Today I installed DD-WRT on my fathers Buffalo router.  All seemed well however we’ve discovered a networking issue I could use your help with.  If you know Windows, DD-WRT and or networking please read on.  If not, boring geekiness you wont care about below the break.

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… has been keeping me awake at nights.  Tonight we went to bed by 10:15 and I was out of bed in a cold sweat (after two bathroom trips) by 11:15.  Issues at work and self pity caused by career situations have been weighing heavy on me.  My goal for the moment is to continue conversing online until I am so exhausted I can just pass out.  I’m not making much sense in the conversations I’m having but I never do when sleep deprived.

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So once again I fail at being a good blogger.  I am not feeling guilty but rather silly as it doesn’t take much to post.  Especially since I’ve got WordPress so configured I can email a post … oh well.

The License
Many people have been asking me how the driving is going.  The answer is very simply, “Amazing!”  I’ve been driving as much as possible which has amounted to some 120+ miles of driving alone.  This included 3 trips in and out of the field office I sometimes work from, multiple errands including a shopping trip that the entire return ride was a heavy rainfall.  I’ve had no issues and have to say I am very proud of myself.  Kate is also pretty pleased as I am able to run so many errands she always had to do on her own.

Big Apple BBQ
Kate and I had an awesome and welcome surprise and the Fink’s joined us for the Big Apple BBQ.  We had a great time and ate some amazing BBQ.  This year the bbq was a lot more crowded than last year and we had to wait on a lot more lines; there were even some restaurants we could not visit due to the lines being way too long and us being way too impatient.  We had a great time despite the 100F heat and large number of people.  However, by the time we returned home we were all sweaty as hell!

The Blackout
Yesterday at about 5:55pm the power went out.  The message on PSE&G’s website said the power would not be restored until 4am.  Kate swung by a food store on the way home and bought some bags of ice and we moved some of the more expensive products from the fridge into a cooler with the ice.  We grilled some potatoes and sausage we had defrosting on the counter for dinner and packed a bag to go to my parents.  Just before we were about to head out at about 9pm the power came back on.  Unfortunately very shortly after it came on, it went off again.  Kate and I sat in the parking lot and spoke with some of our neighbors until power was restored at roughly 10:15pm.  So far power has been stable and I’ve not noticed any dataloss on the multiple machines, Tivos etc that were running.

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My recently acquired XBox 360 Elite console is going back to Gamestop with the GTA4 disc tomorrow.  I tried to play the game today and the system froze.  Not once, not twice but well over seven times.  Upon further inspection it seems as if the console may have put some small scratches on the disc.  I’m also hoping Xbox games are meant to have a small area of disc, then a line, then more disc as mine does.  Tomorrow I am going to force Gamestop to swap out everything other than the HD as I tested with that removed and it still froze.  I don’t see a reason to lose all my completed missions

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This sucks.  April 30th.  A day before May and I’m taking DayQuil.

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… Just give a simple answer!  I can not even count the times today I have sent a simple request out to the field and received gibberish, long winded responses with no content and or additional questions without a bit of a response to mine.  Some examples:

Q) Will your candidate be accepting this job offer?

A) Is there a fixed markup?

Q) Can you provide three times tomorrow your candidate can go to be finger printed?

A) They’ll go tomorrow.

Q) Are you free to discuss this in detail on the phone?

A) Where?

I’ll just slam my head on the table now.

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And not overly impressed so far. During April of 2007 Comcast purchased Patriot Media, my locally owned and operated cable provider. Patriot Media’s service has been outstanding, their customer support has been quick, polite and they resolved issues in a quick and timely manner. Including the cable trimming incident. Since about December we knew that Comcast would begin taking over services and support and I personally celebrated each day things remained under the control of Patriot Media.

In either late February or early March we learned that the Patriot Media services would roll into Comcast control and operation shortly. At first we were told it would occur sometime in March and then we received printed literature that stated April 18th 2008. While a change in internet provider for most people is not a terrible issue for me it is a big deal because: 1) I work from home, 2) I run multiple personal services including my photos site and some sites for my father and 3) I am a geek; speed is important. I had previously due to a server failure moved my mail hosting to Google’s domain hosting services and have recently in anticipation of service changes moved this site. A good friend Brian K. has been very kind in offering me hosting on his co-located box.

At some point in the middle of the night last night my service became Comcast. My IP address has changed and most unfortunately my network speed has become piss poor. I’ve run six or seven bandwidth speed tests through the internet and each one has reported my speed as being well below acceptable, let alone the 12mbit/1.5mbit I had received from Patriot Media. The better of the tests reported my speed at 2.5Mbit/500KB/s. Very disappointed and all my outbound connections are sluggish. With my work VPN up (which it is for about 10+ hours a day) internet surfing is slow and my VOIP is pretty much unusable.

Thankfully at this point they have not blocked all incoming ports and my services are still operational; albeit slowly.

Update: I’ve been told that people can’t reach either the photos link or the trimming video.  This is caused by your internet provider having old DNS records for my home server cached.  Most ISPs will recycle these values within 24 – 48 hours.

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Last night we dropped off the car after Passover dinner as the warning indicator that illuminated on Friday’s drive to Maryland was still lit.  The mechanic called earlier this morning to report that the light was telling us there was a vapor/fumes issue in the gas intake system.  He believed it was caused by a damaged seal on the fuel tank as well as a cracked fuel cap.  Both the connection and the cap have been replaced and the sensor has been reset.  Total charge is $67.00 and we can pick the car up tonight.  Hopefully that’s the end of it.

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This entry is to serve as a warning to all owners of feline companions.   The litter box, our stinky and dreaded friend, will always require your services to empty it.  There are many ways to do this but most reasonably sane people empty the contents into a plastic bag.  I choose to use the ones my food store generously provides me with every time I empty my paycheck at the cashier.

There is, in theory, nothing wrong with this procedure.  However there is one fatal flaw I have discovered today.  Sometimes these bags develop tears or in todays case a hole the size of a quarter.  These holes with some weight around them will expand.  This morning I emptied the contents of my litter box twice; once from the box and once from the hallway carpet.  Lovely.

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Work has been oh so very busy as of late.  On March 31st we entered a new contract with my client.  This new contract allows us to do business in markets we’ve never worked before and furthermore has reduced the total number of competitors from roughly 150 to 15.

Under the old contract in 2008 (January 1st – March 30th) we saw a total of 194 openings of which 37 were canceled.  This gave us 157 jobs to work on.  This kept me busy throughout the first quarter.   Sure I had some points where I wasn’t swamped but more often than not my day was full.

So far since March 31st under this new contract we have already received 95 openings.  14 of which were canceled giving us the ability to work on 81.  These positions are across numerous markets we’ve never done business with before and thus require even more involvement than the orders prior.  I’ve been doing 10 hour days every day since this contract started and don’t think this will end and fear it will get worse.

I’ve been giving a lot of thought to working from an office more often than not in the future as I am starting to get cabin fever working from home.  Beyond that I have no escape from work; Kate and I retire to the home office to relax or play on the computer and I find myself at the same desk I spent 10 hours that day.  Furthermore, I find myself answering work emails and checking the voice mail on my phone!  Thankfully I am going on vacation in roughly a month, I can really use the time off and away from the home-office and pressure of working.

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