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March 2008 News Archives

March 04    March 06    March 11    March 13    March 21    March 26

What I am listening to as I type this:  Eazy-E - Hit The Hooker

March 26, 2008

HAPPY EAZY-E DAY TO ALL!!!

I laughed my ass off this morning because when I opened my Outlook, a reminder popped up that read "You fell through a fish tank 10 years ago today."  Amazing how much these scars have changed, they were pretty fugly back in the day.  I guess the one on my elbow still is, but my forearm, underarm, upper arm, and side of my body (very small puncture-scar) are all very good, and the one above my eye is actually very cool, kinda like that one to be honest.  Anyways, on the 10 year anniversary, I am happy to be alive, and I am VERY happy to have had my arm protecting [most of] my face, just imagine if these scars were on my face!!!

Productive week, I've already finished all my labs for school this week.  Finished all my online posts too.  Normally I'd relax for the rest of the week, but I got some big stuff coming up with opening day and a trip to California, so I really need to get ahead.  I have an annotated bibliography to produce due next week, and Lloyd will be in town, so I'm going to try to get that done early.  After that all I have left is one set of labs, a course project (which I've already started for once), and my final exam.  I'm sailing in this class.  I did register for my next class and it scares the shit out of me.  Not really sure why, MSCD 650 - PL/SQL Programming.  Now why should this scare me?  I've been doing SQL programming for 7 years?  I fear it because I underestimate it.  Mt. Quandary is arguably the easiest 14er in Colorado to climb; for me it is the hardest one I've done.  Why?  I underestimated it, tried it on no sleep, started at 9am, brought too little water, and got altitude sickness.  Had I prepared properly by bringing more food, starting by 5am, gotten rest, and taken some preventative measures for altitude sickness, maybe it would have been easy.  I simply didn't realize it was still a 14er, which makes it extremely trying on your mind, body, and lungs.  Similar to PL/SQL Programming, it is still a graduate level Computer Science course, I cannot let myself think I can do the assignments in 2 hours instead of 20 just because I know how to do it.  I'm sure I'll be stumped.  The past 7 years I've used Oracle 8i and 9i, this program focuses on Oracle 10g and 11g.  Hopefully I don't underestimate it, 12 weeks away from an 8 week break from school.

I am very excited about re-styling my bike.  Corey has been helping me look for some stuff, I'm basically buying a bunch of parts to replace current ones strictly for color reasons.  Going to a big bike sale in Boulder this weekend too.  I want to get new handlebar tape, bar ends, brake cable covers, under-seat bag, and helmet, with the possibility of getting new tires with greenwalls (as opposed to whitewalls) ... all of which will be Seahawks Lime Green.  This'll look awesome against my black frame of my bike.  And furthermore, I never see anyone with lime green anything on their bike, and it's hard to find, so this'll look quite unique I think.  I also need a new front wheel this year.  I cannot wait to get this done, it'll be so damn sweet.

It's hump day, it's burrito day, it's 70 degrees today, it's a great day... woo ha!  got you all in check.

What I am listening to as I type this:  Alice in Chains - Would

March 21, 2008

So Kansas City kicked ass, I have a lot of pictures I will post eventually ... well, I have a lot of pictures from the past 6 months I'll post eventually :)  Maybe from Steamboat, Minneapolis, KC, Sante Fe, and other various happenings around Denver.

I've been extremely busy at work lately.  To demonstrate this, the office bought me a new computer last June, I finally installed it yesterday.  Gotta say, this thing rocks.  Dual 2.4 Ghz processors, 2gb of ram, DVD burner ... it's fast as hell, much better than my old one, and that thing even had a 3.4 GhZ P4!  Anyways, yeah, this thing rocks, but I haven't got everything set up the way I like it quite yet.  Will get it figured out eventually.

Polished off my homework last night for the week, so I'm off for the weekend after today.  I'm considering taking vacation time and leaving here at noon today.  This is the first time in, well, maybe since I've worked here, that I haven't taken either Thursday or Friday off to watch NCAA games with Josh.  I guess I've had the last 2 Fridays off so I'd feel guilty calling in illin'.  Regardless, even though I'm awake at 5:40 every day now, I adore my new schedule.  This is really allowing me to save my vacation time. 

