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Upgrades… and apologies

Written by AJ Phillips
Thursday, 15 July 2010 05:10

I’ve had a bunch of things I’ve wanted to post about for a few weeks now but haven’t for a few reasons. First off, the two classes I mentioned in the last post ended on the 10th and I’ve been on ‘summer vacation’ since. The main problem with this is that a few weeks ago (Week 2 of those classes) a lot of shit went wrong and just kept getting worse.

Due to privacy I wont get into much, but I’ll just say her mother is doing better and will be released from the hospital this Friday (she’s been there for about a month) and some things will go back to normal. While I was helping her with her family medical issues I had a few more of my own and thankfully those have been taken care of (as far as I can tell). As I stated on my Facebook page I’ve started taking Anti-Depressants (about fucking time someone realized I needed them) and not sure if they’ve ‘kicked in’ yet since I was told it would take at least three weeks and that’s roughly how long I’ve been taking them so far. I have noticed that I don’t seem to feel as depressed, but I feel this weird melancholy where I keep getting an urge to go somewhere or do something, but once I get around to it, I don’t feel like doing it. It’s hard to explain but some really stupid things have made me feel kind of happy, yet other things that should, don’t…

Anyway, on to the title of this post…
Upgrades…
I’ve been moving a lot of things around on the server to accommodate some new sites and new features so for the time being the sites will appear as normal when using the .net version, but the .com will show the new sites (as the DNS propagates). Once that’s completed I’ll switch the .net to match. I’m also upgrading this blog but there’s a small database issue (actually it’s more with DNS), so for now the new version will be on the .com until I import the database from this one (and edit this post)
More on the upgrades, etc. later

Apologies…
First, I’d like to apologize to Rebecca since she continued to be supportive through everything that was going on and I still screwed up… If the college sets it up so that you’re my instructor again I’ll do everything in my power to make up for it.
Angelica, Bernie, JP, Shawn, Ed, etc… Sorry I haven’t been around, obviously I’ve been busy. :(
Todd, Nick, Nathan, and anyone else that has called/txt’d lately when I haven’t responded… Deal with it… :P

The above DNS proagation should be complete by 7am EST at the latest (my guess) and if I’m still awake I’ll attempt to finish and make another post with the rest of the info I planned on posting, including some photos and other stuff.

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Last Updated on Thursday, 15 July 2010 05:10

Current Status

Written by AJ Phillips
Sunday, 6 June 2010 04:13

So, my “3D Modeling & Animation” class technically ended about 3 hours ago and due to everything that’s happened this week I wasn’t able to complete my final three projects, so my nice little A turned into a ‘Losers D’ but oh well, I passed the class. On Monday I start “Information Literacy” and “Multimedia Design II” which should be ‘fun’ (read ‘fun’ with MUCH sarcasm). I can’t wait to finish college and be done with all this crap… I mean, I’m glad I’m back in school, still learning, yadda yadda… but the stress is killing me.

Speaking of stress, it’s been getting so much worse lately and really screwing with my depression. To make matters worse, Thursday night I went to the gas station around 11pm to pick up cigarettes and chatted for about 5-10 minutes with the employee before heading back to my car. When I got out there and got situated I went to turn the key and …. fucking thing wouldn’t start. I tried it a few times over the next couple of minutes and figured, “I have that roadside assistance coverage through Verizon that will cover a jump start, 10 mile tow, etc. and they’ll send someone to see what’s wrong with the car and I can have it dragged to Monro or somewhere where I can get someone I know to take a look in the morning.” I knew if I just called a random tow place or had them take me to a random garage, I might as well drop my pants and bend over, cause there’s no way I can afford this shit to begin with and you know how they charge ‘random’ customers, especially ones in emergency situations. I kept telling the lady on the phone the address of where I was (since although it’s part of a Verizon thing, they can’t seem to use GPS and find me) and she kept putting me on hold to call their different providers and see if anyone could come get me. Here’s the kicker, she spoke great English and from what I could tell, they didn’t outsource this service to some other country like most companies do now days… so I’m not sure if she didn’t understand the city I told her I was in or the ‘providers’ she spoke with are idiots, because according to her, at least 5 of them told her that I must have miscommunicated (or lied) and that I was somewhere in New Jersey and probably playing a joke on them. When she told me about that part, I told her the city yet again (I spelled it to her EVERY time) and I even gave her the zip code telling her I was at least 4+ hours from New Jersey. She put me on hold again and contacted more of their providers to see what could be done and this time when she came back on the line she said a few of them still gave her the Jersey story, but the ones that claimed they were in (or knew) the area wouldn’t come out because it was after hours… one even stated “I don’t feel like going out in this crap” since it was raining pretty bad at this point. At least I know whoever the rude/lazy fuckhead was, he was local, but she couldn’t give me their name because of policy. All in all, I spent over an hour on the phone with them and got nothing out of it. I called a friend that was sleeping and asked him to come get me so I wouldn’t have to walk in the rain with no jacket or anything (it was rather nice out when I left the house) and he said he’d be there as soon as he could… (I think it ended up being less than a half hour). After talking to him a nice guy that was pumping gas decided to check my car and see if he could help me and after checking a few things he said “From what I can tell, it sounds like it’s not getting fuel” and a passerby got on the wet ground and slid under my car, they had me try to start it and he said the fuel pump didn’t sound like it was making any noise so they both agreed it was dead. Once the rain let up for a few minutes (just after 2am) I went back inside and told them that I would have the car moved as soon as possible and I was told that I had until noon or it’d get towed. At that point I’d have to go back there to find where the car was taken and would be handed a bill by whoever came and took it. I got home and was obviously pissed/depressed so I went online to talk to a few people to see if that’d help and I guess it did a little, but not as much as I would have liked. In the morning I called a few people and we all went back to the car and at least got it dragged out of the Handicap spot it’d been sitting in for the past 10 hours or so and we pushed it to a spot that wasn’t directly in front of the store. A little later in the evening the guy came back with me and hooked up a diagnostic system to the car and it said that there was a failure in the fuel pump and something else… (can’t remember the other thing) and we strapped the car to the back of his truck and dragged it back to my place. It’s been sitting there since and I have a feeling it’ll be sitting there for awhile since I can’t come up with the money to get it fixed.

