Enough I say!
Inconsistent, content-free garbage has lived here. Unless anyone has any objection - any sentimental attachment to any of the previous posts (all two or so of you), I am wiping all of it. I know it is bad etiquette to purposefully blast old stuff away; but nobody has really seen any of it, and nobody cares. Plus it makes room, because now I think I have relevant stuff to say. I guess that much remains to be seen...
Wednesday, May 14, 2008
Thursday, November 16, 2006
Mad World
OK - the video is posted here. BE FOREWARNED - if you have a weak stomach (musically speaking) DO NOT follow the link!!! I had only been working the song for less than 24 hours, so there are a couple of pauses where I forgot the words. The singing itself is the best I can do, which isn't saying much. But I have come a long way - I spent my first 30 years of life playing guitar and trying to avoid singing as much as possible. As I have aged, I have embraced who I am, warts and all - so most of the songs I work on lately include singing of some sort.
The video quality is far from professional, and I have altered it some for both artistic and privacy reasons.
I also did not have any real video editing software installed on the computer I was working on, so I used Microsquishy's "Producer for Powerpoint" to capture from the camera and add effects. Unfortunately, Producer wants to save the fully edited file NOT as a universally portable MPG (was not even a choice), but as a packaged product that runs under ActiveX. Playability may vary depending on your OS and browser.
This is a first attempt. It is far from anything I want to be known for, so I will likely post something else soon that surpasses in quality across the board...
The video quality is far from professional, and I have altered it some for both artistic and privacy reasons.
I also did not have any real video editing software installed on the computer I was working on, so I used Microsquishy's "Producer for Powerpoint" to capture from the camera and add effects. Unfortunately, Producer wants to save the fully edited file NOT as a universally portable MPG (was not even a choice), but as a packaged product that runs under ActiveX. Playability may vary depending on your OS and browser.
This is a first attempt. It is far from anything I want to be known for, so I will likely post something else soon that surpasses in quality across the board...
Wednesday, November 15, 2006
Do I have the Cajones?
Aaron Brazell at Technosailor is a friend of mine. The other day, he showed a tremendous amount of bravery and posted a short video clip of himself playing an acoustic cover of "So Far Away" by Staind. It is not too bad, if I do say so myself, and it has got me thinking...
I have been working on a couple songs lately, and just so happen to have recorded a video of myself playing "Mad World" - the Gary Jules version (as in the soundtrack for the movie "Donnie Darko") as opposed to the original Tears for Fears version. I heard it recently in an ad for the new XBox 360 game "Gears of War" and it haunted me until I picked up my guitar and worked it out.
Don't be too surprised if I can eventually work up enough guts to post it...
I have been working on a couple songs lately, and just so happen to have recorded a video of myself playing "Mad World" - the Gary Jules version (as in the soundtrack for the movie "Donnie Darko") as opposed to the original Tears for Fears version. I heard it recently in an ad for the new XBox 360 game "Gears of War" and it haunted me until I picked up my guitar and worked it out.
Don't be too surprised if I can eventually work up enough guts to post it...
Tuesday, November 14, 2006
Miscellanea and Updates
To break the silence:
LINUX on Windows: I have made some real progress with CoLINUX, and I am successfully running KDE on top of it. Ironically, it takes CYGWIN's X-server to get it working. I am currently attempting to get Firefox working on this setup. If it does, I am not sure if I will ever browse the internet via Windows and/or IE again...
Job: The dust has settled and I find myself working semi-permanently on the "swing-shift". The hours are 3PM to 11PM, Sunday through Thursday. On the bright-side, I am being paid a 10% shift differential that is as permanent as my shift work. So, after 20% bump to go to this new job in mid-August, I now essentially have another 10% bump as of October 1. The hiring manager promised me yet another 10% at my first performance review, provided I live up to expectations. So far, this is not even a question...
On the down side of this, my family has to get to know me all over again on Friday and Saturday - they do not even really see me during the week.
Politics: I voted, did you? The results were short of my wishes, but not my expectations. Why would I bother to vote if I know the result will not go my way? Because now I can BITCH about the outcome!! :-)
During the political frenzy that led up to election day, I took a few "detours" while doing some last-minute online research about my options. I took several online quizzes designed to gauge your political stance. I liked the quizzes I found, because they looked at more than just "right" and "left". Most of the quizzes I took added another entire dimension, taking into account both economic orientation, as well as social "permissiveness". Being a closet Libertarian, I expected to be extremely fiscally coneservative, while at the same time extremely socially liberal. SURPRISE, SURPRISE!! Yes, the "coordinates" for libertarians on the various graphs I saw are exactly in the location I describe, but I was shocked to see where I landed on these charts.