I'll easily be able to do both RAGBRAI and the Dominican Republic trip now, which rules.  No longer have the option of doing a London trip, so I'm deciding where I want to go around a year from now.  The frontrunner, by far, is to go to Africa.  I've said for the past year that when I finish grad school I'm going to go climb Mt. Kilimanjaro and do a weeklong safari.  This is a strong possibility, but I don't want to do that alone.  The climb I could handle alone, but the safari I'd like to enjoy with people I know.  So if I can't find anybody to join me, I am strongly considering going to Argentina/Chile to go snowboarding.  I've always said the #1 and #2 places I want to visit are South Africa and New Zealand.  This holds true, but to me, those are more "Go there to relax" vacations, whereas I've learned that for me a true vacation has to have me doing something active.  Perhaps I should wait a bit longer and save three weeks for Africa, so I can climb Kili the first week, go on a safari the next, and then go relax in South Africa for a week.  Since I'm on the continent already, why not make a monsterous trip out of it?  Wow, I love this idea.  Maybe I should just save my money instead and quit my job when the economy gets better and I can go there for a month, then swing by Europe for another month on the way home, then I can worry about finding a job when I get home.  Wow.  I'm daydreaming with an enormous smile right now.

About a month ago I decided, for the 10th time, that I'm really going to make a strong effort to learn German.  You know, I was feeling lazy only working 45 hour weeks and spending 20 hours on school, figured I needed something to occupy my time ;)  Anyways, I'm going to disconnect my XM radio next week so that I cannot listen to it, and I'm going to no longer keep any CD's in my car except my German ones.  Going to dedicate 1/2 hour a night at home to my interactive software as well.  This language-learning thing is hard, but I figure if I can learn around 12 different computer programming languages, why can't I learn one speaking-language?  I had a dream I spoke it fluently the other night, was quite weird.  I bet if I had a month to live over there (again) I could get an even stronger grasp on understanding it, although speaking/writing it is a whole other ballgame.

Weekend plans for me include: watching games tonight, FINALLY getting Eyan his football trophy, snowboarding on Saturday, going to Easter mass, and eating chips & salsa!  Giving that up for Lent, again, was extremely tricky for me.  I've almost gone 40 days with no chips & salsa, ridiculous!  I remember like 3 years ago, the girl I was with had a huge bowl of salsa and bag of chips waiting for me when I went to her house after church, that was pretty awesome.

I'm obsessed with playing the Dragonforce song on Wii ... I just keep wanting to get better at it with pipe dreams of scoring a perfect 100%.  I finally got about 80% last night with an 83%, had been shooting for 80% for too long.  I'm also about 60% done with the "Hard" level of the entire Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock game.  I think I realize why this game is so awesome to me.  In college I twiddled around with Klaver's guitars once in awhile and got hooked on it, it was really fun to play, but it was difficult to learn (unlike the saxophone, which I was a natural at).  When I moved to CO, I remember playing Riki and Butter's guitars, so I finally bought my own.  I tried learning, but really only liked playing a few chords and a few songs I memorized.  I just liked the fact that I was playing a guitar, but I didn't really like the action of playing it ... and I had no urge to make my own music, only to replicate musicians I loved.  The musicians I wanted to emulate, Jerry Cantrell, Lindsey Buckingham, David Gilmour, etc. ... they were just too good, I can't just pick up a guitar and play songs they play.  I ended up breaking my guitar one night and never bought a new one.  But with Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock (which has achieved such a high status in my mind that I will only refer to it by its full name, kind of like Shark Attack 3: Megalodon) I actually have fun, and the music sounds identical to the song, because it IS the song.  I realize that playing a plastic guitar with 5 buttons, a strummer, and a whammy bar ... but still ... when I can feel like I'm playing Slayer, Slipknot, Lacuna Coil, or any of the other kickass bands on that game ... well ... that's just fucking awesome.  I've always had a HUGE deal with separating work from play.  When I leave work, I need loud music to get my mind off of work.  When I get back from vacation, I need time to let my mind get out of vacation mode and get back into work mode.  But now with homework, I am supposed to go home and go straight from work mode to homework mode, this is very difficult.  But if I go home and turn the stereo up, put in Guitaro Hero III: Legends of Rock, and jam out for 1/2 hour, I'm good to go on homework for awhile before I get burnt out.  Really not sure why I bought this Wii, I should have just found a stand-alone Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock machine; I have no intentions of buying any games other than Guitar Hero: Aerosmith, and I cannot tell you the last time I've played Wii sports.

