HUH??

A "fairly" recent picture....This was taken at a huge (hundreds of acres) forest here in KY that is quickly becoming a family hangout.

First Screenshot of LInux Desktop

Some People are Wrong...Funny, but Wrong!!

**Click on the title of this post to see what I Mean**

In my time in KY I have learned that all income in this state is based on 4 things:

1. Alcohol (We have the Bourbon Trail here)
2. Tobacco
3. Coal Mining (Eastern KY)

and finally and certainly not least important to native Kentuckians:

4. Horse racing.

This Article made me LOL!!

"Right now he doesn't even want to think about the Preakness. He needs time to make sense of this terrible tragedy. I mean, put yourself in his shoes, if you can: you've just dominated the field in the world's most famous horse race, it's supposed to be your day, it's time to party ... and all anyone wants to talk about is a second-place finisher who's chief claim to fame is breaking her ankles. He's tried to be philosophical about it, but it hurts. Particularly since the bitch -- what he calls Eight Bells -- never gave him the time of day."

Happy Fathers Day

Happy Fathers Day to all my friends and family who are already and will be soon and will be AGAIN soon fathers.

Screenshot of WoW on Linux

So like I mentioned earlier....got it working, I will update you all with my venture into Linux.

If you all are feeling brave, I can not recommend Ubuntu enough, I have been toying around with it since version 5 (Breezy Badger) and the company that owns it is doing truly amazing things.

I was once asked by an instructor if there truly ever was a viable alternative to the desktop OS (Windows), and I at first truly felt that this was not possible to knock them off.

I am now feeling quite excited and think that people may be starting to look to alternatives to an easy to install, use and maintain desktop OS. The slow adoption (and forced from OEM dealers) of the latest OS offering from Microsoft has made me think that there may soon be a demand for something better.

Linux has always been there and for most people it has been a daunting task to run it. With the ease of installation, use, and maintenance that has been happening with the Ubuntu distro....maybe?

I'VE DONE IT!!!

When I found out that a little project I have been an advocate of for a long time (Crossover Office by CodeWeavers) had just certified the one game I have time to play (WoW) as Gold....I finally dropped Winblows as my default OS.

Yes I still dual boot, only cause the company I work for does not support the Linux version of the Citrix client (work always gets in the way), and for certain things I need to do do for M$ Winblows I have another great product VMServer.

I went with the latest (8.04) version of Ubuntu (Hardy Heron) and it installed like a champ and detected and configured ALL of my hardware (to include nVidia SLI).

I have a few more "clean-up" issues cause of windows permissions (moving 133GB of data from a volume I can't mount in Linux) and then the only time I have to get into Winblows will be for work (GARRRR!!!!).

I will be posting pictures of the (not-so)Noobs and some pretty eyecandy screenshiots withing a few hours (got to put them down).


EDIT - I just realized....another application/reason I will be forever dual-booting

http://www.zune.net/en-US/

GRRRR

So just a quick update while I can. I have been busy at work the past couple of days so I have not been able to post new pictures and full details of what has been going on.

I am really beginning to like my job because I have finally been able to start making decisions that have previously been made by people above me in how I am to deal with approving or rejecting the requests that are sent to me throughout the day. I finally feel like I am being trusted in my troubleshooting and decision making skills, but in the same hand, having the responsibility in making some of these decisions seems overwhelming to me. It can sometimes be unnerving to realize that the configuration change you are making could cause an Enterprise wide problem that could affect thousands of servers and tens of thousands of users.

Well, after a long couple of days and me going off for a bit about my job, long story short, more posts to come with pictures...I may even follow a couple of other people and convert this to a video blog to save a few minutes and update more regularly!

I've been FOUND!!!

So, an email from one old friend and a call from another and I have been inspired to begin work on what was my "dead" blog. Ummmmm......where to start.
The kids are waaaaay older...I will post new pictures tomorrow, the wife and I moved to KY....I am no longer a stay at home dad, instead I work for the man.....well, a health insurance company that bases themselves out of Louisville KY (our ITSEC team is probably winding up the sirens now) and so does the wife.
This is just gonna be a quick five minute post...more to follow in the AM, and for those of you that are interested in them...pictures of all of us will be posted as well.
I will also get working on getting the blog header to show up again. More in the AM!

Peek-a-boo!!! 

We did not put Dillon in time out and let him fall asleep there. He was playing with Jonathan in his crib and must have fallen down and fell asleep. 

Here Jonathan is, he's making his favorite face, he looks like he is trying to whistle but he just blows air in and out. We are still not sure where he learned this from. 

Lunch time rules! 

Yep, there they are, five teeth have now sprouted up from Dillons little mouth! 

For those who do not believe in fate

So yesterday was Sunday and the Raders met us at Saint Andrews, the church we attend, and as tradition states we headed over to Vinny's New York Pizza after mass. We had our forty minute meal because the kids have a strict 7:30 PM bedtime, and then Marc and I had what has become another tradition, the weekly trip to either Fry's, so Marc can get goodies and lunch money for his kids, or Wal-Mart, so I can get the wares my family goes through in a week. As we were talking I couldn't help but think about fate and how it has played out in my life.

If I had not been such a turd in high school, I would have never met my wonderful wife Mia. We would never have had our two beautiful boys, Jonathan and Dillon. In the same hand if Mia's dad had taken a job on the east coast as was one of the plans, Mia would have never gone to high school I met her in.

How does this all relate to Marc and I and out trips to Wal-Mart or Frys? Well, if I had not gotten out of the Army when I did and Mia had not branched Military Intelligence, we never would have moved to Sierra Vista Arizona. If I had not been looking for apartments that take pets, thank to our horse of a Golden Retriever, Einstein, we would have never ended up in Garden Plaza Apartments, and had I not issues with a printer, my family would have never met the Raders, our upstairs neighbors at the apartments. To add to that, if the Raders house had been finished on time they would have moved out of the apartments before we had a chance to meet them.

Looking at all of these variables I find it hard to believe that fate does not play a part in our lives. I have many things to be thankful for this holiday season, and I will chalk a thank you up to fate, it has made all the difference in my life.

Incidentally, Marc and I decided that the first time he was able to claim us as dependents on his taxes was after we all ate Vinny's pizza on the basketball court in the apartment complex.

We had Thanksgiving at the Rader's house again (check out Marcs blog by the way), this has become a tradition that has saved us hundreds of dollars in Thanksgiving food costs. Marc and Mary claim that they should claim us as dependants on their tax forms (we secretly agree). I think that all Americans should be as awesome as the Rader's in their quest to adopt a slodier on Thanksgiving (they incidentally adopt a soldier,Mia, and her whole family).
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Now you can see them, the two teeth that have been so elusive. This was one of those rare times when Dillon decided to show us his teeth for the camera. We are not one hundred percent sure, but we think he is now working on cutting the top two teeth. Dillon has told us in secret that he want to be gnawing on beef jerky by Christmas and that his teethare the only thing holding him back.
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