Local Channels…….

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Here is just a hint at my life here lately..... I decided to do a little work on my Satellite TV. In particular my local channels. I get 4 local channels on Sat. Fox, NBC, CBS, and ABC only. Well I'd been missin the UPN and WB stuff so I decided to fix it finally. I check with direct TV to see if there were any plans on the updating of local channels. They said they don't know about estimated dates until they actually happen. I think they learned that from the cable/dsl people, Never commit to anything. So at this point we are clear sailing.... I bought all the parts to get both sat, and antenna to all the TV's. After $60 in converters and adapters they are all installed and working. I wake up yesterday morning and there is a message on my TV. Those goofy bastards updated all the local channels the night after I install all this crap on my system. No need in a antenna now. So now do you understand???

Repost from before the hack on 26 Dec 01.

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Yahoooo.......
Christmas is finally over. Good thing too, cuz another day of that and I'd be a gonner for sure. It's not that I don't like Christmas or anything. Heck I got some really great gifts this year, Thanks Santa, but I could really do with out the stress. Of course with me immediately behind stress comes depression. Not having my little boy child for the first time didn't help things. Anyway, I made it through it and that which does not kill us only makes us stronger. So I should be pretty strong now. Of course I'll probably die here in a couple of hours... I'm heading to Wal-Mart to do a little shopping. I need to see if I can snag a couple of things for next year and maybe a bargain or two. Ya know gotta buy myself something for Christmas.............

Christmas Shopping……

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Well I think I am finally done shopping for Christmas. I've been mostly done for a while but I think today I'm officially done. I've pretty much cut my Christmas present budget in half, maybe more. With the job market and the economy the way it is I just didn't feel comfortable spending my every last penny on presents. That may make me the scrooge but I'd much rather be "Fed and the scrooge" rather than "Hungry and the jolly present giver". It looks like I'm not going to be able to spend Christmas morning with my little boy... :) It makes me sad but I know he'll be coming home to me afterwards and I'll be all happy again. Ack.... It's almost going home time. Gotta run!!!

Ford Sucks…….

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The Ford Motor Company sucks.... with that said, I'll tell you why! Yesterday, I was on my way to a Christmas party. I didn't really want to go or anything but I have to at least keep up appearances that I'm at least sort of social. I went out to check my tire which had been leaking. It'd leak out about half it's air in a week. Well it'd only been three days so I figured it'd be fine. But it wasn't. It was flatter than flat. I thought I was smarter than the tire since last week I bought two can's of Fix a Flat. I slapped on a can and as fast as I could put it in, it could leak it out. After I'd emptied the can I tried to get the air compressor on it before all the fix a flat juice ran out. Between the Fix a Flat and the air compressor I couldn't keep enough air in it to keep the rim off the ground. Well now this is where the story really starts. I said no problem, 15 minutes and I'll have the spare on. Oh by the way. Did I fail to mention that we were 4 inches into our 8 inches of rain for this day. Well anyway. I got the jack out, bye the way I found my dear sweet ex wife's camera jam neatly down into the jack storage contraption. I can't explain how it got there or why but that's where it was. I got the jack out and did all my normal tire change prep work. So now I'm off to get my spare. I knew where it was, how to get access to it, it had air in it, sound pretty simple so far. To gain access to this spare you basically have to stick your jack handle into this little hole in the bumper. From this hole is a long tube that runs to a lowering mechanism. Basic principle of operation on this thing is to stick in your hand and turn which lowers the tire to the ground. You basically pick it up and your off to bigger and better things. Not me..... I stuck my 1 and a half foot jack handle into this 2 and a half foot tube. The story of my life if ya know what I mean. I cussed for a full hour over that one. Well eight hours, 4 auto parts stores, and 2 discount stores later and I find my self scraping bottom at wal-mart. I couldn't find any jack handle or tool of any kind to make this think work. We are on like Plan G now, so I purchased a 3 foot wooden dowel from the fabric and general girlies stuff isle. After shaping the end with a utility knife, I was able to insert this contraption into the hole and make contact with the mechanism. I clamped on a pair of Vise Grips to the end and began cranking. The spare lowered to the ground just like it was meant to. The rest of the tire changing procedure when flawless with out incident. Even so, this will really make me think twice about making another decision to purchase a Ford.

PS....
By the way... This post, in it's entirety in being CC:'d to Ford Customer Service.

The Crash…..

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Well it happened! The crash us IS guys dread. First let me say doing backups of data is a serious pain in the ass. They are tedious, difficult, expensive, and even more expensive to do correctly. Nobody ever checks on you to make sure you do the backups, but if something is lost and you didn't do them, they will for sure chew your butt up one side and down the other. NEVER will they come and congratulate you for only loosing a small portion of data. So basically we go through lengths to backup data only to not be bitched at when things not under our control goes bad. Well last night things went bad, way bad. The server with all of our user data on it crashed. It crashed hard. It's flat lined and pronounced. This is all the users email, office files, and personal files. Basically everything we do all day long is saved on this server. Well for a change I had been doing my job correctly so I pulled a sole, solitarily singular tape from nowhere. This tape was my saviour. The backup from Friday morning. Well needless to say damn near 24 hours later we are restored. At least to a point of Friday morning. One day of lost data is much better than a year of lost data. So once again I have single handedly saved the universe. I'm sure I'll see the fruits of my labor in my next pay check. What do you think......

Friday…..

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It's Fri-day, It's Fri-day, It's Fri-Fri-Fri-day...... Of course with that said I'll probably have to work Saturday AND Sunday, but none the less, It IS Friday. I'll probably settle in tonight of a nice super human video game with the little boy child. Ya know, since Friday television has such a high level entertainment value. You may ask why I don't go out an do something on Friday night. Well don't, there isn't a reason, that's just the way it is. :)~

PS.....
Is it time for NASCAR to start back up yet??? :(

Go Jeff!

Stupid Computer Stories……

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We've all heard the stories about somebody calling Tech Support wondering where the "Any" key was because the computer wanted them to press it. Well this kind of thing actually DOES happen. People call me for the dumbest things. It's just barely 8:30 today and so far here are the calls I've had.

1. Sales lady calls and said her computer was beeping at her and wouldn't boot. I found she evidently had a 15 Lbs bowling ball or something of the sort in her purse and had it laying on the keyboard. Of course the error on the screen plainly stated "Keyboard Key Stuck Error".

2. Another Sales lady called and said she left her PC on all night and now it won't wake up. When I got there she was moving the mouse around wildly attempting to wake it up. I got into the drivers seat and presses the space bar and waa laa.... It never occurred to her to press any keys on the keyboard.

3. An admin guy across the street couldn't understand why he couldn't get his email. Upon further investigation I found he just canceled by the login. When asked why it said the password was incorrect. That still didn't explain why he canceled by the login instead of fixing it. I looked a little deeper to find someone else had logged on to that computer and this guy never realized he was trying to log on with someone else's username. That's all well an good but he also didn't know his own username. He said it's always in the little box so he never has to type it.

Now you all know why I'm so stressed all the time. It's not the technical side of things, it's the babysitting side of things that get to me.

Dallas Drivers……

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What is it about drivers in Dallas that makes them drive like 250mph. 250mph until they see either wet pavement or rain actually falling from the sky that is. Then they feel the need to jam on the binders and come nearly to a complete stop. It doesn't matter if they are on a residential road or the Interstate. 80 to 20 in the first 50 drops of water. Maybe if they could make the transition a little smother maybe it wouldn't bother me as much. But it does of course......