It's Friday!!

Morning folks,

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I'm so glad Friday is finally here.  Well, glad and sad at the same time.  Today, being the last day of the work week for me, is a good day normally, but today we say goodbye to a friend and co-worker who is leaving the company.  This guy was one of the smartest individuals on our team and will be a huge loss.  Of course everyone is replacable here at my job, so I doubt there will be any issues.

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Plans this weekend consist of multiple dance classes, playing video games, packing and overall staying indoors because it's going to rain most of the weekend.  They are actually calling for thunder showers tonight so that should be fun.  I hope to get some good gaming in this weekend as well as get some packing done as well.  Should be a good time with the family.

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I've been debating on whether to start up the daily musings again.  Not just posting here on the site but also sending out the daily emails like I used to.  I've started getting back into "The Arts" recently with my drawing and writing and I didn't realize how much I miss being able to write daily and draw.  It was a piece of me not very long ago and I've forgotten it completely until recently.  I'll see how things go with work and such as we have a new guy starting on Monday and we're still down one person after that.  I suspect work will get better as time goes on, but I'm on the edge right now and may start looking for something else; even if I have to take a pay cut.

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Well folks I need to get back at it.  There is no rest for the IT guy who works for a large financial firm :)

Cheers,
Al

Theme Change

Morning folks,

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As the post title would suggest, I've changed the theme.  Actually, I've just reversed the theme that was here, but to some it may look like a completely new theme.  My dear mother made a comment this past weekend about how "Dark" my site felt (and obviously looked) so I decided to spruce things up a bit.

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We're looking to move into a new place!  That's right, we are finally getting off our asses and starting to look for something bigger and better.  Last night we went to look at a nice Townhouse near our current apartment and fell in love with it.  The rent is the same as our current 2 bedroom dungeon and this place comes with an extra bedroom and is two stories.  I have captured what I feel is a fairly accurate floor plan below



As you can plainly see, the main floor sports a Den, Kitchen, Dining Room, Living room and a fairly spacious Half Bath.  With the exception of the North wall of the Den and Half Bath, the room is a fairly open concept allowing someone in the Kitchen to watch TV in the living room or converse with guests in the dining room.  The entire main floor (with the exception of the Den) is all tile and hardwood floor making it an attractive surface to dwell in.



As you can see, the upstairs sports 3 fairly spacious bedrooms and a full bathroom centrally localized in the area.  Also upstairs is the laundry room which is a big bonus for us since we currently pay $3.00 for one load of laundry and have to cart our stuff down the hall in our apartment to a laundry room where the dryer never drys anything.

If we get this place we are looking to move in June 1.  One of the nice things about it is how much closer it is to my son's school.  There is a walking path next to the complex which goes straight up to the school making the journey only half as long as it was prior.  Can't wait!

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Anyway folks, I must run and get some work done.  Looking for a new job is tiresome, so if you know anyone looking to hire a Senior Linux/UNIX Administrator, let me know ok? :)

Cheers,
Al

Website Updates

Afternoon folks,

Made some changes to the website today.  Nothing major, just basically moved around some pages and created a Projects section to list all my projects and such.  I plan on adding more Pages to the site in the near future so I wanted to get things cleaned up to make way for the fun stuff :)

Cheers,
Al

Whoa!

Life can throw some pretty awesome curve balls at you.

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Here I am on a Thursday morning drinking a coffee wondering what the heck is going on.  I found out another co-worker has given notice at work (That's 3 from our team, 8 overall from the group in the last 2 months).  I have decided to put some serious thought in my future and my goals.  Up until recently, I haven't given much thought to my life direction and where I want to see myself in 5, 10 even 25 years from now.  To be perfectly honest, I didn't even think a few months in advance normally, so  this is a big adjustmet for me.

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I don't know how I'm going to deal with this.  I don't feel challenged at my job, I don't enjoy the work I'm doing and the company I work for is so cheap I find it hard to belive anyone would stay here longer than a few years.  Seriously folks, when you read back through my past posts where I complained about my old job, I take it all back.  I would do almost anything to have that job back now lol.

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Life is interesting.

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Well, as fate would have it, there are still Roll-up-the-Rim cups available.  I came to work this morning and was surprised to see the Tim Horton's in our building is serving them still.  Therefore, I'll be making some more changes to the Roll Up page and recalculating my data.  Look for those changes later today or tomorrow.

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Well, need to get some work done today and catch up on a PILE of emails.  What'd I'd give to only have one thousand emails a day.  Getting 3+ thousand a day is quite painful, pointless and very counter productive.

Until next time, keep your sticks on the ice :)

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Cheers,
Al

Roll Down The Rim

Howdy Folks,

I don't know about other areas, but here it seems there are no more Roll Up The Rim To Win cups at any of the Tim Horton's I frequent.  Therefore, I've decided to start my computations on my Roll Up The Rim section.  Feel free to drop on over there and take a gander, I should be updating that page shortly after I post this.

