blog update 092011
I haven’t posted a true blog update in I don’t know how long. If anything, this isn’t a real update. It’s just an excuse to write something on the blog. An excuse to write something more than 140 characters. An excuse to stay away from Facebook. An excuse to do something other than post a video or photo set or bitch about work (although I probably will do that as it is something I’m really itching to do).
I’ve also found that Posterous just isn’t working out for me. It originally was a central place to post easily from (a) my Android phone or (b) my iPod touch. It consisted of primarily photos and videos of Sophia. It was convenient to send to Posterous, where the site would automatically post to Twitter, Facebook, Flickr, etc. Earlier this year, I did away with hosting and mapped the tenyjr domain to Posterous. Then I found that all the videos posted on Posterous just bogged it down, preventing the home page from loading properly. At this point, I felt Posterous served its purpose. So I’m attempting a return to WordPress.
To keep things interesting, I will try to post daily. If I have nothing interesting or new to say, I will most likely post an image from the archives, similar to a photoblog I used to maintain years ago. This weekend, I hope to remap the tenyjr domain to point it here. I enjoy using the social networks and will continue to use them. But teny jr dot com is my home on the web, and I have creative control over it, something I feel I’ve been lacking lately.
If you choose to visit me, follow me, friend request me, +1 me, block me, hide me, or unfriend me, do what you please. But if you do decide to stick around, I hope you enjoy your stay.
Posterous
Trying out Posterous. Wondering if this is the way to go. Guess we’ll see!
update 120308
Have been tweaking the blog. Gone back (for the third time, or is it the fourth?) to the Cutline theme. This theme has always worked for me. It’s clean, simple, and I get a kick out of my random header images. I also cleaned up the sidebar a bit. Gone is the Digg news feed; instead it sits above the header image along with my other links (including a link to my shared items on Google Reader). Also, the Photos link no longer links to Flickr; I upgraded WordPress along with all plugins last Sunday (long overdue), and now my images are viewable once again on this site. You can still go to Flickr.com to see my photostream there as well.
update 091908
Just trying to get ya up to speed …
Never a dull moment at work. The case management application that I’ve been working on since August goes live next week. We completed the build of the live system this week, and I must say, I’m quite proud at how much we got done in such a short time. This on top of all other requests from lab, respiratory, registration, and administration. And in October, case management gets another system that I’ll be assigned to as well. Surprisingly, I’m taking it all in stride and loving it. Not too many people in my department can say the same thing, and I guess I’m fortunate.
Sophia will be 16 weeks old on Monday (4 months old in October). We believe she has allergies. The recent cool weather has prompted us to have our windows open in the house at night (excluding Sophia’s room). However, she woke up again the other morning with congestion. So we’ve gone back to keeping the windows closed and using the A/C. She seems to be slimming down (her belly isn’t quite there anymore). While awake, she doesn’t like to lay back in your arms anymore; she’ll pull herself in the upright position (and she’ll let you know about it if you try to put her back down). She’s doing well in daycare; teachers say the noise doesn’t bother her as much as it used to when she first started. She’s sleeping all night too, and waking up about the same time each morning (just in time to get ready for school). We haven’t taken very many pictures since Sophia started daycare, but I plan to post what we have this weekend.
And yes, I’m trying a new theme for my blog. It still needs work, but I’ll get to it when I get to it. What I like is the pics page is working and looking better than ever. I still have to come up with new header images.
update 112707
It’s been over a week since my last post. During the work week, I’m pretty exhausted mentally and physically to put in an entry. There’s a lot to talk about, but it gets to the point where I don’t know what to blog about. I know I’m coming off a nice holiday weekend where I had plenty of time to put some thoughts online, but instead I took advantage of it by relaxing and spending time with my wife. Not to mention I spent most of the past week or so rebuilding the laptop. Hopefully things calm down for me with a nice 6-day weekend coming. And maybe it won’t take me 10 days or more to write about something.
update 111807
Sorry for the lack of updates. There seems to be a lot going on, and with the holidays quickly approaching, there’s not a lot of time to do much blogging. My laptop has also been giving me grief for the past week. Windows Media Player has suddenly stopped recognizing the WMV file format, so I’m unable to view videos. There are other media players that I can use offline, but when I want to watch movies on Netflix’s site, it no longer works. I completely uninstalled and reinstalled WMP, but I still get the same result. My friend suggested installing Windows on top of everything, but that didn’t work either. So I’m currently trying to back up all my data so I can do a complete rebuild. This normally wouldn’t be such a task for me, but without an external HD, it’s a challenge (and time-consuming).
Christine and I have started to spread the news of her pregnancy to our friends and co-workers. Those we have told are very excited and happy for us. We had stopped in Babies R Us the other night, and I have to say, it was pretty humbling. I learned …
- about swaddling,
- that Serta makes mattresses for babies,
- and that I can’t hear the baby’s heartbeat unless I have one of these.
