Steve Gets A Life

mellow days

so maybe its just the heat (100s today), but this quarter has seemed really mellow. not a lot of running around, imaging machines, fixing printers, discovering something totally doesn't work, etc.

maybe it's because im used to the job now. i've got it figured out. there used to be all these things going through my head while trying to get something simple done ("what's that IP address?" "which professor needed the hub? and where is his office?" "which building is #21?"), but now that all of those things have become second nature, i can concentrate more on the actual jobs at hand.

i also think that since arriving here, i've made the place a bit more organized. not to toot my own horn (too much), but i've introduced some quite helpful tools that really cut down the time needed to do mundane tasks, and even eliminated some.
for example, before when a machine was hosed, someone would go to that machine and run the re-image script. you had to connect to the server, download the script (actually, most people would use an old, possibly out-of-date script that was on the machine), run the imager, wait 20 minutes, reconfigure the machine, make sure all the permissions were right, etc.
now, since i've made a few changes, one can stay at their desk, fire off a script that will tell an arbitrary list of machines (from a single one, to a whole lab, to the entire college) to fetch the current script from the server (ensuring we always use the latest-greatest script), run it and reboot, retaining all preferences (network settings, printers, etc). and you don't even need to type in a password for each machine thanks to our buddy ssh. gotta love it.

so, for now, i put out minor fires, answer questions, refill the toner on the printer, and basically do my own thing. its nice because its so mellow, but i feel like im being lazy. like i should be breaking stuff just so i can go fix it. or something.

am steve?

when did i become a morning person? i seem to be making the transformation. last night i accidentally set the alarm an hour early (actually, i set the time an hour ahead) and ended up showered and in the middle of breakfast by 6 am. whoops. decided to take advantage and got into work at 7:15 am to give me time to make sure all the labs i updated over the weekend didn't wind up totally broken. fixed a few minor things and by the time i was back in my office, it was 8 am.
right on time, nothing to do.

the trouble with spring break

there's so much potential to get stuff done, but there's such an air of laziness about. nobody around, awesome weather, long lunches. but at the same time, the students are out of the way, which gives me room to wipe out all the machines, bring them all up to speed, making my life a little easier once they all get back. so. ya, thats it.

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on iTunes: Break Away by John Mayer

career change... err, start?

so i just finished up my resume that i've supposedly been working on for a month. it just takes a good hour or two to get it straight in your head, then it all comes together. i'd also like to congratulate myself of graduating to the amazing two page resume. sure, a few jobs are sort of "filler" but hey, thats cool.
after finishing that up, i went ahead and even applied to a few jobs at livermore. some were pretty rad: security officer, PKI development, etc. would be pretty neat, thats for sure. i should probably start applying at other places too, hm.

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on iTunes: Its Good To Be King by Tom Petty

tech support sucks

so i think i might hate my job. well, im sure i hate it sometimes. and its not often i come home elated about my day at the office.
but what really gets me is the lack of respect i get from students. i hope i wasn't like this to the tech guys when i was in college (considering i was basically already doing the same job as them, i really hope not).
i get students walking in (five minutes before their project is due) saying "whats wrong with the printers?" uhhh.... well considering you're the first one to come complain to me about it, and i don't spend my time watching the printers, waiting for something to fail, id have to say "i don't know, what is wrong with them?" "well they aren't working" .... i go, find that the paper is out. apparently posting a giant poster saying how to troubleshoot printers is totally ineffective when there is a "computer guy" available to but for little things like that.
but i digress. what really gets me is when the students put on the whole "um ya, could you take care of that? like yesterday? cause i have a class in five minutes and its really important and i didn't do it earlier cause i was printing out pictures of my mardi gras party then. oh ya, and you can't possibly have better things to be doing, so would you wipe my nose for me too?"
i think i need to bring my degreeS in here and hang them on the wall. maybe that will help. no way.
so it doesn't bother me that i spent an hour of my day working on my resume today. cause i need to get the f outta here.

productivity spike

i definitely notice trends in my productivity. i think im on a two-week cycle. all of a sudden, im busting out scripts to automate lab imaging, fixing things that aren't my problem, volunteering to go to meetings (well its security-related stuff, which i dig, woulda done that any day of the week).
shoot, even my non-work-related activities are getting more productive. i noticed a new course offered by my old prof that looks appealing, so i set up a wget session to get all the docs, etc. also figured out a way to find good music: iTunes Music Store. before you say "duh" i mean, i go there to find out what's "hot" these days, then i look for that music elsewhere. (in a physical store, of course, right?) i always find myself pouring through all this music saying "now what was that band i heard recently? that one tobin likes? or maybe it was bud.. or maybe i just saw them on mtv..."
shoot.. maybe ill even start training again. hmm.

cause no one likes you, monkey-boy

dammit. how is it that i am a web-monkey again? i took the "responsibility" of maintaining both the college and the department websites. both of which need some serious work.
like, serious work.
and now, im all into pure-css stuff, something i know nothing about. so its going kinda slow. and im relearning that the only victims in the browser wars were the web developers. stupid non-compliant razzle-frazzle...
[...sigh...]

im your printer monkey

today some student waltzed in with a "do my bidding, my senior project is due this week" look on her face.
she looked around the room and said

"is the printer techie guy in here?"

i found myself glaring at her. i wanted to ask "where is the girl who draws flowerboxes all day?" (she's a landscape architecture student).
argh.