My economic bias is nearly off the charts in the conservative camp. BUT - apparently, I am in the nearly absolute middle of the road on social issues. I suppose my opposition to welfare, handouts, and charities is tempered by my non-chalant attitude toward sexual behavior, drugs, and other behaviors that do not directly hurt others physically or economically.
Miscellanea: 1) I think bloggers are becoming full of themselves. Monetizing, traffic management, search engine optimization, credibility as "Press", venture capital - none of that matters... Access to the Blogosphere is free, there are no qualifications or restrictions before you begin to blog...Essentially, anyone can get out here and say anything. Readers and writers need to keep this in mind...2) Spirituality/religion is again gaining a slice of my attention. After taking the afore-mentioned political quizzes, I tried a few that attempt to "pigeon-hole" your religious beliefs. Based on my answers to 40-60 questions per quiz, I was all over the map. Some quizzes said I would be happiest as a Satanist or possibly a Pagan, one told me I was a Christian Scientist, and all had me walking away shaking my head...I think this sort of thing on the web has a long way to go before it matures to the point of usefulness...(in case you are wondering, my Irish Roman Catholic upbringing apparently does not influence me very much at this stage in my life. Catholicism - especially Roman Catholicism - never made it even into the top 25 possible matches for me in ANY of the quizzes)...
UPDATE: Firefox is working on CoLINUX!! I am now browsing the internet with the following configuration:
IBM ThinkPad T42
Windows XP SP2
CYGWIN X-Server
CoLINUX w/Debian 3.0r2 Root image
KDE 3.3.2
Firefox 2
Slow, buggy, but cool to have it all working....
LINUX on Windows: I have made some real progress with CoLINUX, and I am successfully running KDE on top of it. Ironically, it takes CYGWIN's X-server to get it working. I am currently attempting to get Firefox working on this setup. If it does, I am not sure if I will ever browse the internet via Windows and/or IE again...
Job: The dust has settled and I find myself working semi-permanently on the "swing-shift". The hours are 3PM to 11PM, Sunday through Thursday. On the bright-side, I am being paid a 10% shift differential that is as permanent as my shift work. So, after 20% bump to go to this new job in mid-August, I now essentially have another 10% bump as of October 1. The hiring manager promised me yet another 10% at my first performance review, provided I live up to expectations. So far, this is not even a question...
On the down side of this, my family has to get to know me all over again on Friday and Saturday - they do not even really see me during the week.
Politics: I voted, did you? The results were short of my wishes, but not my expectations. Why would I bother to vote if I know the result will not go my way? Because now I can BITCH about the outcome!! :-)
During the political frenzy that led up to election day, I took a few "detours" while doing some last-minute online research about my options. I took several online quizzes designed to gauge your political stance. I liked the quizzes I found, because they looked at more than just "right" and "left". Most of the quizzes I took added another entire dimension, taking into account both economic orientation, as well as social "permissiveness". Being a closet Libertarian, I expected to be extremely fiscally coneservative, while at the same time extremely socially liberal. SURPRISE, SURPRISE!! Yes, the "coordinates" for libertarians on the various graphs I saw are exactly in the location I describe, but I was shocked to see where I landed on these charts.
My economic bias is nearly off the charts in the conservative camp. BUT - apparently, I am in the nearly absolute middle of the road on social issues. I suppose my opposition to welfare, handouts, and charities is tempered by my non-chalant attitude toward sexual behavior, drugs, and other behaviors that do not directly hurt others physically or economically.
Miscellanea: 1) I think bloggers are becoming full of themselves. Monetizing, traffic management, search engine optimization, credibility as "Press", venture capital - none of that matters... Access to the Blogosphere is free, there are no qualifications or restrictions before you begin to blog...Essentially, anyone can get out here and say anything. Readers and writers need to keep this in mind...2) Spirituality/religion is again gaining a slice of my attention. After taking the afore-mentioned political quizzes, I tried a few that attempt to "pigeon-hole" your religious beliefs. Based on my answers to 40-60 questions per quiz, I was all over the map. Some quizzes said I would be happiest as a Satanist or possibly a Pagan, one told me I was a Christian Scientist, and all had me walking away shaking my head...I think this sort of thing on the web has a long way to go before it matures to the point of usefulness...(in case you are wondering, my Irish Roman Catholic upbringing apparently does not influence me very much at this stage in my life. Catholicism - especially Roman Catholicism - never made it even into the top 25 possible matches for me in ANY of the quizzes)...