I certainly cannot wait for our little peanut to come into our lives!
white, clean, and neat
I’ve upgraded WordPress, and this will be the third time I’ve chosen to go back to the Cutline theme. Of all the themes I’ve used, this one is the easiest to manage and customize. And it’s easy on the eyes. I went with black not too long ago (for monitor-power-saving reasons), but I just wasn’t happy with it. For my return to Cutline, I trimmed the header images (and removed the text depicting the site name) and kept it random. I plan on creating a static home page; this will be the simplest way to get my Flickr photos displaying nicely on my site.
update 102307
Sorry for the lack of updates. A lot has been going on, but there’s not much to talk about. Lately, time on the computer has been for maintenance, new tools, and multimedia; I learned a few new things this past weekend. Work is steady; I’m trying to enjoy the lapse before the major system implementation kicks off in Dec/Jan. A lot to do around the house. New furnace being put in this week. Fall is upon us, which means cooler weather and leaves. Lots and lots of leaves. I’ll probably update on a weekly basis until the motivation returns.
Oh, and a Happy Belated Birthday to my cousin Ren 
seduced by the dark side
I’m back in black. Darker is better. More on that later. This took me two hours to get it where I like it, and I’m tired now. So I’m going to bed.
changes
I think I need to put more time and effort into this blog. I plan to post more frequently (maybe not daily, but certainly more often). Some changes are on the way, including possibly a new layout. I got a long weekend coming up, and I plan to use it, so stay tuned.
long week
The 4 days of work this week seemed longer than the 10 days I was off. I’m so glad the weekend is here. Saturday, I plan to take Salem on a walk (he’s been without one for nearly 3 weeks now), then I’ll cut the grass. After the yardwork, I’d like to start working on journaling our vacation. I’ll be creating a new blog to house my recaps and our pictures. I’m still trying to sift through all the images; I haven’t had much time this week, but I’ll start uploading some to Flickr.
i'm lacking
I’m severely lacking time, motivation, and content for this blog. Not that I will stop doing this altogether; I just feel the need to explain for the lack of updates. The “365″ project/experiment is on hold until I take more pics (they all seem to be of Salem lately). Occasionally, if I can give good answers, I’ll throw out a meme here and there. I’m not finding any good Digg news or links to post either. So bear with me as I deal with climbing Everest again at work (the ever-changing LOT) for the next 2 weeks. Come Memorial Day weekend, I’ll be on vacation with my family, my sister and her family, and my folks in Orlando, so I’ll be sure to post updates and pics of what we’re doing.
If you really care about what I’m doing daily, check out my Twitter posts in the sidebar.
junior's flexible
I changed my theme again. I like the darkness of the previous theme, but it wasn’t flexible. I’m referring to the width of the page; if you’re desktop setting was at 800 x 600 or less, you’d have to scroll to see the rest of the page. This one is flexible, regardless of your desktop setting. It has a simple look to it, and I’m able to throw my trademark header image at the top, too. I don’t plan on changing themes again anytime soon (I absolutely hate it when D changes his MySpace layout everyday), but I will probably be tweaking the colors so it’s all evenly balanced.
back in black
Well, it’s taken a week for me to transfer my domain and my files to GoDaddy. I pray I don’t have to do this again anytime soon, because it’s not an easy process. I nearly forgot to back up my database; I seriously believed I lost all my original posts and thought I would be starting all over. Then I played the waiting game before my previous registrar would approve my transfer request to GoDaddy. Then I had some issues with installing WordPress; I hadn’t done it since I first established this blog 2 years ago, and I don’t recall it being difficult the first time around. (more…)
downtime
There may be disruption to this site in the next few days. I’m in the process of moving everything to a new server. At the same time, I stopped posting on tenyjr.wordpress.com (because posting the same thing in 2 places is just dumb at this point). I hope the transition will be smooth, then I’ll continue ’365′ along with other updates as soon as it’s all in place.
update 041507
I’ve got about a week left before it’s time to renew the domain “tenyjr.com”. I also plan to change hosts for my blog. Vizaweb was good the first year, but the 2 day outage last November has me looking elsewhere for better service and support. Right now, GoDaddy is an obvious choice, but I’m still researching it. (more…)
twittervision
I discovered Twittervision the other day. It’s a mashup of Twitter and Google Maps, where you can view Twitter posts from other users all over the world. It’s pretty neat to see the world having a conversation. Drew Domkus (of the Dawn and Drew Show) said Twitter is like “one big chat room”. There are those who don’t care for Twitter, saying it’s silly and that it won’t last. I for one like it; it’s revitalized my blogging.
Something new on my sidebar: Twitter. Sort of a mini-blog. I can go here to post what might be going on at any given moment, or simply blog a random thought. Since I haven’t really posted much on my blog lately due to a serious lack of motivation, this kinda comes in handy when I just want to throw something out there with minimal fuss. I can post via Twitter’s website, text from my phone, or through IM. I like it.
long time no blog
And it will be a little while longer til I start posting better entries. I’m lacking motivation right now. Just to give a quick update – I’m stuck in all-day training the next 2 weeks (meaning I won’t get much work done). It was 10 years ago today when I first met CL in person. D has been the typical teenager, prompting his mother and I to be a little more disciplinary to get our point across. Lent is approaching, and I’m still unsure of what I will sacrifice.
