Rants of a IT Professional

Auschwitz: Upon Further Reflection

2010-08-23T13:13:00.000-07:00

After some time to reflect more on the Auschwitz experience and also time to talk to the others on the trip, I keep coming back to two different quotes. The first is by Edmund Burke and is one of my favorite all time quotes: "The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil, is for good men to do nothing." The second is a quote that is engraved right next to the exit of the Holocaust museum in Washington DC, it is attributed to Pastor Martin Niemoller and goes like this: "They came first for the Communists, and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a Communist. Then they came for the trade unionists, and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a trade unionist. Then they came for the Jews, and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a Jew. Then they came for me and by that time no one was left to speak up." These two quotes just fit the emotions of today perfectly. We have always had good men throughout history, and we have also always had evil men. The question is which is going to triumph in our time? If you are a Christian you know that in the end the Lord wins and ultimately will defeat evil but that does not mean that evil will not have victories along the way. The facts of history show us many times and places where the forces of evil have triumphed over the forces of good. The mass extermination of the Jews, Gypsies, Homosexuals, and others by Nazi Germany is definitely a time where for a while the forces of evil triumphed.
The two camps at Auschwitz that we visited are a gripping reminder of the fact that there are times when evil triumphs for a period. The first camp at Auschwitz has the sign above the gate that was a cruel joke by the Germans that said basically that "Work brings your Freedom." There were many people who upon arriving at the camp truly did believe that upon entering the camp and working for a while they would receive their freedom. I really wonder how many hours or minutes it took for them to come to the realization that they were not going to become free at this camp. Surrounding the camp was two barbed wire fences separated by a small road. Each of these fences were severely electrified and many folks chose to fling themselves into the fence and be electrocuted rather than face the horrors of the camps on a daily basis.
The deep hatred that was displayed by the Germans towards the Jews and others is overwhelming visible when you visit these two camps. They were both designed for one thing and one thing only, the extermination of human life. The camp at Birkenau is a huge facility and every square inch of that camp was designed to degrade the human life to the point where it was acceptable for those guards to kill the residents of the camp. When you stand in the barracks and you see where these human beings were given 5 seconds at two separate times during the day to do their bodily function, it will blow your mind the inhumane condition that this must have been. When you see these things it makes you wonder why more people were not standing up for these people at the time. I understand that if people had stood up to the Nazi regime they too would find themselves in these camps, but look at the work of folks such as Schindler and his work in the city of Krakow to keep Jews from going to the death camps and you wonder why there weren't more that did the same thing. Dietrich Bonhoeffer sums up silence in the face of evil very succinctly: "Silence in the face of evil is itself evil: God will not hold us guiltless. Not to speak is to speak. Not to act is to act."
I had a huge internal struggle while walking around the two camps with one part saying we need to tear this place down because of what it stood for but then there was another part of me that said we need to keep this place as a reminder of the atrocities that occurred. We must keep these places because if we demolish them they can so easily be written out of our history books within a generation. Then today I see a story in the news that there are some schools in the UK that are dropping the teaching of the Holocaust in their history because it might offend Muslims (http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-445979/Teachers-drop-Holocaust-avoid-offending-Muslims.html). This makes my heart hurt because it means it is already starting to happen. How can we as humans sit back and allow this to be taken out of history because it might offend someone. Yeah it isnt exactly the brightest time period in the history of the world but if we do not learn from our history then we are doomed to repeat it. We have seen time and time again that when we do not learn from our mistakes in the past that we will make those mistakes again, there are many many examples of this throughout history. Please stand guard so that we NEVER forget the atrocities of the past whether that be the Holocaust, 9/11, the killing fields of Cambodia, or those committed by dictators such as Pol Pot and General Mao. It is our duty to remember and pass on to the next generation so that our children do not repeat our mistakes.

Auschwitz-Birkenau

2010-07-29T07:04:00.000-07:00

Today we visited Auschwitz. This was one thing we all agreed that we wanted to do when we got over here to Poland on this trip. Having seen pictures and having been to the Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington D.C. I sort of knew the gravity of what we were going to experience, but it was so much more than I had imagined. To actually see the sign over the gate that says "Work makes one free" and to know that many of those that passed through the gates believed that upon entering hit me really hard. These many men, women and children who came to this facility all believed that they were coming here to this camp to start a new life. Walking through the gate you are then in the camp. The fence that surrounds the camp once you are inside is a very intimidating barb wire fence with a narrow road and then another barb wire fence. As if the barb wire was not intimidating enough, during the time the camp was operational the fence was heavily electrified. Many of the prisoners of the camp chose to throw themselves onto the fence and be electrocuted instead of continuing to live in the conditions that they were placed. When I heard this it brought to mind the people who on 9/11 jumped out of the World Trade Center just to escape the horrors of what was happening. We were then taken through several of the different buildings that had been converted to really tell the complete story of the size and scope of the operation that was the "Final Solution." We were shown maps that showed the various feeder camps that then fed people to the Auschwitz complex, we were shown what would happen to the prisoners when they arrived at the camp in the train cars, we were shown the photographs that were taken of the prisoners when they first arrived at the camp, we were shown the belongings that were taken from them, we were shown pictures of the atrocities that were performed there including some pictures of the children that were experimented on by Dr Mengele. All of these things weighed on me so heavily it was almost too much to bear at a couple places along the tour. We were shown the "execution wall" were thousands of men and women were sentenced to death by the Gestapo. The Nazi's even blocked the windows of the window next to the execution wall so that the prisoners in that building wouldn't know what was happening outside but I imagine that they knew very well what was happening. After seeing the execution wall we were shown the jail cells that some prisoners were placed in. They ranged from a pretty standard cell, to the inhumane standing cell where 4 people were placed in a very very very small room where they could do nothing but stand. We were also shown the room where the Gestapo decided the fate of thousands of the prisoners. After seeing the cells we were then taken to the outskirts of the camps and shown that within several hundred meters of each other you had the house where the Commandant and his family lived and the crematorium where so many men, women, and children were killed. We were shown the chamber where as many as 2000 people were crammed into and then gassed. Then right on the other side of the wall to the gas chamber is where the furnaces were for the crematorium. That was the end of the first part of the tour. Then it was on to Birkenau. When we arrived at Birkenau you have the famous image of the train tracks leading right up to the gate of the camp. Upon entering the camp the thing that struck me was the sheer size of this one. It was a massive facility, a massive facility whose sole purpose was the torture and killing of people. We were shown the wooden barracks that the prisoners were housed in. We were shown the small wooden beds that they were crammed 5 people to a single bunk. We were shown the facilities where the people were given 5 seconds twice a day to perform bodily functions. We were shown the ramp where the people were offloaded from the train cars and their fate decided. The two choices being instant death in the crematoriums or a slow and agonizing death in the work camp. The last stop on the tour was to see the blown up crematoriums and then the memorial that was built on the location. There really are no words that I can say that can convey the feelings of walking around these two camps and knowing that millions of people were put to death in this place. The facts are overwhelming. There was a huge part of me that was saying we need to destroy this place because of the horrible history of it, but then at the same time the rest of me was saying that we really do need to preserve the place so that it can be a testament to everyone for future generations to the atrocities that man is capable of doing. These places do need to stand as monuments because otherwise they could so easily be written out of the history books. Please never forget and stand guard that we not make the same mistakes again in the future that would allow for this kind of atrocity to happen again.