UPDATE: Firefox is working on CoLINUX!! I am now browsing the internet with the following configuration:
IBM ThinkPad T42
Windows XP SP2
CYGWIN X-Server
CoLINUX w/Debian 3.0r2 Root image
KDE 3.3.2
Firefox 2
Slow, buggy, but cool to have it all working....
Tuesday, October 03, 2006
LINUX on Windows
I have been working with UNIX quite a bit on my job lately.
In order to brush up on my skills, I have been looking into various ways to get some hands-on experience with this flavor of OS.
Some of the coolest toys I have come across in this quest are various ways to run LINUX environments on top of a Windows platform.
CYGWIN: This was the easiest to get working. It uses a Windows ".exe" setup routine. Once installed, you can fire up a BASH window that takes all the common LINUX commands, and lets you browse your filesystem in the same way that you would in a purely LINUX environment. Even better: CYGwin comes with an X-server that runs natively in Windows. You can download a KDE desktop and run it on top of your Windows desktop. I have seen reference to replacing the Windows desktop with a KDE environment, but I did not try to get that working.
CoLINUX: I am still trying to get this one fully operational. Unlike CYGwin, which uses API's to interface with Windows, CoLINUX runs a parallel and completely separate operating system that must communicate with the Windows instance as if they are on separate computers. This has been the tough part: setting up virtual networking adapters and getting CoLINUX to successfully communicate with Windows and the outside world. Once that is working, I will use CYGWin's X-server to host another KDE environment.
Unless you are a developer, I do not see that any of this would be particularly useful other than (like I am doing) getting a "transitional" LINUX experience for us Windows die-hards. It has still been very cool to play with this stuff, and I AM gaining valuable knowledge on the similarities and differences between LINUX/UNIX and Windows, as well as what is required to get the different OS's to interact.
In order to brush up on my skills, I have been looking into various ways to get some hands-on experience with this flavor of OS.
Some of the coolest toys I have come across in this quest are various ways to run LINUX environments on top of a Windows platform.
CYGWIN: This was the easiest to get working. It uses a Windows ".exe" setup routine. Once installed, you can fire up a BASH window that takes all the common LINUX commands, and lets you browse your filesystem in the same way that you would in a purely LINUX environment. Even better: CYGwin comes with an X-server that runs natively in Windows. You can download a KDE desktop and run it on top of your Windows desktop. I have seen reference to replacing the Windows desktop with a KDE environment, but I did not try to get that working.
CoLINUX: I am still trying to get this one fully operational. Unlike CYGwin, which uses API's to interface with Windows, CoLINUX runs a parallel and completely separate operating system that must communicate with the Windows instance as if they are on separate computers. This has been the tough part: setting up virtual networking adapters and getting CoLINUX to successfully communicate with Windows and the outside world. Once that is working, I will use CYGWin's X-server to host another KDE environment.
Unless you are a developer, I do not see that any of this would be particularly useful other than (like I am doing) getting a "transitional" LINUX experience for us Windows die-hards. It has still been very cool to play with this stuff, and I AM gaining valuable knowledge on the similarities and differences between LINUX/UNIX and Windows, as well as what is required to get the different OS's to interact.
Friday, September 08, 2006
Shift Work?!?
Time to talk a little about work. I hope my level of vagueness does not make it impossible to explain the issue. There are a couple of reasons I will be purposefully light on details; mostly, however, it is because the details don’t matter.
I work as a System Administrator for a medium-size enterprise. I am REALLY new to this organization – I just came aboard in late August. Staffing ratios seem just about right: there is always plenty to do for the systems administration team, but we do not often run around with our hair on fire.
Although I am new, I have connections within this department that I have known for years – so I have had inside info for a while on their goings-on. I knew, for example, that this medium-size IT environment was being merged with a larger one.
I also knew (because it was divulged to me in confidence at the interview) that the systems administration team was looking at the possibility of going to a 24/7 operation. That is the extent of the information I was given at the time, however.
Now that I have given up a perfectly good job to join this team, it was announced last week that not only were we going 24/7, but this was a 365-day-per-year deal. Weekends, major holidays – all just became “just another day” for me. Especially tough because I have two young kids at home.
We are breaking the time up into shifts, of course. The rub: Each of the sysadmins spends a month at a time on each shift!! So: for 1 month, I will be working 6AM-2PM. The next month, I will work 2PM-10PM. After that will be a month of 10PM-6AM. The final segment of the four-month cycle will be days (fairly flexible) at a separate site. We have been told that it will be possible on the day that the shifts transition to have to work 16 hours straight: 8 hours on the old shift and then 8 hours on the new.
