Viewing 1 - 10 out of 36 posts tagged with 'projects' (Oldest First :: Newest First) Show related: tags

Prev. 10

Monday, January 14 2008, 10:15 PM

As promised, here's a few photos of the monitor mount I crafted for my behemoth of a desk. All it took was a prexisting piece of wood used for the back corner of some shelving, two gate hinges, some machine screws, nuts, washers, and a 5" square of 1/4" plexiglass. The wooden piece was lying free because I don't use the shelves on the desk any longer. I've got plenty of space around here, and they never really were as sturdy as I would have liked. Everything went together pretty easy, and came out surprisingly square, considering I pretty much eyeballed everything instead of squaring it up using tools. The monitor seems to sit just a bit off level, which is enough to annoy me if I'm looking at the monitor in relation to everything else, but not if I'm looking at the screen.

During construction...

After Completion...

All in all, it turned out pretty well.

projects

Thursday, January 12 2006, 1:44 AM

Yah, I suppose I'm overdue for a post now. I'm now moved into my apartment completely, with no roomates or other annoyances to speak of. It's great having my own place. I still need some furniture type stuff, like a couch, and some more shelves and things with drawers in them. Other than that though, I'm set. I've got the larger bedroom set up as the computer/guitar room, and the smaller bedroom is where I sleep. I figured I'd need less space to sleep than my computers and guitar setup take up, so that's the way the cards fell. I spent a few hours the other night running some cables from the living room to the computer room through the heat ducting so I could have sound and ethernet run between the two rooms without having wires all over the floor. It worked out pretty nice, but it was kind of a pain. I've got my guide cords in there though, so if I have to run anything again, it shouldn't be so hard.

My entertainment system leaves a lot to be desired though. My TV is old as hell, and literally takes about 5 minutes to fully turn on. Once it's on though, the picture is nice. I also am planning on getting a new receiver soon. I've got my eye on one, and I'm pretty sure I'll go out and get it this weekend with my holiday bonus. The TV will be next, but I can't say for certain when that will happen. I'd prefer to get a TV with a VGA input, but every TV with that feature that I've seen has been prohibatively expensive. Who knows... maybe I'll find a deal.

Other than that, it's been same old same old. Too much work, not enough play. I'm juggling three projects right now at work, which is certainly a pain. Everybody wants progress, but it's hard to do when you're being pulled in different ways. Once of the projects is reaching a good pause-point, so I'll be able to focus more on the other two once that's reached.

projects residences work

Sunday, July 03 2005, 12:31 AM

At last, after many weeks of working many hours of unpaid overtime and tons of hair-pulling, my project launched. It launched on monday, and hasn't receieved a huge amount of attention yet, but it's an unadvertised product, so we don't expect it to generate a huge buzz right off the bat. So far the feedback has been positive though, which is good.

I'm also quite happy that I'm able to take a nice 4 day weekend. I worked all of last weekend, so I was able to take friday off, which was good because it turned out that I had a lot of errands to take care of. I waited a good hour at the secretary of state's office to get my registration renewed. That's always a fun time. I also got my hair cut, did some laundry, and took care of a few other things. I was excited though, I got to see Chris and Lana for the first time since they've been back in the US from their extended stay in Japan. We didn't get to catch up as much as I would have liked, but it was good to see them nonetheless.

Today we had a party to celebrate my Grandma Neir's 90th birthday. There was a whole ton of people there, and it was a great time. I guess my sister and I were antisocial for a while because we were off by ourselves talking about the drama in our lives. I don't get to talk to her much these days, which kinda sucks. Between my dad and I many pictures were taken, and once I take the time to upload the 100MB or so of picture data, they'll be in the gallery. [Edit: Both my pictures and my dad's pictures are up now.]

