While Karen and I were out shopping tonite for "fat momma" clothes at the local K-mart, I saw something that I miss dearly... there is a little caesers in our local k-mart. Now, this is something that I have known for a while, but it never really sunk in. Until now. So we got our dinner there to go, a large pepperoni pizza for only $5 and enjoyed what was probably the best pizza i've had in years. Actually since the last time I had it 2 years ago at the one in Dillsburg.
Went to TJ Rockwells tonite for dinner up in e-town and found an interesting beer in their cooler while waiting for our table. I decided to try it and rather enjoyed it. I may have to try and find some to share at new years. If you get a chance and are out at TJ Rockwells, try the Dark Chocolate Stout by the Brooklyn Brewery. It's rather good.
I was bored at work (go figure) and started to poke around some of my favorites and remembered stumbling upon the continental drift camera. This is a pretty geeky site as it is, but I decided to dig further into this guys site. I then stumbled upon this l33t site where you can track the location of not only the moon above the earth, but almost any satelite known and it's position. Talk about a kewl waste of time :) I love it! Download Home Planet and spend the rest of your days watching with me :)
Well.. Christmas 2003 has come and gone without a major hitch. Although I did spend it couped up in bed most of the time due to a cold/flu/whatever it was. I'm still fighting it off, but things are feeling much better now. Spent the time with friends and family and just generally relaxed. Things next year will be much crazier with the baby on the way and all. Not sure what we will be doing next year for the holidays, but running around all over the place will not be an option.
I did get my copy of "Lord of the Rings, The Two Towers" special extended DVD edition which I wanted (even though I haven't seen it yet). We also got a lot of help towards our washer and dryer which we need desperately now. (We are still taking donations if anyone feels generous, or wins the 200 million Super 6 lotto on wed nite)
All and all it was a good holiday and I look forward to new years with more friends.
I thought Karen was supposed to be the one getting morning sickness... Ok.. so it wasn't exactly morning.. but 1:30 AM is bad enough. Especially worse for me since I enjoy my sleep so much..(i better get used to getting up then i guess).. But i woke up in a cold sweat and ended up praying to the porcelain goddess... YUCK!!!
On a lighter note, I read this morning that starting next week, Karen is supposed to start noticeably showing and it will change rapidly... They also suggest taking a photographic journal of the changes... Me? photos?? WOOHOO!!! Big belly photos!!!!
Apparently threats of legal action don't mean much to our builder. After many more ignored phone calls to their office, I finally got in touch with someone there. We set up an appointment for this morning between 7:00 and 7:30 AM for Jerry, the foreman, to show up and drop off some replacement shelves and shelf support brackets for our kitchen cabinets. I also wanted to talk to him about getting one of our cabinets replaced.
Last time someone came out too look at the cabinet (a month + ago), they decided to take the cheap way out and just glue a new side panel on the cabinet so we couldn't see the crack in it. He glued it on once, and it fell down when he took the clamps off. So he re-glued it again and waited for it to dry a bit longer.. Well, needless to say, it is now being held on by 4 pieces of black electrical tape. So I wanted Jerry to see this poor workmanship and just replace the entire cabinet.
Well, I wouldn't be writing this if someone had bothered to show up!! 8:00 rolled around and I called the office and very sternly said someone was supposed to be here by 7:30, "any plans on showing up?" After a few minutes, the guy came back and said that there was some misunderstanding and Jerry was going to show up on Christmas Eve, after he complained about that to begin with and I specifically called them and confirmed the date and time. Needless to say, I was pissed! I pretty much told him this was BS and that this happens everytime someone is supposed to show up and that Jerry would either show up today with the shelves or he would hear from our lawyer.
I then had a representative talk to him and they decided that the people that supplied the cabinet to the construction company would contact me and set up a time to come out and fix it. This was at 10:00 or so this morning and I'm still waiting!!
Needless to say, it's about time to take this public.
Well... I finaly started to install RedHat on that linux box I got at work for the new J2EE server. First impression I got was not a very good one. When it's booting up, It has a happy little Windows install look and feel to it. It even has that all through the install.. It uses X and a GUI to do the install.. Although you can choose to do a text only install but I wanted to see how pathetic it was since I've heard nothing but bad things about RedHat and how they have dumbed down the *nix OS and brought it the common computer idiot.
Another thing I don't like is their update process. You have to register you OS with RedHat and create an account. Upon doing this, your computer sends all kinds of information about itself and it's owner to RedHat and then, finally, you can do security updates that are 3 months old. For example, the newest kernel I was offered was 2.4.20.. 2.6 has been out for a while now!!!
Just my normal bitches about an inferiour OS.. much like winblows!!
I learned a very important (but dumb) lesson today.. Fights with the bosses are never won. Even if I'm right!! We are building a linux box to use for Oracle and a production J2EE server.. Great!!! My dream come true (now I just need gentoo on my desktop!).. But of course, since the government is so f***ing stupid, they won't support or allow the use of any OS that is "free", but they will allow Red Hat since you have to pay $800/year for support. Even though it's EXACTLY the same OS. And what's worse yet, Red Hat only updates their software quarterly. So what happens when a major security hole is discovered? The Open Source community patches it and updates are avail within hours... But not with Red Hat... You have to wait for them to package it and release it 3 months later... And this is all Government data!!! Talk about idiots!!!
The other issue is that Oracle is only "certified" to run under either SUSE or Red Hat... So of course I run into problems with our DBA who wants someone to call if he has a problem.. I tried to explain to him that there are other sources of help other than just Oracle.. but he said no.. He only wants to go to Oracle for help with Oracle... They just don't understand the Open Source community/Great help system that is the Internet. Damn winblows brats!!
Well, last night I set up our christmas tree.. We went out sunday to Fry's Tree farm down in willow street and were in and out in record time. From the time we got there, until we picked out our tree and cut it down till we had our tree loaded up the van, it was a measly 45 minutes. It was quite an enjoyable experience. This is the first christmas in our new house so we figured we should probably get a tree and start the tradition.. Plus with kids on the way, we will need to be doing it in a few years anyway, so why not start now. I wasn't sure how the cat would react to having the tree but she was actually really well behaved.. She spent most of the evening after I got it set up just sitting under it and sniffing at the branches and playing with the ice balls that fell off the tree. Those that didn't melt from being in the sub-freezing garage (duh!) Tonite for tomorrow nite comes the fun part.. decorating....
Ok.. Now I know why I miss living in an apartment complex. Over the course of the past 2 days, we got about 8 or so inches of snow. Don't get me wrong, I love winter... I think it can be so pretty with the snow on the trees and everything else. But shoveling is a bitch... Our driveway comfortable houses 6 cars and we have a municipal sidewalk that is our responsibility... Two words for a christmas gift if you need ideas... "Snow Blower"... I don't care what.. it's got to be better than shoveling... And what makes it worse, Karen can't help (at least I won't let her) since she is pregnant, and every single snow shovel is made for the average person... A lot shorter than me.. So i'm constantly hunched over straining my lower back.. At least I get a massage at work (for free) on Monday :)
Don't get me wrong, I wouldn't trade owning my own home for anything else, but now I realize how nice it was to not have to worry about things like this when we had an apartment. Those of you who also have to deal with this know what I'm talking about. And John was in the same boat last year with Claire being pregnant over the winter also... So Stacey, you can't complain about living in an apartment now!! :) ha!