Interesting

I really don’t know how to start this one, perhaps I should start at the beginning. This morning, when I woke up, I had an emergency call on my cell phone. One of the clients that I manage had a server down situation (now this is not a good thing, especially since I am supposed to meet my friend today for lunch). I checked out the server and it appeared to be working correctly and I contacted my boss to find out the whole story. All was good after a server reboot. I meet up with my friend and he took me to the Olive Garden, for the “Never Ending Pasta Bowl” which is basically an all you can eat pasta. It is one of my favorite things, Fettuccini Alfredo, I can usually eat about four bowls before I leave. Well, we talked for a while, and he had some good news which kind of scares me due to some of our conversations today. First, his good news is that he has taken over the youth group of his church, which is really cool, however… he has one minor problem, he doesn’t always say what he thinks. I don’t know if this is because he is overly excited and thinks that he has said a vital word, or if he is thinking far enough ahead of him that he misses words that are needed. Eh, it could also be that I need to clean out my ears, but I thought I had already done that. He also has a few ideas that are very scary for a new believer, or even a old salty Christian.

One of his statements is that, as Christians, we are not to think about the “Law” or the ten commandments first, and that it is a good thing to be in a sinning position. Now, he later explained that he said “It is a good thing to realize that you are sinning.” He further explained that it is because then we are able to ask for forgiveness because we all sin, and that there is no way that we can go a day without sinning, and if we are in a state of realizing this we can keep asking for forgiveness. I agree and disagree with this… first, it is better if we don’t sin, I realize that we won’t be able to do this, however, the Law should be the first thing on our minds. Otherwise, we will do whatever we want and then just simply ask for forgiveness, which doesn’t really bode well with God. Would it bode well with you if someone did something mean to you, asked for your forgiveness, and then did it again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again. I don’t think so… “1 Samuel 15:22 And Samuel said, Hath the LORD as great delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices, as in obeying the voice of the LORD? Behold, to obey is better than sacrifice, and to hearken than the fat of rams.” This basically tells me that it is more important to attempt to follow the law, then to ask for forgiveness. Yes, we are going to screw up, no we shouldn’t think of it as the end of the world, but it should be a big thing to us. I believe that we should think of the law first, and the forgiveness of God a immediate second. The next issues that I had with his comments I believe is a cause of our different backgrounds. He states that he wants to question the Bible. Now to me, this means that he wants to doubt the Bible, which he can’t do since he is in a position of ministry, however he says that he wants to ask why is _____ like that. This is just fine as long as you don’t sit there and say that the Bible isn’t correct.

I went to class and then it went well, didn’t do as well as I like, and then I basically confirmed a diner with a friend tomorrow whom I haven’t seen for a long time, it should be fun, we usually have the fight of the spices, I am curious as to which spices we will be fighting with. Also, I talked to my friend Chris, and he is going through some things right now that I think would be hard. Although, I have to say that he is really handling it rather well. You see, one of his brothers left home (he is eighteen now and wants to move out on his own), and he moved in with Chris and Marie, Chris’ wife. Now Chris is doing something really smart, he is helping his brother, but also making sure that there is a time limit on the situation. Most people will get caught in a helping situation, but won’t say at this time you need to have your own place, and get stuck with relatives for MONTHS. I give my friend Chris mucho kudos on this issue. I hope that our schedules clear up soon so that we can spend some time together, I miss playing around with him and his wife. They are such nice people that it is a break from what I consider reality, especially if you read my previous post “Disaster from All” which is my normal day sometimes.

Well, I think that is about enough for now, this is Eric saying, “God Bless!”

Lonesome Time

Alright, what shall I talk about today? Not much has happened, primarily I sat at my computer taking care of problems and fixing items with my program, trying to make sure that it will work perfectly on Monday, when I do the deployment. Now, you might be asking, “why are you posting on your blog then?” Well, the answer is simple. Since I am missing my girlfriend SO much, I figure she is also missing me, and instead of trying to remember everything that happened, I will instead write it down here and have her read it. now isn’t that a good plan? Anyway, that’s all I have to say, so this is Eric saying, “God Bless!”

Disaster from All

Ok, today was a DISASTER! First, I was getting ready for work, and I get a phone call from work. I got the voicemail, and found out that one person was having trouble getting some information from a website. Was this an emergency? Nope! They just wanted it done right now, and they knew that the second I got into work, I would have to prepare for an in-service on HIPAA. (Yes, you guessed it, this a complaining post, if you want to read on, go ahead.) And, of course I got into work 12 seconds faster than if I hadn’t gotten the message, or was that 12 seconds later because I had to stop getting ready for work in order to check my message? Hmmm, I wonder.

When I got to work, I actually had to prepare for the in-service. I did manage to fix the problem while I got the handouts ready. Now, I had reserved the education room for 11:00 am, and the Care Plan was scheduled at 10:00, I figured that the care plan would be over by 10:30 even 10:45. Nope, it was over at 11:10, now I was already late for the in-service, AND I wasn’t setup for it either, which usually takes me about 20 minutes to do. Well, thank goodness I did what I could while waiting outside for the care plan to be completed. I had the in-service running by 11:17, and had six people sitting ready for the training. Even with all of the troubles, I basically was able to have the entire training completed by 12:00, which I had originally said that I would have them out by.

