The Ownage

I decided that it was time to upgrade our windows. They were old, crappy, aluminum-frame, single-pane windows that were doing little more than a sheet of plastic wrap would to keep the heat out and the AC in.

The graph on the left is our energy usage for last year. See that big spike on the right side? That is the month of July, when we used over 7700 kWh to the tune of $700!

I’m hoping that at the end of this month, I will be posting a graph that shows a much reduced usage level. The new windows are dual-pane, plus have low-E glass with a U-factor of 0.34.

While I was at it, I also had all the interior doors upgraded. The previous doors were functional but were the cheapest doors made. I had them replaced with nice 6-panel doors, including new hinges which look a lot better than the old ones which were either rusty or painted over.

Here are some before and after pics of the windows:

I’m going to take my RHCE (RedHat Certified Engineer) exam on July 25h.  Wish me luck, as I am sure going to need it. The RHCE exam is said to be one of the hardest cert exams there is. It is a completely performance-based exam, so if you don’t know everything cold, you WILL fail.

Evidence of this is a member of our study group took the exam this past friday and failed. Bear in mind that he and the rest of us are linux “experts”, and on top of that have been studying specifically for this exam every saturday for the past six months…and he still failed. Yes, it’s that difficult.

Some folks who took their RHCE exam in the past scoff at this, but (apparently) unknown to them is that the exam used to be a LOT easier. It literally had multiple choice questions on it, and even linux newbies who just read a book could pass it. The exam being so easy made the certification it all but worthless, so they completely changed it and made it all hands-on performance based. No multiple-choice questions, hell, no questions at all. The format of the exam are things like “This PC will not boot…fix it”, or “Setup this PC as a NIS/DNS/NFS server and configure these other servers to connect to the services”. Doing tasks like that, plus dealing with SELINUX and Firewall issues can be pretty challenging when you are on a time constraint. From what I understand there is very little time for RTFM, so if you don’t know how to do something, you are pretty much doomed to fail.

I went swimming (for the first time this summer) yesterday. Although it was cool and refreshing, I tried to focus more on exercise than relaxing. I think I over did it a bit, as this morning I was so sore that it took me 3 minutes to hobble to the bathroom. I walked it off and it’s no so bad now, but my calf muscles are really sore.

I plan on swimming as often as possible, as it is the best way for me to exercise (since it’s low impact) for now. Although I appreciate the advice, things like “just go jogging”, or “walk 5 miles a day”, just don’t work when you are 400lbs, especially if you want to keep your knees and hip joints in working order.

Thursday I got promoted. I now have a dual title, “Senior Systems Engineer/IT Team Lead”. The promotion also included a decent raise (not as much as I hoped for but met my minimal requirements). I guess they felt sorry for me doing 3+ peoples jobs at once.

For those who don’t know, they fired they entire IT dept staff, except for me. So I’ve been doing my normal systems engineering/admin job, plus taking up the slack of the removed Sr Network Admin, other Sr Systems Admin, and a Jr Network admin/helpdesk person. I am literally the entire IT dept! This means I am doing everything from managing the data center to helping people with lame tech support issues like “Why can’t I print”, or “my mouse button doesn’t work right”.

My promotion means that when we hire a replacement Network guy, he will report to me, and I will have to approve his PTO, do performance reviews, and other management things, but without a real manager title

Funny thing is the HR girl informed me that this was a “huge promotion” for me, and that it was a “step up the ladder”, and “will improve my resume”. While she said this she was clutching a copy of my resume, which apparently she never read, because it indicates that I was a manager of a full systems engineering team at Qwest, where I also made six figures. The job I have now has actually been a huge step DOWN in my career path, even including this latest “promotion”.

Ah well, at least they are trying to recognize my hard work, and more money is always good, even if it is just enough to cover my monthly gas expenses.

I heard on the radio today that the airlines, starting with Continental, are going to begin charging a fee for “overweight passengers”.  What do they consider overweight? Anyone over 175 pounds. WTF! Bear in mind by “overweight”, they don’t mean “fat”. There are plenty of guys that are six-foot-something that are 200+ pounds.

How much is the fee going to be? Is it going to be more depending on how much over the limit you are? I guess we will have to wait and see.  They claim it is because heavier people make the plane consume more fuel. This stupid fee, along with their recent change in operations of slowing down the airspeed of the planes, shows just how much the fuel crunch must be biting them in the wallet.

Oh and get this…I also hear of a new in-flight restroom fee, where your first visit to the restroom is free, and any more visits are $25 each.  How the hell are they going to police that? Are they going to make you swipe your credit card to get toilet paper, like you do for the phones?

I finally got around to ordering the new windows for the house, and my procrastination finally paid off!

Long story short, I saved around $700.00 by taking advantage of a 20% off weekend sale, plus price matching. If Home Depot had fully honored their price matching policy *grumble*, I would have saved 30%.

Short story long: Lowes was having a weekend 20% off sale on doors and windows, so I took my old Home Depot quote to them and got them to give me a quote for the same windows (they carry they same brand and model). Lowes prices were a tiny bit higher than Home Depot, but their delivery fee was $20 cheaper, and the 20% off made a huge difference.

I then took their quote to Home Depot, who was advertising all over the store (even outside), that if a competitor had the same product at a lower price, “we will match the price and beat it by 10%”. This was awesome as it meant that I would now get 30% off!

I went straight to the service desk of Home Depot and showed them both my HD quote and Lowes quote, and said that I wanted to verify that they would meet and beat Lowes price as promised. Immediately they were NOT HAPPY.

