Life on Snow Hill

I love gadgets. Electronic ones, that is. I like tools too, but electronics have always been something I’ve been drawn to. Unfortunately, I don’t have the finances to fully support my need for new electronic gadgets.

Something I’d love to have, someday, but probably will never be able to, is the new Microsoft Surface. Every now and then I’ll run across it on the Internet, and it always makes me stop and practically drool over it. That’s bad of me, I know. To see how cool it is, just watch this video:

My Media Center PC & XBox 360 are great at playing slide shows of my photos and playing music to have in the background. But the Surface would just be cool to have because it’s more interactive and all that jazz.

I suppose in reality it’s just another gadget I’d just like to have.

Everybody knows who Mr. Rogers was.  I’m halfway ashamed to admit that I did watch the show as a kid.

However, something in me really, really hated that song at the beginning of the show.  I mean, the man was nice enough, but sometimes he was a little creepy.  I honestly hated everything about the show until he drove his little trolley into ‘make believe’.  That was always my favorite part of the show.

Anyway, you may be asking, "Why are you even talking about Mr. Rogers in the first place??"  Well, I normally wouldn’t be.  One of my coworkers today mentioned that she read somewhere that Mr. Rogers was formally a Navy Seal, and he always wore his sweaters to cover up the tattoos from his military past.

Immediately my razor-sharp instincts kicked in.  There was no way on earth that this man who sang little kiddie songs and played with puppets ever killed anybody.  If my memory serves, he even made an appearance on that idiotic show, Dr. Quinn.  (I was made to watch that one because I have 2 sisters…)

Now, I’m no military man, but I do know that to become a Navy Seal, you have to go through some extremely tough training.  And that’s probably an understatement – the same would go for any elite force in the military.

That being said, from watching Mr. Rogers as a kid it was easy to determine that he was not that kind of man.  It was actually pretty hilarious to me that anyone would even make up such a rumor, but beyond that, how anyone could really believe it.  A quick visit to snopes.com showed it was all false.

Once upon a time, a Fortune 500 company bought a product that was sadly lacking in stability, usability and reliability to manage its assets.  The company bought the product after a team that was put together to test various products to accomplish the task wrote it off as lacking.

Once it was purchased, it was immediately rolled out to the entire company without proper testing and without researching how all of the pieces should be set up to talk to each other.  Anyone in IT can see how this ends up.

Fast forward to today…  Everything appears to work like it’s supposed to, for now, although much tweaking is constantly ongoing to ensure its reliability.  Everything, that is, except for one piece – the all important service desk.  The service desk is where everyone in the company puts in work orders to request help from someone in IT to fix a particular problem.

Much to the frustration of the server folks (whose hands are tied by that red tape up there) where this particular server happens to reside, it has to be rebuilt for approximately the 5th or 6th time, within approximately a year’s time.  Not only does it have to be rebuilt, but it has to be rebuilt during a time when normal maintenance is being done on the approximately 180 other servers in the building.  Nah, there wasn’t much else going on that day.

When this request was presented, the vast array of responses to choose from consisted of:

1. Yes, sir!
2. I’ll get right on that, sir!
3. Is there anything else we can fit in for you, sir?

Stay tuned for chapter 2 in this edge-of-your-seat thriller!  See which response was chosen!  See how the rebuild turned out!  See when the next rebuild will be!

Please remember that this story is entirely fictional and is not intended to implicate or imitate any particular company, department or individual.

I know, I’m a few days late with this one, but I just haven’t had the time to put it together until now. Plus, I’ve been sick for the last couple of days, so blogging hasn’t been very high on my priority list.

The new year is a time I like to think back about what has happened, and then to look ahead to what will happen, may happen, or that I’d like to accomplish.

At the end of the year, I always feel like I haven’t accomplished much. This year seems a little different though. I do pretty well in my job and I’ve always gotten a good review, but that’s just a job, so that doesn’t count.

What I have done is advanced in my photography. I’m still no pro by a long shot, and there is still a ton I can learn. But I did get a wedding gig, and I was pleased with the results. At the end of the wedding I felt like all of the shots were going to be awful, but when I loaded them up and started processing them…well, I’ll just say I surprised myself. I still could’ve done better, but I was happy with it being my first time.

I wouldn’t call this an accomplishment, certainly not on my part, but I’m an uncle again – my little sister had her first baby on December 28th, just before the end of the year. Tax time should be nice for them this year.

Thanksgiving & Christmas this year were more enjoyable for me. I don’t know why. In 2006 I felt like a Scrooge, but 2007 was different. It was all great.

The last thing I’ll mention is that Becky and I both went and got our handgun carry permits. I’ve always wanted to legally be able to carry a gun with me for my own protection and hers, but I wasn’t informed of the process at all, and I never looked into it. The opportunity was there earlier last year, so Becky and I both took it. We now are able to defend ourselves anywhere we can legally carry. Hopefully this coming year will see some common-sense laws passed that will allow us to carry virtually anywhere in the state as long as we have a valid, current permit.

So what is to come in this new year? Who knows… I’m trying to get Becky a little more interested in photography for one thing. I’m thinking about getting her a camera body that can use my lenses, and let her go through an online course. She seems interested by it, and even somewhat excited.

I’d also like to get more involved in my church. It’s a very small church that I’m already pretty involved in, but I want to be able to do more. I’d like to work with the youth again, because I see so much potential. Hopefully that will come about soon. I’d also like to do more, so I’m praying for opportunities.

Other than that, I don’t really have any real plans for the new year – I’ll just take things as they come, and with the Lord’s help, overcome and enjoy them.

I’m going to be making some changes in the near future to my website.  My blog will become my main page (www.jdsnow.net) since that is where I spend most of my time, and it is also where most of my visitors will want to be.

The current home (www.jdsnow.net) will become portal.jdsnow.net.  That is where I keep some information that I like to be able to easily access.  I’m pretty much the only person that ever uses that for anything.

So I’ll also be moving some links to here so that others (and I) can easily navigate to family and friends pages.  I hope to accomplish these things within the next day or two, so keep your eyes peeled!

Jackson Lee Boyer was born at 3:04 PM on December 28, 2007.  He was born 7 pounds, 11 ounces, and 21.5 inches long.  Both mom & baby are doing great!  The dad couldn’t be more proud.

It was a long wait, but well worth it.  When we finally met Jackson there was laughing, and there was crying.  My mom did most of the crying, though.   It was like a brand new family reunion.

Jamin and Joy should be able to bring Jackson home later on this afternoon.  The hospital’s normal procedures are to keep an eye on them for a 24 hour period and then let them go.

An interesting note – being the geek that I am I did a little research on a security system the hospital uses.  I saw devices on the walls in the halls and in several rooms I was in, and was curious if those were what ran the system.  I looked it up, and sure enough it was.

The system utilizes RFID chips on those uncomfortable hospital bracelets.  The devices on the walls all over the hospital are RFID readers that transmit data back to the main system.  At any given time, the hospital security staff can track the whereabouts of the hospital staff as well as any patients they have at the time.  The system will also lock the entire hospital down in the event someone tries to carry a newborn out of a certain area.  I’m sure the ER and other such emergency services remain accessible, but the system apparently does its job well.

Enough about that.  We’ll spend the next few days getting to know Jackson and spending time with all the family.