I then started working on my desk, and other miscellaneous troubles that were going on until 1:30 when I had another in-service on the Laboratory ordering. Just before it was time to give it, my consultant came in and then I made sure that he was set to do his work. I then went and gave the training which also didn’t start till about 20 minutes after it was supposed to be started. I got that completed and went back to see what was going on with the consultant. While I was there, I was called over by another person in another office. I went to check it out, and then after it was done, I got pulled into another office to fix a problem. Well, to fix a problem is the wrong statement. She basically wanted me to do a re-write on a policy and procedure that I made for her previously, but she also wanted me to make three or four more for her. I said that she needed access, and proceeded to set her up with access, unfortunately she wasn’t up to date with the patches and fixes so I had to start that. All the time I have her complaining that she is unhappy because everyone in the world is using her copier in her office and that it is so difficult to get the supplies that she needs, and that work can purchase anything it wants and so on and so on (notice, I have not had lunch yet and I am starting to get low blood sugar by this time of 3:00). I get the system to the point where it will almost start working by itself, when I get a phone call on my cell phone from one of my co-workers. The Hospital administrator has to see me immediately. I drop what I am doing (oh yeah, the lady is upset) and race over to the administrator’s office. Where he asks me if I could cover the phones and hand out checks till 8:00 pm when the next shift comes in. – Minor pause here for two explanations, first, when he asks, he half-way commands. He doesn’t do it in such a way that is rude or obnoxious, but you get the idea that you really don’t have a choice in the matter. And number two, I have team meeting that I am supposed to attend on Tuesdays at 6:30. – Now, I say that I can only go to about 7:30 because I have a meeting that I am supposed to go to. He says alright because he really doesn’t have anybody else, the person who was supposed to do it is going home early (nope, don’t know why, nor do I really care why). Ok, now I race back to unhappy lady who complains constantly. Finally get the computer going so that it will update by itself, and I tell her that she can do her “normal” work while it fixes itself (yes, from the time I got in there originally till about a minute after I left the door she was saying “can’t you go any faster?”).

Ah, now off to lunch (3:30 pm, oh and I don’t eat breakfast so I have had nothing to eat yet). I get my food, drop off my check, put gas in the car and get back to work to eat on the patio so that I can jump into the receptionist’s desk as soon as she needs to leave. As I am sitting there resting, another of my co-workers comes out and tells me that the Hospital administrator has to see me immediately again, and he is upset because he can’t seem to find anyone in the office (yes, when I go to lunch I inform people, but nobody ever asks if I am at lunch). I drop my hamburger, wipe my face (Carl’s Jr. Slogan – “If it doesn’t get all over the place, it doesn’t belong in your face”) and head to his office, where he tells me because I am leaving half an hour ahead of the posted hours, that I need to page each of the nurses stations at 6:30 and 7:00 about the change. No problem, I got it, back to eating. I finish my lunch and head back to my desk… EEK! It is still a mess, got to clean it up. I start trying to organize the papers and spare parts that are now homeless because of the loss of my cabinets (check out previous posts). I also need to write a reminder memo for those people who haven’t had a chance to make it to a HIPAA review In-Service. Unfortunately, I only get a few minutes because I am pulled away two or three times to out of the office. By the time I get back it is 5:45 and the receptionist wants to leave now. So I pull up a chair and get ready to hand out checks and answer the phone.

All is well at this point though, because at lunch I called my team mates and informed them that I wouldn’t be there till after 7:30 and I talked to one of my best friends and made arrangements to see him on Thursday for lunch. All is looking up again! I am happy at about 7:25 when I inform the stations that I am leaving, just one more thing to do and I am out of there. I grab my backup tapes and head to the server room to stick in the tape. “Oh no, the tape drive says it is dirty, no problem, just stick in the cleaner drive and away… we go.” I stick in the cleaner, it does it routine, but… the cleaning tape never ejects. UH OH! I try the emergency eject commands, no use. I pull the power, no use. I sit there working on this for 30 minutes, and my teammates are getting worried. I finally reconfigure the backups to backup to my computer because I am not getting the tape out tonight. I call the Hospital Administrator on his cell phone and give him the bad news… the drive needs replacing (this is the third time it has gotten stuck). Alright, we need to get the pricing and we will follow through. By now, my team mates have called and said, “You can come over, but there is only me here. The meeting has been dissolved.” It is now 8:50, I was leaving at 7:30, an hour and 20 minutes past what I had anticipated.

WHAT THE HECK HAPPENED?

Oh well, as for now, I need some sleep, so this is Eric saying, “Good night, and God Bless.”