Some of the guys I talked with after getting home suggested I put a donation button on the blog and see if I can get any help, but I’ve always been a person that feels like that is begging and there’s normally people out there that can use the money more than I can… (like with Social Services and things like that) but in this case, I’ve already had to cancel appointments and other things because of the car and I have the appointment next week to finally get the braces put onto my legs, they just have to call when they come in, so I’m not sure when it’ll be. So at the bottom of this post is a donation button to see if anyone is willing to help out, but I don’t want this to appear like I’m either begging or that I’m trying to get donations so that I don’t have to pay out of pocket… I’m just so damn broke and my disability checks barely cover my basic bills anyway. If people do manage to help out, I’ll find some way to thank them properly and I’ll remove the button if I come up with enough money so that people don’t keep sending anything in if it’s not needed for the car.

Last Updated on Sunday, 6 June 2010 04:13

Blog Update…

Written by AJ Phillips
Thursday, 3 June 2010 08:30

I just figured I’d do a quick update for now mentioning some of the changes I’ve done to the blog this morning.

  • Changed the background (and a few ‘behind the scenes’ features)
  • Changed the “Share the knowledge” link set at the bottom of each posts (originally displayed only when you selected the post)
  • Went back through each post made so far this year and corrected spelling errors and added tags. (I’m too lazy to go farther back)
  • Fixed issue where first word in post topic was different color than the rest of the title
  • Will be adding/changing/removing some of the other pages sometime soon… (I have a few ideas already)

I’m also looking at a few other ideas of things to add if I can find valid plugins that don’t piss me off like some I’ve tried.

Last Updated on Thursday, 3 June 2010 08:30

Rant(s)

Written by AJ Phillips
Thursday, 27 May 2010 11:50

“Explain Later…”

In regards to the last post where I said I’d explain later… I planned on explaining it, but since I wrote that post around 3am Sunday morning and got a phone call BEFORE noon in reference to being suicidal you can piss off… it’s not worth expanding on since that fuckhead will probably call them on me again. Just for the record, I’m not suicidal, I have NEVER been suicidal, and NEVER will be suicidal… sure I have many issues with depression and have gotten to the point where I had thought about it before but would NEVER act on those thoughts as I know that no matter what shit I’m dealing with, things HAVE to get better at some point, some how.

College

Let’s kind of jump to the beginning for those that don’t read my blog or those unfamiliar with online based colleges in the United States. When I was diagnosed with Cancer in Jan. 2007 they pulled me out of work and left me with nothing to do, except of all the doctor appointments… Part of the cancer treatment caused an issue known as “Chemo Fog” that pretty much destroyed my short term memory so I can’t really remember a lot of what I did for the first year or so, other than doctors, but in Sep. 2008 I decided since I still can’t work I should try college to help with the boredom and since it was after I already suffered the spinal damage a traditional “Brick and Mortar” college was out and IADT was the second online college I looked at and decided it’d be the best for me. I started working on my Associates degree in Oct. 2008. I would have graduated already but I kind of fucked up 2 classes and took 3 months off last summer for medical leave, so instead my final two classes end Oct. 2nd this year so I assume my actual graduation would be sometime in Oct. (just before my 30th birthday on Oct. 28th).
A quick refresher on how classes work at this school is that they take the typical 11 to 13 week class and compress it into 5 weeks so in this environment you screw up or get behind you’re pretty much fucked. The plus side to this however is that they alternate where you have a single class (like now) and then two classes together, back and forth.
Now let’s jump to present day, I’m almost at the end of Unit 4 (week 4) of my current class; 3D Modeling & Animation; so that will end on the 5th of June, but although I did great the first two units/weeks of class, the Professor seems to have a ‘teaching style’ that doesn’t exactly match anything I remotely call useful and even after talking to a friend that knows his way around 3D Studio Max (the software we use for this class) and reading numerous tutorials online I still can’t get a certain ‘feature’ to work that the Professor says I need to have on my current project before I’m allowed to submit it… I’m going to give it one last try than fuck it, I’ll submit without it and if he docks my grade too much I’ll just bitch because it’s bullshit.
Anyway, the ‘icing’ on the cake, once I finish this damn class (as long as I don’t fail) I’ll have a weekend off and start two of my final five classes, then a 16 day break, another class, a weekend off, then the final two classes that I mentioned above that end the beginning of Oct.

