One of our techs was on-site and snapped this pic of a poorly placed I-beam in front of the entrance to the server room.
And yes, that’s permanent. Reminds me of Tommy Boy:
Crazy Screen Shots – Rotary Girder
National Baconator Day
My personal laptops I use for training and presentations are really top-notch. But I’ve been riding a worn-out hand-me-down whitebox rig for my day-to-day desktop PC, and it’s pretty much been circling the drain. Fan gave out on the video card, hard drive is tripping S.M.A.R.T. alarms for temperature, slow CPU, skimpy RAM, Outlook is horked, it’s basically a digital dog with parvo.
I heard through the grapevine that they’re going to upgrade me, but I’ve heard that before. New hires keep coming on and snagging the new PCS, so I just deal with it like everyone else. It’s like paint all over a painter’s truck – no big deal. It’s just a PC, not a status symbol.
So Thursday I get a call from a good pal at corporate (Shawn “The Baconator” Bacon) who’s ordering a new machine for me, and I’m all, “Yeah sure, when does another new guy start?” 😉 Little did I know that dude was giving me the total hookup. He said it would be nice, but man, I had no idea! And today UPS shows up and drops a stunning new HP rig at my door. It’s been a long time since I had kid-in-the-candy-store-itis over a desktop PC, but today was one of those days.
True, I could blog about system specs and benchmarks, but that’s not really the point (and that stuff fades with the next new model anyway). The point is people, and the intent behind the hardware pales the PC by comparison. Shawn is a super nice guy who works hard and doesn’t get nearly enough recognition for his efforts. And he knows that we techs bend over backwards for our customers. Today he went above and beyond to provide the horsepower and tools for me to help keep customers happy, plus the extra ‘oomph’ for my particular presentation and virtualization needs. Nice.
It’s very gratifying to know that in a industry dominated by billable time, tech utilization reports, and constant banging of the managed services drum, there are still cool folks who care. Therefore, as sole editor of this blog and stuff,
I declare Tue July 8, 2008 “National Baconator Day”.
Shawn, you totally rock dude. Even more than the real Baconator. Thanks!!
P.S. As an extra bonus, the packing material had some wicked-awesome printing that was a riot. I just wish I could get the ‘baby’ one as a T-shirt!
IT Crush
Last week I posted a coined phrase "I.T. crush" on UrbanDictionary.com describing the relationship some IT people have with their coworkers. I’ve never heard anyone else use that phrase, but I’ve used it for a while and think it fits nicely, so I put it out on the web just for fun.
Here’s the definition I posted online (05/16/2008):
IT crush – noun – When a technically inept computer user or geek-wannabe repeatedly hassles a legitimate IT (information technology) person in an attempt to befriend them and pick their brain for free computer knowledge. The person with the IT crush can’t be bothered with reading books themselves, and also considers you be their personal IT person and will email you directly instead of opening a support case through proper channels. The IT crush may also go so far as insisting on being on your IM buddy list, and sends you ‘helpful’ email like computer advertisements and virus warnings, cartoons, etc..
Usually the most prone to latch on are also the most prone to be infected by a trojan or virus.
Examples:
1. "Dude, Kevin in purchasing keeps hanging out in my cube wanting to talk computers and pestering me with questions about his home wireless router. I think he’s developing an IT crush on me."
2. "I ran this attachment I got but nothing happened. Can you run it on your machine and see what you think?"
3. "btw did you see Dilbert today? Hilarious!"
Skip forward to today, and the Daily Dilbert (05/20/2008) matches perfectly!
Feel free to vote it up or down. 🙂
Credits: Props to Cory Rammer and Bo Bracey for assistance with rounding out the definition and examples!
Side note: Personally, I have no preference for the spelling of "IT" or "I.T." – after all, nobody spells V.C.R. anymore. English History majors, feel free to disagree.
Disclaimer: Some content on UrbanDictionary.com is considered NSFW – be advised
Windows Me – Still Alive
Filed under: Crazy Screen Shots
Spotted in the wild today – Windows Me
- Expired Norton 2000
- Missing 41 updates
- No firewall
- Connected to the internet via broadband
Wow! Can you say "pwned"? Sure, I knew you could!
