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Lynchburg, VA

imageOver the river and through the woods…last Saturday we took an eventful trip to Lynchburg. At the beginning of our travels we got stuck behind the Creedmore, NC Christmas parade (think bumbkin) and then near Amherst, VA we watched a dump truck push a car up a highway embankment just 100 yards in front of us. The car came down, hit a pole and rolled on to it’s side. I stopped momentarily but then went after the dump truck which hauled a$$ outta dodge.

Once we finally arrived it was a pretty routine visit to grandma’s house. Everything within Connor’s reach was breakable so Amy and I spent the entire time keeping him away from the antiques. It’s amazing that a table can be full of dozens of objects and somehow he picks up the sharp one or the glass one. Luckily his new favorite word is “outside”.

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Livejournal

Today I created a Livejournal page. My intention was to setup a Livejournal RSS feed for this site. I stopped when I realized it would cost me $5.00 every two months for syndication privileges. That sounds like nothing but I’m weary considering how many recurring technology fees I already pay.

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Supreme Technology

This is a quote from FCC Chairman Michael K. Powell as he “applauded” the Supreme Courts decision to hear the case regarding the ongoing ISP-cable line dispute:

“The 9th Circuit’s decision would have grave consequences for the future and availability of high-speed Internet connections in this country,” he said in a statement. “High-speed Internet connections are not telephones.”

And people wonder why I loathe our purposefully ignorant government officials. It is a sad day when the Chairman of the FCC doesn’t weigh the importance of a technology like Voice over IP and doesn’t have the foresight to care what mediums it can be transported on. Go back to your office and fire up your ballpoint Mike Powell – have ’em put in a few more load coils. I’d be willing to bet the FCC’s Network Admins have already made sure your calls are IP based. But then again that would involve the government saving money… if anyone has inside info on this I’d love to know.

Another sad thing is the Geritol Gang (the Supreme Court) will probably not have the ability to weigh this technology into their ruling. “You mean people can make phone calls on the interweb?”

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December 1st already.

I can’t beleive there’s only 24 shopping days left. When I think of what’s coming over the next year it’s not surprising this one went by so fast. In the next 12 months:

º Connor will learn to walk.

º I will move Dillon Supply’s entire IT infrastructure from a hosted environment to the new corporate location including the construction of a new data center, new WAN telecommunications circuits for 23 branches, a VPN, VoIP and many other deployments in between. Microsoft Project is probably going to melt my laptop.

º I will pick up additional private IT Consulting work (particularly in the are of TAP’s, wireless LAN’s and associated security).

º We might buy a new house (I may postpone this due to the fact that I don’t want the stress of moving a company and my family in the same year).

º And I’m sure there’s about a hundered other things I’m forgetting. All I know is, I gotta get and stay healthy so I can see it all through.

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X-Mas 10-52

imageWe were at the first annual North Hills Mall christmas tree lighting last Saturday night when the cops providing security called in a 10-52 (ambulance to the scene). Apparently someone couldn’t handle all the excitement. Later we tried to go to the new Fox and Hound Bar and Grill but there was a 45 minute wait. Amy and I finally went back last night (a week later) and had some beers, cherry bombs, and fish-n-chips. They’ve only been open for a month so the food is still being prepared with care. I expect moderate deterioration in the quality over the next few months. Still, it’s going to be a popular place.

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Connor and Kris

imageMr. Kris Kringle that is. AKA – Santa. Amy took Connor to meet him for the first time today. Unlike when his father was a little boy he didn’t cry. I guess he only looks like daddy. He acts like mommy. We’ll know if that’s good or bad in another year or two. For now Mr. Kringle is just going to have to take our word for it that he’s been good enough for a brand new full toy box this year.

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Breaking into the PIX… again.

Once again I’m off to reset the password on a Cisco PIX for Dillon Supply. This was done a few months ago by a contractor at the Inflow data center while I walked him through it on the phone (I was in St. Louis) but alas he did not use the write mem command when he was done.

So this Friday I was trying to perform a certificate request for the PIX that failed and in order to save the existing certificates I had to run a reload without writing to memory. Once that was done the password reverted to the old one that no one at Dillon Supply knows. How’s that for project management. Mr. Sylvain Fournier, now residing in France, didn’t even bother to take the responsibility of knowing the password for the companies firewall. And they praised the guy.

Don’t worry though folks, I’ve acquired a $15 USB to Serial converter to use on the laptop you provided that does not have a serial port and I’ve installed the Solarwinds TFTP server and Hyperterminal Private Edition (to send break commands) and I will now once again break into the PIX and reset the password to the factory default. This time I will write mem and put this issue to rest.

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