Poppy Cedes

I do not endorse the purchase of this product, but I do endorse the watching of these commercials:

Thanks to [GaS] for hookin’ a sistah UP. (I’M THE SISTAH! C’mon!)

Yesterday I made some personal decisions for myself that set me up for success rather than the failure spiral I was starting to feel. One of them was that I’m just going to accept my own words that people come and go in your life. Another is to just be happy and not try to analyze everything into a bad situation. Another is to be nice if you want others to be nice to you (then if they aren’t nice you can tear them a newwwwww asshole :). And one more: books aren’t my reality and other people’s situations aren’t my reality, just my reality is mine. It feels like I’ve come to all of these conclusions before but then I sheep out, letting others lead, and in the process I become a zombie computer, doing what others are doing just cuz, not making careful choices for myself when they need to be made, and being really confused and defensive when my brain checks back in and sees the mess I let in.

So, that’s that.

There’s a really interesting article on Macworld about the AppleTalk protocol finally being laid to rest in Snow Leopard/OS X 10.6 and how if your 10-year-old network printer can’t do IP printing you’re SOL. … First of all, that’s a mother fucking AWESOME printer to have lasted 10 years. Second of all, they’re still making ink for it?!!? Wow! Third of all, you got your money’s worth, now go buy a new printer for probably 1/2 to 1/4 what you paid for that one and let your niece and nephew tinker with and marvel at your ancient technology.

I’ve decided I probably won’t go back to VT until next year. Lack of vacation days plus coming to terms with being a New Yorker, plus it taking 7 hours just to get there if there’s any traffic at all allowed me to cut the ties. This means I will shop for EZA’s Aug 25 bday presents then send them to him in a box with a letter that apologizes for not being there to hand deliver it like I had hoped.

I’ve changed my mind about Karin Slaughter’s Triptych. You should read it.

Happy Friday, friends and family! >> I’m sitting on the patio. [Update] *giggle* <– easily amused.

Pat told me that he might maybe have put my blog up on the screen in front of all the geeks at the Black Hat Conference.

I just died and went to that place where we get to play Guitar Hero and eat Cheetos and tell our bosses to fuck off, we’re busy.

Ahhhhhhh… life has gone from zero to hero with one email.

There’s nothing new about me now that I’m 35.

I bought a vertical laptop bag today. I need a messenger bag because carrying the weight on my back is painful, but having a horizontal bag is really awkward on the train. Plus, if I get another laptop bag for my birthday I’ll have two! (Yah, don’t have all my presents yet, not sure what they all are, excited to find out, do not mind duplicates. :)

Geek speak is about to occur. Read through it, it might save you or your IT Guy (gender neutral) hours of annoyment. ;)

(I made that word up.)

Between yesterday and today I spent 6 hours trying to figure out why someone’s BlackBerry stopped checking in with the Black[B]erry Enterprise Server (BES) at 6:33am on Saturday, July 25. 633725 — nope, nothing significant about that, so what the hell? Today I finally got the bright idea to try to add her email account to my phone — it worked, so I knew it wasn’t her account on server that was causing the problem! So I tried adding my email account to her phone! And it got STUCK at the same spot! So I had a hunch and called the provider… They had no record of her being on a BES plan, which means her phone was NEVER, EVER going to be able to both send and receive mail through Enterprise Activation. Why had it ever worked before? I don’t know, but I have an ignorant theory (ignorant because I don’t know the details of how phones work) and it goes something like this: There is some way to allow phones to activate on a BES server without a BES plan that costs more money, but BlackBerry’s service providers (AT&T, Verizon, Sprint, Nextel) would prefer that you pay for the service so if your phone randomly happens to connect even without that plan a little cleanup script is run at certain intervals that checks in with your phone and deactivates your phone’s mechanism for connecting. I think it has to do with the Desktop [CMIME] service book, personally, but again that’s just a hunch since I don’t know what I’m talking about at the granular level. My bottom line recommendation: Call your cell phone provider first and innocently say, “I’m having a little trouble connecting this phone to my BlackBerry Enterprise Server. Is my phone on a BES plan?” and if they say no tell them to add you. Don’t ask why it’s worked for forever and suddenly stopped, just accept it and move on, and once they add BES to the phone it will magically work again.