Festivus Grievances

2009-12-23T13:59:00.001-08:00

So Festivus is upon us and it is time for the airing of the grievances for 2009.

Job Hunting: I started out this wonderful year of 2009 by being laid off and having to hunt for a job. Talk about the worst month ever. Sitting at home on unemployment, not really being able to go anywhere or do anything because that would cost money. Trying to find a job. Having a Tech Recruiter take my resume that gave a very accurate portrait of what I have done at each of my previous jobs and adding fabricating more things that I supposedly did was certainly the highlight of that time.

TV Show Cancellations: I know this is a part of the reality of TV but do we really need American Idol season 800 or America's Got Talent season 30? We have some great shows that are truly brilliant that are getting canceled such as Dollhouse. I know Fox gave them a second season and that was a huge stretch for them to do that but I dont think Fox put much marketing effort into the show after Episode 1 of the first season aired. I will say thank you to NBC for not canceling Chuck just yet. Those of us IT guys of the world relate to Chuck and we all feel we could totally be Chuck if we were in the same situation.

TV Shows not available online after episode airs: In this day and age where hard drive space is getting to be ridiculously cheap is there any reason that some networks only put excerpts of popular TV Shows online? TV Networks you do realize that when you have a show that is as popular as say Big Bang Theory and all you put on your own website is a couple 30 seconds clips from the episode that aired last night, that you are driving us to alternative methods to watch your show such as piracy. I would LOVE to watch the show on your website and sit through the advertisements that you get paid to put into the episode but I cant do it because you dont post it on your website. Please post your content online.

The Whole AT&T vs Verizon Map ads: Yeah I get it that these are attack ads and are designed to get you to change your mind but please at least be comparing apples to apples. The original Verizon ads were talking about 3G DATA coverage around the United States, then AT&T comes out with a response ad that talks about being able to make a phone call in all these different places. Those arent the same thing there chuckles. 3G Data and Voice are two completely separate issues. Really we should even be comparing things as it is because a big part of this whole debate, the actual cell phone one uses, is completely different across networks. Sure there is some overlap with phones that have models that are GSM or CDMA but really until the iPhone is on Verizon or the Blackberry Storm and the Droid are on AT&T we need not have this discussion, Thanks.

$10 to upgrade my iPod Touch from 2.0 to 3.0: Really Apple, you already made me pay $10 to upgrade to 2.0 so that I could get applications but now you want to make me pay another $10 to upgrade to something that I cant take advantage of most of its functionality. Now granted I know you have since reduced the price to $5 but still stop nagging me about it every time i plug in my iPod touch.

Retarded Sports Fans: Ok I know when one goes to a sporting event some of this is to be expected. There is ALWAYS going to be a guy or two or 50 that have had way to many beers and are acting, to quote our President, stupidly. But this year I went to a college football game and sat 2 rows behind the bench. Now we were close enough to read names off the back of the jerseys (Unless of course you are trying to do so off the Oregon jerseys where the names are the same color as the jersey but thats a different grievance), but instead of saying names we had to listen to some jackass two people down the aisle from us yell at the Stanford players the entire game and refer to each of the by their number. "Quarterback sneaks number twelve, Quarterback sneaks number twelve, Quarterback sneaks number twelve." That is an exact quote. I am all for showing ones appreciation of your favorite team but please for the love, would you say a name when you can read it off their jerseys. "Quarterback sneaks Luck, Quarterback sneaks Luck, Quarterback sneaks Luck" would have been much more tolerable (Andrew Luck is the Quarterback for Stanford, he wears #12).

People who walk on paths and are in their own world: There has been multiple occasions this year when riding my bike on the wonderful paths here in Eugene that I have almost ran into someone or had to come to a complete stop because people arent paying attention at all. It doesnt matter if you call out that you are passing them on the left or the right they are oblivious. I had a group of four people one day basically fan out across the entire bike path just as i was getting to them, and I know that at least 1 saw me coming. Then there are the folks that you call out you are passing them on a certain side and the turn and look that way and steer they bike in that direction or end up walking that direction as well. So people for 2010 lets be more aware of our surroundings and you are liable to get run over by someone and it isnt gonna feel good.

These are my grievances for the year. What are yours?

Commitment & Appreciation

2009-11-11T20:26:00.000-08:00

Part 1 of my Veterans Day thoughts:
So a little while ago I was listening to a sermon on Commitment and it got me thinking about our current situations in the world. The main thing that I started thinking about when it comes to commitment is the wars that our troops are currently engaged in around the world. When we first went into both of these wars we were "committed" as a nation. Now what has happened? We are in jeopardy of losing because we lack commitment to the just cause of freedom from oppression. We have a problem with commitment in this country.

If you look at the various wars that we actually have fought battles in since the end of World War 2 (not counting the Cold War since there were no real battles that were fought in that war) the US started out committed to the war and then backed off of that commitment. When we went into Korea we were committed to stop the oppression of the people there. We had generals on the ground that were willing to do whatever it took to rid the country of that oppression but the powers that be in our government had lost that commitment and vision and basically gave up on the war and so we were defeated. Now I know you can say well we didn't lose the war, but if you look at it we lost. You now have two groups of people, those that live in the free South, and those that live in the oppressive North. That would not be the case if we had stayed committed to our just cause of giving those people the freedoms we tend to take for granted in this country.

Next we had the conflict in Vietnam. We once again started with a commitment to the cause of freedom but when things didn't have a quick resolution our commitment faded. Now granted part of that was because the enemy in Vietnam used Art of War tactics to turn the public opinion of the war here in the states to get us away from our commitment. We still however turned away from our commitment to give people the same freedom that we have in this country.

From the end of Vietnam to 9/11 we had some small conflicts in which we participated. Sure we had the first Gulf War. But the most notable of these conflicts was the one in Mogadishu that spawned the famous Black Hawk Down incident. We lost our commitment in that conflict and turned it over to the UN.

