To all those from Riyadh: مرحبا!, أهِ وسهِ!

Just playing around in my blog logs (o_O) and found that I had two distinct, separate hits from people in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. Apparently one got referred by sexyrussianblondes.blogspot.com (thanks!). Yeeeah...

Well I guess it shows that more people are (maybe) reading my blog than I thought, so I suppose I should make more of an effort to update this. Although, I can't see too many people caring about my mundane life. Heh, oh well.

Last two weeks I've been working, but not very hard I guess. Last week I only worked at SportsWorks on Tuesday and it was busy as hell. I spent the rest of my time getting some server work done for MNX, which will amount to a pretty nice paycheck I'm assuming. This week I worked yesterday (Tuesday) and today. Yesterday was pretty bad, 1250 or so in groups, all came at the same time... yuck. You'll never fully realize the utter mental strain that a bunch of screaming kids puts on you until you work a full 8 hour shift with them. It could be one of the worst things-- but oh well, I can't really say I hate my job. It just gets so exhausting.

Today I worked but it wasn't so bad. I had to work 5 hours, still dealing with a butt load of groups, but it seemed like the day went by a lot faster, even though I was put on the monotonous exhibits. I don't know, maybe I successfully zoned out better, or maybe it was the fact I got more sleep-- not sure. Either way, I'm happy with it.

Anyway, looking down the road at the immediate future, there doesn't seem to be much difference from what I've been doing. Sad thing is, that until I get a set schedule from MNX (which may be never), I'm going to be playing each new week by ear, pretty much. Even worse is I have to play "on call" seemingly 24/7, which could very well mean I may have "nothing planned" on a day, but end up working 8 hours with my boss on a project. That's the only thing I really don't like about this so far is just the uncertainty factor. It was hard enough planning stuff like the trip up to see Em and praying that they didn't call me to do shit while I was up there and unable to do anything. But I don't know, I still believe the perks outweigh this simple drawback.

It's gotten to the point where I'd probably quit SportsWorks if they'd give me a set schedule at MNX. It's like, why am I sitting here working at SW, where there's no room for advancement, no room for anything DIFFERENT when I could be working at my own pace, with guys I can associate with, learning a hella lot more, making more than double what I make at SW, and having, literally, something new every step of the way? It's the ideal job! I don't know, but even if I were to get a set schedule and decent hours for MNX, I don't think I'd still quit SW. It's true what they say about that place-- it just stays with you no matter what. I've made enough bonds with everyone in that place that I'd probably miss them all dearly if I were to leave. And I guess only 2 have really surpassed the level of co-worker (well 3 now that Halapy's started), but even those I really don't get along with too well, I think we all share that common thread of having to put up with the same shit that is SW on a regular basis. And I believe that common thread is enough to justify a psuedo-relationship and a bond that'd be really hard to break.

Oh well, we'll all have to move on some day, but even with all these other, better opportunities quickly approaching, I don't think that day is yet for me. Anywho, nothing else really groundbreaking I guess. Found a FANTASTIC deal on a Montreal hotel... hopefully going to get that arranged soon.

So, until next time kiddos!

Home

Yeah I know it's a bit late, and I've actually been done with school since last Friday, but I haven't had the desire to update.

So yeah! I'm a sophomore in college! Wow, that's a scary thought. It seems like just yesterday I was graduating high school. This year definitely flew, and it was probably the best year of education I've ever had. College rocks hard and I love every minute of it (except maybe those 4 papers in one night shit). Now that I'm home, even for 6 days, I'm already missing it. Even though I have my car accessible 24/7 and no curfew or anything, it still feels as though I don't have the complete freedom that I did a week ago. Oh well. It's great to be home, and it's gonna be better when everyone's back too!

As for grades, which I got last night, I did significantly better this semester. And I'm proud of myself since I think this semester was a lot harder:

- French: A
- Skiing: A
- Music: A
- English: A-
- Psych: B
- Poly Sci: B-

Granted, I really wish I got the A in English, which I think I deserved because I got good grades on all my essays (my portfolio revisions probably fucked me over though) and the B in PolySci. I knew I was stratling a B-/C+ in PS, probably because I didn't participate at all (which was 33% of the grade), but I guess I should be happy I got the B-. Was a hard class-- only grades were 2 papers and participation. Oh well. Music was a joke. Skiing was, also, a joke. Psych I didn't try at all and used the hour and 15 minutes to catch up on the hour and 15 minutes of sleep that I didn't get to finish in my nap. And French the teacher loved me. I really lucked out getting two awesome French teachers this year. That makes my GPA a 3.53 for this semester, and a 3.47 cumulative, so far (counting my two CHS courses senior year). Gonna really try hard to maintain that.

