully by then everything will be ok. If not… well it’ll be another lonely Valentines.

I got a new game tonight… EVE Online. I guess I will give it a whirl tomorrow. That or work more on the new EDI website. Who knows…

Welp that was it for me.

Yvo

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The weekend

No idea what I am doing this weekend. Stupid Direct Deposit doesn’t take affect until February 14th, so I have to wait… AHHHH. Anywho thought I was going to be spending with Cammy this weekend but were in a bit of a pickle right now. She can come to me though. I love her to death but she has to start take action and I am not going to be the one that always initiates. But enough about that I don’t need the entire Internet to know what we are up to.

Lately the hits on my blog have gone up tremendously. For a lot of weird reasons though. Because its a blog and search engines uses keyword technologies it picks up words like “2004 year in review” or “ganster clothing” it is kind of funny. Oh well. I’ll probably get another 10 extra hits because of the last sentence.

So I will see how the weekend develops. Tomorrow I have to put in a new alternator in my car for my big business trip on Wednesday. It is so cool… Portland’s best sushi place is 2 blocks down from my hotel plus it has a SINGLE dollar sign on Citysearch, which means its el cheapo. I am LOVING that idea.

Today I got hugely embarrased at work today. My computer skills were put to match by the experience by my boss. She is 70 something. In any case… our small HP Laserjet 1012 wasn’t working. It said on the computer it was conected to that it said that it couldn’t detect the ink cartridge (the driver’s words exactly… funny since it uses toner… anyways). I had Dee (the lady) buy new toner. I put in the new toner and it still gives the same error message. Dee comes down and take out the paper and bickers at me that I have no experience… presses the button and it works. Just shows you that I can make stupid mistakes too… however that mistake I made gave her a big confidence boost…. something I am not very happy with (no offense). Our db system in Seattle is connected to Portland and we suffer from slow downs a lot. I have already spoken to Sean in Portland we are trying to find the root of the problem as we only use 20% of our bandwidth in Seattle and Portland is at 30%. Not to mention that pings between a Seattle and Portland computer is only 12-16ms… not very much.

So Dee goes write this utterly stupid memo saying something like we have been suffering from slowdowns and it just sounded stupid. Man I was a little ticked when I read it but swallowed it. After next Wednesday it’ll be my business and I’ll tell her off if she tries to make it hers, because in the end her boss is Huck and Marty. Huck likes me and Dee will just have to deal with it. Anyways… there you have some EDI drama….

Signing off,

Yvo

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Yup I am going!!

Yup it has been confirmed. Next Wednesday I’ll be going to Portland for two days. I told people down there today and they are excited to meet me.

So the goal this weekend is to get my alternator fixed. I probably have to bum money off of Cam because I get paid on Monday and not Friday like I thought (ARGH!!!). I’ve gotten money from her in the past and I always paid her promptly back. So she knows she can rely on me.

Then I’ll be happy off driving next week down to PDX!! I’m a little nervous. Never been in Portland before really but I heard it was a cool city. I guess we shall find out. I’ll try not to speed down there because the freeway is so easy to speed on (mmmmmm SPEEEEEEDING URGES!!)

Good times I suppose… Gooooood times.

Today Cammy Cam accidentally lost my mom’s money while grocery shopping. Poor Cammy was really sad. My mom wasn’t that angry though. See if I would have done something like that my mom would STILL be yelling at me about it. Seriously…. ah the silence.

Which reminds me…. I have been slacking off on my email lately. See work email I reply almost instantously and if not I got people calling me at the good ol’ 212 (my extension) saying “Yvo do this” or “Yvo why is my printer not blah blah blah” Hopefully when I go down to Portland Sean will give me some FACTS (our system) passwords. Sean and I were talking about makes someone a good computer nerd. We came to the conclusion that a nerd can only be as good as his environment. For example… someone might install say a PCI card and install the drivers and be considered a genius. Where as others have to configure multiple servers with UNIQUE software (not like Linux or Windows or the generic db stuff like MySQL or MSSQL where the commands are WIDELY available) but rather something that not a lot of companies use like FACTS. It really depends on one’s definition. I know there are smarter people out there but in my immediate knowledge of people (I don’t know about Sean yet) I don’t know anyone that knows more then me, quite opposite… I am always answering questions for them.

