So this is the big break up, dear blog. This is where I tell you that it’s not you… it’s me. I just can’t devote the time you deserve anymore. Sure we’ve had some good times. We’ve faced some rough times together too, but ultimately you could do better. The drive space you take up on our shared server could be used by someone who can love and tend their blog like a garden. I’ve never been that good at gardening, and lately I haven’t been that good at blogging. Your 99.999% uptime has been fantastic, but I haven’t really used it. Who knows… maybe the next person that comes along will be a big e-commerce site? Think of the money you’d make just sitting here accepting traffic. Maybe you’ll be selling the next big thing.

Just don’t turn into one of “those sites”. You know the kind… the sort of site that fathers tell their sons not to get mixed up with. You could prostitute yourself out… you’ve certainly got the goods… but don’t do it. Ultimately you’d just end up cast aside in the gutter, infected with viruses and spyware and begging for enough bandwidth for your next high.

No, my precious web site… don’t do that. Find yourself a good companion who’ll love you. Maybe you could do charity work? Raise money to fight hunger or some exotic disease.

Whatever the future holds, oh blog of mine… just remember the good times. I’ll still be around on the net somewhere. Maybe we’ll bump into one another. Don’t be offended if I don’t recognize you. I’m sure your new person will give you a face lift and clean you up, heck they’ll probably put you on a fitness program to get those extra pounds off and you’ll look fabulous. Oh I’m not calling you fat, but let’s be honest we haven’t exactly exercised together and things could use some toning up. It’s my fault really. I’m the one who got you in this shape.

Don’t cry. I can’t stand to see you like this. Honestly, how could you not see this coming? I mean, you know I’ve been running around with those microblogging sites for a while now. I’m just setting you free, you’ll be fine without me. I’m just glad we didn’t have any subdomains together. That would be messy, and honestly who wants to stay together just so we can give our subdomains a normal life only to know that someday they’d mature onto their own Fully Qualified Domain Names and we’d have wasted all those years together.

I’ve tried to protect you, you know. Remember when all those people were putting nasty comments on your posts? I installed the best spam filter that money could buy. I didn’t want you thinking too much about all those people out there selling their wares and linking to sites you can’t tell your mother about. No, I just couldn’t have them treating you that way. I’d never want you to have those problems, but from here you are going to be on your own. You are a big blog now and there are all sorts of automatic protection features available that can keep you safe from all the dark corners of the Internet.

This is goodbye. I’ll check in on you for a few months until my subscription runs out and then you’ll go on without me. It’s really better this way. Don’t feel like you have to do anything else. I’d understand if you never wanted me to browse to you again. I’ll always bookmark you in my heart.

I’m feeling kinda beat up today so I thought i’d start a new list if things that will make your IT guy jump off a bridge. Most of the time just one instance of these things will only annoy him or her but cumulatively they should be sufficient to cause mental breakdown. I will update this post over time to reflect new tactics my users have used on me and my coworkers.

1- Start your emails with the phrase “I know I’m supposed to put in a ticket, but…”

2- spend time putting a pretty background and a totally unreadable font for your email, then call for help because you can’t figure out MS Word.

3- come by at lunch to ask us technical questions. Bonus points if it is about your home system. Double bonus points if it is about the system at your side business. Be sure to acknowledge that you are interrupting an otherwise quiet and peaceful meal.

4- Make up something work related to call about so you can nag about not being able to use E-bay from your WORK computer.

5- Learn, and use “computer guy” lingo. Refuse to use it correctly. Be sure to note in our satisfaction surveys how rude it was of your technician to correct you.

UPDATE:

6- Open the program of your choice, then pick up your keyboard and mouse by the cord… swing them around above your head, being sure to hit walls, desks, co-workers, etc in such a way that multiple settings are changed and you have no possible way of knowing what you did. BONUS: Tell the IT Guy you were just trying to change your email signature.

7- When filling out the survey, be sure to point out that 5 hours was far to long of a response time for a 3-day response time ticket. It makes us happy.

8- NEVER, I mean NEVER clean the dust off your computer. This way, when you call us because your keyboard is unplugged (because you kicked the cable) we get a face full of dust, and you can say “Whew, that sure is dusty! I’ll bet that’s the dustiest computer you’ve ever seen!”. You’d be wrong.

It is a well known fact that I get on kicks. That is to say, I get intensely interested in a subject or activity for a period of time and later that kick is replaced by something else.

One thing I’ve been in and out of for the last 8 years is Amateur Radio. I got my license a few days before Sept 11, 2001 and upgraded in 2007 to a General Class license. (Visit ARRL.org if none of that makes any sense). Before my upgrade I volunteered with EMA, did storm spotting and other local activities. Ann got her license and got involved in some of the same things, and we were in a great club which gave us plenty of opportunities to get out and enjoy the hobby.

When we moved to Little Rock, I just couldn’t find a good club to get involved with and there was no time to volunteer with an organization so my hobby fell by the wayside.

After moving back to Alabama, I started getting some interest back because I could put an antenna up and talk all over North Alabama. I know the area, so storm spotting was more viable and surely I would find a club that was a good fit.

None of that happened except putting up the antenna. I have always been interested in getting  a General or Extra license because it would allow me to talk over greater distances: across the state, the Country and even across the globe.

Since my upgrade I have talked to states from New York to Oregon, made contacts in Spain, Italy, Canada and the British V.I.

Tonight I embarked on my newest goal: The “Worked All States” award. Getting the lower 48 will be relatively easy with the exception of the smaller New England states… the real fun will be working Alaska and Hawaii. I’ve only talked to Hawaii one time and that was on ARRL Field Day in 2002 or 2003 at about 3am. Keep in mind that this was before I had my upgrade, so I was making the contact using the club’s callsign so officially  I haven’t talked to them, and I’ve never even heard an Alaska station. Ever.

So, now I have a new goal. The good news is that I can take my time and I have found a group that meets regularly for the purpose of getting people together for the Worked All States award. Now the fun will be trying to do it with only 100 watts and a 120 foot peice of wire strung up in the back yard.

Man, i’m a geek.

I know it’s not a surprise to anyone, but I am such a geek.

I just modified a wireless router to act as an Ethernet bridge so I can hook up my satellite receiver to the internet. I was originally doing it to keep them from charging my account $5/month because it can’t phone home. Then I read online that they are discontinuing that fee effective Feb. 1.

So, I did it for nothing except the geek factor and bragging rights.

At least I have a portable network connection for anywhere in my house now!

Well, I finally made the switch officiall. I have officially abandoned Windows, and I think this is the last time (well, except that I still maintain 2 or 3 Windows networks)

I would post some screenshots, but wordpress isn’t cooperating. Don’ t know why. It doesn’t really matter because they really don’t do it justice, especially the visual effects that make Vista curl into the fetal position and rock itself to sleep. On half the hardware.

Oh, and i’ve got XP running in a virtual machine, just to prove I can.