Ahhhh, there's your update.  (similar to Chuck Rampart saying, "Here's your password").  OH!  I have more!   Fantasy draft 2008: Bryan is defending his back-to-back fantasy baseball titles.  In last evening's draft, the following team was carefully selected, and will undoubtedly take the three-peat:

C: Ivan Rodriguez
1B: Prince Fielder, Billy Butler
2B: Asdrubal Cabrera
3B: Mike Lowell
SS: Jose Reyes, Julio Lugo
OF: Brad Hawpe, Juan Pierre, Josh Hamilton, Chone Figgins, Jack Cust, Jacoby Ellsbury

SP: Brandon Webb, Roy Oswalt, Aaron Harang, Zack Greinke, Ubaldo Jimenez
RP: Jonathan Papelbon, Trevor Hoffman, Scot Shields, Justin Speier

My thoughts on some players you may ask, "WTF?!" to, or some I just want to mention:

Asdrubal Cabrera: Look at the guys stats, he hardly played last year and was solid. The Indians are a solid team.  This guy will win rookie of the year
Brad Hawpe: I just want to cheer for the guy and be able to say, "Kris Kross'll make ya HAWPE HAWPE" all year long (I was going to anyways)
Josh Hamilton:  Breakout year, mark my words.  The Reds are insane for letting this crackhead go
Zack Greinke: Your future New York Yankee is going to surprise everyone this year
Ubaldo Jimenez:  Never pick a Rockies pitcher, I know, but he was cool and I needed a 5th starter
Scot Shields/Justin Speier: Holds are a category in this league and these guys have low ERA's; yes, both Angels, but at least one should get a hold in each win

Have a wonderful weekend fantasizing about my fantasy team.  I'll be shredding the shit out of the slopes this weekend, can't fucking wait to hit the kickers again.

What I am listening to as I type this:  Queen - Bohemian Rhapsody

March 13, 2008

I thought my external hard drive crashed the other day, turns out the power strip was just turned off.  Talk about panicking!  So now my music is back in tact, the database at work is back in tact, after last night I'm caught up in homework (actually ahead) and kicked ass in my labs and online discussions.  Payday is tomorrow.  I leave for Kansas City tonight for the weekend (my favorite city in America).  And the kicker ...

I cannot believe I didn't punch a hole in the ceiling when I jumped.  I did it, I beat the Dragonforce song on guitar hero III.  In fact, I was so proud of myself, I played it 3 more times and won each time after that.  Dragonforce is my bitch.  Given I did it on "Medium" difficulty, but soon I'll be rockin' out like this guy. (That last part was a joke, if I ever play that song on expert level, I really need a life).

If I got busted with a prostitute would I lose my job?  Nope.  Would a professional baseball player? (Danny Neagle)  Nope.  Why do polities lose their jobs for this, especially after they spent millions of dollars campaigning to get the job ... as soon as they do one thing wrong they are forced to resign?  Cheating on your wife = bad, but we've proven a president (Bill Clinton) can do that and not have to resign.  This is dumb this guy has to resign, especially since the chick is gorgeous!!!!  Seems like a waste of money to me.  It's his personal life, let him do what he wants.

ANYWAYS, yeah, I'm out for the weekend.  Go Cyclones!

What I am listening to as I type this:  Chimaira - Implements of Destruction

March 11, 2008

Ok .... wheeeewwwwwwwwwwwwww.  That's the breath I let out after the past stressful, uhm, 29 hours.  I just got back from an incredibly kickass trip to Minneapolis.  Fantastic time seeing Hornick, Mule, Joe, Jamie, Kris, Fateem, Ryan, Melanie, and a whole slew of others.  Got home early on standby and got good day's rest.  Caught up with school.  Going to KC next weekend, so I thought, let's just get through the homework and tasks at work until Thursday, and go do it all over again.