Geek speaking is over.

I went to the zoo on my birthday and took some really great photos, but my favorite one is this one:

I love that we are such little kids together. It makes my heart happy.

Technically, Dawg took that photo, as you can tell by his left arm placement, but it was at my request when I could not figure out how to angle the camera to get the totem pole from the background into the shot. He showed me how. He’s a pro. He rocks.

A few notes about my birthday weekend: I did not knock over any of my beverages at the fondue place Friday night, but Saturday I did knock an almost full scalding hot cappuccino into Dawg’s crotch area while he was telling me a story about his younger vollies days, then Sunday at Jekyll & Hyde Club my Coach purse knocked over Dawg’s mostly full soda glass after he’d already gotten up. Oh, and I totally heckled one of the J&H guys who was picking on a girl from Houston at the table next to us. He would not leave her alone, which he is supposed to do while she eats her main meal, so I finally asked, “what’cha got in that glass? Looks like a Hurricane glass! Ya got a Hurricane in there?” and he muttered something about it being water and skulked away. Apparently he did not like the implication that he appeared drunk, even though he totally did appear drunk, but then again I had consumed a Chimay White (9%) and a Chimay Red (7%) (none of my favorite, Chimay Blue (12%), in the house) so I was tipsy.

I love being me. :)

Ok, resume your day. Good to see you. :)

Have you ever thought about how, from our perspective, the world is moving so fast that we don’t really have the time to dwell on the past, so as soon as news is 5 minutes old we’re not supposed to really think about it anymore?

But, have you also taken the time to ponder that a piece of news could be very old but if you’re hearing it for the first time it’s fresh and brand new to you so all the emotions that others have had the time to process are now a fresh wound for you?

Paul Newman has been dead for, what, a few months now? (Actually, a month and a half.) And I’m sure there’s somebody out there who knows who Paul Newman is, cares a mild to moderate amount about him, and would be devastated by this piece of information if they visited my blog and read it.

Unabashedly without segue…

Wednesday morning Dawg dropped me off at the 71 Ave subway stop because he is nice and loves me a lot (nope, more than that) and this kind gesture was promptly rewarded by me getting on the F train instead of the E train. I ended up at 21 Queensbridge. Let’s take a look at where that is on the map:

I got on the F train at the brown circle by mistake, but should have got on the E. I noticed my mistake when my brain finally flipped on and realized E trains only have row seats, not side-by-sides. I rode all the way to Roosevelt (the purple circle) then almost got off to transfer to the correct train but thought I’d stay on for one more stop because Roosevelt is such a pain in the ass with crowdedness. And now we’ve learned our lesson that it’s because Roosevelt is a hub before the trains all split off. I suddenly found myself — surprise!!! — splitting off (the red circle) and ending up at 21 Queensbridge where I hopped off the F to get my bearings. I took the Mount Sainai pocket subway map that Dawg lovingly gave me out of my pocket and studied the options. And all by myself I figured out that I needed to take F to Lexington/W 63 Street, go street-level and walk to W 60 St and re-enter the subway, then ride the 6 train to Lexington/W 53 so I could transfer to the E train and ride it the rest of the way to 7 Ave — greeeeeeeen circles. I was so proud of myself that I figured that out all by myself and was only 10 minutes late to work… or, rather, the first person there. HA.

While I was transferring from the F to the 6 I read an email from the director asking me to fix something on some laptops. I didn’t know the history of the problem so I troubleshot it the way I knew how… and “accidentally” resolved a problem that has been plaguing my company for months, was going to cost them thousands of dollars, countless tech hours, and lots of headaches for our employees. All that is gone now, because I did things The Poppy Way. I will definitely be reminding my boss about this come raise time. He also gave me full responsibility in a project I’ve been spearheading but felt stifled by my need to ask permission for everything I was doing. So… a very good day.

