Month: December 2005

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Christmas! – Round One

imageLast weekend Connor opened his first round of presents for the 2005 holiday season. He sugared up at Grandma Johnson’s and tore into brand new firetrucks, Pez dispensers and noisy little ray guns. I’m starting to see the connection between two year olds and the value of a toy: the louder and more obnoxious, the better.

Amy and I bought quiet toys like wooden train sets and basketball goals. I’m leaving the noisy stuff to the grandparents who are determined to punish us for the years of frustration provided by our kazoos and those crazy tubes we spun over our head that whistled. Remember the Whirly Tube? Oh ya, you or someone you knew had one.

Round two is on Christmas day when Connor will spend about 24 hours opening gifts from every relative on the east coast. Thank ye ol’ blessed playroom.

Tonight I’m going to make Amy watch The Devils Rejects by Rob Zombie to get in the mood for the holidays. Heh, heh, ho….

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Office Space

imageI now work in the 21st century again. Dillon Supply finally got an occupancy permit for the new corporate headquarters and I was one of the first five people to move in. Mostly because I have to ensure network connectivity for everyone else and watch over the installation of the new phone system. My new cube has a lot more space than the cramped wooden desk from 1964 I had in the old building.

I’ve decided not to go back to the old downtown location unless I have to pick up something. On Thursday I’m modifying the core router, moving the branch router into the new location and creating two new sub-interfaces on the company DS3. We’ll also be patching in 96 Cat6 ports and moving an AS400 and a company file server into our new telco/data center. I’m keeping busy. This much activity warrents my absence for at least three days after Christmas when I’ll burn up the last of my vacation time for the year. And oh yes, that’s a genuine HermanMiller Mirra chair. Not an Aeron but also not a knockoff.

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Bring Back Black

imageAmy’s going to be mad – I found a “deal.” No, really. I got $35 off internet prices on a pair of “open box” Roland DM-10 powered monitors at Sam Ash music. Let me tell you right now that if you’re listening to music from your PC using anything but professional grade digital studio monitors you simply do not know what you’re missing. And you can own them for less than the cost of some “gaming” surround sound PC speaker systems from Altec Lansing and Bose.

This all started because I needed a set of speakers for my PC since I have none. I’ve always used a stereo receiver and speakers. I began by looking at regular 3 piece PC speaker sets but was not happy that all of them were “PC silver.” My motivation for monitors became dual pupose – sound and appearance. When I walked into Sam Ash and they offered a discount on the last pair of DM-10’s in stock, I took ’em. I know it was weak and impulsive but these things sound incredible. If I feel bad about spending the money so close to Christmas all I have to do is turn them on and listen to Octane or The Coffee House on Sirius.

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