Jimmy.Brainflush.com

elance.com: cool site of the day
White Sox Win
Site Maintenance

Good evening everyone.

So I put a bid in on a watch on E-bay, the one I’ve bidded on before, but always lost, because, it’s THAT watch, and people want to pay more than I have wanted to.

It got to a point where I just assumed I would lose. Well, in 2.5 hours, I may win it. I have mixed feelings about this. I think in these kinds of situations, it’s best to wait it out and see what happens. That, dear friends, is what I’m going to do: use this as an exercise in only focusing on things I can control.

Speaking of making money, check out elance.com. It’s a great place to find little gigs and part-time work for you E-bay junkies out there. I’ve actually put in a bid there. It’s pretty sweet.

I got to elance.com by way of MIT, which has placed it’s lectures online for free parousal. I really like those people. When I become rich, I will give them money. Maybe I’ll go there.

Anyways. Good day at work today. Everyone’s juiced about the Sox victory, and it’ll be cool to be downtown tomorrow for the ticker tape parade.. I’ll try taking pics and uploading them for you.

That’s about it for today. Took the late train in and got a haircut. Yes, I need a life.

On a random note, I finally realized what Dave the Web Guru has been laughing at for all these years. Yes, Dave, I’ve finally discovered fark.com.

Talk about being behind on the curve. Unrelatedly, all your base belong to google. (http://base.google.com)

Night all.
Jimmy

The Game..
The Exhaustion..
The City.
Wow am I tired. I blame the White Sox. Wait no, the Astros. Wait.. what about me?

It is admittedly sweet to be here, now. This morning on the train ride into work, a lady got on the announcement system and said “I know this may offend a few of you Cub fans, but Go White Sox! Tonight’s the night. They’re going to win it.”

I can’t help but agree with her. At any rate, this, with the nice, quiet nap on the ride, and napping in between bites of cereal, placed me in the best of moods for the walk into the office this morning. So it turns out, for those of you curious, that napping between bites of cereal is one of those riding a bike skillsets that, once you master, is with you for life.

The coffee is just starting to kick in - it’s from a place called Centro that reminds me of the cafes I saw in Brussels.

I will post more when I can assemble a bit of thoughts together. I must say though, that last night’s game was awesome.. in the way that doing something until you’re left with nothing more than adrenaline is awesome, and something all of us need to do every now and then.

The most interesting thing is the collective impact this seems to have on the city. On my walk in this morning, the lines were out the door at the Starbucks and Caribous along my way.

Everyone watched the game it seems. From an economic standpoint, this quantifies as something of a nightmare. Hours of productivity - gone!

Not hurricane impact nightmare, but a nightmare none the less. Still everyone made it. The same people on the train were all there. Good for them.. Good for me.

A funny moment: Last night as we’re watching the game, my mom randomly says while watching Penny, the dog, “I would hate to have a tail.”

I thought about it for a second, and I thought about work or the gym. It’d be pure bedlam. So there, think about that for a while.

Good morning, everybody.

I investigate the complex on the south side.
People start to follow me here from Cleveland.
My boss says hello.

Wow, two post days in a row.. that’s great commitment, eh?

Maybe I’ll go out and buy a cactus now. I’m feeling especially responsible. Today the Sun Times and the Loop (WLUP) in Chicago announced the return of Johnathan Brandmeier to Chicago airwaves. This is terrific news for Chicago radio fans who haven’t gotten much good news lately..

This was, I must add, terrific news that was offset by finding out after much sadness that Kevin Matthews is now broadcasting out of Grand Rapids Michigan out of a little station that, apparently, hasn’t grasped the concept of streaming audio.

C’mon Kev.. even Mancow has podcasts! We miss you, that is why we complain.

For those of you Kev-Heads looking for any good news, Dujhi, from Kev’s show back in his AM1000 days is coming back to Chicago via the end of Howard Stern’s run at CKG.

