Things remain unsettled at work. The TDMA to GSM conversion is going very poorly. The service has been running at about 25 to 30% since Aug 23. Customers are tired of it, we are tired of it, and we and the customers are tired of each other. Several encounters have turned personal and unpleasant. Why can't people understand that the person who answers the phone or waits on the counter cannot possibly have anything to do with electronic equipment located miles away? I realize that people do not think. I often reflect what a more pleasant place the world would be if people would just stop and think about what they are about to say before they start.

Stayed up late last night taking the Starband 360 Certification Exam. Passed with 97%. Then the silly thing had a pop-up window to finish the registration. Avant browser blocks pop-ups, so I have to have manual entry into the database to get my certification.

Anyway, Sherrie and I work today. Hope it is quiet.

Raining today. Was raining yesterday. After 7 years of drought, it is wonderful to have rain. The level of the pond has stayed decent this year, the trees and grass are all green. The new magnolia is thriving, it even set a blossom a few weeks ago.

Work in going well. Was at the B. location on Tuesday rebuilding the network. Actually, finishing the job I started in August, but got called back to the M. location early. It was nice to be able to work until everything is right. :)

Been moderating on /.every week since the beginning of April. I remember when I the first time I got Moderator Points about 5 years ago, it was pretty exciting. I also remember going months without moderating. Now it seems a weekly event. I wonder why.

Installed a new theme from belchfire, called Mint for XP today. It is beautiful.

The new beta of Avant Browser went live today!! This includes the ability to skin, and the forum has links for the Skins Factory and the skins that other users have created. Be sure to check out Chad's.

More tornadoes. There have been tornadoes and rain and wind and hail since Saturday.

Oh yeah! Happy Birthday Scott!

More storms last night, tornado watch until midnight. We had lightning and a modest amount of rain, some wind.

Moved the last of the injured chicks back out to the main coop this morning. Everyone is lively and eating, so I think that we did OK. The Rooster and the Hound seem to have come to an understanding.

After finally moving the website and doing a basic rebuild of all the pages, I think it is time to start adding good stuff like making my resume dynamic. I have been adding links to the websites of companies and organizations mentioned in it. Dragged out the Deitel book and am going to try some CSS stuff. Hope we don't crash and burn. So far I am much happier with the new host, AWP.

The weather is continuing unsettled. We certainly needed the rain, and the wildflowers are strong this spring.

Fixed a new satellite installation yesterday. More correctly, took down the personal firewall and checked the settings for a new customer, WG. He chose DirecWay from DirecTV and the nearest technician is about 140 miles away, so I got the call. Once it was working the speed is great!

Hail and tornadoes last night. No real damage around the county, just a few trees down. One of my garden beds washed away, but the rain was good to have.

Good Morning! It is snowing great big fat fluffy flakes of white! I took today off because I will be working on Saturday, so we will play in the snow today.

Everyone started getting strange emails at work last week and we made sure all the virus scan software was current and running, and even run a definite scan of each harddrive and mailbox. Everything came up clean, so I figured the problem was in someone else's domain. Then Monday on a hunch I ran a second company's virus scan and unearthed a pile of stuff. The Man was not amused. Now, my true dilemna. Do I name names here in Public? We have beening paying a subscription to the first company, buying all their updates, and had been contacted by their sales department for an enterprise-wide solution. (read: Very Expensive Package) And yet, there were good ol' Sircam, Navidad, and Magistr.B, among others, lurking on the computers of the top execs of the company. I told the ED that we should be running two different virus protection softwares anyway.

Then, of course, the worst kick came when I returned to the Dungeon and ran the second scan on the Server. This 9 day old installation was infested with everything that was on the infected workstations. And both backup systems.

On a lighter note, I spent 4 hours on New Year's Eve after everyone left running a complete end-of-year backup. Since the building was empty, I brought some CDs. Moby and RHCP cranked.

No New Year's Resolutions, I don't make Resolutions. I hate the discouragment of failing to meet them. I would rather live each day by itself, meet its challenges and victories and savour them as they happen. I think that I learn more this way. Have a good 2003!