Then we get to the events of 9/11. We were attacked that day and all Americans had commitment to the fact that we needed to get those responsible for that attack. That was when we went into Afghanistan with the commitment of ousting the oppressive Taliban and hunting down Al-Queda who was ultimately responsible for the attacks on us that horrific September day in 2001. Well now we are 8 years into that conflict and unless we as an American people and our government remember that commitment to freeing those oppressed by the Taliban and Al-Queda we may once again snatch defeat out of the jaws of victory. The POTUS that took us into the conflict in Afghanistan lost his commitment on the issues at hand. The current POTUS seems to be doing the same thing though the verdict is still out about the most recent request from the general in charge of that theater of war.

Next we came to the conflict in Iraq. We went in back in the 90s and we lost our focus and commitment and stopped before the oppression of the people was completely stopped and the oppressive leader removed. Because we did not follow through, the leader of that country continued to oppress his people and avoided following through on the promises that he made to the United States and the UN. Finally we had a President that felt we had given enough chances to the leader of that country. Yes we believed that he had weapons of mass destruction because all his actions pointed to that fact. We went back into Iraq to rid the world of a horrible dictator who had no problems killing his own people and posturing with the world that he would do the same to us if he had the opportunity. We went in and accomplished this part of our commitment. The second part of our commitment is where things didn't go so well and we seem to have lost it. We committed to training the Iraqi people to defend themselves and to establish their own government with democratic elections. We started out fully committed to this and when times got rough and we faced the hardships of the insurgency our leaders and the news media seemed to turn against the mission.

On this November 11th, as we celebrate Veterans Day and celebrate the men and women of our Armed Forces that have gone out and put their lives on the line not only for those of us back here in America but in foreign countries all over the world, let us renew our commitment to stand behind our troops and our leaders. We have made many commitments throughout our 233 year history as a nation. On this Veterans Day 2009 let us all make a commitment to our Veterans that have served in previous conflicts, whether that be Korea, Vietnam, etc, and to those that are currently serving in Operating Enduring Freedom and Operation Iraqi Freedom, that we the people of the United States of America stand behind them and thank them for the blank check of service that they wrote to the United States. Thank you.

Part 2 of my Veterans Day thoughts (not as organized as previous part):
I watched a video today of a group of WW2 Veterans that were in Washington DC today visiting the various memorials. It is all part of a program where WW2 Vets are given a free trip to DC to check out their monument. This program is not anything provided by our government but by private citizens looking to give back to those who gave to defend our freedoms. This video made me remember back to the last trip I went on with 8th graders to Washington DC. The day we went to Arlington National Cemetery while watching the changing of the guard at the tomb of the unknown, there were several older gentlemen that were wheeled up to watch this ceremony of respect and honor. These gentlemen were all veterans and were proudly wearing the hat displaying what war they served in. The kids did not see these gentlemen and not may of the adults did either. After we had finished our walking around Arlington and were on our way over to the Iwo Jima memorial we noticed that the entire group of them were there and getting on their bus. We proceeded to give them a standing ovation as we were approaching them and their bus. We were even able to shake some of their hands and individually thank them for their service to our nation. I am not sure if any of these men had ever been thanked for their service to our country or not but it was a great feeling to do just that. It reminded me of a scene in the movie Jarhead. The movie is not all that great but there is a scene that is rather fitting. When the men are coming back from Iraq and are on a bus and getting cheered and showered with praises, an older gentlemen jumps on the bus. You can see that from the way he is dressed he served in the military previously most likely in Vietnam. When he gets on the bus he just soaks in the praise and adoration that these current troops are receiving from the people. It makes me sad to think that there is a possibility that our men and women coming back from Iraq and Afghanistan may suffer this same fate of not being appreciated and applauded when they come back. Whether or not you agree with the leaders we have in office and what their views are on the current conflicts in which we are engaged, we must never take out our personal feelings of disdain on the brave men and women of our armed forces that swear an oath to protect and defend the Constitution of this great nation against all enemies. So while it is nice for us to show our appreciation for the men and women of the armed forces on Veterans Day, we need to not just stop on at 12:01 Am on November 12th. These men and women deserve to be shown our appreciation every day of the year. So let us never forget to thank those around us that have served because without them we would be in a living in a far different world. Thank you Veterans. Thank You! Thank You! Thank You!

8 Years Ago Today

2009-09-11T00:03:00.000-07:00

Where were you eight years ago? Do you remember where you were when you first heard the news? What was your first thought? Is it really possible that America got attacked?

Eight years ago I was in my dorm room at college. I woke up like every morning for my 8 am and stumbled out of bed down to the bathroom. As I got closer to the bathroom I realized the TV was on in my RA's room and it was rather loud and his door was open. I heard the words on the TV but they didnt really sink in yet until after I was coming out of the bathroom and walked down to Jason's door to see what was going on. It was then I saw on the TV the now infamous images of the city of New York on that fateful morning. As soon as I saw that I rushed down to my room and turned on the tv, woke up my roomate (he wasnt too happy about it from what I remember as he didnt have class until later), and continued to get ready for my day while watching the events in New York. It didnt take long for it to finally really sink in what exactly was going on. Our nation had been attacked. Someone, somewhere in this world, had orchestrated a massive coordinated attack to destroy American lives.

Why? Why would someone want to attack our nation? These and so many more thoughts were swirling through my foggy brain early in the morning. It was a lot for the morning brain fog and it really didnt get resolved until later in my mind. There are still some things that I question to this day about that fateful morning. The lives of so many folks were snuffed out that day. We lost almost 3000 American lives. The one thing that still to this day shows me the true heart of the American people is the fact that while people were fleeing the building because of the unthinkable horrors that were taking place on those upper floors, New York's finest were going against that flow of people and rushing into those unthinkable horrors in hope that they could save as many people as possible. Also in the Pentagon in the devastation there we had folks forming a human chain clinging on to whatever they could of the person in front of them because they knew if they worked together they could get more folks out of that rubble.

I try to do a September 11th post every year but I dont always get one up. This year however is different. I have volunteered to participate in something called Project 2996. What is Project 2996 you ask? Project 2996 is a project that is designed to bring some 3000 bloggers together and each person take one victim of those horrific events 8 years ago and post a memorial for the person you are assigned. I was given the name of Nickie L Lindo.

Nickie L Lindo worked in the North Tower. This was the first tower struck that morning. At 8:46 AM that morning the terrorist turned American Airlines Flight 11 into a missile packed with enough jet fuel for flight 11 to fly across the United States. From what information I was able to track down about Nickie, she was a financial analyst. This means she was on those upper floors of Tower 1. I am not sure which floor exactly she was on but that really matters, whatever happened on those upper floors that day had to be just about the closest thing on earth to hell. All the evidence that you need of that fact is that many people chose to jump from the 94th floor and above to sure death so that they could escape that hell. Nickie was 31 years old. She left behind a husband and 2 children. She was taken away from her friends and her family by men who do not value human life.