She’ll be broadcasting from Cleveland with a tool named Rover. Okay, he’s not a tool. Well, let me just put it this way.. If you like Mancow, you’ll like Rover. I happened to catch a few of his shows while living in Cleveland for the last few years.

In other news, I checked out the apartment complex on the south side, and the neighborhood’s kind of dicey. What was really strange was during the half hour I spent walking around the neighborhood, I saw two funerals pass by. That’s not normal.

Truth be told the unit needs work. The windows aren’t in great shape, the neighborhood is actually okay, but the overall vibe is kind of sketchy.

I accidentally came across an article by Howie Ludwig in the Daily Southtown on the web today.. Howie and I wrote for the high school paper in years past.. good to see he’s still doing it.

My new manager visited the other day and we had a good chat. The new job is coming together nicely. Now if I could only sell my condo.

Unrelatedly, I’m now referring to my mother as ‘my personal assistant’ to people. It happened as an accident during a conversation with somebody at the Jim Thompson Government building downtown yesterday. I thought it was funny.

The stupidest thing I’ve heard today is a big debate between the MLB commissioner’s office and the Houston Astros regarding whether or not the dome should be closed on MinuteMaid park for tonight’s game. The Astros are arguing to have it closed because their record is better when it’s closed. But my favorite, and today’s Quote of Stupidity belongs to Roy Oswalt. This from the AP:

“I don’t think they should step in and tell us what to do in our field, because it’s our home-field advantage now,” Game 3 starter Roy Oswalt said. “I think Chicago had their advantage there — cold, windy. They’ve been playing in it all year; we haven’t. So let’s bring it back home and give the advantage to us now.”

Umm.. the climate in most of North America tends to be warmer in the summer… Idiot.

I give Fox News a lot of crap, but I have to send props out for the “The End of the World: Ashlee Simpson No. 1″ headline I saw on their website today. Keep up the good work, guys.

Finally, in the “How’s the Pinky Finger Department:” It’s still kind of bent, but not as swollen.

That’s the day’s wrap-up. Go White Sox!

-Jimmy

Buy a house, then call me.
So, I’m looking at a property in the city. It’s an apartment building, and it’s pretty sweet. It’s in an interesting neighborhood that’s beginning to change. It’s amazing what good credit can do for a soul.

Gotta sell the ol’ place first. Got a few lookers on Saturday, but nothing yet. Hope the MLS thing will help. Whatever.

My boss sat and met with me today. I guess I’m doing well so far, considering I’m doing very little right now. This should amp up in a few weeks though.

That’s about it from here. Go White Sox!

Jimmy

Nice, clean. Thanks Davy for the new house!
So, I’ve been gone awhile. I will be posting here more regularly now, though. I promise.

Those of you who are skeptical - great! I love skepticism. I’m a big fan of it, in fact.

I’m living in the Windy City now, and the world is a different place. Decisions, it turns out, really ARE the pathway to excellence.

The harder they are to make, the more rewarding they are in the long term. Sometimes I need to be reminded of that. Sometimes you need to be reminded of that.

Welcome back, friends.

Today is the beginning again.
I can start to feel it washing over me now. That newness. The feeling of possibility.

It’s all starting over. The drive towards it. It’s on the wind. It’s on my brain, and all around in the quiet stillness.

My life, again, is changing. I’ve left the happy playpen with Bear, Lorrack and the others. I’m entering the big house. The biggest one on the block. I know it’s going to be a long time before I’m comfortable again. I also know that I’m heading into a situation which can, by all counts, add new layers of satisfaction all around me.

It is time to be the person of influence that I know to be inside of me. I must walk from the playpen to the land of independence.

I will sell this shelter, and I will buy many shelters. I will shelter many and in doing so earn and sleep.

The freedom is there for the taking. And it is mine. This I am sure of above all else.

Good night. God bless America, the only land where this could even be considered a possibility, let alone a national birthright of every man and woman born here.

