You can't fix stupid, and no I am not talking about the Ron White special by the same name. I think humans are stupid by nature, and more and more, I am starting to think that you really can not fix stupid. Sure you can dress them up, make them look good, and you can educate them, but in the end they are still STUPID! And New Mexico seems to be ground zero for Stupid!

Around here, rush hour has become a game of bumper cars. I keep finding new ways of dogging all the drunks, red light runners, and stupid drivers so that I don't die; just so I can come back to do it all again tomorrow. Hell, today I almost got rear ended on the interstate by a driver going at a high rate of speed, but lucky for me, he found his breaks at the last second. Also going to school in the "student ghetto" area, I see so many people almost get run over that it’s not even funny anymore. Some of it is the drivers fault, but also a lot of the blame can be put on the stupid people j-walking in the middle of traffic and crossing against the light.

And last Stupid seems to be Verizon Wireless. Long time readers of my blog are sure to remember all the fun I had with Verizon in the last 2 / 3 years. For those of you who are new readers, you can catch up by looking at my entrys tagged with the word "Verizon". So my newest fun with them is a rather large order that I sent to my rep last Thursday (almost a week ago) still has not shown up, and it really should have been here Monday.

Monday I fired off an email to my rep over at Verizon to ask her what the hell was going on with this and if she could look in to it. Well, a hour or two later I get a reply that she was still trying to get approval for the order, but due to someone in her office out due to a family emergency, she could not get it approved. Now, I have sympathy for the guy dealing with the family emergency, cus shit happens, but hell, Verizon Wireless is a global, multi-Billion dollar company and on one else can freaking approve this order? So I sent that to my rep and it must have gotten a fire lit under someone’s ass, cus not more then a half hour later I got an email from someone at Verizon that they were working on approval for the order and by that night it had been placed.

Funny / Sad thing is that it still has not shown up at our office. They normally ship 2-day air, so it should have really been here today (Wednesday) and if it does not show up by tomorrow (Thursday), I think I might have to start being an ass again, which I do not really enjoy too much. I think Verizon Wireless stopped working for us years ago, and am really starting to think that our business would be better off somewhere else.

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In other news I got my score for my second test in my Windows Server class and after we got done arguing for our scores, I got a 98%. It started out as a 88%, but we were able to argue our answers on four other questions, which got us another 10% points. So now for this class, I have had a 100% and a 98% on my tests. Things are looking good!

Tomorrow I find out how I did on my second test in my Intro to Computer networking class and I must say that I felt really good taking that test. Normally there are one or two questions that I really am not sure on and/or had to guess on for one reason or another, but this time I felt really damn good about all the questions. Now I just hope my gut is right. LOL.

And next Monday I will find out how I did on the second test in my Windows Pro (aka Windows XP) class. We took that test today, and I really felt ok about it. Per my normal MO, there were a few questions that I was not 100% sure of, but overall still felt good. Only time will tell I guess.

Anyway, this has gotten way longer then I planned, so with that I am going to shut up!

So one of the things that I have had to do to get ready for my training in Milwaukee is work up a test computer with a clean install of Microsoft Dynamics GP aka, Great Pains with the sample company data. Now normally this is not a hard thing to do, but since I really do not want to travel with two laptops (not out of the question yet), and since I can not just take a desktop computer to Milwaukee (it’s just not going to happen), I am trying to do it in VMWare.

For those of you who do not know, WMWare and VMServer (which is what I am using) are virtualization platforms that basically allow you to run a computer in a computer. The other reason why I am doing this is that I do not want to gunk my computer up with Dynamics shit. Once you get Dynamics on a computer, its hard to remove everything that gets associated with it.

So my first, IDK, 10 attempts I tried using Windows 2003 Server. Each and every time I told Dynamics to install the sample company; it would upchuck right in the middle of it. I only got it to work once (and it still and issues), so I scrapped that.

Then tonight I figured I would try an Windows XP install running MSDE (Like SQL Server, but for non-server OS's). Well that was fun in its own right as I have never installed and/or used MSDE. Once I got MSDE figured out (boy that was fun), I then installed Dynamics. Then I told it to install the sample company data which it did just fine. The only problem, not a single user in Dynamics can get to the sample company. I know its there, it just looks like its not to any user account. So that’s no good.

