Been getting some really unusual music lately. Oddly I can stand it too haha. Brokencyde's new album is pretty hilarious. I made myself a ringtone from the Freaxxx song lol. I told Abby she could pick any one song and I'd make it into a ringtone for her when she calls me.

Friday I hung out with her. We went to her house, just chilled out, watched some movies, went for a walk. Saturday I finished up my final for Nutrition class, ended up getting a 94 on it and an A in the class overall. Quite happy with that. Then I met up with her around 12 and we went to her house, did some things to get ready for her party, took a nap, took a walk, watched some movies, then people started showing up around 5 or so...had a ton of fun at the party. I beat Bethany 21 to 4 in badminton. We did some four-wheeling which was badass, but we didn't get as dirty and muddy as I had wanted too lol. Bonfire was awesome, Abby and I laid out a tarp and watched the stars for a bit after everyone left, then we huddled close to the fire since it was kind of cold.

Sunday, we went and saw Transformers 2 which was pretty badass. That was too be expected though. Storyline, was eh...nothing to awesome...at least the movie was badass...after that we did chores at the barn and then went out to get some ice cream.

Today I spent finishing the add new customer bit on the DVD Rental script I'm working on. Also started in on the search feature which is pretty much complete. This week I'd like to accomplish finishing the edit customer part.

After I finished coding, I went to the barn to get my chores done. Then I went and Abby made me some pizza which ended up awesome. Definitely hit the spot and of course seeing her was awesome. Then I came home, and I've been playing a little Xbox since. I got a new free costume for LittleBigPlanet. It's the summer solstice one. I really want to get Killzone 2 for my PS3. We'll see, there's so many other things on the list. Haha.

Tomorrow, it's back to UVM. Ick. But whatever, it's money. I start my Japanese class in a couple weeks, I am pretty psyched for that. I need to write a letter to HR telling them what a fuck up my boss is. It's fucking ridiculous. :) Maybe I'll just move to Boston and work at the Apple Store. Who knows...Apparently Steve Jobs is back at Apple, he looks decent. Maybe he was secretly working on that tablet I so desperately want :)

I found out tonight that you can make ringtones in Garageband and since GarageBand can import songs I just used that instead of purchasing the song over again. So I made one from Brokencyde, Attack Attack! and This Romantic Tragedy. I'm loving it!

Haven't been riding as much because it's either been raining, or I've just wanted to come home and work on some web projects and things...or because Cub is lame which means Abby and I can't ride together...which has been quite fun the 4-5 times we've done so.

Only have to work tomorrow, Wednesday and Thursday! Yay for Friday off, I am hoping Abby can spend the night on Friday, that would be most excellent. If not, I am sure she'll stay pretty late into the morning hours :)

Hope everyone has an awesome week!

I'm currently attending some new employee orientation for UVM. We're watching the inauguration (I guess we're on break), but this morning we went over a few things, also took a trip around campus, did some UVM history stuff. It wasn't really that fun, although I learned a few neat things about the history of UVM. How that'll help me perform my job better, I don't know.

I actually got an email about the orientation last week or something, but some how it got lost. Trust me, being an IT person, I definitely felt like an idiot. Last night I was scrambling around to figure out when and where this thing was. This morning I finally got it all taken care of. I was like 30 minutes late to the thing, but whatever...I didn't miss the most important parts.

This weekend I went down to see Keith. I also got a new iPhone (since the silencer switch snapped off mine) and to get the topcase on my black MacBook replaced. Definitely was nice to see him. Last time I had seen him was when I went to do consulting with him at Yellow Stain, I mean Steel. What fuckers haha. The drive down was nice, I finally got through some Diggnation episodes, although not enough to really make a dent in my 700+ unlistened podcasts lol. There were cars off the road all over the place. I actually saw some lady go flying off. She blew by me, and in my mind I thought, "Yep see you in the ditch lady..." and sure enough 500ft down the road there she was. Sitting in a snowbank, haha. I made really good time though, considering the roads were crap.

So Monday, we went to the Apple Store, got all my stuff switched out. I think the girl who helped me, also helped me back in the Spring when my 8GB 1G iPhone crapped out. Keith works at this store too, so that made it a bit nicer too. I would much rather travel down there then deal with the AT&T Stores up here an/or Small Dog. Our Unicel stores just turned into AT&T stores so I have a feeling they wouldn't have the iPhone as a service part yet (but I could be wrong), but it's my best friend and seeing him is a lot of fun!