I plea for all of us today to take some time and remember where you were that day when we came under attack. I plea for us to remember that tragedy and how on September 12th it did not matter if you were Republican, Democrat, Libertarian, Black, White, Yellow, or Red, we were all Americans again and that bonded us together. For a brief while after that horrific tragedy we all stopped getting frustrated with the person that cut us off in traffic, we gladly let them in, we stopped getting frustrated with that person on the cell phone in front of you in lines, for that brief amount of time we were shocked into remembering the things that are more important to us. Please as we now are 8 years down the road from that horrific day, let us get back to that great time. Hug your friends, hug your family, call your mom, pray for our country, pray for our leaders. Nickie Lindo, I didnt know you but as we remember you and the rest of those snuffed out by barbarism that day, I will say a prayer for your family.

Best Fathers Day Ever.

2009-06-22T15:35:00.000-07:00

Why was it the best Fathers Day Ever? Well that story begins almost 9 months ago on a Sunday evening when I am over at my friend Dean's house playing some board games and watching movies. I get a phone call from my mom and she tells me that my dad has just been taken to the ER. At first it didnt appear to be anything super serious. It wasnt until later that we found it was rather serious and he ended up having quadruple bypass surgery. He had about 99% blockage in some of the arteries they bypassed and the fourth was over 50% blocked. I came so very very close to losing my dad that day. I am thankful for the men and women at the various hospitals in Vallejo and Oakland that allowed me to still have a dad today. So fastforward to Father's Day 2009. My mom and I decided that for Father's Day we were going to get tickets for the NASCAR race that is at the Infineon Raceway. The raceway is about 30 minutes from my parents place so it was perfect. So yesterday my dad and I drove out to the raceway. First thing we did was have access to Pit Lane. We got to walk up and down the Pit Lane taking pictures at each of the pit boxes. It was really cool to see. After we did that for just short of 2 hours we had tickets to a Q&A session with driver Kevin Harvick. It was only about 15-20 minutes long but it was so much fun. I was actually able to ask Kevin a question and I got probably the longest answer out of all of them (Mine was a much better question than other folks ask in my opinion). After that was over we got the opportunity to be right in front of the stage for driver introductions. This meant that we got to be out on the track in front of the main grandstands and the start finish line. That was such a fun experience to be right there in front of the stage hanging out with my dad watching our favorite drivers come out. After that was over it was time for the race. There is absolutely nothing like the roar of those engines. When you watch NASCAR on TV the sound even when they do the "Crank it UP" doesnt even compare to being there. To give you an idea of the level of the roar of the engines, after they fired up their engines there was a flyover of a Coast Guard C-130 (rather low) and you could not hear the sound of his engines over the roar of the cars. So the race starts and it was a lot of fun. There were some awesome wrecks and some great comptetive racing. After the race was over my dad and I got to go out on the track (again) and walk the track. That is something that about 8 months ago it didnt look like would be happening anytime soon. The track is almost 2 miles and there is a climb that rises some 160 ft at a rather big angle. My dad made it around the track like a champ. I am so proud of him. I took lots of pictures of him walking around the track. It was such a wonderful time spending the day with my dad enjoying watching one of our favorite sports in person. It truly was the best Father's Day Ever.

10 years ago today...

2009-04-20T12:08:00.001-07:00

The course of history was changed 10 years ago today. On this day in 1999 two misguided youths changed the course of United States history and arguably World history. This is the day that two teenagers walked into Columbine High School and slaughtered students and even a teacher. This single event shocked all of us around the United States and brought us into a new era. This new era (one that I am sure we all wish we could get out of), is the era of school violence involving guns and bombs. Since that fateful April day in Littleton, Colorado there have been 100+ incidents at schools around this nation and even around the world involving gun violence, whether that be students shooting other students or students being taken hostage by other students with guns. WOW!

What is the cause of this sudden outburst of these events? Is it society? Is it video games? Is it the schools? Is it the parents? The answer is yes. Each one of those things has in some way contributed to these horrific events. Society has become more tolerant of violence over the years. The video game industry makes millions and millions of dollars a year on violent video games. Schools dont always pay attention to warning signs exhibited by some of those trouble students. Parents are passing the buck of raising and training their children in the way they should go off onto the schools because they are too busy pursuing their career.

Do I think that if Columbine had not happened that we wouldnt have had these 100+ other events since then? No, because someone else would have done this type of thing and then the others would follow. Violent video games got a horrible slant because these first two that carried out this atrocity liked to play them. The problem wasnt the video game, the problem was that these two were unable to grasp the difference between the fake world of video games and reality of reality. In video games such as Halo and Call of Duty (two games I play) you can shoot someone multiple times and they can keep firing right back at you and if you dont shoot them again their shields regenerate and their health regenerates. That is a huge disconnect from reality. In real life people dont have shields and their health doesnt regenerate unless they make it to the hospital in time and get medical attention for their wounds. Now I know these two that carried out the Columbine shooting knew what they were doing, they were out for the sole purpose of killing folks.

What can we do? What should we do? How can we change this in the future?
The first thing we can do is never forget those students that were killed that day in Colorado. We should daily pray for their families, because even though it has been 10 years, parents should never have to bury their children. These people have been impacted to their core and that is not something that is easily let go of. No matter how hard we try to change/prevent these things from happening in the future, there will always be some folks that chose to use violence as a means of solving their disputes. Does this mean we should not even try? Of course not. We as Americans need to take charge here and work to educate those growing up now that violence in schools is not the answer. I am not a parent but someday I hope to have that blessing, I will most certainly do my best to educate my children in what is right and wrong and not rely on someone else to teach my kids those things.

So as we remember today that fateful day 10 years ago lets never forget Cassie Bernall, Steve Curnow, Corey DePooter, Kelly Flemming, Matt Kechter, Daniel Mauser, Daniel Rohrbough, Rachel Scott, Isaiah Shoels, John Tomlin, Lauren Townsend, Kyle Velasquez, and Coach Dave Sanders. Let us all say a prayer today for their families and for our nation.

The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil....