SKIP DOWN TO WHERE IT SAYS START READING AGAIN IF YOU DON'T FEEL LIKE READING A LOT OF TECHNICAL MUMBO JUMBO

Anywho, now that I'm home, it gives my other job time to load hours on me. Yesterday I spent about 6 hours putting together a server that I picked up. My task was to take it apart, put an IDE controller in, a 250gb IDE drive, and a new CD-ROM drive, boot it up, install Fedora Core (Linux) on it, and get all the network protocols established. Seems simple enough-- pfft. Nothing's simple when it comes to computers.

So I open it up and first thing I notice is that there are NO 3.5" drive bays in it. For those that don't know, a hard drive, floppy drive, etc. all fit in 3.5" drive bays, a CD-ROM and the like fit in 5.25" drive bays. So I went digging upstairs to find a converter, which I knew we had, to mount on to the sides of the hard drive to make it fit into 5.25" bays. Well that worked until I went to slide the drive in. The server didn't have screw holes to mount a drive on... it was one of those old school bays that needed drive rails. Well we also had some of those upstairs, so I found those, and when I put them against the drive, none of them fit. So I went next door to ask our neighbor (who's also comp savy) if he had drive rails, and thank God he did. So I put them on, all good, drive fits. (CD-ROM we had drive rails for, so those just slid in).

So I fire it up, it boots up, RECOGNIZES THE IDE CONTROLLER (which is a miracle because NEVER have I turned on a comp and have it recognize a new controller, LET ALONE the HDD and the CD-ROM on it), boots into the Linux install. Get it all set up, point it to install on the new IDE drive, starts cranking out, all good. Go back to check on it once it's at about 94% and it starts flipping out at me-- giving me all these weird error msgs saying the drive is corrupted, blah blah. Yeah so it forces me to reboot, losing all the data that was installed and have to go back and reinstall everything. I thought it was the CD because it kept saying replace the media, so I call the boss dude and he tells me to just try it again. So I try it again, keeping in mind it takes about an hour to fully install, and it does the same thing again to me. Well I get frustrated and try another CD-ROM drive-- still no dice. Finally I call the dude back and tell him all that's going on and ask him if he wants me to just try to install it on the SCSI's then. He goes "YOU GOT THE SCSI'S TO WORK!? That was the whole point of getting an IDE drive-- the client said the SCSI's didn't work. Bah." So I install it, works perfectly, got everything up and running.

So I spent all of today taking the machine back apart, unmounting the IDE drive (which we don't need now, so bye bye 2 hours of work) and getting everything back in working order. It's all good now... going to head up to the dude's office and get this shit set up tomorrow. Oh well, the pay is amazing, so I'm not complaining, even though the technology level is way above what I'm at currently. That's my only quam about this job... my coworkers and boss tell me I should be doing this and that with the servers and I have very little clue as to what they're talking about. I guess not having worked with Linux before and with some of the networking protocols associated with it really sets me back. Oh well, I hope to learn as much as I can so I don't have to feel like I'm keeping everyone back with my questions.

OK YOU CAN START READING AGAIN

Oh well. And I asked to only be put on Tuesdays during the week at SportsWorks, so that shouldn't be too bad. Tuesdays are going to be fun as I like the people that work then. Halapy's starting next week and hopefully we'll be getting some hours together... ya know, showin him the ropes and stuff (haha). It's a joke, really. A half-dead, blind-folded, retarded chimp can do the shit there... it's just having the will power to put up with thousands upon thousands of people a day without cracking. Though you should like it, Halapy. It'll be good times.

And speaking of work, I'm going to Rick's daughter's wedding at the beginning of June. I'm really looking forward to that. Nothin like spending the evening with a bunch of awesome work people, sippin on some drinks, dancin terribly (especially considering the girl I'm going with is like 5'1" haha.. I <3 you Amanda!). Oh well.

Working tomorrow 6:30-10:00. Goin out to dinner beforehand-- should be fun times. Then work all weekend, which will probably suck, but maybe people will be around to do stuff. And then next week probably goin up to Allegheny to visit Em! I miss her bunches and it should be fun to spend some time with her.

Gah why can't all your colleges suck like Pitt and let you out 2 weeks before everyone else?? Oh well. I don't know how much I'll be updating this summer. It's probably gonna be uneventful. I'm hoping we can go somewhere.. Haley and I were throwing around the Montreal idea again, though I'm not sure if that was joking or what. But we need to go do something this summer.

Oh well. Until next time kiddos!