All this is supposed to take effect on the 1st of October. Unfortunately, because of scheduling issues that need to be ironed out (imagine!), I still do not know which days will be my weekends, which shift I am starting with, etc. The organization that receives our services is asserting FULL control over scheduling, so my direct management can not even compensate for conflicts, shift preferences, even (at this point) leave requests!!
I am trying to keep a positive attitude about this situation. After all, I WAS given a “heads-up” at the interview (however incomplete it may have been), and I AM the “FNG” (for those unfamiliar with the term, it means “new guy”). I have to admit, however, that I am floating a few resumes and keeping my eyes open. It is very counter to my nature, though, and I feel incredibly disloyal for looking around so quickly.
What do you think? Am I right to pursue other options? Should I just take it? Have you ever had anything similar happen? Let me know!
I work as a System Administrator for a medium-size enterprise. I am REALLY new to this organization – I just came aboard in late August. Staffing ratios seem just about right: there is always plenty to do for the systems administration team, but we do not often run around with our hair on fire.
Although I am new, I have connections within this department that I have known for years – so I have had inside info for a while on their goings-on. I knew, for example, that this medium-size IT environment was being merged with a larger one.
I also knew (because it was divulged to me in confidence at the interview) that the systems administration team was looking at the possibility of going to a 24/7 operation. That is the extent of the information I was given at the time, however.
Now that I have given up a perfectly good job to join this team, it was announced last week that not only were we going 24/7, but this was a 365-day-per-year deal. Weekends, major holidays – all just became “just another day” for me. Especially tough because I have two young kids at home.
We are breaking the time up into shifts, of course. The rub: Each of the sysadmins spends a month at a time on each shift!! So: for 1 month, I will be working 6AM-2PM. The next month, I will work 2PM-10PM. After that will be a month of 10PM-6AM. The final segment of the four-month cycle will be days (fairly flexible) at a separate site. We have been told that it will be possible on the day that the shifts transition to have to work 16 hours straight: 8 hours on the old shift and then 8 hours on the new.
All this is supposed to take effect on the 1st of October. Unfortunately, because of scheduling issues that need to be ironed out (imagine!), I still do not know which days will be my weekends, which shift I am starting with, etc. The organization that receives our services is asserting FULL control over scheduling, so my direct management can not even compensate for conflicts, shift preferences, even (at this point) leave requests!!
I am trying to keep a positive attitude about this situation. After all, I WAS given a “heads-up” at the interview (however incomplete it may have been), and I AM the “FNG” (for those unfamiliar with the term, it means “new guy”). I have to admit, however, that I am floating a few resumes and keeping my eyes open. It is very counter to my nature, though, and I feel incredibly disloyal for looking around so quickly.
What do you think? Am I right to pursue other options? Should I just take it? Have you ever had anything similar happen? Let me know!
Saturday, July 15, 2006
Update on immigration
In an update to my post in April of this year: http://mccorse.blogspot.com/2006/04/send-them-home.html; the State of Colorado (home, sweet home, to me) has approved some of the strongest state-level immigration measures in the country.
Our Governor, through the use of special session, has compelled our legislature to agree that State-provided services (less those deemed "emergency" services) will be denied in Colorado to those who can not PROVE their citizenship.
This is a double-edged, dull sword: on one hand, it bogs down our state service providers who will have to review documents provided in order to verify citizenship; however, it also does not go far enough - some of the most expensive state-provided services can be deemed "emergency" services, and the risk presented to illegals by the denial of these services could be an effective deterrent in the first place.
Speaking of not going far enough: a few ideas were scrapped before they made it to the voting floor - such as instructions to the state AG that he sue the Feds in the hopes of having existing federal immigration laws enforced; and any fines on employers of illegal immigrants, except thsoe who show a "reckless disregard" for the law.
Too bad - another opportunity to close the loopholes and look over the "overlooks" was missed.
Our Governor, through the use of special session, has compelled our legislature to agree that State-provided services (less those deemed "emergency" services) will be denied in Colorado to those who can not PROVE their citizenship.
This is a double-edged, dull sword: on one hand, it bogs down our state service providers who will have to review documents provided in order to verify citizenship; however, it also does not go far enough - some of the most expensive state-provided services can be deemed "emergency" services, and the risk presented to illegals by the denial of these services could be an effective deterrent in the first place.
Speaking of not going far enough: a few ideas were scrapped before they made it to the voting floor - such as instructions to the state AG that he sue the Feds in the hopes of having existing federal immigration laws enforced; and any fines on employers of illegal immigrants, except thsoe who show a "reckless disregard" for the law.
Too bad - another opportunity to close the loopholes and look over the "overlooks" was missed.
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