So tonight I was watching Bruce Almighty and I forgot how much I really just love this movie. I really think this movie has to be one of Jim Carrey's best movies, right up there with The Truman Show Also I must say Morgan Freeman does a great job playing God. I love it when movies break the mold on what God must look like.

In other news, I was able to save the server and get it backup with a new hard drive. It’s been a really freaking long week, and of course it had to happen on my spring break when I had only planned on working like 3 days and goofing off on the other 2. As it stands right now, I have 53.5 hours so far, and still have to re-migrate the database back onto the main server and move the clients back onto the main server. I think I have about 2 or 3 hours of work left ahead of me to clean everything up that needs to be done before people start using the server again on Monday.

Now looking forward to next week, I know Friday will be a short day for me since I am going with my grandma and 2 of her friends to the opera that my parents are in. So I have to be at my grandma's house at like 3:30pm or something like that so we can go pick up her friends since they do not drive after dark, and then get to Scalo's Northern Grill up in Snob Hill, Nob Hill, for our 5pm dinner reservation. Then from there we go drive downtown for the Opera Southwest production of La Boheme at the historic KiMo Theatre.

That leaves me with what to do with the rest of the week. I figure I will have about 16 to 17 hours of overtime this week which equals about 24 to 25.5 hours since overtime is time and half. Now part of me knows that I can not just crap off next week cus crap still needs to get done at my job, plus I have to figure out what the hell happened with the server (still not 100% sure) and still will have a little clean up to do on the server. So ya, it looks like I will have one monster of a paycheck this week, which as nice as that is, still is no replacement for my spring break.

For now, I will just take next week as it goes and see what happens. Maybe I will take a day off next week and go for the drive I was planning to do this week. O well, at least I do not feel that bad, and I don't think my sleep schedule is that screwed up. LOL. Only time will tell next week.

Also this past week has not been my week and I also think its "Technology Hates Kevin Week" cus damn. Not only did our server go down at work, but the POS system at my old job had issues so I talked them thru how to fix it. Plus, last night my laptop had some major issues due to good old Microsoft and what I can only guess is a
WindowsUpdate gone wrong. Once I was finally able to download new updates, it all was fixed, but never less not how I wanted to end the week. Plus I am pretty sure my WiFi router is taking a dump and dieing a slow death. So that is just something else I need to fix / replace.

In addition to nothing with a computer chip working for me this week, I also figured out how to hurt my self pretty well. Monday was one of those days when you really just wanted to just role back over and go back to sleep. As I was getting in my car on Monday to head to work, I slammed by head into the corner of my door on the car hitting just to the left of my left eye. Really I am lucky that I did not blind my self, cus just a quarter inch to the right or so and it would have hit directly on my eye. So, hitting the door with my head did draw a very small amount of blood and caused my eye to swell. Some how I did escape this with out a black eye. It also hurt like nothing else. I really do not cry that offen from pain, but this made me want to just start to cry. Hell, last year when I did my ankle in, I really did not even cry during that.

So I think you are now all up to date on what is going on in my life.

The image above is from one of our computers at work. Some of the people have been complaing that there computers were running slow this week, so I figured it was time to defrag the disk. Well boy was I right. I have not seen fragmentation this bad in a long time.

Also as I was doing this to all the company computers, and I looked at the our server that houses our Dynamics / Great Plains stuff, and DAMN I really must remember to defrag that drive more often. Granted, its a swap drive that I use to move crap around on, but still, it had File Fragmentation at 90% DAMN.

Well, that is all, time for bed. I really must stop updating late like this...

So there is a song by Lou Rawls called "Stormy Monday", and song starts out with the lyrics "They call it stormy Monday, but Tuesday is just as bad", which I think is a good way to define today. I was also thinking of titling this post "I know its Tuesday, but really I think Monday was just a day late.", but really like the Lou Rawls lyric better. Really the day started out great, but then just took a crap dive from there, which is just like any other day right?

As I said above, the day started out good. I was only 3 min late getting out of my apartment this morning, and traffic was really light this morning, and traffic all moved about 65mph, so that was a good thing. School was good, in my Arch 104 Studio we built study models so that was fun, and a nice change of pace from all the drawing we have been doing. When I got out of class, I walked back across campus to where I park, got in my car and went to the bank. My sister needed me to deposit a check for her, and I had a check of my own to deposit too.

