Yeah it’s a song lyric. Now go google and be happy.
Well the first week of work is done. I may actually quit smoking because of my job. Not because I don’t like the people I smoke with. Not because I am getting trouble for smoking. But because for the first time in my life there are things I would rather do than smoke. There is so much to learn at this gig. So many areas in which I could throw my hat and become an expert. It’s gonna be some long hours and some hard nights on call but it is going to be worth it.
My boss is crazy. I mean crazy. She is fun to work for. I wouldn’t want to ever get on her bad side. The team is all great. Hard working every last one of them and hard partying, hard joking, all around good guys. Of course I won’t mention the company of any names but suffice it to say it is a better job than the last one. I am not talking money here because the pay is actually lower by about minimum wage’s worth. The opportunity to learn is better. The whole setup is better. Let me explain.
At the last job everything was very cellular. I mean totally compartmentalized. I worked for the Unix/Linux support group. We supported the OS and the OS only on the systems for two departments. If a mouse or video card was bad and we had a spare we could replace it but that was the complete end of anything outside of the OS. Now when I say the OS I mean the standardized OS which another group developed and on which we had little to no input. Anything application related went to one of three groups. We couldn’t do anything at all. It was the best pay I ever made but the most most boring job that I have ever held. I hated it. I had trouble getting up for work and being on time. I had trouble not leaving early. I had all sorts of trouble. It was stressful on top of all of that because the group is getting outsourced in a year so it’s under a microscope. I had to look busy all the time and there was no freaking work. I might have sounded happy about the money but the job was ridiculous. There are so many regulations that it took over a week for me to get logins and over a month to get root.
The new job. I work for the Unix/Linux support group. We do everything. From the OS loads to clustering to SAN and NAS to hardware to cabling to development with Perl. Everyone kind of has the niches. It’s a pick your niche sort of place. You have to know a little of everything due to being on call but you are encouraged to learn one or two things really well. I am going for clustering and SAN personally. The setup is pretty lax. I am officially 0900 to 1800 but if I can’t come in that late due to evening obligations it’s cool if it’s not all the time. Well except Wednesdays which they knew about when I came on. Suffice it to say it is not amazing to me that there are better things to do at work than smoke. Before I showed up at work the first day almost every bit of access was complete including root. The only problem we are having is with the windows team and one share but that’s worked out I think. It’s our documentation share so if I need anything another team member just prints it out for me so it’s not stopping me from working.
And to top it off here’s some pics of what I get to play with….
(Read the article)
…is what I normally tell people when they show me strange things. But today must be some sort of make me feel strange day. There is plenty of strangeness to go around and on many fronts.
First off, in a move to make Scientologists appear more normal, Britain’s fourth largest religion has appealed to the UN for recognition. I know it sounds strange that a religion with almost half a million followers (390,000) in England alone isn’t recognized as a religion by the ultra-liberal UN. It is a travesty of epic proportions. Or maybe not. You see the religion is…JEDI….yes you read that right a fictional religion from a series of fictional movies is the fourth largest religion in Britain. It is just mind boggling.
The Register
“Umada” and “Yunyun” - aka 27-year-old John Wilkinson and 24-year-old Charlotte Law - timed their “protest” to coincide with today’s UN International Day of Tolerance, which they’d like renamed “Interstellar Day of Tolerance”…Indeed, more than 390,000 Brits are practising Jedi, according to the 2001 census. Brighton is the country’s principal centre of Jedi activity, with 6,480 professing to follow the faith.
The next time some liberal whiner touts Britain as an example of a socialized medical system it will be easy to show that it doesn’t work. Apparently some 390,000 mentally disabled people have slipped right through the cracks of Britain’s medical society and are not demanding to be recognized. Not that there are not lunatics here in the US recognized as legit religions but this is just insane.
In other religious news our beloved President has apparently had a voodoo curse put on him:
Breitbart
Ki Gendeng Pamungkas slit the throat of a goat, a small snake and stabbed a black crow in the chest, stirred their blood with spice and broccoli before drank the “potion” and smeared some on his face.
…
He said the jinx would sent spirits to posses Secret Service personnel guarding Bush and left them in a trance, leading them into falsely thinking the President was under attack, thus eventually causing chaos in Bogor Presidential Palace, where the American leader was scheduled to meet President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono on Monday.