Busy, but not productive

Let’s see, I went into work late so that I could do an in-service to the night shift of the pediatric unit. I then went in and configured a device for the hospital administrator and then I proceeded to do a HIPAA in-service which went longer then anticipate, personally, I think it was because we got a fairly late start. Afterwards, I showed or Director of Nursing on part of the new lab ordering system, unfortunately I couldn’t complete it because she had to leave. I then contacted the company that has been doing the laboratory work for the company and told them about some of the problems we were having, some suggestions for a better system and then had them initialize a new computer system for access to the lab system. I then tried to clean up my desk, why you may ask… am I a messy person? Well, the issue is that I have lost even more storage space to hold my equipment at work. In fact, I lost an entire cabinet (yes, that’s right, four large shelves). And I had to move what I could to another area, unfortunately, that didn’t hold all of the equipment, and now I have a desk that is covered in spare parts. I can’t even get to my phone because it is covered.

IT IS DRIVING ME CRAZY!!!

Oh well… I will get it cleaned up tomorrow.

Well, it is official. My girlfriend has been out of town for about 2 days now, and I miss her like all get out. I actually like it when she gets mad at me when I stay up too late, even though she says she doesn’t get mad. I think she is more concerned than mad, but, she is mad… HAHAHAHA… you see, she is currently out of town finishing her training by doing what she calls “On the Job Training.” To me it sounds like an internship but ok, that’s what happens when you live in the US and your girlfriend lives in the Philippines. I miss her. I won’t be able to talk to her again for another 5 days…

I MISS HER SO MUCH!!!

Now then, what is the next plan of action, well. I think I will deal with that tomorrow, I need some sleep. I have to be at work early tomorrow and I anticipate having a really long day. But the good news is that my assigned part of the Team work for school is DONE!!! Now I can devote that time to other facets of my life. This is Eric, saying “God Bless”

Hello and Welcome

Ok, I suppose I should start by talking about myself briefly.

My Name is Eric, and I am in IT. I have a Filipina girlfriend who I am madly in love with. The only other thing to say is… yes, I am a workaholic. I am currently working at three jobs and going to University of phoenix at the same time. Now the question most people ask is… “How the HECK do you do it?” Well, simply stated, my days are about 18 hours long from start to finish. My usual bed time is like 3 am in the morning, and I usually am awake by 9 am. Now I know people who are able to work on only two hours of sleep, and I haven’t a clue on how they can do that. I am currently running on 6 hours of sleep and have major problems with it occasionally. Oh well…

Enough about that, I figure if you’re still reading this then I haven’t bored you to badly yet with that mumble jumbo.

About my Girlfriend Rizzacecilia, She is beautiful, sweet, charming and nice, something that I don’t see much anymore. Of course I realize that I am in love and that everything is basically perfect from my point of view. I realize this and have taken drastic steps to make sure that I keep a level head about the situation. But we have known each other since November 2005 and I don’t think there is any really major issues that will keep us separate… now all I have to do is, save up enough to fly to the Philippines after I have finished my bachelors, get the paper work in order, survive the time it takes to have the paperwork go through the red tape because we all know that when I see her face to face, I will be unable to be anything else but a big soft puddle of melted Jell-O. (Hey, I am a poet, that doesn’t know it!) Then, while that is going, ensure that I get a decent job that will allow me to support her and myself, get an apartment (hopefully a house, but I am not picky) and save up enough money to get her to me here in the good old USA. After that I will find the cure to all diseases and then problem with non-perpetual motion devices and convert them all into a free energy system. Hmmm, somehow I don’t think that is possible, but as the old saying goes… “You can only eat an elephant a bite at a time.” So as always, I will take it one step at a time.

Now, why do I have a blog to keep up if I am already so busy? Well… I am currently attempting to beta test the new office 2007, which one of the features is a blog template. Since I haven’t tried any of the other templates yet, I figured that I should start on something. Part of this blog is to document some of the issues that I have run across. I am also beta testing Internet Explorer 7, as well as Media Player 11.

You see I am a part time developer. And need to pre-test my applications with the new software that is coming out on the market. Just to let you know I am proficient in several different programming languages.

• Visual Basic, this is the language that I use the most. It is simple, easy and direct. I have just started playing with the new ASP.net 2.0 just last January or February.
  
• C
  
• C++
  
• Visual C++
  
• Borland C++
  
• Java
  
• JavaScript
  
• HTML
  
• PHP
  
• CSS
  
• Perl
  
• CGI
  
• VBS, no I know it is similar to VB, but it is different enough to be considered a different language.
  

I also know several other different languages, but not enough to sit down and start coding something without a reference book nearby.

I think that is enough for now, from the looks of it, I have already posted almost 1,000 words into this post and I really don’t know how large the blog spot will allow for. And since this is my first post, I don’t want to spoil all of the surprises yet. Especially when I get down to actually talking about schooling, it will become very interesting, or even some of my points of interest when it comes to the aspect of people and their personalities. For instance do you realize that there are only about thirty different personality additives, and that all people can be described by a combination of those personality traits? Once you know someone’s personality traits, you will be able to determine what they will do in any situation. Now the hard part is to determine all of their personality traits, some of the traits are very easy to see, however there are several traits of people that are so hidden deep down that it literally takes years to see enough of their behaviors to locate them all. Even after you have determined all of the personality traits of a person, their likes and dislikes will change every 5 – 9 years, AKA the seven year itch.

Alright all, I think that is enough for now, take care and until I drop another line to everyone, this is Eric saying, God Bless.