Three parter… 1 Rant, 1 Not, Some Images

Conversation with a friend… (Not a rant)

I was talking to a friend of mine online late Monday night/early Tuesday morning and I talked about a local place called “The Face”. I haven’t been up there since last Aug. and told her that I would go by the end of the week to take some photos and maybe some video for her. I was supposed to have a class at 11am Tuesday and the Professor needed to cancel it 20 minutes before it was supposed to start, so I decided I’d pop a pain pill and take the long uphill hike to get her some photos.

My stupidity and my family (The Rant)

Well, for some damn reason, after going up there on and off for 20+ years I couldn’t seem to keep the trails straight so the roughly 30 minute hike took me over an hour to get up there and my legs, back, arm, and a few other places have hurt a SHIT load since. Now, where does the heading fall into this? The stupidity was going on this hike in 80-90ยบ weather and taking way longer than it should… The family part… well, my Grandmother (on my Mom’s side) meant the world to me while she was alive (she passed in 2001) and has continued to change my life. When she passed, apparently her request was that her ashes be released at The Face, which my family honored and my Uncle took care of. Now the reason for mentioning these two things together is that I’ve been to The Face on average a few times a year and it wasn’t until the day AFTER my last visit up there that anyone bothered to tell me that my Grandmother’s ashes were up there. If I had known, it wouldn’t really change much, but I would have had a static place in mind where I could go when I just wanted to remember or be with her.
Rest In Peace Dorothy.

The Images

MySQL, PHP, IIS, AD, and a few others

So the server I talked about a few posts ago decided that although I had automatic “Windows Updates” turned off it would do them anyway and one of them managed to break the MySQL/PHP integration I had in IIS 7.5 so as I repaired that Active Directory decided to randomly lose information on two of my systems. Anyway, I’ll keep this short, since I was already running out of room on the server (it had about 4.5TB of hard drive space and 6GB of RAM) I ordered another 6TB of hard drive space and stuck another 2GB of RAM in and realized I needed a larger power supply to accommodate the extra hard drives which I picked up, but now that I have all the new hardware it no longer fits into the Server Tower Case I had everything else in, which leads me to the last rant of this post….

Best Buy

Best Buy offers two different forms of “Best Buy Cards” one with a MasterCard logo, one without. I have a card with them (the one without a MasterCard logo) and figured I might as well go to there website and order a new Case for the server… I found a really slick case I want that is mainly designed for ‘show’ but more importantly will fit ALL the hardware. I add the case to my cart and figured, what the hell, I’ll get some other random shit while I’m at it and added two other items to my cart… now here’s the reason to bitch. Out of the three items in my cart, one of them (the case) was marked internet only and the other two gave me the choice to pick them up in the store if I wanted. I decided I’d have all of it shipped to me and save me the 50+ mile drive to the closest Best Buy store, I continued through checkout and made it to the last step to find out that although they have BOTH cards listed as valid payments they do NOT except the card I have for any online purchases. I contacted the phone number on their site and asked what the suggestion was since they claim the card can only be used in store, but the case, which was my main objective, is only available online. The lady was nice although the ‘resolution’ was beyond crap.
They pretty much said to get the hardware I want/need using my Best Buy branded card I have to drive the 50+ miles to go to the store, use my card to purchase a gift card for a minimum of $5 above the total (with shipping) of the order and than ask if they will allow me to use their internet in store (which they are NOT required to do if they want to be dicks about it) to place the online order with the gift card. If they don’t allow me to use their internet in store I’d be stuck having to drive all the way home to order online since I don’t really know of any places with public internet in that area. Now, for those thinking “Why not just buy a Best Buy gift card at Walmart or some other location?” and the reason I can’t do that is because the whole point is to charge all of this hardware to the Best Buy card in the first place. Fuck it, if they don’t allow me to use their internet I guess I could just tether my iPad to my Android based cell phone in their parking lot and order it that way, but that’s not the point either… what a waste of gas… I think if I don’t find this case somewhere else, this may be the last time I buy anything from Best Buy… not that losing $5000+ a year in sales just from me would hurt their overall business, it should help one of their competitors.

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Last Updated on Thursday, 27 May 2010 11:50
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