I am guessing his curse didn’t work since no news reports of the Secret Service shooting up the Bogor Presidential Palace have emerged. Oh well guess it’s back to the drawing board for good ol’ Mr. Pamungkas or back the farm, maybe that goat wasn’t a virgin or something.
(Read the article)
Well not really but it is a catchy title, no?
Anyway the new job is great. I mean I know that I have only been here two days but the team is cool, the boss is a trip, there is plenty of work, and it’s laid back. You can’t ask for than that in a job. Well you can ask for fair pay but I have that. I have a company issued crackberry complete with ssh client that I installed and the Gmail application so I am not pretty much connected 24/7.
Due to stress levels I started playing World Of Warcraft again. I have decided that the key is taking time off of the game. I get bored with it and can’t just keep playing but a week off here and there keeps it fresh and plus the new patch is coming out. For a while I had a friend trying to get me to play Second Life and they could never understand why I wouldn’t keep playing after the first hour. I finally figured out how to put it into words. It is very simply that SL is a bad drawn 3d version of a MUSH with the addition of an AOL chat room. I much prefer text MUSH to the crap SL is doing. Give me WoW any day of the week for playing and TinyMUSH for coding and imagination. I don’t need a second life as I am quite happy with the one that I have right now. I have 5 gorgeous children and a wonderful wife. What in the hell could a bad 3d MUSH offer me?
I hope you all enjoyed the remixes. I will be commenting more on the current state of the DJ scene in Houston and as I do I will post the mixes from the other members of The Alpha Crew. TechSys and I will not be resurrecting the name when we start spinning out of respect for the other members of the now defunct group. We have a few monikers floating around and as soon as we pin one down like a butterfly in a museum I will be sure and tell you.
As an aside…get your arse to Houston T-Dog…yeah I mean you short white boy in Phoenix…
Late…
So aside from the drama concerning CF I do have a life and since I have so many subscribers I thought it would be fun to bore them all with it!
First I want to say welcome to all of my new readers. You will have to sift through a lot of normal posts before I start posting about CF again so you will get to know me a little bit. If the only place you have ever seen me is CF you have a lot to learn.
I used to be a DJ. I mean a beat matching turntable jockey who did clubs, raves, parties, and anything else I could manage to get my hands on. I was pretty good. Me and a few friends released some digital re-edits under the moniker The Alpha Crew and had a lot of fun with it. TechSys and I were the only two local to Houston and we actually did spin together. Earlier tonight I found a folder with all of our old remixes. Feel free to listen to them while you read the rest of the post.
Depeche Mode - Master and Servant (Extended Dance Edit)
Nine Inch Nails - The Becoming (Voices In My Head Re-Edit)
Nine Inch Nails - Please (Version .99)
So last night I went out. This is not news of course but I went out with TechSys. We have seen very little of each other since I got back because both of us are busy. But we got to talking and really miss DJing. Everything is digital these days so it’s taking some getting used to but with Ultramix and Mandriva it’s gettin’ pretty easy. Beatmatching used to be a science. Something you did with your hands and ears. Now days it’s keyboard based but the principle is the same. The art isn’t near as appreciated as it was back in the day but you can still find those that recognize the skills.
(Read the article)
I have been corresponding with a CF staff member who would like to remain anonymous. As such I will not even mention sex and stick to unisex pronouns. They brought up to me, as others have in the comments, the innocents that seem to be caught in the crossfire. People feel violated by my posting. I can understand that and it has given me pause. I have thought about it a lot today. And I have come to some conclusions. I wish to thank this person for making me think about this. Your honorable response to what you saw as a dishonor is a wonderful testament to the fact there are good people on staff.
As to the allegations of violating people’s trust. I think that the trust was violated by the leak and not by me. If nothing else I have brought it to light. Had I not posted this thread many staff would believe their words were private and at no risk of being seen. That has never been true. Staff has leaked from the top down ever since I came to CF. There is the occasional witch hunt which may or may not turn up a source here or there but the fact remains that leaks still happen on a grand scale. This is simply a symptom of the broken system that is employed by CF. Instead of finding a way to negate the need for leaks staff has historically closed ranks and offered further punishment. Rather than admitting to the flaws in the system they try to close the system more which has led to grander and larger leaks. This thread and others in my possession are simply proof of that. The confidence agreement covers what one sees in the staff forums while on staff. It cannot logically extend beyond that point as no-one is supposed to see anything in the staff forums once they are off staff.