Welp… that is it for now. I am going to find something useful to do.

Signing off,

Yvo

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Yay for me

Today I got to hear the good news. Huck (my boss) came up from Portland today and said that he wants me in Portland in the upcoming weeks to meet the main IT guy. He wants us to collaborate and then I will become Seattle’s main IT guy. Basically Sean (the IT guy) wants me to show the system and get familiar with it. So it is really cool that after 45 days of working here that I am already presented with the opportunity to help out more then just helping out dealers in the state with purchases. The only person who I can see having a problem with it is going to be Anna, the girl I work with at the order desk. See Anna has been working at EDI for 2 years and still earns $11 per hour. If Sean likes me I will become Seattle’s new IT guy and my pay will go from $10.50 to $15 per hour… a nice boost in pay, and more then Anna. Plus the fact that she has never been down to Portland and here I go. I know this is going to cause drama. Oh well… at least I will get to fix computers part time.

Huck’s plan is to have me do orders (my current job) 50% of the time and then MIS stuff the other 50%. Someday if Sean ever leaves I’ll be moved to PDX and I’ll be doing 100% MIS. You won’t hear me complain. For years I have been hating the people that know less then me and get jobs in fixing comptuers or have the hookups… I finally have that opportunity. Not to mention that some people I know have been taking my advice and giving it to others and not giving credit where its due.

Anywho… I am excited at this opportunity and I am glad that this is going into the right direction.

Things are really going well for my life, much better then I’d ever hoped. Maybe there is a good as I started believing again this past summer. Some things just don’t make sense that there isn’t a god. Sure a lot can be explained by science, but some things just can’t.

For example (and I don’t mean to be harsh or racist at all) the news said the other day that the area the Indian Ocean Tsunami hit are mostly populated by Buddhists and Asian religions however they are finding out that the most deaths are those of the Muslim religion. Now lets be frank but we all know that the representatives of the Muslim religions haven’t been doing a great job of making their religion look peachy. Like what the Black Plague did to the Europeans (christianity) in the Dark Ages when that religion wasn’t all that peachy… a natural occuring tsunami is doing to the Muslims. Again the tsunami can be explained by science saying it was caused by an earthquake which caused the wave, which is all true… but sometimes there could be an underlying message.

Oh well… I’m just rambling…

Time for me to head off and watch the season finale of Battlestar Galactica!!!

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Addendum to last post….

Didn’t mean to sound cocky about the helping out thing… just seemed like Casey thought it was somethign way worse then what it was. I probably would have done the same thing. It is amazing that the problem can sometimes be easier then it is.

Anywho… other then that… I heard that Modest Mouse is playing in Seattle in March and tickets are only 25.25… I’m SOOOO excited!!! WOOHOO!!

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A new PC

Yup we got a new computer today. My dad has been getting into video editing and wanted his own comp. So we got a nice one too for a whopping $490 @ Fry’s. Seriously cheapness!! A combo for an ECS / P4 3.0 NORTHWOOD, not presshit, only $169. Cheaper then what is found online. Then some memory for $59 (512MB, Kingston), 200GB HD 7200RPM retail for $89 and we were almost done. Seriously a good deal. Brings the count of computers to 4, all over 1.7GHz as well. My laptop is at 1.7Ghz, but its a centrino so in reality its faster then a 1.7ghz P4 or Athlon…

Kind of scary… we have more working computers then people and I know I am getting a mac mini too soon, that will bump it to 6 computers plus when my bro comes home for the summer we will have 7… scary shit really.