2009-04-12T22:21:00.000-07:00

The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing. This Edmund Burke quote is so powerful and so true. The current situation in this world reflects this quote now more than ever. I just watched a documentary entitled "The Devil Came on Horseback." It is a film put together telling the story of a retired US Marine that went to Sudan to monitor the cease fire agreement of the 20 year civil war that went on there. While there on this mission he heard of the brewing conflict in the Darfur region and volunteered to go into this region and monitor the cease fire that had just been signed in that region. So he went into this region with the African Union forces armed with nothing more than a camera to document and send reports back up the chain of command. How is one supposed to monitor and enforce a cease fire armed with nothing but a camera and words? When you are fighting an evil that is out for the complete and utter destruction of a specific race of people, words do nothing. Sadly the United States and the rest of the world have only lobbed words at these people. This has become the policy of so many nations. We put economic sanctions on nations that are out for nothing more than wiping an entire people off of the face of this earth. Why are we using the weapon of words when the only weapon these people understand is the AK-47, the Attack Chopper, and the tank? In this movie then Senator Obama says that for the Washington to do something they need to know it is something that is important to the people of the United States. Why would we as an American people whose nation is founded on the principle that ALL men are created equal not be outraged at the fact that these people are being systematically slaughtered all because they arent like someone else? I know we in the history of our nation have had some things that we are not proud of but that should not stop us from standing up for the rights of others. We stood by for a long time in Iraq and let the evil of Suddam Hussein triumph, we finally stepped in and did something. We stood by for a long time and watch the evil of the Taliban triumph in Afghanistan, and finally stepped in and did something about it. Both times it took force to displace these evils, it was not a show of sanctions. It took getting in there and ousting the offenders with force. I know that sending American men and women into harms way is never something we want to do. It is never something we enjoy doing. We often times after sending our men and women abroad to stop atrocities forget why it is that we do that and stop our support for those efforts. We did this with Vietnam, we are currently doing this with both Afghanistan and Iraq. Now I am by no means saying that we have run things on those two fronts the way that we should have. Our leaders have made mistakes but everyone is human and cannot be perfect in everything that we do. There was only 1 person in the history of mankind that was perfect and it isnt George W Bush, it isnt Barack Obama, it isnt Bill Clinton, it isnt Ronald Raegan, it isnt you, it isnt me. Everyone makes mistakes, we need to learn from those and change. We good men need to step up and do something so that the evils of Darfur do not continue. The possibility of sending in troops does not appeal to us but it continues to be the only thing that people understand.

First day of job and life update

2009-03-09T19:06:00.000-07:00

So today I started my new job. You might be asking "new" job? Yeah well on January 29th I was laid off of my job due to a 1 MILLION dollar shortfall. There were 9 people that were let go that day. The email that went out to inform them community of that fact was very impersonal and did not name any names as to who was let go. Assuming that everyone that was let go made right around the same as me (probably not far from the truth) the cutting of these 9 positions saved the employer roughly 300 thousand dollars, leaving them still 700 thousand dollars short. Now I am no financial genius but to me cutting low level positions does not do as much as they want, it takes full scale overhaul of the finances to cut 1 million dollars. The fiscal irresponsibility that continues to run through that community continues to be the norm for most departments and unless that changes they are just going to continually be in this exact same position. So while cutting some jobs may be a "solution", it doesn't solve the problem. Just like the government and their current "stimulus" package idea at helping to "save" our economy, in the end nothing will come of it. So for the last month I have been searching for a job. I have turned in probably 15-20 different applications at places in CA, OR, and WA. There were several nibbles on my resume from recruiters for various positions but in the end all i got from them was basic pre-interview phone screenings. Then 2 weeks ago my buddy and now former coworker Dean got an email from the former HR director from that place of employment saying that at the new place she works they had an opening for a Help Desk position. So I sent in my resume and got my name in the mix. I was interviewed via the phone on that Thursday, I got called last Monday about doing and interview on Tuesday. After the interview on Tuesday I was told it would be Friday or possibly today before I heard back. Last Thursday I was called and offered the position. The position is a 6 month position but there is a high probability that it will turn out to be a permanent position. The position pays more than my previous place of employment. So today was my first day at this place. It is a good position. It should be a fun place to work. My day started with filling out the standard paper work. Next was logging in and setting up Outlook on my profile. Then it was time to do some basic software install on some machines in the office. Then it was back to the office and sit in on some phone calls helping the remote users with some issues. Then came lunch. Then more helping remote users. Then for the rest of the afternoon I got to poke around and learn some things on my own. Overall it was a good day. Glad that I slept well last night and hope I will start sleeping well again now that I am employed.

How long will it last?

2009-01-18T23:31:00.000-08:00

So this week here in the United States we averted a major tragedy when an airline pilot was able to pull off the nearly impossible and land a commercial airliner on the water without it breaking apart or flipping over. Soon after landing on the river there were ferries and tugboats there to rescue those 140+ passengers on that plane. Why is it that only in the moments of near tragedy that we all band together? The last time that we saw it as a nation was when we all pulled together on that HORRIBLE day in September of 2001 when our freedom was attacked. The togetherness from that attack lasted a few weeks or months and then it was back to the same old same old cutting each other off, flipping them the bird, cussin them out, not looking out for anyone but ourselves. Why is it that it takes tragedy to bring our nation together? Sadly I dont think the togetherness of this incident will even last a week. Some may say that the events coming up this coming week will draw us together but sadly I dont think they will serve that purpose. I dont think any of the candidates that were in the running for the position this year would have been able to draw our nation together. Our nation, the GREATEST nation, has a deep dividing line that will not easily go away.

Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed Review

2009-01-06T17:48:00.000-08:00

So over my Christmas vacation I watched the movie "Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed", a documentary done by Ben Stein. Yes that Ben Stein from the show "Win Ben Stein's Money" that used to be on TV. At first I was very skeptical because of that fact that the documentary would be far from serious. Boy was I very wrong about that fact. In the documentary Ben goes around and talks to scientists at various institutions ranging from the Smithsonian Institute to even Ivy League Schools who have been fired from their positions or their contracts not renewed because of anything from publishing an article in a magazine containing reference to Intelligence Design to putting it on a slide in a PowerPoint saying it is an opposing view that is out there. The Intelligent Design debate is so often attributed to being tied to religion and God. The problem with that is the Intelligent Design folks are not saying that God is the one that created everything they are only saying that the intricacy of the "simple single celled organism" that scientists say that everything evolved from point to their being someone that designed that cell. The scientific community goes to great lengths to follow Darwin's Theory of Evolution that comes out of his book Origin of Species. The problem with his book is that it doesnt not actually address the beginning or where that first single celled organism originated. The main point of the movie is to show that throughout the academic and scientific community anyone who is in anyway affiliated with the Intelligent Design community are shunned and can even lose their jobs because of that fact. One of the cases mentioned in the movie is a man who worked for the Smithsonian Institute, who after publishing an article in the Smithsonian Magazine (a peer reviewed magazine) that metioned Intelligent Design, was fired from his position. There was also a highly respected teacher who after mearly putting the words Intelligent Design on two Powerpoint slides was not fired but her contract was not renewed. The irony of the scientific community shunning those that question the accepted "norm" is that this is in fact what their high and mighty Darwin did when he first proposed his theory to the world. One of the more laughable parts (and also infuriating) of the movie is when Ben sits down with a die hard evolutionist and asks him where that first single celled organism came from. This "brilliant" scientist then goes on to explain (very poorly) that one of the current theories is that the first single celled organism came on the backs of crystals. When Ben, rightfully, asks for clarification on this, the scientist get very defensive, almost beligerent, and says well i already told you (which his explanation is almost verbatim what i wrote). It amazes me how people in the evolution camp are viewed as the "intelligent" ones and that anyone who is in the Intelligent Design community are viewed as "ignorant and dumb". This was a good documentary, it pointed out a lot of rather interesting cases as well as the fact that as our understanding of the simple single celled organism has progrossed over the years it has become so much more complex than Darwin imagined. I think one of the main problems with documentaries in general is that while they provide us with information, you are usually left with the "What do I do now?" question. This movie got hardly any press, it also got horrible reviews. This is not surprising but very sad at the same time. It was done very well. I enjoyed it. If you enjoy science in anyway it is worth checking out.

