What a BuzzKill

As I’ve mentioned before, I don’t take many photos of people. So today I decided to try a natural photo of my buddy, Nam.

Nam is the other tech at the company I work for. Like me, he’s almost entirely self-taught. He grew up in Vietnam and moved to the U.S.A. as an adult. His accent is pretty thick, but he works hard to correctly pronounce words so he’s clearly understood. He’s a great guy to work with and smart as hell - not to mention having a sharp sense of humor.

He was a bit reluctant to allow me to take his picture; knowing that I’d be posting it here. But he relented after I promised that I’d delete the photo if he didn’t like it. Apparently he did.

_{This entry thinks people photography isn’t as scary anymore.}

I’m writing this while working for a client. Right now I’m at a repetitive part of the project, which is the imaging of their computers from a snapshot of the first computer that I configured this morning.

The most exciting thing to happen today was the 5.4 magnitude earthquake, centered just 5-6 miles from where I’m working. The people working here have just now calmed down enough to not talk about it over and over again.

Today would have been quite frustrating had I not discovered an open wireless connection available from somewhere nearby. I’ve caught up on all the reading I missed lately, checked out some pictures from friends, and read some interesting articles.

The fun part about all of this is that I’ve been using the George Costanza method of looking busy: appear annoyed. So here I sit, typing away on my computer with a slightly furrowed brow and trying my best to appear focused on something important and a little irritating. Nobody has bugged me for 2 hours so far, which helps me get the project done without hassle and also get some personal enjoyment while I’m at it.

_{This entry likes to whistle while he works.}

My coworker, Rachel, has a blog. She’s been getting into site stats and how well her site ranks on various search engines and social bookmarking sites. She just ran up to me, excited as all get out, exclaiming:

“I’m ranked 4th for ‘I hate dog shit!’”

I, on the other hand, seem to have a rather different view of the metrics that indicate the success of a website. Not that I’m saying my site is any indication of success.

_{This entry wears underwear.}

This is an actual email from one of my personal clients:

“I only use outlook for my calendar on my home computer and blackberry contact info and on my current work computer (desktop that I am not going to use anymore) I used MSN email and no outlook for anything but I think I will be using that with the new laptop for email and blackberry since that is where the technology has gone. I will still have my MSN email address but using it through outlook right? All the contact info is on my home computer to load and with my MSN email addresses. I have most of them but I know this is confusing but I can sort it out with you in person.
Basically I use the following:
Home computer-I log into MSN hotmail and do emails from home-It also has my blackberry contacts through outlook that you put there from my sony clie and I can add new ones and use the calendar but I have yet to sync it to my blackberry. I just use the calendar on the blackberry itself to use the reminder and not sync it to my home computer.
Work destop (will not use anymore) has my sony clie contacts and I use the sony clie for my calendar-(will not use that anymore either I will use the outlook on the new computer) I will need to take my email addresses from MSN and put them in outlook on the new computer laptop as I will no longer be using MSN (I don’t think) and will be using outlook with the calendar and contacts.
We will get this organized and you wil see where I want to go and hopefully I am doing the right thing. To many places that I go instead of using outlook for everything and it is compatable with the blackberry. I am used to that now and it is nice but still some kinks.
See you Thurs..R”

_{This entry is still trying to recover!}

By “users” I’m talking about computer users. Not all the people I encounter are a problem, but it does seem that business owners are the worst people to help with a computer issue.

For example, I’m working on a laptop for a client who reported getting a BSOD on startup, but he could still get into Safe Mode - at which point he was bombarded with popup messages saying his computer was infected with spyware. I arrived to his office and he was positive that it was our fault, saying that we removed his antivirus program when we installed his printer. I assured him that wasn’t the case and told him about how many current spyware/adware/viruses find ways around older antivirus programs and then prevent them from working. His computer was obviously infected while he was surfing porn sites, based on the types of malware I found. His 2006 version antivirus program was powerless to prevent infection.