KABOOM!!!!

The past week I've been developing a plan on how to convert our database to using RMAN hot backups as I don't like the fact that our nightly cold backups are inconsistent as to their start times due to many campus-wide factors.  I discovered that if a backup were to run with the database open accidentally, there was a (ever so slight) possibility that the database could become corrupt.  I just noticed this last week (when I started my Database & Recovery class at Regis), somehow we've been getting away with it for, oh, five or so years now.  So of course, right when I start planning to switch us to a MUCH more reliable and less-risky backup approach, kaboom.  It happened at 12:11am on Monday.  The backup is supposed to run between 12:48am and 4:00am .... but for whatever reason the backup tape finished with the other campus servers early and begin backing ours up at 12:11am instead of 12:48am. The database was still running, wouldn't shut down for another 37 minutes. From here, well, let's just say shit got ugly.  Let's just say I couldn't be happier about my last class at Regis (Oracle Database Administration), in which for no reason whatsoever I decided to write/save a script that in case of all copies of our Oracle control files becoming inaccessible (next to impossible situation) I could create a backup and restore it, along with all the data within the database.  Thank you Regis!!!!! (although I didn't remember this until I woke up last night, stressed out, wondering what in the fuck I was going to do). It turns out that for whatever reason, our tapes did not back up our Oracle control files!!  What does this mean?  Basically without a control file you are, well, how do I say this, 100% fucked.  Normally we have a backup server that we can basically flip a switch to turn on in case production goes bad.  Well, last Thursday they were doing construction and we had to move it, networking doesn't yet have it re-configured for us.  So basically, since 7am yesterday when we discovered our (only copy of the!) database was a worthless, stagnant, blob of worthless information that was 100% inaccessible ... well, I tried and tried and tried and tried fixing it, gave up around 4pm yesterday and stayed at work until 10 last night re-creating a new database and importing data onto it with hopes of recovering through last Thursday (before the backup server was turned off).  Went to bed frustrated s I couldn't figure out any of the security shit (John figured that out this morning, though).  About 4am last night in my sleep, I thought, "HOLY SHIT!!! I MADE THAT SCRIPT FOR CLASS TO MAKE A NEW CONTROL FILE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"  Came into work this morning around 6:00, restored the data from Saturday's backup (minus the control file), re-created the control file, and applied everything from the archived redo logs.  What happened when I tried to open the database and reset the redo logs?:

Tue Mar 11 10:34:08 2008
Completed: ALTER DATABASE OPEN RESETLOGS

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! IT FUCKING OPENED!!! HOLY SHIT!!!

I feel like I just got my first kiss again.  Kid on Christmas morning.  Yeah, I now realize why I went into this profession, can't tell you the last time I've gotten this excited as to what I was able to do at work.  Giddy up!!!!  Back to it, then back to school.  This shit is fun sometimes!!! :)

What I am listening to as I type this:  Days of the New - Provider

March 06, 2008

Give this a few weeks before I change my mind and start complaining about it, but I love my new class I'm in.  MSCD 642: Oracle 10g Backup and Recovery using RMAN.  My instructor is the author of the textbook we're using, which is pretty damn cool ... only had that one other time when a Marketing teacher at Iowa State had written our text.  Anyways, this class is going to be really damn cool, I'm hoping these next 8 weeks pay off as much as the past 8 weeks did, but without me spending so many late nights figuring it all out.  I have plane rides the next 2 weekends, so I figure I can get a ton of reading out of the way right there, which'll be helpful.

My mind is just racing these days, I've got a million ideas of a million things I want to do at work.  Work is suddenly fun again, although we're busy as can possibly be.  The days go fast, and the fact that I'm here for 9 hours each day now doesn't even dawn on me.  I love beating traffic to get here, I love being in the office alone for an hour.  This morning I was able to shut the database down and do some back end shit without it affecting anybody since I was the only one here.  I have so much I want to do ... so much.  I'm loving this.