So since I have been working on this for over a week now, and have a lot of time in on it this week (I'm already over 40 hours this week) I have been doing plenty of research both on the web (via google) and on Customer Source (which is Microsoft self-help site, with a knowledge base and such) with no luck on figuring out what in the fuck is going on with this. It really is starting to piss me off.

Now I have thought that it could be cus I am running everything under VMWare and VMServer, but everything else and every other piece of software works just fine under VMWare/VMServer including a install of the Apple Mac OS X (which really should not run under this stuff).

But one thing I did find in all my research was some weird really small reference to something that does only apply to version 7.5 (we are running 9), but there is an issue with the sample company if there is a "-" or any other symbol in the computer name. So, go figure, that each time I have been calling this server something like "Wennsoft-Training".

So right now (Yes I am still at work, even at almost 11pm) I am reinstalling Windows Server 2003 with a different computer name that does not have a "-" in it. The reason I am trying to get this done tonight, is so that if this does not work, I can give the MSDE one last try on my actual computer with no VMWare/VMServer and see if I can make it work.

If I can not make that work, then I will be calling tech support and saying "WHAT IN THE HELL IS WRONG WITH THIS SHIT!". But, it is Dynamics GP, which is a Microsoft product and this is just another reason why I call this Great Pains. Something that should work really easy does not work, and is really fucking hard to make work.

So my flight leaves in about 5 hours and I still have not gone to bed. Now if you ask if this was my master plan, HELL NO! The A/C at the office died again tonight, and it died good.

After having dinner with my parents, I had just left their house when my phone started to go off. So, I found a safe place to pull off the road and looked at my phone to see that it was an email alert from our temperature monitoring equipment at work. It was a notice that the supply air to the room had exceeded my preset limit.

Since there was nothing I could do sitting on the side of the road, continued on my way home. Once home, I booted up the laptop and VPN'ed into the office. Upon looking at the temperature monitor I noticed that supply air was warmer then the room temp, which means the unit, is blowing warm air. I called up our dispatcher and told her what was going on.

I asked her to dispatch our on call tech so that we could maybe catch the problem when it was happening. I told our dispatcher that I could be down there if needed too. So I got a call back about 5 or 10 minutes later saying that our tech would be there in about 30 min and that yes, he would like me on site.

So I get to the office just a tad before 10pm. The tech shows up not long after and comes up to my office to see what the problem is. Showing him something’s including the temp monitor, he goes around to the condenser to look at it. So he goes about trying to figure things out and I am trying to get some other things done since I am in the office.

About an hour or so pasts and I go out and see what our tech is up to. He explains someone to me, but it goes over my head which is normally the case when someone trys to explain HVAC stuff. He says that he might be able to make it work, but just incase we take a porta-cool up to the server room and get it all setup and turned on.

So our tech goes and finishes up what he was working on, and closes everything back up on the unit. He leaves and by now it’s after midnight. So I stick around to make sure the temp in the room will return to normal. So finally by the time I get out off the office it’s just a bit after 1am and I still have to pack.

So getting home I fire the laptop backup and continue on with my monitoring and start to pack and get many other things done that I had planned on doing before I got called into the office.

So now here I sit. It's around 3:40am and I just finished packing everything for my vacation (ya, much needed vacation). My father is showing up around 5:50am to take me to the airport (to catch my 8:20am flight) with a quick stop back at the office to change backup tapes and make sure the temp is still good.

Right now I am just winding down. I am finishing up some TV and will jump into the shower soon cus, well I need a shower. If I am lucky, I might be able catch a small nap on the couch or in my easy chair before my father shows up. The only saving grace, my out going flight from ABQ is to ORD (O'Hare) so it's longer then if my out going flight had gone to DFW. So maybe I can get some sleep in on my first leg flight.

So I am still fighting with the server (yes, still). It works, but it does not. I know how cryptic right?

What I mean is that when I have the old hard drive in the RAID (4 hard disks that look like two disks. One the 2 "disks" is a mirror of the data for redundancy) I can get it into Windows and it works just fine. But, if I install the new hard drive and try to get it to rebuild the RAID like it should, it just fails and will not even touch Windows.

So right now, I am running the Windows setup again to repair the install which is something that I just have to do when going from the new disk back to the old one to make it all work right. Then it will "rebuild" it's self for about 10 hours (I know, screams of fun right?).