Oh, yeah, I guess I turn 26 today (the 3rd). Another year gone.... nothing's really changed. :-\

family friends projects ramblings vacation work

Saturday, June 18 2005, 3:05 AM

Yep, I'm posting from Cincinnati tonight. I'm down here visiting Jon and Michelle, and pilfering one of their neighbor's wireless connection. That's what they get for leaving it open! For those that are curious, I'm in this general area. This area is actually a bit more scenic than the rest of Ohio. The last 30 miles or so of the highway portion of the drive have hills and woods and stuff, whereas the first portion of the drive has nothing but effing Corn Fields. At least I didn't smell that pig farm that I've noticed before on previous trips through Ohio on I-75. That stench makes rotten eggs seem downright fragrant.

This week has been a good one for me. The project load at work was lighter, which is a good thing. The project was kinda delayed on the other end, not mine. I was kinda mad though, I was told to be ready for the monday launch, and when I emailed the other folks to find out what the status was, they were like "oh yah, we'll release sometime in the next three weeks." And I worked the whole weekend before trying to polish things up for monday. Grrrr.

I also hung out with Megan a few times this week. We hit up the bar, watched some movies, and played guitars together. I don't care what she says, her voice is great! I have an admiration for anyone who can play and sing at the same time, because I can't. I can shout over choruses, but that's about it. She did her best to distract me while I was playing too, and well, she was successful! I guess I need my full concentration when I play. Bad musical abominations happen when I lose focus. I guess they're only slightly worse than my normal musical abominations though.

cincinnati guitar projects ramblings roadtrips work

Monday, June 13 2005, 1:42 AM

Yah, yah, I know... it's been like two weeks since I've posted. So save it! I've been really busy with my project at work, and it's finally coming to fruition. It's supposed to go live tomorrow. I know everything works, but I'm still worried that someone will find a glitch somewhere. I'm anxious for this project to be out of my hair for a while. Since it will be an evolving product, I don't think it will ever really be 'done', but at least I'll be able to get a break from it.

I need a vacation. My brain is mush right now, and I'm waking up tired every morning. I just need to recharge the batteries. I'm thinking about heading up north for at least a long weekend sometime soon. A few days of nothing but relaxation would be great for me.

It's also getting very close to the time where I have to make a decision on the 'where am I going to live' situation. The lease is up on August 1st, and we have to let the landlords know what our intentions are by July 1. Decisions decisions. I wanted to start looking for houses, but the uncertainty brought about by my eye and car situations make me want to play it safe for now and not get myself in trouble by jumping too soon. Each one has the potential of sucking tons of money out of my pocket in a fashion that's beyond my control.

frustrations projects ramblings residences work

Wednesday, June 01 2005, 10:19 PM

Yep, the past couple of weeks have been pretty frustrating in Mike land. I've had a whole list of things that I've been wanting to bitch about, er, I mean, mention on the website, but I've been pretty busy so I haven't taken the time to do so. Well, I'm taking the time.

1. The project that never dies. The project I've been working on at work is making lots of progress, but it seems that for every task I cross of my to-do list, another two or three appear. I received a pretty firm date that the thing needs to be completed by, and because of that I worked the whole holiday weekend, and I'll probably be working most of this coming weekend as well. I'm tired. I want this project to end.

2. The incredible defective LCD panel. One of my LCD panels in my super cool triple-monitor setup at home has decided that it likes having a big red line going vertically thoughout the screen. It's always there no matter what I do. I tried swapping signal cables, changing video modes, changing the card it was plugged into... nothing fixes it. Pretty shitty considering I've only had it for about 6 months.

3. My own stupidity. I have a terrible tendency to procrastinate, and it never results in anything good. Case in point: I got in a slight fender-bender a few weeks ago, and I was the person at fault. It was rainy, and I was following too close, and I slid into the back of this girl in an Envoy. Yah, it sucked, shit happens, whatever. I called and got the insurance claim started the monday after it happened, so no problems there. I did however, completely neglect to call the court about the ticket until, well, this morning. They informed me that the ticket was due TODAY, and that there was no way to pay it online or over the phone. So I had to drive all the way to Brighton just to pay a $105 ticket. Could someone smack me please?

