Saturday, February 16, 2008
Friday, February 15, 2008
Winchester Short Sale
We're going to get the house! Our offer on the short sale was finally accepted After 2 months of waiting and more waiting and not hearing anything. The waiting and not knowing is the worst part...
We both had doubts if we were ever going to hear from them. We were so doubtful that we entertained the notion of looking at other properties. Out of many that are listed, we actually looked at only a handful. Here are some worthy of mention or notoriety...
We both had doubts if we were ever going to hear from them. We were so doubtful that we entertained the notion of looking at other properties. Out of many that are listed, we actually looked at only a handful. Here are some worthy of mention or notoriety...
- There is a brand new 2-story SFR on Montana St. in Monrovia, but it is near a freeway underpass and a railroad track. I don't like freeway underpasses... vagrants urinate there!
- There is a brand new 2-story SFR on Monro Vista Ave. in Monrovia, but it is in an industrial area and the neighborhood looks scary.
- There is a SFR on Electric Ave. in Alhambra, but it was a fixer-upper The neighborhood is in the desirable northern part of Alhambra (near the South Pasadena border). But my wife saw inside the property and said it is filthy and a tattooed wanabee gangster lives there...
- There is a SFR on Vega St. in Alhambra, but it was also a fixer-upper. I was surprised to hear my wife say that she was serious about getting the property even though it was going to be a lot of work: new floors, new kitchen, new baths, etc. At least$50K worth of upgrades and repairs. I think she wanted it simply to deny her hated enemy who was also looking at it at the same time...
- There is a nice SFR up a hill on Orange Grove Ave. in Alhambra with a view overlooking Cal State LA. A nice old lady lives there. The property is nice, but it is priced above our range.
- There is a SFR somewhere on Gleason St. in Monterey Park, but it needs to be razed The house had fallen into disrepair and the inside was completely ruined. The paint was peeling and the floor was warped due to water damage. The entire house smelled musty...
- There is a really nice SFR on Holly Oak Dr. in Monterey Park. It is in a quiet neighborhood and has a good-sized lot. Unfortunately, it already had multiple offers! It's hard for me to imagine that buyers would get into a bidding war especially when this is a buyer's market...
Tuesday, January 15, 2008
Career Changes
So the IT world is saturated with wanabee's and everything is outsourced. The new frontier is now virtualization and VoIP. I've been looking at some ads and it seems kernel developers are still in demand. It's time to get my kernel kung-fu working! Wataaaa!!
Saturday, January 12, 2008
IT Duties
It's now 1:29AM, Jan 12, 2008. Approximately 48 hours ago, I was running a RAID resync on the main file server for the company. It was late and the process was going to take about 250 minutes (~4 hours). That's a long time to wait, so I decided to go home. I returned 8 hours later to find the entire system unusable. I panicked. This is the first time that I truly panicked... I tried my best to get it working, but it seemed futile. The system stopped working and I was s.o.l. From what I gather, the RAID was already in degraded mode, hence the need to resync... but before the resync could finish, another drive failed, so the whole RAID set was gone. RAID5 only allows for 1 failed disk. 2 failed disks is catastrophic!
In the 28 hours that followed, I have never been up that long! The trip to Italy was 23, and even then I got to sleep on the plane... I brought up a new server using CentOS, installed all necessary daemons, restored backups, and copied anything else that was needed. It was a marathon of file transfers totaling about 350GB! After 28 hours of non-stop file transfering, configuring, and tweaking, the system seemed ready for use. It had to be, the company could not afford any more downtime... People were back to using the system, and I got to go home to sleep.
As I look back on this episode, I get the feeling that the days of scrambling will be no more. No doubt management will now pay premium to have high-availability (or even clustered!) systems. The days of free rides are over. It saddens me a bit that the skills I posses will now be passed over in favor of outsourced solutions. My days as help-desk / tech support / network engineer / system admin / programmer / systems analyst seems numbered... Only time will tell.