( Read the long version of how I got to where I am now... )

So ya, that is what’s going on with that. The other fun thing is my hours. As of my writing this, I have 37 hours for the week in 3 days. Monday I worked 16 hours. Tuesday I worked 10 hours and Wednesday I worked 11 hours. Now normally 37 hours is about where I am on a Friday at the end of the day, which means in theory I could take the next two days off, but I've got a server to fix, so I doubt that will happen.

Well that is all for now. You are now updated on the crap in my life. Somehow this is not how I thought I would spend my spring break. I really think I will take a day or two off (from work, not school) next week if I can get this dumb thing working. Also sorry if this entry seems a little random, but I did freaking write this at 2am after working 11 hours, so ya.

I know I have said it before, but "Damn I need a drink". No wait, I fixed that problem. LOL. Thank you jack and coke. LOL.

So as you can see from the title not only did we loose our phones today, we also lost out internet connection. Got to love dual-failure.... Just love it.....

So it started with Linda calling my office and telling me that the internet is down. Well at first I just thought it was her computer as I was talking to a friend on AIM, and downloading a file, and other crap (All of which seamed to be working). Well I was trying to hit the "intercom" button to get an internal line when I hit the "Outgoing" button which should get me an outside line on speakerphone. Well I noticed right away that there was no dial-tone.

I was like crap crap crap. So then all of a sudden AIM craps out and is not coming back. So I fire up IE and sure as crap, Google will not load. So I go flying down the stairs at an very fast rate and tell everyone that not only are the phones down, but so is our internet. I'm used to the phones going down, as they go down more offen then they should. I mean really come on. Anyway.

I should also tell you that we have two differnt T-1's (fucking fast internet connections), one for our phones, the other for web access. They are operated by two differnt companys. So then I run back up stairs and call our Lobo Internet our ISP whom we have one of our T-1's with. I get one of there guys and tell him what is going on. He has me look at a few things, and then he tells me to hold, and puts the Carl on. So Carl is like hang on, as he pulls up his big router thing that can see the status of everything, and tells me "Sure as crap you are dead". So he tell me that he will file a trouble ticket with qwest and get them to "fucking fix there screw up".

So as he is doin that, I hang up with Carl and call our rep over at Time-Warner Telecom (whom our other T-1 is with for phones) and get her voice mail. Which was just fine for me, as she has the ops # in her voice mail (I had forgoten to write it down from the last problem). So I left her a message and turned around and called ops. Well just as I was starting to get the ball moving, I hit the "outgoing" button just to see, and sure as crap we were back up. So then I fireup IE and google comes right up.

So at this point I am happy to at least have phones and internet back up and going. I call Carl back up and tell him that we are back in biz, and he checks the big router and does see things moving to us again. So I am happy, for the moment. But I am still dealing with other crap at the same time. I guess I should also explain that we had company breakfast today, which means that I was in around 6:30am this morning. Also I should explain that due to other fires that I had to put out this week, I had close to 40 hours, and should have left the office at 1:30 to avoid hitting over time, and to leave me enough time this weekend to do backups.

Well, that did not happen. I finally broke out of there around 4pm today, so I am not how many hours I got, but I know that I am above 40 right now, and that I have at least 2 or more hours of work to do this weekend. So I need to talk to Dennis (my boss) to see if I can just trasfer hours to next week, and take a half day or something, or if he just wants to pay overtime. Also since I had an major problem to deal with, I do not think he will have a problem with anything. He normaly never does. I try to keep at or under 40 hours.

So ya, that is my day. A long day, so I think I am going to be hitting the hay soon, as soon as I call the Security for my apartment complex about the raging party my neighbors are having..... I remember paying good rent and living far enough from UNM to not have to deal with this crap, o the drama...LOL...

So we have gotten rain the last two days here in Albuquerque. Granted it’s not enough to even really measure, but hell, its still rain. Really all it has done is get the ground just a little wet, and then the wind comes up and we have flying mud. If you thought blowing dust was bad, try flying mud. LOL.

So now my car looks like I have been off roading or something, which is really funny, cus it’s a 1987 Volvo Wagon. LOL. Speaking of the car that will never die, I am 500 miles from hitting 340,000 miles. I swear I could push the dumb thing off a cliff, and it would still work. Well I really guess I should not bitch too much as it does run good, gets ok gas mileage, and its not a total piece of crap.