Computers that we have from fastest to slowest.
Yvo’s main rig = P4 3.4ghz / 1gb ram / 300gb hard drives / ati radeon 9800xt / 2x DVD burners

Dad’s MM rig = P4 3.0ghz / 512mb ram / 200gb hard drive / nvidia fx5700 / 1x DVD burner

Amy’s rig = P4 2.8ghz / 512mb ram / 220gb hard drives / nvidia fx5700 / 1x DVD burner, 1x CD burner

Mom’s rig = P4 2.6ghz / 512mb ram / 120gb hard drive / ati radeon 9200 / 1x CD burner

Yvo’s portable rig = Centrino 1.7ghz / 512mb ram / 60gb hard drive / ati radeon 9200 / 1x DVD+R burner

I have numorous computers on my room too but they are below 1ghz and they aren’t used as frequently.

In other news… I am a nice guy I suppose. Apparently one of my former friends was having website probs… spent about 5 minutes looking into the problem and got it fixed. Whoever was helping her wasn’t really doing a good job at fixing the problem… ever heard of connecting to cpanel (port 2082 people) and checking the sql username to reset the password. Anywho… I did that and updated the software to CPGnuke 9.0.

All in a good day’s work I suppose.

Signing off,

Yvo

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So say we all…

In December of 2003 a miniseries named Battlestar Galactica aired on good ol’ Scifi. This series had a lot of doubt as it was a reconceptilization of the original Battlestar Galactica (referred to hereon as BSG) which ran in 1978. It did well for its time but ABC (which was the channel it ran on) cancelled its series as 1. It had a lawsuit pending as George Lucas claimed it stole ideas from Star Wars, something that was dismissed in 1980 2. It cost ABC a million to produce each episode, which was a lot back then. However it created a huge fan base. A fan base that wasn’t too happy with the remake. However it turned out for the better. The ratings were very well back in December 03, especially for Scifi. It was cable’s most watched miniseries after Taken (another Scifi series). Not to mention that it was two Oscar nominated actors in the series.

Well last week the series (to the miniseries) premiered in the US with very well ratings and yesterday’s show did well as well. However this year is a little weird as the UK has been airing scifi shows in advance to those in the US, which means they are ahead 10-12 episodes. Thats because this year the networks are trying something new. This year they have two shows sharing the time slot. However the first part of the season they have one show running w/o any repeat shows and then the second show the second half of the season. Pretty cool but because of that BSG is basically almost over in the UK (one more ep left, which airs this Monday on SKYone, a channel that is available on Dish!).

Anyways… the show it self is awesome. Unlike Star trek, which I never really cared for that much and Stargate, this show is more appealing as it has less technobabble like the aformented shows. They show the human side of characters and each character has flaws. No one is perfect like it always seems on Star trek or SG-1 where they always find solutions to this. Plus sometimes the characters on those shows feel like plastic, in BSG you really feel for some of them. The only antogonist/protagonist that exists is that its Humans vs Cylons (AI gone wrong really) but there in lie a lot of levels. Its difficult to explain… watch the show I suppose. Now this show isn’t necessarily played in the future as it isn’t even set on our lovely planet Earth. It is set in a Galaxy far far away. Now there goal is to go to Earth, however you have to watch the show to find that one out.

So if you ever run across the miniseries at Blockbuster / Netflix / Hollywood… rent it. Or if your bored at night on a Friday… see it on Scifi at 10pm or 1am.

That is all for now…..

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Time to update

Time to update my blog again. This time I am doing it from work. It is super slow right now and I figured its a good time to update. I really am not doing anything right now.

Cam and I have been hanging out a lot lately. Well she really has been sleeping over a lot. I love it when she sleeps over. Even though we can have our petty arguments which in the end it turns out ok. I think I would be more worried if she always agreed with me, because then she just doesn’t care.

So yeah like I said… work has been pretty relaxing. It is 11:25 right now and I have maybe 10 accounts today. I like it like this. Just surfing the web. Talked to Sam today. Hadn’t talked to her in a while and figured I should. Cam also told me something that (no offense) I had to laugh about.

Apparently Ashraf has the likes for Breanne. God bless you Ashraf. While Breanne may be a good person, her family has major problems no matter what guy she goes out with. So Ashraf… good luck… because in all honesty you will need it. You have no idea what your getting yourself into. But who knows… maybe you will be more succesful at it then I was (and more patient).

Anyways… life is good and hopefully everyone is doing well too.

Signing off,

Yvo

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