A Merry Christmas

Personal

Back home to IL for the holiday where it was just cold enough to have the moisture turn to snow Chrismas morning. It didn’t last long though but was enough to use the scraper on the windows. With time split between both Kay and I’s family it didn’t make for much time at either place. We were back home on Monday evening and the boys dogs were very excited, needless to say.

It was nice to see all the nieces and nephews as some of them are still small enough to get really exctied about Santa. It’s good to smile and get away for a little bit to recharge, but it’s back to the grind now as their is plenty to do at work. The next break will come at the end of March when we head to Maui.

Another week of traveling

Personal

It was another week away from home, for business though not play. As recent changes at the home office deemed it necessary for a personal visit for training. While there it seemed very difficult to get anything accomplished, days filled with meetings and training sessions some of which I was the instructor. That was no supprise but the sessions were very informal and hopefully beneficial.

Being one of a handful of remote workers, that are not in sales, communication and sharing of information is always a challenge. It would be helpful if the company took an approach of communicating that does not mean talking with someone on the phone or steping into their office, but it has yet to come.

Almost daily I struggle with continuing what is percieved as my anti Mircosoft mentallity, where web is king and searching is an absolute necessity, and falling back into owership of information makes it available… you just need to ask. I’m sure my perception of the office is incorrect just as the office’s perception of me is the same. Just cause I choose something different does make me anti anything, just different. But at the same time an “open” exchange where information on products and services is posted and can be searchable makes “finding the owner of the info”, mute. I guess when you are in the proprietary software business and have done things a certain way for 25 years moving to an open environment can be difficult and scary.

I’ll keep trying to beat the drum of opening up, I’m always up to a good challenge… 8 years and running. ;)

Note: Moving to an open environment is not moving your proprietary software to the GPL or am I referring to replacing the existing productivity suites with something that is. One idea would be instead of emails noting meeting minutes or attached documents being emailed about information on a new product… post it online for all to see.

December off to a flying start

Personal

December has started off with on a roll as changes are coming at work, weather is cooling off, more repairs to the truck, and if we are going to try and move got to get the house ready. Came back from seeing the family over Thanksgiving and a morning call from the boss resinated changes. Work load will go up spread over fewer people and we’ll have to get more of the group involved in what my department is doing. Where typically December is slow it will be hoppin now.

With cooler weather means the dogs don’t get out as much but when they do it’s to run wild. I head down to a boat ramp at the lake and wander, nobody really goes there in the winter so the dogs get to run. Of course this year it is dogs plural as cooper was too little last year. The good thing is they get to run, the bad thing is now that there is two of them their is more trouble listening. Think I’m going to have to nip that in the butt with some training colars… but we’ll see.

Since it was cooling off figured I’d better have the truck looked at, after 148,000 miles might want to think about getting the fluids changed in the diffs and transfer case. At the same time a neighbor commented about his ZR2 and getting the tie rods replaced. After mentioning that I noticed grease under the control arms…. not good. Well the short version of the story is tie rods were fine but upper ball joints, axle boot (where the grease was coming from), and a idler arm needed replacing. Front end is much more solid now so I hope I’m primed for another 100,000 miles.

Moving has been a topic for a while now. Would like to get out of the subdivision and into more acreage.. when you don’t have any one could be pretty nice. But to do that we need to get some things done inside you know the nail holes, a little paint here and there, hardware, etc. We’re down to carpet cleaning and a few more touches of paint and we should be ready but I think we are about three months late. Winter is not the best time to put a house on the market not to mention start of the holiday season. Interest rates are moving up too so with the changes at work it puts an little more thought into the situation. So we will sit on that for a while I think, at least till the holidays are through.

Ubuntu 5.10

Personal

Two weeks ago I upgraded to the current version of Ubuntu, 5.10 Breazy Badger. After backing up mail from .evolution, themes from .themes and personal files, by burning them to a CD, I booted the 5.10 CD and in 30 minutes I was up. Once loaded it took about another 30 minutes to move files off the CD and get mail and theme the way I wanted it. So far it has been great.

The complete list of enhancements is here but I can say right off the bat wireless is better. Kismet was an easy install and config as well as Ethereal. Battery management does not appear as good but I also have not tweeked any settings yet, just what ever was set by default. That is minor however.

OpenOffice 2.0 is a welcomed addition over version 1.1. If I could only use the machine for work, that would be perfect. Until then, for reasons I don’t need to go into here, I’ll keep the XP Pro desktop around and continue to use Ubuntu for personal use.

But imho for the flavors I have tried (RedHat, Fedora, SuSe) Ubuntu takes the cake.