Nathan’s Daily Grind

There’s SO much stuff going on in my life I just can’t talk about publicly right now … and it’s eating me up!  There’s the whole big [redacted] that I can’t talk about.  Plus there’s another possible [redacted] that I can’t tell you about either.  And then for the next two days I’m going to be [redacted] which I think is completely cool and am really looking forward to … plus it pays really well!

Whew … okay, thanks for letting me spill the beans about all that. 

I hope to be able to share my thoughts more about all this before the week is out.  I don’t know if I could go another weekend without having [redacted] finalized and put to bed.

Speaking of bed … it’s 11:30p!  Yikes!

BUMMER!  I actually kind of like having media available at the checkout.  I’ve scored a couple nice selections that way (2-disc Police set, and the movie Juno).  Oh well…

Report: Starbucks scaling back music offering | Tech news blog - CNET News.com

For those of you who know me, you know that one of my standard answers if asked “how are you doing?” is “hanging in there.”  Well today I can honestly say that’s an apt description.  I haven’t felt this crappy in a LONG time.

These last 6-8 weeks have been the absolute worst season for my allergies I’ve ever experienced.  EVER.  It’s so bad that I’ve even been diagnosed with allergy-induced asthma – oye vay.

So if you see me around and I’m not my normal cheery self, now you know why.  Bleh.

Whew.  Maybe I can start getting more sleep now that TechEd is done.  Oh wait, no, I have to meet my ride to the airport tomorrow morning at 5:30a.

The first session today was about the new Server Core platform for Windows Server 2008.  Essentially they’ve stripped out all of the UI and superfluous apps and tools from Windows and created a lean and mean OS for specific “workloads” (Microsoft’s new term for what a server is used for).  A Server Core installation is managed via standard remote MMC tools, or via command line on the box itself.  The workloads Server Core is used for include a domain controller, file server, print server, basic web server (no .NET), or virtualization server (Hypervisor).  It’s going to be a bit of a change to get used to administering these boxes, but I like the concept.

Next I attended another discussion on Microsoft’s Virtualization platform.  THIS is the session I was expecting to see on the first day.  There was a fair bit of content overlap, but we actually got some good technical information on Windows Server 2008 Virtualization and had a nice Q&A session.  I feel better about what’s coming with Windows Server 2008’s Hypervisor, but if I had to deploy a production environment right now it would be tough for me to not do use VMware ESX.

I finished off my conference sessions the way I began, with a security talk by Steve Riley.  This one was about securing mobile devices (laptops).  Steve spent a lot of time talking about BitLocker in Windows Vista, which utilizes special chips in newer laptops called TPM modules.  I won’t get too technical, but Steve did a great job of explaining how all this works.  I might even be tempted to try it sometime … though I’d need to wipe my laptop to do it as BitLocker needs a disk partition that’s outside your OS to keep unencrypted for some types of application installers.  The official recommendation is 1.5GB of space, though according to Steve he hasn’t had any issues with a volume only 55MB.

And that was that.  I hung out with Will Strye from our Portland office this afternoon & evening.  We walked across the way to Downtown Disney and saw a movie (Oceans Thirteen - liked it). 

After we got out we hung out by the lake for a couple minutes and were treated to a view of the Space Shuttle Atlantis lifting off from Kennedy Space Center 45 miles east.  WOW.  Awe inspiring.  Goose bump moment.  We were too far away to see the shuttle, but we saw a long trail of fire and the smoke trail from the rockets.  We watched it through rocket separation and until we couldn’t see the glow of the main engines anymore.  I’ll remember that forever.  Will try to get some pictures posted from Will’s phone soon.  A couple guys from Ascentium drove out to the coast this afternoon so I’ll get some pics from them too. 

Well, time to pack!

TechEd 2007 - OUT!

It’s not like I didn’t know we were running out of IP addresses, but I had heard that the rate at which we were consuming what’s left was slowing down.  Bummer that it’s not.

According to ARIN, the American Registry for Internet Numbers (via NeoWin) we’re going to be out of IP addresses to dole out to organizations in late 2010.  Zoinks!

Time to get cracking on IPv6 I suppose.  Right after I finish deploying Exchange 2007, Unified Messaging, Office Communications Server 2007, complete a pending merger integration, complete another pending merger integration, move our main offices, and do whatever else comes up between now and mid-2010. 

I said yesterday that I’ve wanted to come to TechEd for a long time.  Why couldn’t I have gone a couple years ago in San Diego?  This year it’s in Orlando … in the opposite corner of the country from Seattle.

To make matters worse the ticketing gods sent me from Seattle to Los Angeles, and then on to Orlando.  Yeah - that’s direct.

I get to the airport and the wait for the transfer bus to the hotels is an hour plus.  The wait for taxies is about 3 minutes (but they cost 3x.  After getting up at 4a I’m done with mass transit for the day. 