I must admit, I'm very disappointed in my winnings this year; maybe I've just been unlucky :)

I've been working quite a bit these last few days, and yes, I worked on the weekend because I was on-call.  I've been turning over a new leaf at work and making the best out of the situations I've been dealt.  When things try to drag me down, I turn them around and find a positive outlook on them.  Of course this doesn't work all the time, but I find by doing so, I have a much better day (or week) at work and seem to get positive feedback from my peers and managers.  I also find I strive to make things better which is something I've been seriously lacking since moving here.  I guess you could say I've been quite bitter (as you can see from my recent past musings) and I've finally decided that life is too short to be bitter all the time.

I've also come up with a great idea for a book I plan on writing.  I hope to have this started this week and I plan on setting some solid goals and following them.  I'll post more on this by the end of the week, so keep an eye on this space.

Well, that's all I have for now.  I'm in the process of trying to find a good Real Estate lawyer to help with a little issue from last year.  Hopefully I can find someone today.

Take care all and remember to wash your hands after you use the washroom.

Cheers,
Al

Facebook

Morning folks,

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Today is a day for change.  Tomorrow is a day for change.  Next week is a time for change.

Sound familiar?

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Well I've been sucked in.  I swore I would never sign-up and be a member of this ever growing site called Facebook.  I swore it with every bone in my being and here I am writing about it.

I've only been a member for a couple days and already I'm finding people (and people are finding me) that I haven't seen in years.  It's kind of scary when you think about it.  All the technology in the world couldn't bring you together with old friends and classmates, but a simple website is able to do that and much more.  How is this possible?  A friend at work calls Facebook, "Classmates done right".  I couldn't agree more because Classmates was a great idea, just too limited.  I mean, not everyone went to school :)

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Anyway, wanted to throw this post out there for anyone interested.  I feel dirty for even thinking of using this site, but at the same time I find it a little addictive because you never know who will add you as a friend or who you'll find through other friends.

Cheers,
Al

Welcome Back to Camelot

Morning all,

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We have been graced with yet another day of existance.  Life as we know it continues on and we learn to embrace things as they are without thought as to their potential.  Seeing is believing and trust in the unseen is often mistaken as religious faith.  Of course I'm no philosophy major so I won't go much futher with that.  I'm just a guy who enjoys writing and talking about stuff that only matters to me.

:)

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The other day my wife received an email from Mythic Entertainment.  These folks dreamed up the world of DAoC which is where I spent a lot of time.  Of course DAoC was never the time sink WoW was, it was still a small time sink.  Well, this email stated that Mythic was looking to offer her a chance to Come Back to Camelot for 10 days FREE to see and experience some of the changes.  I used to get these emails but I think my account had the wrong email address attached to it so after I moved to Halifax, I didn't get them anymore.  I decided to embark on the quest to figure out my account information which proved to be difficult as I hadn't logged into the game in over a year (during the last 10 day free thingy) and I had changed the password because I was planning on selling the accout on eBay.

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After several days of "hacking" away at my account, I finally figured out the password and was able to login.  A LOT has changed in the world of DAoC and a lot of the changes were quite welcomed by me.  There were a couple "bad" changes, but overall I think the changes were made for the good of the game.  The MMOG market is very competitive.  Seems like every gaming company out there is trying to (or already has) come out with their own style of MMOG.

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To make a seemingly long story short, I started playing DAoC the day before yesterday and have been enjoying my time.  Whether I continue with the game or not remains to be seen, but I plan on taking advantage of my 10 days free :)

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Well, I must run for now.  Remember to avoid bathrooms in the office place and be wary of critters crawling underneath the toilet seats. :)

Cheers,
Al

Happy Easter

Happy Easter to all!

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Ahhh, added the slurp in there for old times sake.  I've debated on whether I should restart my coffee musings.  When I moved to Halifax I found it difficult to keep up with the musings because I worked odd shifts and my musings were getting sent out at supper time vs breakfast time.

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New Layout

Yes it wouldn't be me without a new page layout :)

I stumbled on a theme named Hemingway last night.  I really liked the way it looked as it wasn't like the traditional themes out there.  After doing some digging around, I found there were several variations of this theme floating around.  I looked at most (if not all) of them and finally settled on this one.  It is called HemingwayEx and I really like what the Author has done with it.  I've made some tweaks and changes of my own and I think I'll keep this one for awhile.

Enjoy,
Al

Happy Birthday...

To Me?

Well, I guess if you're talking about April the 3rd, then yes.  If you ask me whether I've had a "Happy" Birthday or not, I'd have to say Meh.