LessThanHumble.com

You know what is funny, it happens all to often. In the technology world people have an ungodly amount of loyalty to specific brands, specific products, specific applications & operating systems. You’ve got the Linux loyalists, the Window loyalists, the Mac loyalists, the Intel loyalists, the Corel Draw loyalists (okay…maybe these don’t exist). I find it pretty annoying. I’m a huge fan of technology, but I am always willing to try something new, even several times, and more important than anything else, I am a preacher of it always being about the application.

A funny example of this is the ISP I used to work for. It’s a Windows only “shop” that thinks their success is based on this - even though that isn’t the case let alone if you could even consider them successful. They run a Windows-based mail server called ModusMail, which in my humble opinion, is the opitimy of a mail server. No real scalability, no real load balancing solution, and way too many features that the developers have buried themselves alive. Every release brings back past bugs, memory leaks, and so much more. What I find funny is that this ISP has such arrogance about it, they think their running the best mail platform in the world, and in fact I find their attitude really annoying. What is even funnier, is that fact that I’m running Exim & MailScanner, and although it isn’t the best thing out there, I have no problems with nealry 1,200 active domains and over 8,000 mailboxes. It is roughly the same size as this ISP, yet the hardware I have under it is probably a 1/10th of what they have and yet I have absolutely no problems (I will however take this chance to knock on wood…knock knock).

My biggest frustration is that I really hate seeing people make stupid decisions, no matter how much I might like or dislike a person. People literally bring their businesses down because of ill-founded loyalties and alliances like these, this seems to be even truer in the technology world.

Anyways, I spent another day working with a partner on AZEntertained.com. It is coming along nicely and I’m really excited about the launch, which will hopefully be soon. We have had one guy literally spending the last three months combing directories to generate a accurate list of restaurants, hotels, nightclubs, and the like. It’s probably one of the top “hit-it-big” projects that I have going, so I definitely have my fingers crossed.

Bryan-Baker.com had a great blog post on Confrontations. I literally love confrontations, I am not the type to ignore a person because I like either diffusing a situation or coming up with some sort of resolution to it, it is a huge adrenaline rush and a constant challenge that never get’s old. But none the less, check out his article and his blog if you’ve got a moment.

You know, it is really funny. I am pretty confident that the majority of people in the world have this problem, but I have been waking up with a pretty lame attitude lately. Not a lame attitude like I’m pissed off at the world, but an attitude like I don’t want to do any work - which is pretty bad for me. I think I need to take a quick vacation out of town to recharge, get a set work schedule (lately I’ve just been working 7 days a week around the clock), and possibly an offsite office. Right now I work out of my house, and it is really getting old. It is annoying as hell to come home on Friday night after being out, having a good time, getting sucked into the computer for 5 minutes and then all of a sudden I have been working for several hours and finally pass out. Even if I just had a crummy 150sqft office in Mesa (a fairly crappy town) I would be happy - it would help create that separation between home life and work.

Anyways, back to the attitude thing. It really ruins my day, and most days, I’ve been forcing my self to go back to sleep just so I regain a decent attitude - where I end up spending 14 hours of the day sleeping. I have even gone for a few early-as-hell morning jogs and had some decent relief, but nothing consistent.

In a much lesser note, I finished my taxes earlier last month and found out today that my state refund had been placed on hold, guess why? I forgot to pay a parking ticket nearly three years ago. Well I lied, I did not forget, but I did not want to pay it because it was a bullshit ticket for parking in teacher parking that was not marked, plain and simple. It happend to occur at Mesa Community College, and the only way you can appeal the ticket is by writting a letter to the college dean, such a ridiculous process. I was not going to go tear up what name I could potentially have with anyone by writting a nasty letter about a ticket - so I blew it off and never put any effort out to pay it. So now a $35 (+ late fees) ticket is holding a $x,xxx refund - genius. They could have at least deducted it from my return…

I am not sure how many of you guys actively watch TV, but I generally don’t make a habit to watch specific shows because I hate getting wrapped into a show for a season. But Discovery Channel has been playing re-runs of this show about Alaskan Crab fishing called ‘Deadliest Catch’. I am not sure why, but the show is definitely very captivating for me. So captivating it makes me want to goto Alaska and try it, in hopes of a simpler life, and fast money. I doubt it will ever happen, but it is very fun watching the show and it is a happy thought. I cannot wait till the new season comes out April 4th, it is definitely worth checking out, if you’re a “Discovery Channel” kind of person.
Anyways, until next time, I’m out. Have a great day!