Oh, and we got maybe 4 inches of snow. Seems miniscule compared to this. CL wouldn’t mind if they gave us a foot.
update 012907
Go figure that after my 4-day weekend, I still haven’t posted anything. So what’s going on? Work has been very crazy for both me and CL. So busy that Ronald McDonald, Little Caesar, and a handful of others have been helping us out with dinner. The weekend was spent catching up on laundry and restoring the hard drive on my laptop.
Just because it’s busy doesn’t mean I haven’t enjoyed some leisure. I recently upgraded to a fifth-generation iPod (took advantage of high-capacity storage and excellent battery life at a fantastic price). CL and I have been trying to catch up on movies and TV (Heroes rocks!). I’m also learning how to be a Guitar Hero; this game is addicting and I enjoy it a lot.
I hope to return to blogging on a regular basis. I’d like to be able to write like I did when I started this nearly 2 years ago. I miss being able to write random thoughts without any worry as to what it is or who’s going to read it. I may be able to relax and have fun, but every now and then, I need to have some release.
too busy
sorry i haven’t posted in a while; too much going on, internet’s been slow, and life’s moving so fast that i hardly have time to stop and think. i have a 4-day weekend coming up, so i hope to post an update on what’s going on.
ten hours a day
I’ve completed my first week working a 10-hr shift. Surprisingly, the day moves along pretty fast. I’ve got a lot on my plate, so staying busy makes the day move quickly. However, my time takes a big hit at the end of the day. A year at the helpdesk spoiled me; clocking out at 2:30 PM allowed nearly 3 hours of “me” time before dinner. Now I get home at dinnertime. I eat, shower, and unwind in front of the TV (a bad habit I’ve acquired thanks to my buddy Scott). In bed by 9 since I need to be up at 5 AM.
Of course, working this shift means a day off each week. So I took Friday off. Christine happened to have the day off as well, so we capitalized on it by doing some Christmas shopping. We got a handful of presents, so it was a day well spent. I’d hate to be out shopping on weekends, so having these days off during the week will be a wonderful plus.
And, yes, I’m back on tenyjr.com. It’s paid for, so I should use it. I’ll continue to post on both teny jr dot com as well as on tenyjr.wordpress.com (since I’ve pointed everyone here). In the spring, I will go with a different host (especially after the Vizaweb debacle). I’m thinking of using a new domain name. “Teny Jr” is known only amongst family, and it doesn’t make sense unless you know its history. So I’ll need a new domain name: “neil.com”, “tenyearsgone.com”, “whatdoiputhere.com”. I need ideas, so if you can come up with something catchy, simple, and it has to do with ME, then by all means, shoot them my way!
week in review
Another busy week ends …
- I learned quite a bit with coding and report writing during my training, but it never really sunk in until this week. It’s a good thing my predecessor is available as a resource whenever I run into a jam, and my counterpart is very willing to help anytime I need it.
- The helpdesk chains that bind me may break in time for Thanksgiving, and for that I am grateful. One half started Tuesday, and he’s gotten to be comfortable fairly quickly. He still has a bit to learn, but it’s very early in the game. His other half starts this week, and I will be assisting with training since he will be my replacement.
- I start my normal schedule Monday, working 10-hour days. That may seem long, but it’s necessary to get the job done. I am currently trying to accomplish a 10-hour day in 5 hours, and it’s not easy. The payoff of the new schedule will be the day off each week. The next 3 weekends will be nice (3 days, 4 days, 4 days). Can’t beat that!
- My headaches returned with a vengeance on Thursday. I’d like to attribute it to stress, but I’m not so sure. Thursday was a busy day, and I felt pressured to get things done. But the stress was not as bad as when my headaches initially started in late September. I’m sure stress doesn’t help, but I’m not so sure it’s the cause. The headache is accompanied by pain in my left ear, and something new: an occasional shooting pain down the left side of my upper back. I didn’t sleep well Thurs and Fri night due to the pain (I slept better last night because I lacked sleep). I plan to see the doctor this week because this is getting out of hand; I finished a bottle of ibuprofen all on my own in 5 weeks.
- I’m still not sure what to do with tenyjr.com.
- I changed my theme since D took mine.
- Rams lose another close one to Seattle. We need to work on 2 things: penalties and time management.
- When We Were Kings – **** – a fine film that transcends boxing. Ali proves to the world why he is the “Greatest” (and not just in the ring).
- X-Men – **** – Jackman steals the show as Wolverine, although I think the hair-do isn’t necessary to make the part work. Enjoyed this more the 2nd go-round (in preparation for “X3: The Last Stand”).
And another one begins.
recovery
Nearly 48 hours after going down, Vizaweb is back online, as is every site hosted by them (including mine). No one knows what happened; Vizaweb doesn’t even acknowledge the downtime (I did receive an email that a ticket was opened with support, but this was AFTER my site reappeared).
Vizaweb – Gone dark with no explanation | digg story
For fear of it going down again, I’ve gone ahead and backed up my blog entries and imported them to WordPress.com. At first chance on Saturday, I will back up anything else I have on their servers. I will post one last time at teny jr dot com to point everyone in this direction instead.