Another business owner had grown tired of repeatedly having to call us to resolve user-caused problems. We told him about setting up a proper client-server network environment and how it would make his systems more stable. Granted, my boss under estimated the amount of work it would take to get their systems up to snuff, but the project was all in order. After about a month of working around their staff to get the network and their workstations ready for the change, the owner started to complain about how long it was taking. It didn’t occur to him that it was taking much, much longer because I was unable to just get in there and do what I needed to do and converting one workstation at a time — with the staff member breathing down my neck and/or asking me what type of computer they should buy for their mother — wasn’t conducive of efficient work. Now that the work is done, we hardly hear a peep from them. But when there is something they need help with, the owner complains about how he spent all this money to get the system the way it is and how he can’t believe he still has to call us for help.

Then there are the loony clients. The ones that check their email using their webmail interface, flag spam items and delete them, then open Outlook to download the email - but still leaving the email on the server - and then freak out when their mailbox cap is reached, assuring us that every-single-email is of the utmost importance. These are the types that will log onto the server using the Administrator account, muck something up, then blame us for whatever went wrong. They’ll listen to us when it comes to restructuring their network to a client-server environment and when it’s all done and configured, get upset that users can’t install Incredimail, Yahoo! Instant Messenger, or Limewire on their own — and when we open access for the users to do so, they’re livid that they have all sorts of computer problems again (and after they spent all this money!). Or the bookkeeper that says, “I’m more of an IT guy than a finance guy,” then asks, “what does FTP mean?” in the same conversation — then asks us if we can give him the domain Administrator login info.

Some days the job can be frustrating, but for the most part it’s a lot of fun. It’s those 15% of users who can turn an otherwise mentally stimulating and enjoyable day into a hair-pulling day of mental anguish.

_{This entry still loves working on computers in spite of it all.}

“What? You mean you’re not going to post another video today? Are you crazy? I live for that shit!”

Sleep is just something my body knows it should do, but doesn’t really want to go about, well, yanno … actually doing … enough. I’m finding myself completely awake much later than, say, 2 weeks ago. Last night I got around 4.5 hours of sleep. What’s especially odd to me is that I’m not even tired — which is and isn’t a lie, sorta. I mean I feel like I’m not getting enough sleep, but I don’t feel tired. Does that make any sense? The night before I got about 5.5 hours of sleep.

It isn’t because I’m doing anything that would keep me up that late. I’ll stop playing Lord of the Rings Online as early as 11:00 pm and still not be able to get to sleep 2 hours later. Drinking a couple of beers will make me a little drowsy, but when I get into bed, I can’t fall asleep. There’s nothing like wanting to go to sleep, feeling like you’re going to go to sleep, but not actually falling asleep. Huh? What? Exactly.

We’ll see what happens this weekend. I don’t have anything planned (except to get rid of my cat) and Rece will be at his mother’s for the weekend, so it may be possible to get caught up on some missing rest. So my theory goes, at least.

Yep, I’m getting rid of my cat. I won’t say how, but the cat will be gone. Okay, I will say that it involves a shelter, but that’s it. My apartment smells of cat pee and I’m not happy about it at all. Didn’t she read my earlier post about restroom behavior? Stupid cat.

Work has been very busy lately, thanks to an anti-virus software roll-out project for one of our clients. They have over 120 computers that need their anti-virus software upgraded. All but about 30 of them are at remote locations, on stand-alone workstations, with staff that barely know how to right-click, let alone attempt to install software on their own — well, except for Smiley Central … they always seem to manage getting THAT piece of crap installed. Oh, lordy, lordy!

The entire process is very repetitive. We convinced the company headquarters that this was the perfect opportunity to make sure all of their computers were up to date and operating properly. So on top of the anti-virus software upgrade we’re doing updates, patches, and general system maintenance/tune-up things. The entire process is very repetitive. One of the only complaints I have is that it gets boring rather quickly to do the same process over and over again. It’s like the bottle in your shower says, “Lather. Rinse. Repeat.” except that bottles don’t talk. But some computers do (”Shall we play a game?”). The entire process is very repetitive.

So, yeah, sleep. My apartment is a complete mess right now. To see just how messy it’s become, click the webcam link to the right. Don’t forget that the username is Webcam1 and there is no password.