After my Apple Store appointment, I came home, hit up the barn first to get my stalls cleaned and then went back home. Emilie and I then went over to my parents, did some laundry and got some food. I also got a bunch of goods from my mom, some bacon, yogurt, granola, and some raviolis. I love going there, my parents are awesome.

This morning as mentioned was filled with some chaos as I had to figure out all this orientation crap. Since I'm full time now, I guess I've really got to hold up to my responsibilities, I've really gotta do well too cause I really like being able to work for the university and I am definitely going to take advantage of it. I'm hoping to take a bunch of classes, maybe this summer if not then, definitely in the fall. While I definitely DO NOT see myself working in the department I am currently in, I know I do not want to, I'd end up killing myself. So yeah, there's a master plan, there always is, and I believe this step into full time here, is just one of the steps that will get me to a higher and better place at some point. I've just got to do what I've been hired too, and all will be good. There just seems to be an overwhelming amount of things I've got to do, and rules and protocols to follow. I think I might be blowing it up a bit more then I should though. I am sure everything will be fine. :) It's just a lot for me all at once, it'll settle down :)

Last night after Emilie and I got back from my parents, we just put on our PJs, snuggled into the warn bed and started watching Gran Torino. I had no idea what it was going to be about. I'm probably 3/4th the way through the movie though. We ended up falling asleep, so I'll probably finish the rest when I get home.

So during this entry, President Obama is now really the president, someone who knows me messaged me on iChat, I have no idea who they are...I've filled out some health/dental insurance forms...

I am hoping this orientation isn't very much longer. I think the lady said something about the forms taking about an hour to fill out and then I hope that's the end. I then plan on getting some food and I'll probably just head home haha I might go back to the office, but I really just don't feel like dealing with these people haha

I've been listening to a lot of Asian Kung-Fu Generation lately. But I'd really love to get into some more JROCK bands and stuff. Does anyone have anything for me? Send me stuff!! :)

I AM SOOOO HUNGRY!!!!

I am not sure why LoudTwitter isn't updating on here anymore, it's rather annoying. I might have to contact the dev of the application to see what's up... 

I believe I mentioned in my last post that I've gotten most of my new multicam and other gear. I was going to post some pictures but my camera is pretty much useless without the flash and I am not taking everything outside. I've got to buy a new camera, unfortunately, I don't really have $200 for a new camera at the moment. I would love to get my hands on a new Rebel XT or the XTi or that new one, I can't remember the name. Anyways, the rest of my stuff should be coming in the next few hours...

Yesterday I was consulting in Montpelier, relatively short. Unfortunately for the customer it looks like he's got a bad power supply unit. After that I went out and got lunch with Emilie. We had some really good pizza from this place I've not been too happy with. I guess they're okay with slices and stuff, but sitting down in the more restaurant-like area was pretty much a nightmare. After lunch I dropped her back off at work and I went and worked the barn. The kitties are dwindling, not sure what happened to them. I just assume they've been given away. There's only 2 left now, a female and a male. The other original mommy kitty is pregnant, so they're going to have more kitties.

Watched Hellboy and Beowulf yesterday. I had been hesitant about watching Beowulf, not sure why, I thought it'd be really lame, but it wasn't that bad. I actually like that golden dragon at the end there. The animation was really amazing too, well done. I mean it definitely looked animated in some spots but in others it was just amazing. I had pretty much forgotten about what happened in Hellboy, so that's why I watched it. Definitely an awesome movie. I hadn't realized Liz was in that movie either. I definitely enjoyed the creatures in Hellboy II a lot more though, a lot weirder!

Did some consulting calls and emails this morning, also took a shower, still haven't had breakfast although by this time, I think it's lunch.

I did watch this G4 show on GameTrailers, mostly of Gears of War 2 stuff. Wicked awesome though. Don't call Cliff Blezinski, Cliffy B. though, he'll kick you in the balls :) Good waste of 20 minutes haha I can't wait for the game. This week is E3, so there's going to be a lot of cool games and announcements coming.