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on iTunes: On the Turning Away from the album "A Momentary Lapse of Reason" by Pink Floyd

careers vs jobs

i have a job right now, not a career. ive noticed the difference this weekend. went to a party down here in Redlands, populated mostly by Andria's highschool friends. i went through the whole "hi im steve, i do computer work, etc" thing. what i found myself saying was stuff like "oh, i just do IT stuff" or "no, i dont really use my degree(s)."

so what the hell. i talked it over with andria (which always helps) and came up with the fact that i need to think about getting a real job. id really like to get into the security buisness, which basically means looking for a job with the government. which likely means moving to DC or VA. which is strange.

i mean, should i go for the FBI/CIA crazy security thing? am i right for that kind of work? would they even look at me? i mean i expect they get a lot of applicaints from Ivy League, etc. why would they choose a guy who slid through UCIV? (err SB).
so then, what about private firms, doing internal security? hard to get into. basically you cant get an entry-level job doing security for a company. gotta find some kind of security-consulting firm. the only ones i know of are counterpane and ... hm. well there are plenty of groups but i dont know about actual companies.

and what about experience? do i need to start learning the intricacies (sp) and specifics of virii / encryption algorithms / remote exploits / intrusion detection systems? id like to think i know a thing or two about all of those, but not down to the nitty-gritty. but i know guys (well, one or two) that do. what are they doing? getting their PhDs. should i do that? i got an offer. i totally could go back. i mean, the door is open, but i dont think i want to go in.

anyways. the idea is that i need to just keep working this job till andria graduates. the only reason why i work there is convenience until she is done with school. i mean its a good job, but its just not my thing i dont think. i cant imagine being 35 replacing toner on the damn hp2500 laser printer all day.

or i could just open up a bike shop.

printers suck

i think i probably spend 30% of my day working on printers. some days its closer to 75%. the trouble with printers is that there are so many possible problems, and nobody wants responsibility for it.
who should handle the problem?
apple? no, its HPs driver problem.
HP then? no, it works fine for us, you must have a configuration problem.
is it photoshop/illustrator/pagemaker/whatever then? maybe. go check every possible page setting in there, rotate the canvas, etc.
maybe its the connection between the application and the application? maybe the app is handling the image right, but doesnt see the driver?

argh.

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in other news, i think i figured out how to allow comments again.

Payday

I got my first real paycheck today.

its pretty amazing what full-time pays compared to student jobs. i recently went over my finances, my savings plans, etc and realized im really not making that much money. but then i saw my check and thought about how long ive been working here (only 2 weeks)... man, thats more than i made in 2 months at my first job

i guess, in a sense, im rollin.

week one

the first week of the rest of my life is done.

still no office. no desk. no G5. no 10.3.
but i did get to play with iSight today. for about a minute. and by play, i mean install and not actually vChat with anyone. oh well, got a neat pic out of it.

besides that, work is good. the people i work with directly are way cool. the attitude is super-relaxed. taking vacation/leave is no biggie. its looking good.

introduced myself to the 3rd year ARCH students today. it was a huge room, filled with kids saying "who is that?" to each other as i stood by the faculty head looking all important (odd, eh?). apparently there are 700 students in ARCH and maybe 100 in LArch. i sure hope they use the ticketing system, cause damn im not gonna remember all their names.

All X'd out

As in OSX. Yes, this is the second post in a row about the computers at my new job, im a nerd. So, ya.. worked on OSX server for the first time today. Not that big of a deal. Just a few tools to deal with UNIX config files. I guess its way easier to look at and if thats what it takes to get UNIX to the rest of the world, so be it. The XServes are pretty sweet. they put out a ton of heat in the back though.

Tomorrow hopefully ill be setting up my new office. Right now its full of junk. I think ill bring my camera to work tomorrow just to document some stuff like that. Hm. ya. Oh, something else kinda camera related: working in a non-engineering department is way nicer in terms of aesthetics. I walked past one Art Studio professor's office today that looked like the inside of an italian restaraunt, seriously. I mean, the walls were painted with that brown/yellow stuff, with some vines, i dunno, it was cool.

Where was I? oh, the new office. yea, ill have 10.3 to play with on the G5, tons of apps (gotta learn some of em for work), and a fat pipe. The only problem might be that my office might be way hot. no air flowage. that sucks :( .

Andria is talking to herself in the other room. funny girl.

first day at work

today was my first day of my first job. my coworkers are cool so far and im getting a G5 workstation. nice.

did a lot of paperwork today, mostly just got HR stuff taken care of, got some keys (nine so far, more to come), tried to remember 500 different names (ok maybe a dozen), and almost did something computer related. it seems there isnt much to do before you have an email address, access to any systems, or any kind of computer or office of your own yet. which brings me back to the G5. so nice. dont have it yet, but hopefully tomorrow.

in the meantime, im trying to get a handle on how they run the college. hopefully ill be able to have a hand in more broad-scale stuff, not just the student labs stuff. almost everything is running of macs. xserves and G4s serve files/web/etc. they dont have an authentication system set up for the students yet, apparently some red tape with registrars setting up an LDAP or whatever. lame. anyways, i hope that working with OSX will be fun. already have copies of 10.3 (doesnt come out for a week) and apparently its pretty sweet. dont ask me how, but apparently it adds a hour of life to laptop batteries. more efficient screen drivers? dunno.

anyways, time for bed. gonna have to get used to this 8am thing again.