But in the mean time, I can prepare myself by learning new skills. I have to adapt to changes that are taking place. Hmm... now, where is that Cal State catalog?...
In the 28 hours that followed, I have never been up that long! The trip to Italy was 23, and even then I got to sleep on the plane... I brought up a new server using CentOS, installed all necessary daemons, restored backups, and copied anything else that was needed. It was a marathon of file transfers totaling about 350GB! After 28 hours of non-stop file transfering, configuring, and tweaking, the system seemed ready for use. It had to be, the company could not afford any more downtime... People were back to using the system, and I got to go home to sleep.
As I look back on this episode, I get the feeling that the days of scrambling will be no more. No doubt management will now pay premium to have high-availability (or even clustered!) systems. The days of free rides are over. It saddens me a bit that the skills I posses will now be passed over in favor of outsourced solutions. My days as help-desk / tech support / network engineer / system admin / programmer / systems analyst seems numbered... Only time will tell.
But in the mean time, I can prepare myself by learning new skills. I have to adapt to changes that are taking place. Hmm... now, where is that Cal State catalog?...
Thursday, January 3, 2008
Rome In Rome Continued
Day 4, 5 - Roman Tour
We decided to take the Hop-On Hop-Off bus and take in the sights. The bus allowed us to get off and explore the sights at our leisure. It would have been nice if we rode in an open bus... As opposed to a covered bus... The bus had a guide who was humorous as well as versed in Roman history. We saw...
The next day, we finally go to see the Colosseum. We were one of the first ones in line! At last, Rome in Rome... Gladiators fought to the death here. The engineering is incredible. Each stone slab carved and chiseled by hand and hoisted up to create the arches and columns. By 11AM, we returned to our hotel to check out. It would have been nice to stay in our current hotel, but they hiked up the price for the last two days of the year. Something about a New Years special. What a rip...
Day 6,7,8 - The Final Days
Our next hotel is a modest hotel somewhere in Roman suburbia, along Via del Pineta Sachetti. From what I've read, the hotel should be less than 3 miles from Cornelia, the nearest subway station. Since my wife and I had been walking a lot in LA, Sometimes 8 miles/day... I thought 3 miles would be nothing. Well, it would have been nothing if there was a sidewalk to walk on! Via del Pineta Sachetti had a sidewalk that is barely 2 feet wide! The cars were speeding like crazy and we were dragging our suitcases. We feared for our lives. Again... And 3 miles felt like an eternity.
We were so happy when we finally reached the hotel. The hotel was not modern. The floor was completely tiled, and the bathroom had an 80's look. But they did offer free breakfast And it was really, really good. The breakfast was the hotel's only redeeming value... We were supposed to visit the Vatican the next day, but we slept in. Until 4PM! To be fair, we were both up talking at 3:30AM. By midmorning, we felt so exhausted that went back to sleep... I guess we'll try the Vatican tomorrow. I've read that the lines for the Vatican gets long really fast.
In the evening, we took the shuttle to Piazza Cavour. This would be our last night out, so I wanted us to enjoy it. We walked around the area but not a lot of tourist-friendly places. We went to a restaurant that had affordable prices. We ate outside on their sidewalk cafe and ordered Tiramisu for dessert. That was the best. Two wishes fulfilled: my wife got to eat at a sidewalk cafe; I got to eat Tiramisu...
The next day, we payed a visit to the Vatican, and it was nice. It's like everything that I had seen on TV or in books. Unfortunately, we didn't have time to go inside the St. Peter's Basillica or the Sistine Chapel. And we did not see the Papa... BTW, the lines do become long really fast. When we got there, the tour buses barely began to arrive. But within half an hour, scores of buses were dropping off tourists by the hundreds!