Go out into the night, and claim what is yours. Claim your destiny. Fear not the wind or the darkness or the things unseen. Fear not your prior mistakes which have guided you to this place.

Recall the tragedies around you. Learn from each of them, as they each have a story to tell.
The lady in the Suburban without a rearview mirror, she had a story. She had a daughter too, and if you weren’t so busy being angry at her for cutting you off, maybe you would have seen life through her eyes and in her shoes.

Maybe you would have realized that, yes, there are people who aren’t making it. There are people who can’t get out of the dark places because for them it has been so dark for so long that any sign of light blinds there eyes of the promise. They can no longer adjust to see the light of the future, the gain and the glory.

Or worse, they see it, and they’ve given up. For safety’s sake, for security’s sake. For every other reason that almost kept you from making your decision’s sake.

Go forward into the night and claim it with zeal, purpose, and pride. Know it is yours. Know it is now.

The new blog has become unreliable, so I link out to the old..

I really need to give this thing a good deep cleaning.

Greetings from Chi-town. The JimmyRoadTour continues. It’s after midnight on what’s been a long day. I get to wake up early to help my sister move, so I suppose I should be going now.

My drive from Cincitucky went well enough. I’m typing on my old happy place desk that I used in High School.

I’m going to sleep now. Night all. Good to see you again.

Jimmy

No Sleep til..

No more “I’m gonna”

Caffeine free for a week.
Why haven’t I been able to sleep through the night?

This last week, as I gave up caffeine, my ability to sleep for a sound night fell from the wayside. I find myself waking up at 11 or 12 at night, after going to bed at 9 or 10 with goals of 8 hour classic sleep patterns.

I have noted the proper way to fall back asleep, but I usually will eat something first, or read for awhile. It’s strange.

I reread every post on my blog again. Things are changing in the world. I will have more on it when announced, but I know and it’s unleashed feelings of happiness for folks I care about.

I’m no longer going to talk about what I need to do, or plans to do it. I will report on those things that I do. That’s it. For a little while. I need the momentum increased before I can go back to the planning stuff.

Bottom line, I’ve fallen off the horsey, and it’s killing me. I start my quarter long pager vacation this weekend.

Should be good. I’ve been posting blog info in another spot. Email me at mcse03@myway.com if you’d like the info.

I haven’t consumed caffeine in a week. I don’t recall the last time I’ve done this. It’s not so bad by mid-week. I’m a little calmer, and a lot more genuine. Not very motivated though.

That’s just a state of mind, I understand. I started a new vitamin regiment yesterday. I’ll let you know how it goes. I’m waiting for My DSL modem - I got a message that everything’s properly setup.

I’m worried about mom. Brenda vm’d me Fri. Night and she sounded tired but understood my concern- and I realized she’s felt this for years. Where have I been?

Blah. I’m going to take my learned skills and go back to sleep now.

How to fix the network connection error in ITunes on a WinXP box, and other errata.
So, as many of you know, Jimmy is a Microsoft Certified Systems Engineer.

Jimmy also has an iPod mini. It was this latter fact that lead to Jimmy’s ownership of an interesting issue with Itunes, Windows XPSP2, and XP in general.

We upgraded a few of the fine folks here at Jimmy’s work, and their Itunes libraries imported okay, but when they went to authorize the songs, they got this message:

“iTunes could not connect to the music store. Make sure your network connection is active and try again.”

So I himmed and hawed and googled to no avail. Until a lightbulb went off in my head. It’s a stupid, default configuration thing in XPSP2. For those of you just seeking the fix, here it is:

1. Close Itunes
2. Launch IE.
3. Go to Tools, Internet Options.
4. Click on the “Advanced” tab.
5. Find the Security section.
6. Check the box for SSL 3.0
7. Check the box for TTL 1.0
8. Close IE, restart Itunes, and All Is Well

Feel free to comment as you wish.

Have a great weekend everyone!