After work I met Dawg at europa cafe for a quick bite before he had to go work an event. I miss him a lot lately, and I’m really excited by the chance to meet up with him in Manhattan on the days we can’t spend our evenings together. I had more to say on this subject but it all came out sappy so I’ll spare you the details. Let’s just say: I love Dawg — a lot — and a bunch of people at the corner of Broadway and W 53 St got to witness that.

I know everyone wants photos of the party, but I didn’t take any. I was too busy being dressed up as a geeky Princess Leia who killed a storm trooper, hence the bloody hands, so instead I offer the Avitaween 2008 group photos to you. This weekend was incredibly amazing. I think it topped other blogger group events for me because of the close bonds I formed with so many people. Also, I got felt up by Hilly despite the No Touching the Poppy rule.

And now for a condensed recap.

– begin weekend –

Fly to Orlando.
Go to Hilton and check in many, many hours earlier.
Learn there is a Star Trek convention in the hotel.
Take a nap. A sleeping nap. Only sleeping. Sleepy sleep.
Wake up and eat hotel food.
Receive txt from Brad that we shouldn’t eat the hotel food.
Meet up with bloggers (Janelle, Sheila, Becky, Karl, Christine, Crys, Delmer, Turnbaby, Brad, Mikey/LeSombre, Dawg, and me) for drinks at the hotel bar, drinks and steak and coconut coated onion rings at Bahama Breeze, more drinks at the bar and invitation to see the Star Trek vendor show a day early.
Bedtime that involved more than sleep, but no stories necessary.
Wake up, eat a pound of bacon for breakfast at hotel buffet.
Go to the Elephant Bar to meet Jen from For the Birds and her husband Andy to eat vegetable stir fry with tofu, shop for geeky boots and Dawg’s costume, and buy pantyhose.
Go see Zack and Miri Make a Porno with many people (I didn’t care for it, surprisingly).
Rush to the hotel to prep for the party.
Go to the party to see old friends, meet new friends, drink too much, eat too little (RSVP NEXT YEAR, PEOPLE! OR THE FOOD DOESN’T LAST LONG ENOUGH! ), and sing karaoke.
Go home with Finn and Mister M at 3:00am.
Have a very good bedtime. (A very good bedtime. Wow. World rocked. whee!)
Wake up early, realize time change means it’s even earlier, txt Mikey about eating breakfast.
Eat breakfast with Mikey, Christine, Dawg.
Say bye to friends.
Go to airport… or try to anyway and wait 20 extra minutes in traffic because of two bad accidents due to rain.
Get to airport to change our 8:55pm flight to a 5:30pm flight — success!
Eat chicken fettucine alfredo and chicken parm at Macaroni Grill in the airport.
Go home.
More happy bedtime before my first day of work.

– end weekend –

I had my first day at work today. It went swimmingly. I am the first female IT Guy to be hired there. I had a turkey sandwich and Utz honey barbecue chips for lunch. I tried to shoe shop for an hour and a half before work but never found a shoe store. Ummmmm… I watched some crazy bitch yell at a pregnant woman in the production area. I took the sardine can from W 53 St/Broadway to 71 Ave for steak dinner and it took a veeeeeeeeeery long time to get there because the train before our train was busted so twice as many people were trying to load onto our train then we had to wait for the busted train to get off the track. Still couldn’t find a shoe place. I have a new laptop! And an ID card that doesn’t have my photo on it. I’m getting my Blackberry tomorrow, presumably. I need to decorate my workspace. I now have a cube instead of an office with a door but it’s huge and I get to listen to fun conversations all day so I’m actually happy about it. I think I mentioned that I have a boyfriend about 167 billion times today.

I still enjoy riding the subway.

Please vote. It’s the law.

Thank you soooooo much to Adam and Amy and everyone who helped with the preparations. The party was fanfuckingtastic!!!!!!!!!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, HILLY!

This weekend was spent with Britt, Jared, Robin, Rachel, Dawg…

…oh, and ALL the other Hot Bloggers who could make the trip into NYC.

Trust me, you’re going to want to buy the calendar when it comes out.

If I wrote a post about this weekend it would take me a week to finish it. So, how about you look at photos instead?

Friday special care package from Morgetron arrived then dinner chez PoppyDawg with Britt and Jared.

