BigCat’s Blog of DOOM

I started picking up my guitar again and trying to learn the tab for “Cats in the Cradle” (as performed by Ugly Kid Joe, from the days of my youth…not my parents youth and the Cat Stevens version).

I like playing the guitar, even though I suck. My wife, does not like me playing one song over and over again. This is in part because she has never learned to play an instrument before and doesn’t understand that is part of the beginnings of learning music, and part because it is really annoying to listen to someone play the same song over and over again. I sympathize with the second part.

So, I would love to get some feedback from my guitar playing friends. What are some good songs to learn for a beginner. Perferably songs that don’t suck, or that don’t end up being entirely boring for me to sing. Links to tabs / chord sheets are appreciated.

On another note, my freaking thumb hurts for no good reason. It started while I was grilling hot dogs this weekend for our tailgate give-away, and hasn’t stopped since. It kinda feels numb.

That is all.

The next version of Windows was announced a few months ago. It is going to be called “Windows Vista.”

This name, Vista, brings pain to me, because the manufacturing software I’ve spent the last three weeks upgrading and digging into is also called vista. But, that is neither here nor there…just an odd coincidence.
( I have Win Vista beta 1... legally ... no really, I do have legal software this time. )
Well, anyway, that was kind of lame, but if you have any questions about whether upgrading will be worth it or not let me know. And I will post again when I get updated to the latest versions…maybe even some screenshots. I heard beta2 is coming out in Dec. or Jan., so look for an actual review then.

Well, as a follow-up to my last post, I thought I would just list some of the free open-source alternatives to your commonly used buisness applications. I’ll try to break this down into categories, list the not free version, followed by the free alternative and a brief description of how well it stacks up.
( the list )
So, that is my personal list that I’ve discovered (mostly through reading slashdot) of free alternatives for office related software. I’ve left a lot of holes (I only have an hour for lunch) so feel free to post other suggestions or alternatives.

One last thing of note, this is software out there, called asterisk, that is free, that you can install over Linux and it works to handle all of your voice-mail boxes, and all of your call routing and call forwarding. Best part is it can operate with regular phone lines or Voice-over-IP (VOIP) technologies simultaneously. It only requires a $25 special card for the phone line, and can run on pretty minimal hardware requirements for small amounts of users and incoming calls.

Sometimes when a pack-rat, unorganized guy like me starts unpacking his stuff it can be like searching for buried treasure.

I found lots of things that I had forgotten about that I really love. But besides that, I found a 50 dollar best buy gift card, that I had been saving until I found something I wanted.

Then I went to Best Buy, told them that the Firefly box set was cheaper at walmart. They called like 5 walmarts and everyone they talked to was totally incompitent. So, instead of being able to verify, they got tired of it taking too long and they just gave me the cheaper price.

All-in-all, I like unpacking, and I like buried treasure.

Good times.

Current Mood:  pissed off

Well, I’m at work today.

Server upgrades for some software I’m responsible for.

It wouldn’t have sucked except that yesterday we took the server down to start some backups, and the backup software corrupted our main server driver.

How freaking awesome is that.

Fortunately, we had taken some online backups right before we shut down, and copied them to our file server. The only thing that didn’t get backed up was our CRM software database (Customer Relationship Management). The bummer is that was my call on doing the online backup, and I thought it would be a waste of time because we were taking the whole thing down to do a complete backup.

We are going to get a guy in here to try to extract the data off of the old disk, and we are using a disk that was originally intended for a RAID 1 mirror, that no one had gotten around to putting in the server chassis. I said we should to go RAID 1 a few weeks ago, but there was a time issue, and we needed to take appart the whole 6U server to get at a lower compartment for drives, and ….well…it didn’t happen.

I’m sure somehow this is going to be my ass when the sales guys have information a month and a half old in their CRM software on monday, but there is nothing I can do about it now. Just have to hope we can data-mine the hard drive and get stuff back.

*AND NOW FOR SOMETHING COMPLETELY DIFFERENT*

Tonight, drinking in celebration of my raise.

Come by my place around 6 if you want to get dinner with me, and we will head to a bar somewhere around my place (I need to explore otherwise I would have more details for you).

If you want to catch me later for post-dinner drinking, call my cell (Six one two, six six nine, five one nine eight), or lauren’s cell (six one two, six six nine, one five five seven).

Alright, back to paying attention to the progress bar move while the software installs

Yesterday I got my review. It was good. I agreed with the areas of improvement, and I thought I got some really good feedback in general, as well as some wisdom from my boss.

When sallary came up, he offered me a 4 thousand dollar raise. In general, that would be a good raise. But, as you know (if you are an avid reader of my blog), I accepted the job at a good bit under what most EE’s make, and about 18 thousand less than the average EE from my school made starting out of school in 2004.

So, I asked for a 9 thousand dollar raise. Explained my thinking and reasoning for it, and asked him to think about it and get back to me (this meeting ended up being an hour and a half long).

Then today, he called me in, talked to me for a while, and says he is OK w/ the number I asked for, so I’m now up to something I think is more appropriate for an EE, and I get to keep my kickass job, and I learned a lot more about where the company is going, and what is going to be expected of me.

In general, this is a good thing I think, and I’m pretty happy about it. There needs to be some celebrating of this good thing sometime soon. Most of it will hopefully come in the form of saving for a house, but some of it should come in the form of beer.

Moving is done, everything went well. So far, I haven’t found too many things that are broken or scratched to hell.

Contrary to popular belief, we are going to fit everything in this slightly smaller (but better arranged) space.

This new place is already shaping up well. So far I’m only at a loss when I think about where the Popa-san is going to go. Other than that I think it will be quite an improvement for hanging out and having people over when compared to our old space. I still can’t wait to buy a place though.

Serenity is awesome. Dirk was right on Brent’s blog when he said he should watch the series first.

It is a great movie, and stands well on it’s own, but I could tell that I had more of a connection than Liz and Ally did (who haven’t watched the show).

So, my recommendation, run, don’t walk, run to the blockbuster, and rent the show. Watch it in a week (it is too fun to stop watching), then go see the movie.