So I have been stinking busy, but it should get much better next week. Also I must say, never take your computer to data doctors. A good friend of mine took her home computer there (cus she said that she has abused me too much lately) and still have not gotten it back, and she took it in a week ago. It would have taken me a few hours at most to save her data, fix it, and get her back up and running. Again, see the customer service bitch again. They told her Monday, then that changed to Tuesday and then Today. I have no clue if she has gotten it back yet.

In one last bitch, I hate evening meetings that are cross town and start at 6pm. I mean most of us do not get off work until 5pm and rush hour around this place can last until 6:00 to 6:30, and as late as 7pm. So in an hour I have to leave work, get home, grab and/or fix dinner, and then still get cross town to my meeting FUN!

Anyway, I think its bed time for me soon. I can not wait for this weekend, as I will post more later.

I also thought of using "Who do I have to shoot to get this to work right?", but that seemed too long for a subject. It’s been a long day, and as I said above "When do we start taking prisoners?"

I am tired of dealing with crap that will just not work. I mean I know it goes with the job, cus well, when you are a Systems Administrator, I fix things that do not work, but what I guess is pissing me off, is that when I have to rely on other people to get crap done, they just are not doing there part. We call these people "Vendors".

Do not get me wrong, I have some great vendors. I have one Computer and Computer Parts vendor that I can order crap up til 2am and get it that morning in my office. Other vendors like Dell offer great support when I have to call them for what ever. They offer quick and great service which is why I continue to go back to them when I need new computers. Last but not least, there is our ISP, Lobo Internet. They are why I love doing business with a local company. I know the owner (who is a great guy), they offer great products (which we use) and when I have a problem or an issue, I can pick up a phone and talk to a real person, who I know and they all know me. Also just so you know, I am not getting "kickbacks" or anything like that for talking up all the good vendors I have, but I really should....*puts on todo list*. LOL

Anyway then I have vendors that try and then some that really just do not give a crap. One of whom I bitch about in here a lot. I really do, I know that some of you are probably sick of hearing about them, but then again this is my blog. Then there are vendors like the one I *tried* to talk today and got blown off, which is not the way to get on my good side. I can not say much about who this vendor is, or who they are as its not my place. See, I guess I should explain a little.

A good friend of mine works for the Central New Mexico Affiliate of the Susan G Komen Brest Cancer Foundation. As I am sure you know or at least I hope you know, each Affiliate of the Komen Foundation puts on a local "Race for the Cure" to help fundraise for Breast Cancer awareness. Anyway she taps me to help with some computer things. So this coming Sunday is the race for our affiliate. Well as one might think, things are really busy and stressful. So this vendor which as there contribution to the race is providing us with a service. Well last year it went off with out a hitch as they were allowed to send us what we & I needed via e-mail. Well due to recent changes in law's they can’t send us the info via e-mail.

So now we have to use a website to log-in to. Which really its not as nice as just getting the e-mail, but you know, what’s a boy to do? Anyway it half way works, and when I mean halfway, thats an over statement. It gets about 4 lines from each file and nothing more. Even when I know that each file has like more then 200 lines. So on Friday I was told to contact the vendor so we could figure things out, which I did. The problem is that the person whom I talked to did not really have any power, and told me she would have to contact her "Help Desk". So I left my contact info with her so that she, and the "Help Desk" could get a hold of me.

Well later that night I got a call from the "Help Desk". They asked me a few things, and asked how late I would be at work. I told the guy that I would be around a computer all night, and to call me anytime. Really he could have woken me up at 2am, and I would have been fine with it. So I thought that we might get it fixed quickly, being that we need there crap by Thursday. So the weekend comes and goes, nothing. Monday comes and it’s now about 4pm, when I call my contact at the vendor back. Well all she did was give me the blow off, which pissed me off to no end.

So right after I got off the phone with her, I turned around and called my friend and said "When do we start taking prisoners?" To make a long story short, she is going to get me the data so I can work my magic. Really I am amazed some days that companys stay in business when they give crap service. And this is not the first problem we have had this year with this vendor.

Anyway, enough bitching for one night. I only hope the devils day (6/6/6 aka 06/06/06 aka June 6th 2006) will be better. Wait, what crack am I smoking? LOL I mean, it falls on a Tuesday which I guess is much better then it falling on a Monday also.

Anyway its now past midnight, I really should get some sleep....