So all of that went fine and dandy. I stopped and picked up lunch on my way into the office, getting in around 2pm. I checked my box downstairs in the main office before heading upto my office. I punched in my code to open my door and the first thing I saw was the computer screen. I should tell you all that I leave my computer at work on all the time, that way if I need to get access to my computer via the VPN, I can do so with no problem. Anyway, I noticed it did not look right. It looked like it was trying to start windows, but the status bar was way too high. Then I see it, an error message. The error message said, "Windows 2000 could not start beacuse the following file is missing or corrupt: \WINNT\SYSTEM32\CONFIG\SYSTEM". Bascily that error messages means your Registry is fucked!. As soon as I finish reading that, I say "o fuck", and think not today.

Now this means that anything & everything that I had planned on getting done today is on hold until I fix this peice of crap computer. Now I tried a few things frist, like turnning it off and on, but kept getting the same error. So finaly I gave up and went and grabed the Windows 2000 CD. But, instead of just formating and reloading right away, I tried using the Automated Recovery System or ARS, but that was a no go, beacuse it wanted the Windows Restore disk, and I have no clue if one was ever made for this computer or where it might be if it was. So next I tried letting windows detect my instalation of 2000, but it could not do that. So from there, I started the "Recovery Console" tool on the Windows 2000 setup cd. Really, all the "Recovery Console" is, is a very striped down version of DOS, with limited commands. The first time I tired this, it would not let me into the WINNT directory, it just kept saying "Access Denyed", and I was like "Great!". So I gave it a second shot, and it asked me which install of windows it wanted to access. So I selected the only install of Windows on the computer and it let me in.

So I tried a few things in the "Recovery Console", but kept getting some fun errors, so thinking it might be the harddisk, I decided to reboot, and use Dell's Diag tools to check stuff. Sure as shit, I got an error when it tried to do a test of the harddisk. So they it tried to load the full set of Dell's tools, and I got an NTLDR error, which is strike two for the disk. Anyway, I rebooted back into the "Recovery Console", and started a CHKDSK, otherwise known as "Check Disk". Well I first did it with out any switches, and it came back fine. But after doing some research on the Internet, Microsoft suggested I run it with a /r, so I did. Bascily that forces it to run a surface scan of the disk.

Now it got through the first 1/4 of the disk fine, but has now been stuck at 28% for about 30 min, so I think that makes strike 3 for the disk. So now its time to call my rep at Compusa, and say I need a new harddisk and an encloure for the old one. Fun Fun Fun.

So now what I thought was going to be a short day at work, and a nice relaxing evening at home is going to be spend beeting the computer into submision. So ya, I will be here all night, prob until 10 or 11pm getting this peice of shit to work and getting all my files and what not restored. So ya, lots and lots of fun.

So I got a call today from my account rep over at PC Connection, so she and I got to talking, and she mentioned a new notebook computer that had gotten demoed in her office. It's called the "Ferrari Notebook", and is built by Acer.
So, now this thing cracks me up big time. Really, a Ferrari notebook computer, just what ever IT person who is trying to over compensate needs (wink wink). LOL. Or, as my account rep suggested to me, its really good for the President or VP of the company. I laughed really hard when she said that. Cus, our GM / Co-Owner is the only one who might even need such a high performance computer, and even then its over kill for him. Our two VP's would not even know what to do with this thing, beside maybe drop it. LOL.

I really don’t need a show computer, as all I really care about is performance, and reliability (which is why I got Dell). Both my home and work laptops are Dell's and are both really damn good computers that almost never fail. When they have failed, Dell has fixed the problem and it was fixed quickly. I have never had a problem with Dell's tech support people, and I can even understand them!

But, still when I saw this thing, I laughed hard! According to my rep, its even got a porsche hard drive. LOL Too Funny!

Anyway, I thought you all would get a kick out of this thing.

For that matter not my week...

Right now I am trying to save the VP's hard drive cus its taking a shit dive and quick. I am getting ready to stick it in the freezer to see if I can save the hard drive or not! It’s a last ditch effort (which has worked many times before), so we shall see. I have a backup drive ready to go, but first I need to save the data of the bad drive! Yikes!