The web host I use to host my website, this blog, and Quinn’s blog just increased my online storage from around 175 GB to 478 GB for free. I’m trying to figure out what to do with all that space, since at this point Quinn and I have only managed to use around 0.1% of it. Online backup? Maybe. I’ll have to figure out how I can secure what I put up there before that becomes a feasible option.

Right now I’m at the office working on a client’s computer that’s hundreds of miles away. Their office is out in the boondocks, so the only Internet service they can get that’s better than dial-up is satellite. It’s pretty neat, but the latency is a bitch! I’ll click on something and it’ll take a second or two before I see that it did it (or didn’t). What typically takes around 2-3 hours to complete is looking like it’ll take 3-5 hours. The entire process is very repetitive. Hey, it’s all billed by the hour, so who am I to complain? I know my boss won’t!

The good news is that I’ll have plenty of work to do for the next couple of months. The bad news is that it’ll be a lot of the same stuff over and over again. I’m definitely going to have to get the other techs working on this project so I can change things up a bit.

Can one really be poor when they’re rich? Fuck if I know. I’m glad you asked, though.

_{This entry thinks that the entire process is very repetitive.}

Today I went to an 82 year old client’s retirement community to help him with some issues he’s been having on his computer. He was very happy to learn that he no longer needed to use AOL’s ridiculously slow software to check his email and stock portfolio (he’s loaded, btw).

On my way out, I glanced at their daily events board and had to grin …

So I guess it is true that the Nintendo Wii is enjoyed by people of all ages. That’s cool.

This entry wants to play shuffleboard on its Wii!

I just installed AOL on a client’s computer. Deliberately.

Dear God, what have I done?

This entry just threw up in its mouth … just a little.

I’ve kept this quiet for a variety of reasons, but I ended up getting laid off at the new job I found. 2 weeks after I started, they lost a major contract and the loss of it caused the owner to let 3 people go 2 weeks following the incident. Being the lowest on the totem pole, I was obviously one of them.

Luckily my friend Christine is an amazing job placement professional, so she went right to work in finding me opportunities to apply for. Less than 2 days after I was unemployed, I had a phone interview, and a day later I had an in-person interview with the same company. They put me through a test, which turned out to be ridiculously simple. I got an offer the following Tuesday, countered on Wednesday and got the job. So I was out of work for 9 days … not too shabby!

Today is my second day with this new company and I’m already contributing. We went to 3 client locations yesterday (Monday) and I ended up finding the solution to every problem we encountered. It felt good.

So now the cat is out of the bag, as they say. Moving right along …

Client quote of the week: “Norton didn’t seem to like it, so he dropped the Google!”

---

A friend of mine recently purchased herself a new camera. She’s really enjoying it and decided that her old camera needed a good home, so she emailed me and offered to let me have it. I couldn’t pass it up.It isn’t a major upgrade, since it’s the same resolution (3.2 MP), but it has a much better lens and a 10x optical zoom, plus a macro mode. I’ve only snapped a few pictures so far and they’ve turned out pretty good. We’ll see how much I can get out of it as time goes by.

This entry just keeps plodding along.

Friday was my last day at Orange County United Way. In lieu of a mushy goodbye email, I decided to send out something a little more my style. Here’s what I sent to staff:

Well as it turns out, the Simian Protection Society caught on to our recent monkey problems and have decided to press charges against us for the attempted starvation of an Internet monkey. Seeing how it was my idea in the first place, I took full responsibility. They decided that this was fair and I will now serve as their scapegoat to further their anti-broccoli (with cheese sauce) propaganda. Of course this means that I can no longer remain here with you without putting you all in risk of great peril. I do this for the benefit of all those at OCUW and their respective family and pets.Cry not for me and continue carrying the flag of honor high in my stead! For you all are the chosen ones. The elite masters of the nonprofit world. Higher you shall climb until you all reach a level of greatness usually reserved for biblical figures and polka music. Remember the wise words of the great amnesiac as he said, “I did what?” and toss back a couple pints of your finest ale!

This is not a “goodbye” … it is merely a “what were you drinking?” combined with a little “go get ‘em and break-dance”.

I have to say, that’s pretty odd, even for me.

This entry is too strange for words.