Tomorrow is my good friend Greg's birthday. He's the guy I play airsoft with. Tomorrow we're probably going to meet-up in New Hampshire at this gun range and we're probably be shooting MP5s, UMPs, M16s, AK47s, etc...it's definitely going to be fun. I am not sure I'll have time to get him a present, but I'll be going down to his place at the end of the month for another OP so I'll see if I can get him something by then. I just barely got my sister a present and her birthday is in April...lol.

I've got a consulting appointment this afternoon, in about an hour. I've got to find something for lunch (we have no food in this place...)...and then the afternoon is mine.

I finally bought Howl's Moving Castle on DVD. Now I just need Miyazaki's other films, I think Spirited Away will be my next one, then maybe Castle in the Sky.

I'll be posting again maybe today with some pictures of the horses. I took em yesterday, I just need to touch them up in iPhoto and Pixelmator.

Been pretty busy with consulting and all. If it's not going out to places then I am usually at home working on emails and returning phone calls or consulting over the phone.

*** Auto-save has saved me!! ***

Ok, so anyways...I've also picked up another stall at the barn so that gets me 1 hour total and that means about $120 per month of board I don't have to pay so that's really nice, especially with all my other expenses right now. I did cancel my Netflix account. I told myself I would once I had an empty queue and that finally happened. I've pretty much killed anything I was subscribed to minus Anime Insider (because I already paid for it) and our Internet services.

Had to run to the animal hospital this morning because that weird video issue had resurfaced. I basically told them it was most likely a hardware issue and that they needed to bring it into the repair shop so they could properly diagnose it and order parts and have them replaced. It's definitely going to cost them though, possibly $500-$600. Ouch.

I've not been working on any websites as of late. I still have 2 websites to check into their own repositories. I did remove like over a gigabyte of media from the repositories. There's no sense in keeping it in multiple places...I guess for backup purposes but since it's just a repository, I'll let it be that and not a backup.

Keith and I are going to see Hellboy II on Friday, so that should be awesome. On Tuesday we hit up our Gamestops and picked up our copies of Unreal Tournament III. We'd pretty much been talking about that game since the summer of 2004 and we're just getting it now (actually I've had the PC version since it came out). Anyways, we pretty much played from 12pm till 10pm. We took a good dinner break but we pretty much played all that time. It's definitely a lot fun fun, we did versus, campaign and we finished up with a few online matches. Definitely an awesome game, although I almost prefer it more on the PC, it seems to run fasters, probably because you're using a mouse and keyboard. That's not to say the 360 version is slow, cause it's not...I also played a couple rounds of COD4 with makkintosshu, good times.

So, here's some not so great news. Just last year, Starbucks was opening about 7 stores a day, now they're closing ~500-600 of these stores...I'd definitely have to say either people are fed up with them, or the economy is really going downhill. It could even be a combination of both, but to have a company that was opening that many stores a day 1 year ago, to now, where they're up and closing 500 of them, not good.

The original mommy kitty at the barn is pregnant again...the barn is turning into kitty mania. I love kitties though. The horses are doing well. I snagged the leg straps off my dilapidated winter blanket and I'll use those for my new fly sheet. Nippet's blood tests came back and he's coggins free, which is awesome. I love him. I just need to copper tox his feet for a bit, they're getting a little messed up, so when I get paid which should hopefully be soon I'm ordering a big thing of fly spray refill and some copper tox. Other then that everything is great.

I ordered a bunch of new airsoft gear:

1 Coyote Brown MOLLE vest
1 Multicam Jacket
1 Multicam Pants
1 Small Med Kit
1 MICH TC-2001 Helmet
1 multicam helmet cover
1 multicam hat
1 Coyote Brown Hydration Pack
2 Multicam name tapes
1 multicam American flag reversed
2 Coyote brown name tapes
1 G&G Fan kit for goggles
1 Sanyo 9.6v battery
1 big to small battery cable

A lot of it is coming tomorrow so I am excited about that. It'll be like Christmas in July :)

I managed to get my hands on the latest 2.0 firmware for the iPhone and I've been installing a bunch of apps! I've got the Facebook app, Twitterific, Apple Remote, Things and I am thinking about getting Cro Mag Rally. I remember I used to play Cro Mag Rally with my friend instead of going to class in middle school. So much fun. It would be awesome if they had network play on the iPhone/iPod touch version. Currently I don't see how Things syncs with the desktop version so I will assume it doesn't but it MUST. I have a feeling they'll get it working, just not right away in this version. As far as I know Things is still in beta so they've got some time to get it just right (not that it's not amazing right now, because it definitely is)! The Apple Remote application is pretty much the first application I wanted about 1 week after the iPhone came out....er actually I wrote it about 3 months BEFORE the iPhone even came out! See the article here. Ha HA!