I need to get a haircut, gettin' kinda scraggly.  Would also like to do a bit of research for school tonight, and finally get back on that Wii!! I've seriously played it like 2 times in the last 2 weeks total.  So yeah, I might run errands until 7ish, then go to the bar and watch part of the Avs/Ducks game, then go play some Guitar Hero, then do some research, and then pack (see below).  I've just got to beat that Dragonforce song ... it's so damn hard!

Final thought of the day.  I am beyond thrilled that I am no longer hooked on Lost.  Last year when I said I was going to quit watching it, it was hard.  It really was hard, but they fucking pissed me off with that whole "no more reruns" so I set my VCR and it taped a mutherfucking rerun as they had the new episode AFTER the rerun.  Bastards.  Anyways, I truly did have a hard time stopping watching it, but this season, I truly have no urge.  Even when I hear people saying, "Wow, this show is incredible!!! I can't believe what they're doing now!!"  I just think, "Huh.  Well, the Seahawks signed T.J. Duckett yesterday, I can't believe they did that."  Then I go do homework.

I'm so close to being able to eat chips & salsa again.  Oh man, would Easter please get here soon?!  This is getting way to difficult for me.

Tomorrow, I make my valiant return to the twin cities.  I believe this is the longest absence I've taken from them in, well, since I was 18 or so.  I know that between my college girlfriend Becky and ski trips and other things, I probably went up there 15 times in college.  I think I had flown out there 6 or 8 times between my move to Colorado and now, but I haven't been there since January of 2006!! 2 years away from Minneapolis!! Wow!  It'll feel good to get back and see the boys and girls up there ... giddy up!!!

What I am listening to as I type this:  nothing

March 04, 2008

It's Tuesday, March 4th.  It's Aly's birthday today, which is the first thing that comes to mind when I hear the words "March 4th".  This Tuesday, I am very happy.  Because it is March 4th?  No.  I am happy today for many reasons. 

My bank account, today, for the first time ever, reflects that I am officially .... 100% debt free.  0 credit card debt ... well, $0 nothing ... I owe no money to anybody.  Wow, I've wanted to say those words for 10 years.  Can't believe the day finally arrived!!!

Let's see, why else should I be happy?  Perhaps this email?

4.0 still in effect and I'm almost half done with my master's degree ... in fact, in 7 weeks I will be half done, hopefully with that 4.0 still in hand.  Grad school is not easy and I'm very proud of this as I spend an assload of time doing schoolwork.  Seriously, way too much time.  I've been averaging probably 25 hours a week outside of work for school, and that's while only taking one class at a time.  This program is extremely difficult and I'm proud to say that I am dominating it, just destroying these classes.  I've always known I'm smart, but for the first time ever I feel like I know incredibly more than anybody else in these classes ... not through what I know, but from what I am learning and how I am able to apply it.  Boom.

Let's see, why am I happy?  How about the fact that tonight I have club-level 4th row seats to see Peter Forsberg play in his first game with the Avalanche since before the NHL strike?!  I think that's a good reason to be happy.

I can now beat songs on Guitar Hero using all 5 buttons, and am literally the final 30 seconds away from beating the Dragonforce song (which is insanely hard) on the medium level.  When I finally beat that song, I'm going to jump so high it'll put a hole in the Ozone layer.  This makes me happy.

Why else should I be happy, holy shit there are so many reasons.  Can it be because I'm going to Minnesota this weekend to party with some friends for Hornick's 30th birthday?  Yes.  Could it be that next weekend I'm going to KC for the Big XII tournament for the first time since 2001 (which is taking place in the same time/place as Jacob's bachelor party)?  Is it because of my kickass new work schedule that has me never sitting in traffic and conserving vacation time for upcoming trips such as:

RAGBRAI 2008 (with a stop in AMES!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!)
Dominican Republic in October (will be ridonkulous)

Ahhhhh.  As Martin from Zermatt told me in the best conversation I've possibly had in my life, and I have adopted as my lifelong motto:  "I work my ass off in the summers so I can play in the winter.  Some little kids and adults are spoiled little fucks who get whatever they want and expect it to come easy.  I work my ass off, then I enjoy life.  Some people live to work.  Some people work to have.  Not me, my friend, I work to live.   WORK TO LIVE!!!!!"

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