We are all just a random grouping of molecules that happened to come together

2008-12-21T22:43:00.000-08:00

This is what the scientific world would like you to believe. I thought about this yesterday as I was driving down the California coast and realizing that I couldnt stop smiling because of all the the great childhood memories that were going through my head as I passed through the area from Crescent City down to Eureka. Our brains are amazing things, the fact that we can create memories, recall memories, learn things, recall that knowledge at the most random times. The complexities of our brains are outstanding and yet scientists would like you to believe that our brains are the product of evolution over the years and that we wanted our brains to get these abilities and our evolution followed that path. Are you kidding me? We just happened to get these incredibly complex brains by evolution? Wow. That is very narrow minded and I feel sorry for them. It amazes me how you could see the complexities of the human brain and not see that there is a Creator behind these wonderful things. And in this season of celebrating that Creator coming to earth, I hope that we do not all get caught up in the hustle and bustle of the season, but that we remember to take some time to thanks our Creator for the wonders that he bestows on us daily whether we see it or not. Merry Christmas!

To CC or not to CC that is the question

2008-12-06T13:46:00.001-08:00

So recently I have been part of a lot of email conversations at work and one thing I have noticed A LOT is that there a whole bunch of people in the work force that like to CC someone on an email when that person has no need to be included on the conversation. If you are going to email me asking me to do some work for you, you dont need to include my boss on the email. To me that is a very chicken move on your part to think that you have to include my boss on an email to get things done. If you have a problem with me say it to my face dont be chicken about it, if I did something that offended you tell me and I will apologize. If you dont tell me I probably wont know that I offended you. So please everyone out there, dont CC someone on an email when they dont need to be included, it fills up their inbox with useless email and it is a very chicken thing to do on your part.

7 yrs have come and gone already?

2008-09-11T12:35:00.001-07:00

So today is September 11th, 2008, wow. It does not seem like it was 7 years ago today that we watched in horror as those Twin Towers fell in New York, as the Pentagon got hit, as the plane crashed in rural Pennsylvania. A lot of things have changed since that morning.

A lot of things have gone back to how they were before that morning. Where were you when you first heard the news? I had just stumbled out of bed and wandered down to the bathroom in the dorm, heard the TV on in my RA's room and they were talking about the Twin Towers being gone. I wasnt coherent enough to completely comprehend that until after coming back out of the bathroom at which point i ran back down to my room and turned on the TV and saw what the rest of our nation saw that day. The United States changed that day. We no longer were a nation that went about our daily business thinking that we were safe and nothing bad would ever happen to us. Yes we had been attacked previously at the Twin Towers (We did basically nothing to respond to that by the way), but we had long since forgotten. That morning we found out the level of deep hatred some of the rest of the world held for our nation and the things we stand for. We were attacked on our soil, with our resources, killing innocent Americans who were just going about their work trying to provide for their families, also killing innocent Americans that were trying to rescue those people in those building.

What changed for you that day?

The attackers wanted to change America. They accomplished that in a very large way. One of the big things that happened was we became a united nation. We all came together and said prayers for those who were lost, we cared for our neighbors, we appreciated family a little bit more, and oh so many more things. We became united under the United States Flag and proudly displayed that we were Americans and we would not back down when we are faced with adversity. Just like the old flag that said "Dont tread on me" with the picture of the coiled rattlesnake, we stood up and said we wont stand for this type of thing and will strike back when you strike us. We stood behind our leaders as we struck back at those that struck us first. We knew the reason for our fighting and pursuing those that attacked us. They had caused our nation pain and we wanted justice for that pain, and were ready to do what it took to bring those who hurt us to justice. We would never be able to travel an airline with the same "ease" that we did previously.

Has that feeling persisted in the US?

NO! As time progessed we all went back to the way things were previously. We were back to not caring for our neighbors, family wasnt as big for us anymore, and most importantly the American flags we were proudly displaying made there way back to being stored in our closets. We no longer were "Proud to be an American", we were just Americans.

It is interesting to think back on those times now as we are approaching the elections this year. We are now engaged in a battle for the Presidency. And it is certainly a battle. The two camps are clearly divided and fighting the other for the Presidency. We no longer care that we are all Americans and we need to be striving to better our nation as a whole, it now becomes a matter of well my candidate says that they will do the most for me. We attack the other candidate on things that have no relevance to the wonderful nation in which we live. The other candidate may have some good views on things, they may not but we are against them from the start solely because of them being the candidate for the other party.

There are a lot of issues that we need to address in our nation, the candidates each have their own ideas for dealing with these issues. The big ones of course being the energy crisis and the war. Our nation has forgotten the reasons we went overseas to pursue those that lashed out at us by killing our citizens. We have forgotten the evil man that was the leader of the one country, we have forgotten the numerous attempts by the UN to check his country for WMDs where he basically dictated to the UN where they could check and where they couldnt.

We as a nation have come so far in the last 7 yrs. We have also regressed back in a lot of ways. As we look back on the last 7 yrs and look to the future, are we truly going to change the way our nation thinks? Are we going to change the way our nation acts? Are we going to once again become Americans united with the best interest of our nation at heart? I really hope that we are able to do those things, I am not going to be stupid in thinking it is certainly going to happen. Sadly I almost feel that it is going to take another event like the horrible events of that September morning 7 yrs ago for our nation to once again become united as Americans.

What are your thoughts/reflections on these last 7 yrs?