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Also in other news, I will be out of communications from Friday November 18 to Sunday November 20 because I will be at the Senior High Youth Gathering helping out. I will have no access to e-mail, lj, and limited cell phone service there.

I will also be out of communication again from November 22 to November 27. I will be up in Colorado with my family on vacation. I may have access to my e-mail & LJ (but I do not know), but I will have normal cell service.

Both times I will be checking my Voice Mail, so if you really need me, call my cell, and leave me a message.

So, I am not saying that I have no fear in life, cus well, I got lots of that. But what I mean is with electronics I really have no fear. I know what does what, and what will kill me if I touch it, so I know what to stay away from.

So with that, last month I cracked open a power supply and fixed / replaced the built in fan. Today, I got to thinking that if my boss's PDA is heading for crap town anyway, I should open it up and see if there is anything I can do to fix it. Well, guess what? I can fix it. I was told by palm and other liars that you could not replace the battery in the Palm IIIc, well they lie. LOL. Not only can it be replaced, but it's sooo easy to do so. Its only 4 Phillips screws.

So, basically I found a site that sells OEM palm batteries, and the one I need is only 20 dollars. So, let me think, 20 dollars vs 400 for a new palm? That’s a hard choice. NOT! So, when my boss gets back in the office on Thursday, I am going to tell him what I have found, and if he wants to do it. So, that is the news on that.

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In other news, I am really tried from last night. I did not leave church until almost midnight, but so far it's all working like it should. So that is a really good thing. Suzan is happy, which is also a good thing. Also, when Erik gets back into town, he will be happy to know that I fixed the internet. But, this also means, that if it works right, that I have to now go price the materials that I will need to do this job right. So, I am guessing around 100 dollars after all is said and done.

So, it is starting to sound like my weekend is going to be spent doing a wire pull and other fun junk, but at last this should all be done with. So I will be happy.

Tonight, is our last of the all city youth events. This one is down at Luther House, so I will leave right after work, since my office is so close to campus anyway. Also tonight is when I start house sitting for Richard. So, now that means that I will have to fight rush hour from the Westside for the next week, which does suck, but I will live. My last night house sitting for Richard is August 10th. Last night, on my way to dinner with my parents, I got a call from Karen Davis. She asked if I could house sit starting the night of the 11th to Sunday (the 14th).

Then I have about one week, after that until classes start backup @ UNM. This semester on Monday, Wednesday, Fridays I have class in the mornings, and work in the afternoons. On Wednesdays I also have a 7pm class. Then Tuesday and Thursdays, I have work in the mornings and one or two classes in the afternoon. I have not made my decision if I am going to take 12 or 15 credit hours this semester. Right now, I have 15 scheduled in, but I may remove one class, and allow for my afternoons on Tuesday / Thursdays to be free for homework, and laundry and the such of that. So, we shall see.

Anyway, I am feeling lazy today, but I need to go tackle the backup server, and beat the crap out of the backup drive and see what that POS is not working, and test a few things. So, I will quit wasting time by writing an update and get to work.

Peace,
Kevin

So, it came today. My new toy, and birthday gift from my parents arrived today. I just got done setting it up, and its great. I love it sooo sooo sooo much. LOL.

For you who do not know / do not remember, my parents got me a Dell 19" flat panel LCD monitor for my 21st birthday.

Here is the stuff all you nerds will love: Highlights || Tech Specs || Overview

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In other news, I have one month to the day until I turn 21. It still feels werid, cus it just seems like yesterday I turned 20. But, at least this birthday has a perk, I will be legal to do most things in life, so that is a plus to getting old. And yes, I am getting old, and its fucking with my body hard right now.

Right now, my body is in half teenager mode and half adult mode. When I say that, I mean my body still wants to stay up late, but I can no longer get 5 hours of sleep and be fine. It's gotten to the point, that my body will not even let me get up unless I have about 6.5 to 7 hours of sleep. Now, if I could just get the rest of me to goto sleep early, I would be set. LOL. So, I guess we call this LIMBO!

Well, I need to get back to the office. (yes, this is only my lunch break)
Peace,
Kevin