Favorite Picture of MVP Summit 2008
A picture is worth 1,000 words…
This is a picture I took of Steve Balmer during the Microsoft MVP Summit 2008.
Seattle, Washington – 4/17/2008
Hello Dalai
I’m in Seattle this week for the MVP Summit, and I happen to be rooming in the Grand Hyatt, which (by coincidence) is where the Dalai Lama is staying. To steal a joke from Jeff Middleton, “It took Microsoft this long to make him an MVP?” 😉
Security in the hotel is unbelievably tight, and the guards with guns have -20 sense of humor points, so we have to be on our best behavior. Eriq scored some video of Big DL, and I nabbed a picture:
Since we can’t joke around downstairs (other than to snicker while saying “Gunga galunga”) I turn to the master, Bill Murray:
Worst Woot Ever
Shout out to Seth for rubbing the worst Woot EVER in my face. H8 u!
Wow, that’s a Woot-Off killer if I’ve ever seen one. Of the 2 people in the universe that have a hole in their existence that will comfortably fit a $1.99 Screaming Monkey with Pink or Blue Woot Cape – I’m not one of them. K?!
Yikes! No Banjo of Consternation either. 🙁
I Am the Melissa Rivers of Vladville
The SMB Community is an odd beast. Layers of relationships, politics, technical skills, information, money, experts and posers, givers and takers…
nothing is shocking really anymore. But it’s nice when things get mixed up a little bit though.
First, Jamie Strauss sent me a link to a new SBS video blog that is, in a word, ‘different’. Not your normal screen-cast or interview-fest or self-aggrandizing we’ve come to expect in the past from the community. The videos are ‘refreshingly different’ to say the least. And since I’m a staunch avoider of blog-on-blog action, I’ll let the videos speak for themselves.
And then there Vlad. Who is Texas. And bored. That’s never a good thing. Probably misses his Rumba already. He stopped by on IM tonight long enough to talk smack while on his hiatus. One comment led to another. Vlad wound up having to Google ‘Premarin’ and now I am the Melissa Rivers of Vladville:
Between Melissa and I, one of us is seriously offended, and I think it’s her.
Good times. 🙂
Twitter and Darth Vader
Sunday morning, pretty day outside. Meeting was canceled due to snow-removal issues, so that injects some extra free time in my day. But the Daylight Saving Time change took some of that free time back away. 🙁 And this freaky early DST has me checking my watch every 20 minutes, which feels weird and is messing with my mind. So I’m chilling out, listening to some Portishead, doing some much MUCH needed spring cleaning, and basically avoiding thinking about doing my taxes.
Seriously, I have no idea where all this ‘stuff’ comes from, but it just keeps piling up. Books, CDs, papers, software, posters, AC adapters that go to who knows what – just gobs and gobs of stuff… in piles. I even found 2 copies of Vista and 2 Office 2007’s, which is really cool. So hopefully when my wife gets home she’ll be proud of me for un-rubbling the place.
Anyway, the big clean is done and I decided to take a break and check up on email and Twitter. Interestingly, I got the most unexpected funny email. Mind you, not ‘ha ha’ funny, but just weird enough to make me smile on an already surreal day:
I mean, that just looks bizarre, doesn’t it? ‘Twitter’ sounds like the name of a ship or something. 🙂
See, @DarthVader has been MIA from Twitter since January, and I thought he had gone the way of @BobaFett. But apparently the Dark Lord is alive and well, currently tooling around SXSW in Texas with all the cool kids. (Hey @sMoRTy71, make Louisville proud while you’re there!) So today it was nice to see what’s going on, and Darth is totally cracking me up because he doesn’t break character and is using quotes like, “I find my lack of trousers… disturbing“. Just wrap your head around that mentally – Darth in Austin, TX posting tweets about not finding his pants. Makes for a funny mental picture, or maybe it’s just me.
Anyway, thanks for the add Darth, and thanks for keeping the internet interesting. 🙂
And just because I can, here’s a nice Darth video:
Video – Microsoft Conference Call
I sit on a lot of conference calls and Live Meetings with Microsoft. Now you know what’s happening in ‘the snap’ before the conference:
Bet you’ll never look at being on hold before a conference call the same way again 😉
Props: Thanks to ‘grandpa’ (Grey Lancaster) for the link!