“If you are distressed by anything external, the pain is not due to the thing itself, but to your estimate of it; and this you have the power to revoke at any moment.” - Marcus Aurelius

It finally set in my mind that spring is right around the corner, at least in my neck of the woods (or cacti, however you want to look at it). It is approaching an average 80F during the day time and the weather couldn’t be better. Besides the usual work load I’m taking it easy so I can go play some golf and enjoy it while it lasts. Because the start of summer is the next step, which means that 4 months of 120F is on it’s way.

None the less, I hope everyone had a great week. Mine was fairly productive and satisfactory excluding a bullshit issue this morning. The issue itself is actually a ironic story. As some may know, I used to work for a ISP one town away who provides connectivity and colocation services. They ended up giving me a decent deal (not good nor great, just decent) on colocation in the expectation that they thought they would get my newly developed hosting platform, free of charge. I gave them a nearly 30% reduced price, even offered assistance in developing a migration strategy from where they are currently. Now the owner in my past experience is a great manipulatory. He calls it “direct negotiating”, but in reality, it is true manipulation in a form that I find way beyond unethical. So besides the fact I got hassled around (which I absolutely hate), belittled, and manipulated I feel good about the fact I didn’t waver around and stuck to my guns. In the end I’m sure pissed the other party off, but as I say to them, screw off.

Nonetheless, I’m off to get some work done and call it a night. I hope you guys have a great weekend. If the weather’s great where you’re at, go out and enjoy it. If not, well I’m sorry and the only suggestion I can offer is to move to the great state of Arizona!

For those of you who have previously seen my blog, you may have noticed it went through a bit of a face lift. I felt like it needed a different feel and I was definitely ready for something different. What are your guys thoughts?

In other news, I discovered MyBlogLog.com, which I might add is totally badass. You’d have to check it out to understand if you haven’t already, but from my assumptions, it is basically a blogging commuting that automatically tracks viewers (take a look at the box to the right), stats, and quiet a bit more.

For those of you that know me, you know how I used to profess to WellsFargo, I’ve now changed that mind and absolutely hate them. I don’t care to go into the story, but let’s just say I’m not longer a customer, pulled all 5 accounts and 5 digit balances away from their crap-ass bank - and of course I suggest avoiding them now. I’ve moved back to Chase, more than likely permanently. We’ve been a customer for a long time (since back when they were Bank One) and haven’t had too much to complain about, especially since we do merchant services indirectly through them.

I am also still moving forward with moving my equipment into a new datacenter, which I’m totally psyched about. We’re also looking at getting a DS3 ATM from Qwest so we can offer DSL Services in the greater Phoenix area, because we’ve got a great angle on it.

Because of the first of the month, I have been busy as hell with the financial end of things and never got a chance to do some more test driving, but I’m looking at either a Acura TL, Infiniti G35 Coupe, Lexus IS250, or something along those lines. For some reason, I’ve been ungodly indecisive about it just because it’s not a huge priority, but something I’ve been wanting to do for a long time (literally I’ve been driving the same car since the first day of driving).

But anyways, sorry for the short post, I’ll drop in again through the weekend.

Wow - It has been over two weeks since my last posting.

I have been busy with 1,000 different, unfortunately more important tasks and projects. over the past ~14 days. I am still trying to wrap things up from last year and get the go-ahead on a bunch of exciting new stuff. Signed paperwork with TimeWarner Telecom last week, and if everything goes as planned, we should have a new cabinet up in Downtown Phoenix on April 1st, nearly a month away.

The car search continues, and I’m waivering around again on what I want. I think I’ll go do some test driving this week and finally make a decision, I’m looking at either a Audi A4 (or S4), a G35 Coupe, Lexus IS250, or a Acura TL. I can afford around $55k, but would definitely like to push it under $40k if possible, so we’ll see what happens. I love car shopping because test driving is awesome, and I have never turned down the chance to legitimately haggle someone on pricing (I should throw down a blog next time on my view on haggling).

On the entertainment side of things, this past Friday night we re-discovered a new place downtown, called Bostons. We hit it at like 11:30PM after a little hookah, it is definitely a quiet and chill place, unless a game is going on. It is a great place to just hang out, relax, and play billards, so I am sure it will become a weekly hangout. Then, last night I went and saw Breach which I must say is pretty good. It is basically the story of Robert Hanssen, a FBI agent who gets pegged for espionage a few years back.

After Googling around today, it looks like it follows the real story pretty close. If you dig ’spy’ thrillers, you should definitely check it out. Not really too dense with action, but the movie moves along at a decent pace and has a great story line. One could argue that it might not be worth the full ticket price, so check out the matinée.