Jimmy

The longest 2 seconds ever..

The longest week ever..

Notice a trend?
It looks promising.. that’s the first thought inside my overworked, skull and crossboned brain.. as I see the first Windows installer verification screen during this evening’s Notification Server SP2 update.

Be forewarned, fellow Altiris administrators, it may be the longest 2 seconds of your life.

My Box is a dual Xeon behemoth with 4 GB of RAM, and even he’s coughing a bit.

Also, note the .NET Framework installation download from Microsoft - make sure it’s for your Server version. .

Follow Altiris’ advice - get the .NET Framework updated, and bounce the box before proceeding.

My propensity to believe that the WWW Publishing was the only additional 2003 Server Service needing a cycling was ever so destroyed in my testLab. You’re going to need to get out your passwords, too, if you’re using SQL only verification.

I’d like to shake the hand of the individual who developed such a fine option as application credentials.

That 20 alpha-num, colon-ized SQL password is so safe that even I don’t remember it.. RANDOM THOUGHT:

Why not have a velcro-plastic envelope for system passwords? This way I could avoid 300 retapings of the now shoddy SQL password envelope.

But back to the upgrade. …

Remember the last time you installed NS 6? For some of you, this is a fresh pain, for others - it may have been a while.

The 11% lull on the NS default configuration is back! I’m hoping it’s not a 24 hour affair. I really want to get home.

Random signs you’ve been working too much for too long:
- You identify noticeable key shine on the new USB keyboard you setup for yourself last .. week.
- Your last homecooked meal was before the end of Christmas break, somewhere around the new year.
- You hear yourself saying to a co-worker “No, really tonight, I’m putting my foot down. I’m definitely going Grocery shopping!”
- You’ve deftly trimmed your sideburns twice and believe it’s sufficing for hair maintenance.
- You say hair maintenance instead of haircut.
- Your boss says, “Alright, I’m serious. Don’t work this weekend.”
- You then argue the point with your boss.

-You’ve pondered the practicality of parking an RV in the employee parking lot.

-Your house stays eerily clean because You Don’t Live There.

-The cactus you bought at your last job finally bites the big one.

-You give up TV for Lent, and it’s really not that bad.

Fuck. It’s going to be a 24 hour 11-percenter.

Fuck!

Fuck!! !

Damn it!

Fuck!

It doesn’t help that Altiris provides the anti-therapeutic clock which so eloquently reminds you that your life is passing by.

“Did you honestly think you’d master me?” It taunts.

Sure, Jimmy. Just like NT 4, 2000, SQL. What happened to those lofty ideas of grandeur?

“Fuck you!”, I say back to the spinning clock. “At least I don’t stutter on my 1 o’clock’s! Ha! SO there!”

Fucking 11 percent.

I’m going to see about adding that to my daily lexicon. It’ll be included somehow - maybe like this:

Random Person: “Jimmy, what’d you do this weekend?”
Jimmy: “Well, I got stuck watching the English Patient with my 8th girlfriend in as many months.”
RP: “Ooh. Sound’s rough.”
J: “Yeah.. it’s So Fucking 11 percent.”

Fucking Altiris.

Not to get off on a rant here, but where the fuck is Dennis Miller?

I want his smart-alecky intellectual shitbox rants back on my television pronto! Fuck television.. put him up on something holographic. Have him walk into my office and give me some sanity in the insane 11 percent world. Installing default configuration. If it’s default, why’s it take so fucking long?

FUCK!

It’s almost 8 o’clock. I’ve got 20 things I can do on DS right now, but the server’s having the equivalent of a non-stop SQL head-bashing.
I haven’t seen this kind of drive activity since drive defrags.

Wouldn’t you know it?

I didn’t think it could get worse, but now the 24 hour support line is buzzing.

It’s 7:54 on a Friday night. Stuck at work. Showing people how to connect to the internet.

It’s SO 11 fucking percent.