On our last full day, we went to another hotel near the airport. We had a morning flight, and we did not want to miss it. Knowing that Italians love to cripple their economy to make a political statement, we were not taking any chances... We stayed at the Hilton Garden Inn Fiumicino, an American-style hotel. It was the most affordable, modern hotel we've seen in Rome! Oh, how we love modern hotels and soft beds. Soft beds make me feel warm and fuzzy inside... We even ordered room service for the first time! Hamburger and tuna sandwich, and it was really good... This hotel made up for all the shortcomings of the other hotels. It's hard for me to admit, but I really do like the American-style. Looking back, I wished we had stayed at the Garden Inn instead of that hotel in the suburbs. It's not like we were missing anything anyway...
We decided to take the Hop-On Hop-Off bus and take in the sights. The bus allowed us to get off and explore the sights at our leisure. It would have been nice if we rode in an open bus... As opposed to a covered bus... The bus had a guide who was humorous as well as versed in Roman history. We saw...
- Basillica de Santa Maria Maggiore
- Teatro del'Opera
- Piazza Venezia
- Monumento a Vittorio Emmanuelle II
- Colosseo
- Palatino
- Circo Massimo
- Castel Sant'Angelo
- Basillica de Santo Peitro
- Fontana del Tritone
- Piazza della Republica
The next day, we finally go to see the Colosseum. We were one of the first ones in line! At last, Rome in Rome... Gladiators fought to the death here. The engineering is incredible. Each stone slab carved and chiseled by hand and hoisted up to create the arches and columns. By 11AM, we returned to our hotel to check out. It would have been nice to stay in our current hotel, but they hiked up the price for the last two days of the year. Something about a New Years special. What a rip...
Day 6,7,8 - The Final Days
Our next hotel is a modest hotel somewhere in Roman suburbia, along Via del Pineta Sachetti. From what I've read, the hotel should be less than 3 miles from Cornelia, the nearest subway station. Since my wife and I had been walking a lot in LA, Sometimes 8 miles/day... I thought 3 miles would be nothing. Well, it would have been nothing if there was a sidewalk to walk on! Via del Pineta Sachetti had a sidewalk that is barely 2 feet wide! The cars were speeding like crazy and we were dragging our suitcases. We feared for our lives. Again... And 3 miles felt like an eternity.
We were so happy when we finally reached the hotel. The hotel was not modern. The floor was completely tiled, and the bathroom had an 80's look. But they did offer free breakfast And it was really, really good. The breakfast was the hotel's only redeeming value... We were supposed to visit the Vatican the next day, but we slept in. Until 4PM! To be fair, we were both up talking at 3:30AM. By midmorning, we felt so exhausted that went back to sleep... I guess we'll try the Vatican tomorrow. I've read that the lines for the Vatican gets long really fast.
In the evening, we took the shuttle to Piazza Cavour. This would be our last night out, so I wanted us to enjoy it. We walked around the area but not a lot of tourist-friendly places. We went to a restaurant that had affordable prices. We ate outside on their sidewalk cafe and ordered Tiramisu for dessert. That was the best. Two wishes fulfilled: my wife got to eat at a sidewalk cafe; I got to eat Tiramisu...
The next day, we payed a visit to the Vatican, and it was nice. It's like everything that I had seen on TV or in books. Unfortunately, we didn't have time to go inside the St. Peter's Basillica or the Sistine Chapel. And we did not see the Papa... BTW, the lines do become long really fast. When we got there, the tour buses barely began to arrive. But within half an hour, scores of buses were dropping off tourists by the hundreds!
On our last full day, we went to another hotel near the airport. We had a morning flight, and we did not want to miss it. Knowing that Italians love to cripple their economy to make a political statement, we were not taking any chances... We stayed at the Hilton Garden Inn Fiumicino, an American-style hotel. It was the most affordable, modern hotel we've seen in Rome! Oh, how we love modern hotels and soft beds. Soft beds make me feel warm and fuzzy inside... We even ordered room service for the first time! Hamburger and tuna sandwich, and it was really good... This hotel made up for all the shortcomings of the other hotels. It's hard for me to admit, but I really do like the American-style. Looking back, I wished we had stayed at the Garden Inn instead of that hotel in the suburbs. It's not like we were missing anything anyway...
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