Toystravaganza…and more

Wow, what a long time since I’ve written anything in here.  Since the last posting I’ve been up-north a couple times and once in Chicago.  It has been a very hot summer this year, especially in August.  And here we are only 6 days away from the first day of autumn.  Autumn for me means my yearly trip to the upper peninsula.  A trip that I look forward to all year.  This trip has been planned and it’s a go.  Vacation time has been approved, a vehicle has been reserved, and hotel rooms booked for the intermediate hop over in Mackinaw City.

I put my new wheels I bought last year up on ebay again but they didn’t sell.  I think shipping is what’s killing the deal.  It’s just too expensive to ship them.  The tires+wheels individually weigh about 55 lbs.  It costs around 200 bucks to ship it around the country.  My only recourse is to print out some fliers and post them around campus here at WSU.  I already had them in the paper once, and in Tradin’ times but neither sold.  I’d get phone calls like “would these fit on my 82 Cadillac De Ville?” Uhh…no.  But they will fit on a range of vehicles.

Failing to sell these wheels makes it harder to buy my newest coveted toy A Canon Rebel XT digital SLR camera.  The kit I want is about 850 bucks and includes a Tamron 18-200mm lens.  I’ve been wanting a digital SLR for about 2 years but just can get myself to pay that kind of cheese…of course, like a moron I paid 1200 on the tire/wheel package.  I could have had my camera and a couple decent lenses for that money.  Oh well! Live and learn, I guess.

Got a new desktop at work.  Finished setting it up.  It’s a Dell; nice and fast.  I trickled down my 2-yr old Dell as my “new” Linux box.  Runs good on a HT 3ghz CPU.  This has become my testing machine.  I have VMware installed on it an will be running virtual machines on it to test various environments.

We just went through another reorg in our division here at the University.  People got let go(some management), people got shuffled around, moved around(geographically), and some are uncertain as to where their new offices will be.  Like I, for example.  There’s talk of our department moving up the street to the main computing center building, but I for one am not to happy about that prospect.  Sure this building is a hole, but at least I have my *own* office.  I have it the color I want, I have my posters up, I have some breathing room, and if I need quiet time I can have quiet time with nobody bugging me.  I can play my music at a volume I like without bothering anybody.  I can adjust the ambient lighting in my office so it’s easy of my eyes.  If we were to move, all these “perks” would be gone, because more than likely we’d get plopped into cubicles.  I hate cubicles.  I REALLY hate cubicles.  They depress me.  The bright fluorescent bulbs tire my eyes quickly.  The also seem to bring back ugly memories from old crappy jobs in which I worked in a cube and had to endure that ominous fluorescent ballast above my head.  We’d also be way further away from main campus.  I’m part of a team which supports other techs on campus.  Some view it as Tier2, some view it as Tier3.  Which ever it is, we’re the people the campus admins and integrators call when they’re stuck.  Physical proximity to campus is very important in my opinions to our jobs.  Oh well, I’ve voiced my thoughts quite loudly, and that’s all I can do really.

My mom got a new job working for the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor.  She’s working as a research project coordinator.  Long drive, but she likes the job, and the benefits are fantastic.  I like working in academia.  I’ve always encouraged her to keep trying to find a job in it, and finally she did.  Thank God!  She was working in all these little doctor’s offices which are like small sweat shops.  Yikes!

Started video-conferencing with grandma in Romania!!! Who’d of thunk?!  She has a friend/neighbor with a computer and cable modem, so on Sundays she goes over there sits in front of the computer, and her friend fires up skype and there u go!  She’s just awestruck that we’re able to do this  This only scratches the surface, grandma