Blogger is a really sophisticated and advanced piece of software. I went to upload this picture, and it took me straight to my porn folder. I guess it knows where the pictures are.
*disclaimer: Remember, I took my personal laptop as well. I only put porn under Eugene's profile on the work computer.
Driving in Chicago sucks. Mostly because of the other drivers. My biggest pet peeve is either the fucking pedestrians that walk out in front of you, or bike in front of you, or twirl around on their gay skates in front of you, or the streets.
Now, most places, streets have little lines down the middle so you know what lane you're in. And, also, in most places, they have these cute little signs that tell you a lane is ending and you need to merge. In Chicago, they figured you could figure it out when a big fucking truck pulls in front of you.
And there aren't really lanes so much as a jumble of cars going in the same general direction until someone decides to turn at the last minute, or try and get points killing a pedestrian.
The guys at the station were so busy that I pretty much sat in front of the laptop and pounded out documentation all day. Sort of like I pounded CJ's Mom last night (she flew in Monday). I tried to find info on just about every vendor I could, which was pretty sucky. They have a lot of things they don't really know the name of, just a vendor name, or vice versa.
In just about every room of the station, especially the tech rooms, they have the TV going. So if there's a problem, or the broadcast freezes for whatever reason, they are on it before anyone calls them. Most of the critical problems I've seen have been solved in about 10 minutes. That's pretty damn good.
I forgot to mention, I got to watch the live newscast from the control room Monday. They had three or four people, and one guy directing everyone. They were all doing about twenty things at once, and surprisingly it went off without a hitch. I'm sure they're used to it by now, but it was pretty amazing to watch.
I've been trying to throw in a good word about the HelpDesk whenever I can. If one of the desktop guys complains about the little things, I try to mention that we do it all the time. Like fixing people's migration password issues, migration e-mail issues, etc.
I walked with the desktop guy on one ticket, and a user couldn't login to the new domain. He was getting some kind of error trying to log in. It was basically giving him a fake profile since it couldn't contact the domain. It turned out to be an unplugged cable. I wanted to mention that would be one of the first things the HelpDesk would try. Of course, I'm trying to walk a fine line between promotion and not being an over-bearing douche.
I think one of the best things I can do to impress the desktop guys is be geeky. I've been talking about a lot of different things with them, throwing out suggestions, etc. I may be the geekiest guy on the HelpDesk, but I know I'm not the smartest or the best troubleshooter. But if they come away thinking I know what I'm talking about, they'll be more impressed when they get someone who really knows their shit.
Except if they talk with Doug, although, to be fair, he knows a lot about shit.
After being wet and gross, I went back to the Hotel and threw on a t-shirt. Don't worry, I tucked it in to church it up some. I then walked around randomly in the rain so I could negate the shirt change. I went to this Tapas bar called "1492 Tapas Bar." I think a Tapas is basically a big ass Spanish salad with meat and cheese and whatever. They had a whole range of them.
The waiter suggested the "Carne a la Brasa –Huge portion of mixed grilled beef, chicken, Spanish sausages and French fries." He said you had to be really hungry to finish it, which I took to mean "You better finish it fat ass." It was damn good, and no I didn't finish it.
When I was eating by myself, which is always sad and pathetic, a more sad and pathetic fellow was sitting at the bar. He was waiting for a blind date, checking his phone, looking out the window, etc. The slightly gay (or confused) bar tender was giving him shit, saying how ugly and fat she would be. Every time some girl would walk in we'd all laugh. This really old lady walked in and we just about died. They met on some web site and had talked a few times.
The girl finally shows up, and she was pretty hot. So the bar tender made fun of them some more. They end up sitting right next to my table. From what I over heard, she is sort of a princess. Good luck buddy! I think I heard her whole life story in the fifteen minutes or so I was still there. He hardly had the chance to say anything.
And really, it's day three if you count Sunday. But I'm only counting work days, or "beer" days.
I didn't work as long Tuesday, just a normal 8. I think Monday I worked 10 hours or so. I felt bad Monday because they gave me the grand tour of the tower, and I didn't get to the WGN station until 10 or so.
I got to sit with a few people and learn all about what they do. Mostly about the "traffic" department. It's sort of like sales and accounting and behind the scenes everything. I thought commercials were sold well in advance, but the schedule is pretty much made every 24 hours.
I'm leaving work, and it's raining hard as hell. I get sort of lost coming back to the tower in the tech van. Which especially sucks because you have to park it underneath the tower on "lower" Michagan. Which means you have to find the secret tunnel entrance. Well, secret to me since I still have trouble finding the damn ramp down.
Chicago + rain + wind - umbrella - jacket + douchewhoforgotumbrellaandjacket = wet balls.
So I went and walked around Monday. I had a few beers at this little place called "Pippins." And yes, I only stopped there because of the LOTR reference. And to top it off, it's on a street called "Rush" which made me almost shed a tear for Brandi leaving. Almost.
Long story long, my first beer I started a tab at the bar. Then I found a table. My second beer the waitress came over, and said she couldn't use my tab from the bar. Okay, so, here's some cash. My third beer never happened, because I went to settle my bar tab and someone took my damn table. I wasn't that into it anyways, so I just left. Next time I'm gonna start a fight.
I thought I was going straight to the WGN station in the tech van. But I got a tour of the Chicago Tower and got to meet and see a bunch of people. Shawn Greene is back in action, and looking healthy.
The station guys all seem pretty cool. There's a lot of different applications and they are all intertwined and connected. I don't think they really have anything for themselves for documentation.
I fucking got lost on the way back from the station. It took me an hour to get back, and I almost ran out of gas. You have to find this street that goes underneath some other streets to get to the Tower loading dock.
Tonight, some sort of bar or restaurant.
You thought I would bring just one laptop with me?
Nerd fail, I didn't bring cables to hook up to the ginormous flat screen in my room.
Doug's Mom by night.
The plane ride in wasn't too bad. I gave up my seat so a family could get together (and they promised me a free drink). I never got the free drink, and my bag was already in the back of the plane, so I had to wait for people to get off to get it. But I did manage to finish most of my book.
I shared a cab with two people from the airport, which was kind of weird, but they knew a lot about Chicago.
I had a beer and soup down at the bar, and then watched the Magic suck.
Other than that, Sunday night I pretty much wussed out.
You might think I do, but really I don't. I need one more. My video importing computer died, and I sent off to get the hard drive fixed. But I'm thinking I might stick that in the bedroom, move my shuttle to the living room, and build another one for video encoding.
I just need a processor and a tower. The rest I had from RMA's, spare parts, upgrade leftover's, etc.
Today I've been working on setting up two servers I have set up in the guest room. So far I'm just doing a primary and secondary AD/DNS server. I'll probably mess with some other stuff as well.
I've got an Enterprise version of Windows Server 2008, and there's some neat things I want to try.
For instance:
Windows Update Server
Windows Installation server - you can install Vista over the network
IIS
Application server
I drain myself every night,
the cup on the bedside table
full,
my eyelids stretched
open.
The real reason I dream
is to forget.
I drain myself every night
the glass on the floor
empty,
My hands closed
shut.
The only reason I drink
is to remember.
I drain myself every night
the pitcher on the counter
wasted.
My mouth cracked,
parched.
The second reason I live
is to create.
It's not showing up on i-Tunes yet, but here's the link. As always, I can't believe I sound like that. Is that how everyone else hears me?
http://www.techdiffpodcast.com/2009/03/technical-difficulties-ep-6/
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