4. Parts and Labor. I got my car looked at last week following the accident to make sure nothing was wrong with it and to get an estimate on the cost of repairing the minor damage that I had on the front fascia. All I saw was a bit of scuffed paint and a broken Pontiac emblem. No big deal right? Wrong. The inspector also found that the front fascia had a crack farther down near the underside. He said it could probably be fixed, but maybe not. Total cost, parts and labor: $485. Freakin $15 under my deductable. That's only if the fascia is repairable. If it's not, tack another $300-400 on to that bill.

Sigh. At least it's warm outside now.

frustrations projects summer work

Tuesday, April 26 2005, 11:32 PM

I made a commitment to myself a few weeks back to get out of the house more. I've been far too much of a homebody as of late, and I think it's been contributing to my generally dark mood over the past few months. So far, I've been doing well. Last week I had dinner with my cousin Alex and hung out for a while afterwards. Nothing terribly special, but still enjoyable. He lives like 5 miles away, and yet I still hardly ever see him.

On saturday Steven invited me out to see a few bands play over at the Temple Club in Lansing. We had both missed out on a work-sponsored casino trip the night before, so we were ready to let loose and have a good time. We all took a cab over to the show so driving wouldn't be a problem, and got our jag on. Phil showed up somewhere too, contributing to the madness. The first band that played was Hillbilly Nightmare. I enjoyed their sound the most out of the three bands. To me it sounded a lot like what you would get if you took ZZ Top and gave them a lot of beer and cranked their distortion up a bunch. Very deliberate, but a lot of fun at the same time. The second band was The Fightin' Hellfish. They had a more punk sound, and they were a lot of fun too. Everybody else seemed to know the songs they were playing, but I didn't. Oh well. Third up was Eight-Ball Grifter. Steven's talked these guys up a bunch, and they were a lot of fun too. They also had a very punk sound, but they dropped a lot of other stuff in there too. Very cool. A good show overall. Afterwards, we went back to Steven's house, where his wife had prepared whole plates of delicious snack-type goodies. Very good stuff!

Tonight I went out to dinner with my aunt Pam, Uncle Brad, and cousin Hannah, and then went to see Alex play in the MSU concert band's last show of the school year. Alex plays Oboe, and is quite good. He had a solo in the first song he played in, and it was quite neat to hear.

In less happy news - round two of my eye surgery is now only 8 days away. My project at work is progressing, but I've now got more of a firm deadline. My eye surgery won't help with that at all, so I'm probably going to have to be a hermit the next few days and crank out some code so I don't have to try to program with one good eye and another that looks like I just left a boxing match with a pinkeye infection. I'm not in a bad spot as far as what I've got working, but there's still plenty of stuff to hammer out.

concerts family projects ramblings righteye templeclub work

Monday, January 03 2005, 11:19 PM

Happy 2005 everybody. Once again, I'm long overdue for a post here, but again, there's really not much going on. I'm in the midst of another two week stint on the midnight shift, and so far, it hasn't been bad at all. I credit that to the holiday season and the fact that most people are off enjoying the holidays with their families and significant others, as they should be.... Since it's been rather slow, I've actually been able to get some work done on a few projects I've taken on at work, which is pretty cool. The pace is starting to pick up again, so I don't see that continuing.

Christmas was good. It's always good to get together and see the fam. My mom and sister gave me a lot of clothing this year, which is a plus, since I have zero sense when it comes to buying clothes, and just as much ambition to buy them.

Nothing else is going on that is worth noting... seems to be a common trend these days.

projects ramblings work

Thursday, October 28 2004, 11:32 PM

Holding to the line of exciting posts with pictures, I offer more words with pictorial accompanyment. This past weekend was mostly uneventful if I remember right, because I don't remember much happening. I did meet my family down at my grandma Neir's place, and we had dinner in honor of my dad's birthday. It was good to get down there and visit... I don't do it nearly enough.