Saturday tourist extravaganza and the Hot Blogger Calendar dinner.

Sunday Hot Blogger Calendar photo shoot at Some Studio (scroll down a little) in Manhattan. Who knew I would love Jane’s parents so much? I’m so weird.

After Sunday’s shoot Dawg and I went to M&M World and Hershey then had steaks with his parents then we went home and I asked him to tell me stories about his life before I knew him so he did.

And because there are so many links in this post I just target=”_blank” ‘d all the links. You are welcome.

I now have a fourth child: A 20″ 2.66GHz Intel Core Duo iMac with 4GB memory, a 500GB hard drive*, and 8x double-layer SuperDrive. I also added the 3 year warranty, Microsoft Office 2008, and GUITAR HERO 3**!!!

I’ve been thinking about this for months now. I had the computer in my online shopping cart at 2:00am, after having put a computer in a cart a few times before, but this time I was very serious about the purchase, just wanted to sleep on it. I talked with Dawg about it earlier today, and he told me what I thought all along: I will be happiest if I buy a Mac, not a PC. I could have gotten a PC for MUCH cheaper, but after 6 years of specifically supporting Macs and therefore lugging one around with me every single day of my life for that 6 years I have become a Mac snob. I can’t switch to the PC for my daily use. I can borrow a PC, but it can’t be my main machine for play. I toyed with the idea of getting a MacBook or MacBook Pro, but the expense isn’t worth it to me. Dawg says I can borrow his laptop if I want to blog in bed, and practicing my sharing skills is a very good thing. Plus, when I get a job it’s very likely I’ll get a laptop from them to use, so… there ya go. Even if not, I can just get Parallels and load Windows onto the machine as needed. But I need a computer, and this is the very first computer I have ever purchased for myself. I’ve always had hand-me-downs or work computers for my daily use.

I am sooooo psyched, very happy, can’t wait for her to arrive!!

*I have a 500GB myBook external drive already, sooooo… I technically have 1TB of space — w00t!
**Yes, I already own Guitar Hero 3, but I’m smart and ordered it again, and now I have two guitars for the price of two copies of the same version of software (but only one in New York)! Now Dawg and I can play together, wheeeeeeeee!!!

Update: The internet was down. I had to reschedule to Thursday. No, I’m not kidding. How fucked up is that? Yah, pretty fucked up. Oh well, I’ll just ace it on Thursday instead.

After 6 intense days of grueling geek conference suffered all alone…
After 1310 pages of tech babble painstakingly read…
After 106 pages of index carefully written, color coded, and sorted…
After 2 four-hour-long practice exams endured…

It is finally GCIH exam day.

GO TEAM POPPY!

Following up the Predictions post, I’d like to tell you a little tiny bit about what happened.

1. I’ll be very drunk at some point today
   Break Boy mixed up the Serendipity 3 Frrrrozen Hot Chocolate Dawg gave me for Valentine’s Day with Bailey’s and Kahlua then Dawg, Break Boy, His Lovely Wife, and I all drank that. Then Break Boy made me, Dawg, and himself a concoction of cointreau, pineapple-orange juice, tequila, and peach schnapps. When I said there wasn’t enough tequila in mine Break Boy added another 1/2 cup of the stuff to mine. I woke up with a headache.
2. I’ll be very full at several points today
   Dawg’s comment before leaving back to the city: “I feel like I ate a horse.”
3. I’ll be very caffeinated at two points today
   I had iced coffee on the way over then had chocolate cake for dessert after dinner.
4. I’ll beat Break Boy at one or more GH3 pro battle songs (woot!)
   I honestly don’t remember if I beat him at anything, but I think I did. I was high on life for half the time and drunk off my ass for the rest of the time.
5. I’ll be very happy every single second of the rest of this day
   Yes, I was actually happy from 11:30pm Friday night to 5:30pm today, minus a small pouty moment at around 4:30pm. (I’m allowed to pout on Sundays.)
6. I’ll wake up a very happy Poppy with a very warm Dawg next to her
   And I didn’t even wake him up until 9:45am.