Miracles do happen

2008-08-26T20:49:00.000-07:00

So today the second miracle happened in my life. I know we throw that word around a lot in reference to sports and other small things that happen in our lives that we didnt expect. This miracle goes way beyond any of those and falls in the actual could only have happened by God's grace category. My dad was taken to the ER on Sunday evening with chest pain. He had a mild heart attack. That is was the start of the miracle. The miracle came to full fruition today when they took him in for an angioplasty to fix what they believed to be a small blockage in an artery. When they got in to do the angioplasty today and injected to die to find the blockage they found that one of his arteries was 99% blocked and there was a good amount of blockage in a couple other arteries as well. They immediately put him on the schedule this afternoon for bypass surgery. They got in this afternoon and ended up doing a quadruple bypass. They found that there was no damage done to his heart. Everything is functioning properly now and the doctors are very happy with the results. There is no way that this situation can be explained other than a complete miracle happening. For him to have 99% blockage and blockage in other arteries and only have a minor heart attack and no damage to the heart. This is the second time in my life I have witnessed a miracle. The other was the day before either my 14th or 15th birthday but that is another story for another time. Thank you God for a huge miracle and keeping my dad around longer with us.

Wake Up People

2008-08-13T21:23:00.000-07:00

So this post s definitely going to be a rant. Why do so many seem to think that the Desktop is a place to store files? The desktop is not meant for that. Sure you can use it TEMPORARILY for things but it isnt meant to be the place that you keep stuff permanently. The desktop is meant for shortcut icons and pretty pictures. Speaking of pretty pictures, the "picture" on the desktop is called a Wallpaper not the Screensaver. Come on people it is amazing how many of you out there get these terms mixed up. Wallpaper = Pretty picture on desktop. Screensaver = That thing that turns on when your computer sits idle for 15 min that can display pivoting 3d text, multiple pictures or a multitude of other things. Wake Up People and learn these two facts and it will make your resident IT professional at your job a lot happier.

Video Games = Society's Scapegoat

2008-08-04T22:42:00.001-07:00

Here is an interesting article, talking about how video games are taking too much blame for the "downfall" of society lately. http://news.cnet.com/8301-13506_3-10005871-17.html I agree with the author, video games are taking way to much blame for things. We are going after video games like GTA IV because a couple of kids have re-enacted the game. Most recently a kid in Thailand killed a taxi cab driver because he saw it in GTA IV and emulated it in real life. Now dont get me wrong I am not advocating games like GTA IV in any way but we put a bit to much blame on video game producers for these games. The game is rated M for Mature. That means that it is intended for people 17 and up. That means that if it is getting into the hands of anyone other than 17 year olds and up the PARENTS are buying the game for their kids. Parents are the ones that need to step up in this country. Parents nowadays seem to try and push the responsibility to everyone but themselves. The schools are supposed to teach our kids, the government is supposed to regulate the movies and video games, the schools are supposed to watch what our kids eat, the list goes on. The video game violence while it may be more "realistic" today than it has been ever before, it still falls short in comparison to most movies. The violence in Saving Private Ryan which came out in 1998 thats 10 years ago far outways the realism of the violence in GTA IV or any other of the "violent" video games of today. I think that video games get a bad rap because a few people out of the MILLIONS that play video games dont have enough sense to realize, or havent been taught by their parents, that video games arent real they are make believe and what you can do in a video game you cant and shouldnt be doing in real life. In real life if you get shot you cant just keep right on going and heal yourself with a health pack just down the road. So Thailand's response to the killing of the taxi cab driver was to stop the sales of GTA IV, wouldnt the better response be to put a call out to parents to actually do some, i dont know, PARENTING?

Why Apple Why?

2008-08-04T19:52:00.001-07:00

So I went to synch the music on my computer with my iPod Touch. I currently have only been using it for podcasts and tv shows. It is currently set up to pull podcasts and tv shows off after I watch them once. Great system for keeping the storage from getting overloaded. Well as soon as I turned the synch my music feature on it started to reload all of the old audio podcasts that I have listened to onto the iPod again. Now yes audio podcasts are technically music since they are mp3 files but really apple? You are the pioneers of the podcast you would think you would have figured out a way that iTunes and the iPod would view podcasts as something other than music. Especially now that we are on iTunes 7.7 and had many many generations of iPods. Come on Apple you should really get this one right.

Website = FAIL

2008-07-08T19:10:00.000-07:00

So today we started using Google Analytics to keep track of things on our webpage. The analytics are amazing and give us some great information about our visitors. So you might ask where the fail comes in, well with Analytics you can actually keep track of Goals on a page. Essentially if you are an ecommerce site it would be keeping track of people adding things to their carts, viewing their carts, and then finally a Thank You style page after they have made their purchases (a funnel to the Thank You page essentially). Well it would be really great if we could do this on our webpage except the FAIL of our page is that the big things we would want to keep track of (ie a student filling out an application for admission) is done by an outside company and is in no way assosciated with our webpage. That is just plain ridiculous. Basically we are directing the traffic to a point where we have no way of tracking any of it and cant measure how many people go through the application process online. I sure hope that we can change this in the not to distant future so that we can keep track of things.

Some people should not use a computer EVER

2008-06-23T19:52:00.001-07:00

So today I got a call from a user who was having problems logging into the website. I was out of the office so I had to call her back. When I called her back and found out what the problem was I figured it would be an easy thing to remedy boy was I wrong. The problem was that she was attempting to go to the old url and not the new one. Simple fix but apparently not for her. Trying to get her to navigate to the new url turned into an excercise in futility. She went to the old webpage and before i could even stop her she was about 4 levels deep in the wrong direction on the old url. When I finally got her back to the homepage which took some time, i said ok now go to the top and where you see xyz.blah change the xyz to read zzzzz.blah (yes i didnt give the real domains but if you know me and where I work you can figure it out). Once I got her to do that it still took her a little bit to find the link I was trying to direct her to in the first place. Once we got there she was finally able to login. The funny thing is she tried to claim that she was never informed that we were going to be making a domain change, there were 4 emails within the last month informing everyone of the change in domain name. The scariest part of this whole thing is that this person now has to relay the information to other users. Heaven help them cuz if it is anything like my conversation with her they are going to want to scream and throw things. I know not everyone has a lot of computer knowledge but everything I tried to walk her through is something that in this day and age of the internet that anybody who uses a computer SHOULD KNOW.

Conference in Canada, Eh?

2008-06-01T17:10:00.000-07:00

So this past week I attended a tech conference in Canada. It was really interesting to get around other IT guys and realize that the problems that we are encountering in our IT department have been had by those in other university IT departments as well. It was very comforting to see that we are not alone in our problems.

