The Net Monkey

A lot has been happening lately.

At work, we’ve been very busy preparing to move our data center here in Indianapolis to a newer, bigger location (not far from the old one, either). I’ve been extremely involved on the networking side of things, especially our load balancers.

We had a big maintenance outage Friday night that had me working until 4:30 AM. I worked a full day and then came back at 9:30 PM. Whew! It’s been a long time since I’ve had one of those days, but I made it through just fine. On bad note, it’s thrown off my sleep schedule this weekend, so I need to get myself to sleep on time tonight or I’ll be all kinds of messed up tomorrow at work.

In other news, Thursday night I went out with Chris M. for Mexican food and a movie. The food wasn’t all that great, but the movie was fun. I scored some free tickets from work to for the Heartland Film Festival, so we went and saw Lars and the Real Girl.

I really loved the movie, though one thing bothered me and it wasn’t the movie itself, but the audience. You know when there’s something happening on the screen that isn’t funny, but some people laugh anyway? There are some scenes closer to the end of the movie that are actually serious and emotional, but they laugh. Maybe they don’t get it? Maybe laughing is just their way of dealing with the serious nature of the subject matter? Hmm. I don’t know, but I do think it says a lot about the person.

This afternoon I’m visiting my family. Haven’t seen them in a while. Bad son!

I installed Mac OS X Leopard last night after the maintenance outage at work. I ended up falling asleep at the table while it finished installing. It wasn’t until I got up this afternoon when I could actually start using it.

So far everything works, with one exception: the Last.fm client. It simply locks up after you load it. The only way to get rid of it is to just force quit the program. I haven’t found any information yet as to why it’s broken or how to fix it, so I’ll just have to live with it until an update is released. Bummer.

Other than that, I like it. Good job, Apple!

I’ll post something of some relative substance soon; however, in the meantime, this video will have to get you through the day, for now.

Now that Apple has announced plans to officially support third-party applications on the iPhone, I’m totally jonesing for one now, but I’m going to be patient and wait.

Whew! Two weeks in San Francisco and New York can really take a lot out of you, but I have to admit that I had a fantastic time!

Traveling with me were my friends John and Shaun from England. I’ve known John for a couple of years and spent time with him when I was in the UK back in January, which is when I met Shaun. For this trip, we all met up at JFK Airport in New York before flying out west.

Everything was fine traveling, but John had problems with his ears. He had a cold a few days prior to flying and had mucous build up in his inner ear due to the air pressure changes This caused him a lot of pain and resulted in an ear infection, but he went to the doctor and got everything cleared up a few days before leaving San Francisco.

In San Francisco we stayed at the Castro Suites which is run by Joel and Sam who have been together since 1964. They have some great stories to tell, too. The apartment they provided was very nice and affordable, and located a couple of blocks from Market Street and the main Castro district.

My friend Jason M. came to spend some time with us and take us around in his car. We drove along Highway 1 to Monterey to visit the aquarium, which was cool, but it sure took a long time to drive down there. We also took a trip up to San Rafael to see Dan L. who then took us down to the Marin Headlands.

Other highlights of our stay in San Francisco include many visits to Daddy’s and The Lone Star Saloon; attending a concert performed by the San Francisco Symphony; spending a few hours in Golden Gate Park; and, lastly, a ride on one of the cable cars, on our way up to Fisherman’s Wharf in a failed attempt to get tickets to Alcatraz.

After spending a week in San Francisco, it was time to head out to New York for the second half of our vacation. Our accommodations in the Big Apple were in an apartment at 14th Street and Third Avenue, which put us at the northern extent of the East Village and a close walk to lots of cool stuff.

I realized while in New York that I really dislike Midtown Manhattan, specifically the areas around the Empire State Building and Times Square. It’s just too much; too touristy, too beige and boring for me. I agree with my friend Devin who said that it’s like being in a whole different city.

Anyway, the three of us had dinner with Devin, Bryan, and Doug at Mercadito in Greenwich Village. It’s a Mexican tapas restaurant, and all we did was fill up on a few different kinds of guacamole and several kinds of tacos. Oh so very delicious! I’d go eat there this very second, if I could.

What else did we do? Well, we spent time visiting the Empire State Building, Times Square, F.A.O. Schwartz, the Apple Store, the Guggenheim Museum, Grand Central Station, the World Trade Center site, the Brooklyn Bridge, and did a bit of shopping here and there.

I had a really good time with the British guys, but all good things must eventually come to an end. I returned back to work the day after I got home; it’s nice to be back home and amongst all the familiar things in life.

Photo Set: San Francisco - 2007
Photo Set: New York - 2007

Today I upgraded WordPress to version 2.3.

The upgrade went pretty painlessly; however, the Google Sitemaps plug-in is a problem. I’m not able to post anything with it activated, so I’ll have to just turn it off and then wait for the author to come out with something new. I might be able to find a replacement, but I’m likely to wait patiently. Isn’t a big deal if Google doesn’t get an update sitemap from me every time I post something new.

As far as new features are concerned, the only thing that seems of any interest to me is the new tagging system. They’ve finally integrated into the system something that numerous plug-ins attempted to do.