Umm, so that's about all for right now...I've got to go research some servers and I really want to play Bad Company. Good day all!

First here's a few photos emilie took this morning. Thought I would share them with you all! That's my little kitty!







So anyways, I had to pick up my parents at the airport yesterday, they were just getting back from a trip to Ireland, kind of sounds boring to me, but hey, they had fun. Maybe if they had some horsey activities over there, I could handle it, and I am sure they do, but I could probably do the same thing here, for a lot cheaper.

Today, not much going on, just finishing up some Mint installs. It's some really great web analytics software, check it out if you have your own website and stuff. Also working on a new social website for equestrians. It reminds me a lot of FaceBook, but obviously not a feature-filled, but I think people will enjoy it.

I actually chatted with Adelaide the other day, one of my ex-girlfriends who I've not spoken to in ages. She was a really great person, still is, we definitely had a lot of fun. Unfortunately she's way down in CT, but who knows, maybe we'll meet-up sometime.

It's miserable here, crappy and raining...but I think I will still go to the barn as I've not got a lot of other work to get done and I've got some really delicious (or so they say) horse treats to give out.

I am thinking about going back to school since I might have guaranteed admissions to the University of Vermont, but ONLY if I can get into the Equine Science program. I think it will definitely be a challenge but it would be a real lot of fun and stuff to learn all about it. We'll see, just waiting for an email back from my advisor.

Well, I'm off to get some other things, done. I've been messing around with Linux and I love it. I've been using it for servers for many years but now I've turned my main desktop into a Linux machine and I must say, it's awesome, although not as good as Mac OS X, but definitely much better then Windows! Have a lovely day everyone!

It has come to my attention that a community on Scribbld is causing a lot of issue and I've actually suspended the account (but it's now unsuspended). Basically because we have no ToS people are pretty much free to write about and post about anything they want. Obviously that is a real issue but I've always said from day one, if you have to think twice about the content you're posting then don't post it at all. This continues to hold true and if you're submitting objectionable content, just don't. You'll probably end up getting banned or suspended.

I am not really sure what provokes people to post such mean and hateful content and as mentioned in a support ticket, I will definitely be closing this community in question if I get more complaints from users.

I personally think the community should be allowed to stay open but ONLY members of the community can participate in their little game. I believe that is what I will propose and if that rule is broken (via a user reporting it) I will close the community. I believe that is how I will handle it.

What I don't understand is why can't people just keep to themselves. Choose your friends wisely...

I will be speaking with a few other people today to get their opinions on the issue and from there we will decide on whether or not to keep the community open.

-----------

In other news....Keith came over last night and we hung out. I hooked him up with Aperture 2 and Cloverfield. makkintosshu also stopped over to drop off an Ethernet cable. we all hung out and chatted video games. As with every Tuesday night we'll be online playing Call of Duty 4 -- my gamertag is vtequine.

emilie made us a really good dinner last night, Shepards Pie. I loved it. Then we just hung out pretty much for the rest of the night.

I've also been working with Morgan and talking about a new project he's working on. More details to be revealed later :) it'll be neat though.

I finally got an S2 style I like except when I leave the comment page to be the style it looks horrid, I hate how none of the S2 stuff seems to indent or nest the comments. It's lame, but at least I like the layout...

I believe that's all I have to say for right now

Well for the last 2 weeks I've been working my ass off validating almost 3,000 (2,996 or something to be exact...) products and other various (X)HTML pages. It's a goddamn god thing we got bonuses this month or I would have flipped out and killed someone. Fortunately all of the products are done and there's only a few static HTML pages left to do.

Besides that I've been playing a lot of Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare with my friends. Unfortunately one of my friends Xboxs got the red rings which I experienced myself just the month before, so needless to say he's offline for the time being.

I've also started playing skate which is a really great game. There are a few times when I'm really hurting for the controls of Tony Hawk though. The control scheme is entirely different then I am used to for skateboarding games so it does take a bit of getting used too. It sure is a fun game though.