The Lowes quote did not have anything about the 20% off on it, and the Lowes manager told me they couldn’t print a quote that reflected the discount, because the discount was taken at the register. Both me and the Lowes guy (who knew what I was planning to do), knew this would be an issue so he stapled his business card to the quote and said to have them call him if they needed to verify that the 20% was legit and should be subtracted from their invoice price.

Basically the Home Depot people didn’t believe me. They didn’t flat out call me a liar, but lets just say they called Lowes several times to verify the price, even after I showed them the picture above that I had on my cellphone. I don’t like how they made me feel like a cheapskate or a scammer for taking advantage of a discount, but lets face facts here…the discount was going to save me hundreds of dollars, so it was well worth the effort!

And, this is a policy that they BOLDLY advertise (see pic..click it for large version), so why should they give me a hard time for taking them up on it? Their policy clearly states that they will meet and beat lower prices,

yet they acted like I was trying to scam them or something. Oh and get this…they were willing to “meet” the price, but they refused to “beat” (give the 10%) it! The manager kept hemming and hawing and obviously making up bullshit like “uhhh yeah, uhh sale prices don’t count”. I said “then why are you even matching the price? And doesn’t the sign say ‘any advertised price’”? He was like “umm well for ’special order’ items we only do the meet but not the beat’, I was like “but just a moment ago you were about to not give me the discount at all because you said you ONLY honor the discount for special order items?”. We went around and around for a bit and they were about to close, and I was tired of arguing, so I gave in. I was glad to at least have my 20% off. I’m sure if I was some grey-haired old guy or lady they would have bent over backwards to kiss my ass (as most stores seem to do for some reason) and give me the 10%.

Ironically, although they refused to give me that 10%, they were oh-so-eager to give me an additional 10% off if I signed up for a Home Depot line of credit! “No thanks” I said.

I’m just testing theSeesmic Wordpress Plugin.

Test post using seesmic 

On the way home from work today, I heard on the radio that Colorado today passed a state-wide law that says that nobody can be restricted from a private place, including bathrooms and locker rooms, based upon their gender or their “appearance of gender”. Their reason? So that trans-gendered persons will be treated fairly.

I have several problems with this. The first being, why are we allowing a tiny portion of a population to dictate the lives of the rest? In other words, how many she-males and such can there be, that it’s deemed necessary to lay down such a stupid blanket ruling?

Did they even think of the things that can, and surely will start happening as a result of men and women mingling in restrooms? It wasn’t long ago that senator Craig was blasted for touching his foot to another mans foot in a restroom…what happens when some girl is in a stall and some scruffy dude in the stall next to her is like “Hey honey, ya want me to wipe that for ya?”

Or, what about some perv child molester guy follows some young girls into the restroom? Now moms and girls are going to have to have their mace handy while they relieve themselves!

Consider also, that while I am standing at a urinal, some chick comes in and checks me out and says “Wow, that is the most impressive man missle I have ever seen”…Is it fair that I have to receive these unsolicited comments?

Don’t forget that it’s a state-wide law, so if you are on a lay-over at a Colorado airport, be prepared for some crazy lady to fuss at you for not putting down the toilet seat.

I’m still trying to figure out why Alex would refuse to accept something worth more money than he has made in the past few years combined. I’m talking about my 1995 Mustang GT. I had planned to give it to Alex, and at first he seemed pretty jazzed about it. He seemed to enjoy driving the car, and he even went out and bought a bunch of car car stuff like wax etc so that he could keep it looking good. We made a deal where I would draft up some “articles of ownership”, that he would have to sign in order for me to hand over the car to him. The articles were just a formality and mostly just stuff like reminders to keep the car clean, be careful with the overdrive gear, etc.

Then something happened. My insurance plan ran out. That was that last time Alex drove the car. It’s been sitting in our driveway for like six months now. I’ve prodded him about taking over ownership of the car, and he says that he doesn’t want it…wtf?

Bear in mind my car is not a piece of shit. The bluebook value on it is near $5,000. Besides that, it also has a $1000.00 stereo system, an $800 NOS system, $2000.00 of custom wheels and tires, a custom rear wing, custom suspension and other performance mods that probably add up to another grand. So all told the car is worth near $10k.

As to why he refuses to take ownership of the car, I think the biggest reason is that he thinks the insurance would be expensive, and it would also require a “stable” income to make the payments. I tried telling him that he doesn’t have to work for “the man”, there is plenty of stuff around the house and yard that I would gladly pay him to do, not to mention tasks that Terry always seems to find for him. Heck just last week he made $400 doing 2 days work for Cisco…that would pay several months of insurance payments right there.

I’m fairly frustrated about this situation, as the car just cannot sit in place much longer. If you let tires sit in one place for too long, they get a flat spot on them or dry rot. Not to mention the havoc the summer sun will wreak on the dash and rest of the interior.

I could just sell the car to someone, but I’d rather not sell it to some crazy mexican kid who will wreck it in a week. I know that Alex would appreciate and take care of it, which is the reason I was going to just give it to him. Also with a car, he would have the freedom to go wherever and whenever he wants. 115F heat is too damn hot to walk or ride a bike around in.

Ah well…who knows…with these crazy gas prices we are going through, maybe he has the right idea.

I knew I wasn’t imagining things! I’ve been feeling like my legs are somehow bigger and heavier, although I havn’t gained any weight.  Well this morning I put my sneakers on for the first time since Friday, and I could barely get them on! My feet were swollen! I definitely noticed that my legs were swollen too….wtf.  I guess I’m retaining water for some reason…any advice as to the best way to make it go away? Jeez when did my body become such a wreck