Don't mess with the IT staff

2008-05-20T18:49:00.000-07:00

So today one of our users tried to claim that they were not receiving the emails from their professor. Well if you are going to make that claim, realize that the IT staff has ways to verify that emails arrived and some of them will stand up in court as legal proof. So after hearing that this person was not receiving their emails I checked their account. I logged into their email account to test if it was sending and receiving emails just fine when what do I see but all 3 of the emails in question. Oh it gets better folks. 2 out of those 3 emails were READ. And one of them was even forwarded. So I take a screencap and forward that on to the person that contacted me about the other persons problem. I was very tactful in my wording of the email pointing out this persons lie. I dont know what the final outcome is going to be but it did feel good to prove that our technology actually works. Also it makes me wonder how many times this happens and we in the IT Dept dont hear about it. So moral of the day is dont lie when it comes to technology cuz it will tell the truth and make you look foolish.

Whats in a name

2008-05-15T18:48:00.000-07:00

So we use a piece of software to track our work orders and one of the features of the software is some pre-packaged reports. One of these reports is one that gives you that average time that it takes for a certain technician to complete a work order. This report is great but it doesnt reflect the true numbers as we have projects that stay on our work order list for long periods of time. So I took it upon myself to customize a report that gives the average time to complete work orders but leaves out the projects. I got the report created and went to import that report into the program. Well that is when the fun started. The program threw an error when i went to import. Of course the error message was nothing helpful. I posted on a forum about the software asking for any advice from others who use the software. So I kept trying different things and eventually this afternoon I figured out what the problem was. Apparently the filename that I created the report with was what was causing the error. I tried importing the report with a different file name and what do you know it worked and now runs just beautifully. So apparently there is a lot in a name.

Doing the wrong thing

2008-05-05T21:51:00.000-07:00

So recently we have had multiple users who despite doing things properly in the past have started using the wrong avenues to ask for password resets. It must be something caused by the recent bout of sunshine we have had here. It must be frying the brains of these poor oregonians who arent used to seeing the sun.

Change of Pace

2008-05-03T13:28:00.000-07:00

So I just got back this week to work after being on vacation for a week. I was in Washington DC doing one of my other passions photography. It was a very nice change of pace from dealing with computer issues to be dealing with taking pics of 8th graders as we visited different places. Over the 6 days that we were in the DC and surrounding area I ended up taking over 700 pictures. 450 of those were for me and around 270 of them were for the trip video that will be put together by the tour company. But alas the fun of that trip has come to an end and I am now back to work fixing computer problems and such. It was a fairly uneventful week yet still busy. This coming week is finals week which means that the students will be leaving and the profs will be leaving for the summer very soon as well. That will allow us to get started on our summer projects. Our summer projects are going to be a lot of fun but a lot of work. Yay for the start of summer.

Users

2008-04-20T21:01:00.000-07:00

It is amazing to me that despite school email addresses being the email used for communications our users still dont pay much attention to their account. You must change your password every 4 months. That isnt asking people too much but yet people still forget constantly despite there being a timer when they login to the private webpage showing when they set their password and when it will expire. If by chance they are on campus and within 14 days of their password expiring, when they login to a machine on campus it will alert them to that fact and ask them if they want to change it now. 99.9% of the users do not change their password until the absolute last day.

IT Professional is still alive

2008-04-15T17:53:00.000-07:00

Wow I had totally forgotten about this blog. Maybe I should start posting again.

Computers

2006-01-07T23:11:00.000-08:00

Sometimes you just have to love computers and then others you just have to hate them. So a few weeks ago one of our clients got a new computer from Circuit City and I had to go out and set up the printer for them. Here comes the sick part, this machine cost $500 bucks and is stinking amazing. It has a 64bit Athlon processor, it has built in video but has pci express if you want to change it, it comes standard with 512mb of DDR RAM, a 200Gb SATA HDD, a 9 in 1 media card reader, a dual layer DVD Burner and the list just goes on. This machine kicks the pants off my machine that I built myself which is to be expected since i built my machine several years ago but still. I am just amazed at the prices of computers and the specs of them nowadays. It is amazing what you can get for fairly cheap. I mean it is seriously making me consider getting a pre-built system when it comes time to upgrade my machine but we shall see when the time gets closer.

The joy of computing

2005-10-25T19:27:00.000-07:00

So recently when I have been servicing client computers I have come upon machines that are living well beyond their usefullness. The worst part about these machines is that they people are fine with them because they "still work." Well when it takes you 4+ hours to do the maintenance on a machine because the machine has like 128MB of RAM and a super slow processor and is using 120MB of the RAM just sitting there doing nothing. So what does this mean folks, it means that when you start doing anything on the machine it starts using the HDD as RAM which equals very very slow performance especially when the HDD is only a 5400 RPM HDD. I mean technically my computer is living past its usefulness but I built the machine with good parts so it is still a decent machine even now. The other thing that is bugging me is that at one of the clients there is one of the workers that does not like the fact that we come in during normal business hours because she can't use her computer for like 30-45 min however she still finds other stuff to do but it always seems to be such an inconvenience to her.

Oh the joys of computers

2005-09-13T23:41:00.000-07:00

So last night I was going to activate my copy of Windows XP and I ran into an issue. Something got broken in Windows. So what did I have to do? I had to completely reinstall EVERYTHING!!!! Oh the joys of computers. More later just a quick rant tonight.

I hate computers sometimes

2005-08-08T15:34:00.000-07:00

So recently I have been trying to backup all of my stuff on my computer so that I can make the switch from Windows 2000 to Windows XP Professional. Well it seemed like every time I would go to burn something to back it up it would fail. It wouldnt fail right away but it would fail after burning for a while. I dont seem to have much luck when it comes to burners. Right now I have a Dual-Layer DVD+/-RW drive. I used to have just a regular old CD-RW in my computer but then for some reason it stopped working (might have gotten some dust in it when I popped the faceplate off and spray painted it black). That drive never did seem to work right for me from the time I got it so when it finally gave up the ghost it was just icing on the not working correctly for me cake. Up until now I hadnt really had any problems with the new burner but it sure is annoying and a waste of good DVD-R media when the stupid thing fails in writing a disk. I was finally able to trick the machine into burning my stuff for me. Why it didnt burn in the first place I do not know. So over this past weekend I made the switch to XP Pro. I havent had much time to play around with it just yet but it seems to be working fine. Sometimes I wonder why I chose to work with computer when they are such a frustrating little machine at times.

Lets try this out

2005-07-19T23:30:00.000-07:00

So I am gonna try to keep up two different blogs. I will see how it goes and which of the two I like better.