I did managed to get my hands on Crysis and the PC version of Gears of War, so I can't wait to try those out. Still working on getting Assassins Creed. I tried to play some Portal this evening, but I didn't really get how it worked right away so I just shut it off and logged into COD4.

Now that I've updated to Leopard, I have a good monitoring system in place and my Warcraft server is just chugging along nicely I really want to spend time with my friends, girlfriend and get into digital photography and just play games. I'll let the systems run themselves, and I'll just use them as I see fit, no more adding or tweaking. I am hoping everything is just using the things I've setup and created for myself!

I updated the software on my photography website, now you can see EXIF data and stuff, way cool! :)

Anyways, I should probably get some sleep seeing as it's like ~12AM.

This past weekend, I got to try out some of the new features that come in Mac OS X Leopard Server. First lets back up a bit to Tiger Server.

OS X Tiger Server is the first piece of server software I've used from Apple. I come from the world of Linux where most of the configuration is done by hand, you have to edit your own application configuration files. There's no pretty GUI or buttons to click on. Tiger Server saved a lot of time because all I had to do was type a few things in, click 'Go' and I could have a very resourceful server. In just a matter of minutes, I could be running a web server, file server, DNS server, VPN server and more! Apple really made Tiger Server easy to setup and manage. Thy provided some really great tools too.

With Leopard Server they've made it even EASIER to setup and manage. I think Apple has really extended the potential of Leopard server, they making is so Leopard Server has a place in the home as well as large companies. They continue to provide some really awesome tools to manage it and it includes loads of new and cool features.

When I setup Leopard Server, I did a fresh install (no upgrade) so I am not sure if some of the things I am talking about will apply to people who choose to upgrade from Leopard Server.

Upon boot up after you install Leopard server you can choose what type of server you want. There are three options, Standard, Workgroup or Advanced. Each of the three types just had a bit different configuration in which services it uses and sets up for you. While I think this is great for people who like things done for them, I prefer to configure each service by hand (I guess that's the Linux-side of me coming out). People who really just want the easiest way to manage their server should probably choose either the Standard or Workgroup configurations. This will also allow you to use some of the new and nifty tools that Apple has included with Leopard Server. Unfortunately when you use the Advanced server type you loose the ability to use some of those tools (you can still use Server Admin, Workgroup Manager and command line utilities though). I am torn between letting Apple do all of the hard stuff so I can use the new tools (using the Workgroup server type) or just using the Advanced server type and handling everything myself. I'm still deciding but I have to say I think it's great Apple is making their server software usable by most anyone with some experience in computer and networking.

So after choosing the type of server you want, Apple will go about and work its magic, setting up the services and configuring them for you.

For my tests I choose the Workgroup type, so I got the iCal service, web server, iChat service, Mail service, Time Machine backup service, the Open Directory service and a few others. I have a feeling most people will choose the Workgroup type, because it includes a lot of services while still being able to easily manage it.

One of the new management applications that comes with Leopard Server is called Server Preferences. It looks very similar to System Preferences, but it allows you to easily manage the services on your server. Over the last 2-3 years I've gotten very used to using Server Admin and Workgroup Manager to manage all my services and users, so if I choose to use the Workgroup server type on my live server, I'll have to get use to doing everything through the Server Preferences application. It's definitely a great tool for people who are new too OS X Server.

A few of the things that I am really looking forward to actually using is the wiki server, the iCal server and possibly the Time Machine service.

I run a couple wikis (think of Wikipedia.org but on a much smaller scale) so I would love to move them into this service. I have a few shared calendars that need to actually be editable by more then just one person, so the iCal server will surely help with that problem.

The last thing, Time Machine backup service sounds really interesting but at this point I don't know enough about how it works to rely on that as my only backup service. It sounds really great that client machines can backup to the server rather then a local disk. It saves me from having to buy multiple external drives for each client, instead I can just point them to the server and use that as my backup location. I guess I'll just have to do some testing!

In the few days I spent playing with Leopard server, I have to say that I am really impressed with how easy Apple has made it for someone to setup and manage a fully featured server. They include some great tools and some really new and much welcomed features.

Here's a few PDF files that I found quite useful when setting up Leopard Server, check them out cause they're very useful.

Getting Started with OS X Leopard Server
Installation Setup & Worksheet