This week has been a large pile of pure steaming suck. Monday I ended up working 13 hours in the attempt to get a new vserver set up, but everything was against me. Our kickstart setup was totally janked up, and that put me behind. There were other assorted problems throughout the day, so I didn't really get working on the server setup until it would normally be time to leave. I got the server and the vserver template finished up around 7, but was there until 9 testing it and tweaking the template. Tuesday wasn't half bad, but it was still rather busy. Yesterday fucking sucked due to the fact that some little script-kiddie decided to throw a 140Mbit+ DoS attack at a server on our network. That did a good job at crippling our network for a while until Greg and I could isolate the problem and get it blocked. The rest of the day after that wasn't bad, but the first part was bad enough. Today was busy, which is enough to call a day bad.

Speaking of networks, we got our new core switches in on monday... a couple of Cisco 6509's. Each one of them can handle like 50 million packets per second, so attacks like the one yesterday should do little more than tickle our network. I can't wait for it to come online. I also set up a much more powerful SQL server for my monitoring system at work. The old had a dual Pentium3 box functioning as the sole entity in the system - SQL server, collector, and web server. Now I have a Dual Opteron box functioning as the SQL server, and it's far less loaded than the P3. This should give us the capacity to install the monitoring system on at least another 200 machines before load again becomes a problem, if things behave linearly that is. I'll tell you one thing though... Dual Opterons compile Gentoo in a hurry! :)

Ace has been doing as good as can be expected I suppose. He still has accidents now and again, mostly because we're otherwise occupied and miss the "hey I have to go!" warning signs.

Last, and possibly least, I've recorded a few more diddys on the guitar over the past weeks that haven't been posted, so here they are. The first one is a rather short one played on the Fender, tuned to B. I think it's all clean, so your fragile little ears should be safe. The second clip was recorded the next night, with much more distortion, again on the Fender. If you listen not-so-carefully, you can hear me tuning from B to C about 3/4 of the way through. The third clip is much more lengthy, with much more going on as well. I think I show some signs of progress in this one. There are actually parts that I would call good sounding, and not in my normal metal way. It's recorded on the Fender again. There are some parts that are overdriven as a result of the mic inputs not being calibrated right when I switched to the neck/middle pickup combo, but oh well, this one is still worth getting. The last clip was recorded last on the Carvin in normal tuning. It has the added 'bonus' of having beats in the background provided by Frooty Loops. I played all right on top of the more aggressive beat, but later on I put on a slow one, and it highlights the fact that I don't play slow music. Oh well.

frustrations guitar guitarclips projects ramblings work

Thursday, October 21 2004, 10:54 PM

Well, for a dog, probably not that much. We finally came up with a name for the little guy though... We've settled on Ace. A couple of Greg's friends suggested it, and it works. So that's that. We had (and could still have) a bit of a scare towards the end of last week though... Thursday night we found some fleas crawling around on the little guy, which certainly got our attention. We gave him a flea bath, and so far, we haven't seen any more. Who knows where they laid eggs though, so we'll just have to keep our eyes open.

Ace has also learned the power of whining and barking to get our attention, which is good and bad. He seems to gave got the idea that it's bad to do his buisiness inside and that we need to take him outside, because he'll run back and forth between Greg and I and whine, so we know he's gotta go outside. But, he's also figured out that barking will get our attention for other things, like throwing balls and giving him food. He even woke me up out of a sound sleep the other morning because he had to go out... but it was 3AM. I was definitely not too happy at that point.

The only other thing noteworthy going on is that the monitoring system I've been working on for a while is finally being deployed everywhere. It's currently monitoring about 375 servers, and doing it well. The server it's running on is getting strained, so I might have to upgrade things a bit, or a lot! :)

ace projects ramblings vermin work

Related Tags

Prev. 10