As a bonus I got Speedy Gozales for a cabbie.  I got to my hotel long before the bus would have even left!

The hotel? under construction on the main floor.  You have to enter through a wing entrance and then walk back to the other end of the complex to check in.  And it’s tough to grab an elevator in the middle of scaffolding.

And what’s the deal with all the guys walking around without shirts on … oh my, there’s a different convention here this weekend too.  You haven’t lived until you’ve seen a 6-foot-7 black 200 pound black guy in skimpy “boy shorts” on roller blades in the lobby of your hotel.

As I was checking a heavy-set mid-50’s guy from Alabama (guessing) came up to the front desk demanding to check out without being charged because of the “outrageous displays” parading around the hotel.  He was offended.  I love how tolerant our culture is of people who are different.

This should be an interesting week.

I’ve been trying to attend Microsoft’s premier IT professionals conference for years.  This year is finally it!  Woohoo!  I won’t bore you with the details but it’s a week of geeks talking about servers, security, email, etc.  It’s being held in Orlando this year, so there’s Disney stuff too.  Most importantly there’s lots of shwag!

Hurray free stuff!

Give me a yell if you’ll be there!

Alicea and I got back from a week in Maui on Wednesday morning.  This was our first time to Hawaii for either of us.  What did we think of the trip?  We both shed a tear or two when the plane left the runway in Kahului.  It was incredible!  Here are a few things that you MUST SEE/DO if you visit Maui…

• Sail & Snorkel charter out to Molokini crater.  There’s nothing like snorkeling in a tropical ocean with visibility measured in hundreds of feet.  And there’s nothing better than getting there on the wind at 18+ knots.  LOVELY.  Take the Paragon II out of Maalaea - check out www.SailMaui.com.
• Road to Hana: swim in the Seven Pools, take the side road down to Nahaiku, visit Waianapanapa State Park, hike through a bamboo forest.  It’s a LONG day to make the trek to Hana and back, and we’ll probably not do that again when we make it back to the island.  But the sights were amazing.
• Hit downtown Lahaina around 6a in the morning to catch the Banyan Tree when nobody’s there.  Once you’ve got a lot of pictures of that, walk across the park to the marina and watch the boats head out and the kids surf.  At 7a the Pioneer Inn Restaurant, next to the tree and the marina, opens.  You can’t go wrong with the Hawaiian sweetbread french toast or the gargantuan pancakes.  :-)  After breakfast continue to loll around Front Street as the shops open - you’ll have the street and the shops to yourselves.  When you’re done go back to your room and sleep for a while … you’ll still have most of the day left to do other stuff (or nothing).
• Go to a luau.  It’s cheesy, but you’ve got to do it just once.  We went to the Old Lahaina Luau and from what I’ve heard of the others this seems like a good bet.
• And this is a must … GO TO WARREN AND ANABELLES!  It’s a nightclub and magic/comedy show.  21 and over only, so find a sitter if you need to. Simply amazing and a LOAD of fun.  The first half of the entertainment (nightclub parlor) was a bit lame, but the show is indescribable.  You’ll need reservations well in advance … as in when you book your trip a couple months in advance.  Go to www.warrenandannabelles.com.
• Go to a time-share presentation.  Everybody does it. 

Alicea and I stayed at the Westin Maui Resort and Spa in Kaanapali.  Awesome place, but a bit pricey (we had a special package deal otherwise we wouldn’t have been there).  If you can afford it, though, stay there.

On the flight over (United from SFO to Maui) they did a “Half way to Hawaii” game.  The pilot gave us the distance we were covering, our speed, the tail wind, and the time we lifted off the runway from SFO to the second.  Whoever guessed the correct time we’d be half way won the prize … unfortunately they didn’t say that they were doing it closest but not over.  Anyway, Alicea was the runner up - she was about 6 minutes off.  Someone else was the winner.  BUT I was closest … I was 5 seconds over (I did a lot of math in Excel on my laptop and rounded the seconds for .982344565… of an hour - should have figured it out!).  I got a runner up prize too!

Yeah - we need to find a way to do that trip again.  Special thanks to Alicea’s mom for staying with Kaitlyn back here at home so we had a week to ourselves.  I love Kaitlyn … but it was awesome to have some time without her to be “us” again.

Well, that’s enough rambling for now.  Mahalo (thanks) for the memories Maui!

So I’m going to make another try at trying to blog consistently … at least a few times a week if not daily.  I just installed the new Windows Live Writer build, which got me thinking about blogging again.  :-)  You can see some of what they’ve added here.  I was going to start using BlogJet again, but to use the new version I’d have to pay for it again.  So we’ll see what WLW will do for me for free.

Wish me luck!

Pharoah T. Cat 2003-2007   (the ‘T’ stands for The)

I got to realize one of my worst fears this evening … coming home and finding a beloved pet dead.  What a craptacular moment in my life.  We miss you already little buddy.  Our bed will be awfully empty without you tonight.