Many have used the word betrayal in reference to my post. One must consider the implications of this word. For one to be betrayed there must be an enemy. Where is the enemy? Is it the liberals who have seen problems with CF longer than my ilk? Is it the membership who now knows that members of Exec have no problems lying to members? I do not know but it disturbs me that staff would consider anyone an enemy.
I am truly sorry that the innocents feel hurt by what I have done. But the greater good argument comes into play. Once one has knowledge of trust being violated as it was here with the lies and subsequent witch hunt which staff denied would happen can one keep silent? If the witch hunt claim is to be denied then I ask Nitz to post his story here. I will upgrade his access to Author so that he can expose the further lies. If Exec is corrupt and manipulating other staff and membership then the system is broken from the top down and very little can be done to fix it without replacing the system from the top down. The innocents, and let me assure you they outnumber the guilty, do seem to be caught in a crossfire but the crossfire is not coming from me. The leak is the source of the broken confidence and not me. I have merely brought it to light.
All that said I think I have been convinced there is a better way to go about what I wish to accomplish. Here is the method I will be using for my furthe posts in the series. I will post a story, a factual account, with only the names of the guilty and an overview of what went down. Should any of the factual account be challenged I will then and only then post staff threads to once again illuminate the lies that a minority of staff seem willing to tell in order to cover their abuses.
For this I must thank seebs for the initial idea and my anonymous conversation for showing me that another way might be better and cause less pain to those who honestly have nothing to do with the problems. There was a main conversation with one kind hearted staffer but also there were two others and as I have not spoken to them about this I will leave their names out of it as well. The problems still need to come to light but there is possibly a better way of doing it and I am indebted to those who have made the necessity of using an alternate method clear to me. I know it might not have been your intention but your kindness and your words, even while disagreeing with me, gave me pause. I think the three of you realize I am not likely to drop what I am doing but your concern for others has given me a new level respect for you and made me question my methods. You should stand proud and know that your emails showed true Christian values and kindness and it was a refreshing change from what I have seen from staff as of late. You give me new faith that CF can be saved.
So I have committed to a series on CF Staff. The problem is much of the data is covered by an agreement I made. I did not agree when coming on staff by I codified it by writing the policy that implemented it firmly. It was always an understood policy. The question I have to answer is if my agreement to this policy outweighs the damage being done. In a legal setting I would be covered by whistle blower laws but this is not a legal setting and as such that is a moot point. This is a moral dilemma. I have information, as I have posted, that is not covered by my agreement because I did not receive the information as staff. A lot of the information is not stuff I saw while on staff but was available to me. Don’t get me wrong I can keep going for a while because of the sheep volume of leaks but the stuff that needs brought to light is mostly from the time I spent on staff or before which is covered by my agreement. I don’t want to wrestle with this. I want a clear answer but none is forthcoming. Do I become a full on whistle blower and likely lose even more friends? Do I take the stand and believe that my friends should understand? Do I consider my friends at all in the face of the damage that CF staff causes with their secrecy and lies?
Bugger it! I just do not know what to do…
UPDATE: As promised the CF staff thread is now removed. It served it’s purpose and has illustrated what I intended it to illustrate. I will say again that I am sad to see even those who were advocating peace in the thread send in removal requests. It is scary just how ingrained the ivory tower mentality is for staff. I applaud those who are not afraid and gave permission for their words to remain.
For those of you that I call friend and are on CF Staff I apologize for this in advance. I know you will not like what is below the fold so to speak. I ask you to stop reading now. If you choose to keep reading please realize that I have had enough of CF and the brutalizing of members that goes on there. You may not see it or you may not care but it has to stop. I have thought long and hard about this. I recieved what is below the fold from an anonymous source and nothing you can say will get me to reveal that source as more might be forthcoming. I am not attacking any of my friends here but you have all long known my feelings about CF and it has gotten worse now. These things must be brought into the light.
I have prayed long and hard about this. I feel that the damage done by lies and secrecy is too great to ignore any longer. I have given away all of my blessings at CF and fully expect to be banned after this posting and I accept that. I cannot stand by and watch the damage done any longer. I pray that those who read farther and are offended by my words and actions contained will forgive me. I pray that my friends who will feel betrayed by this will also forgive me. I stand by my decision. It has not been any easy decision at all to be completely honest. I do this with a heavy heart.
(Read the article)
I have been thinking a lot about pacifism. I don’t mean thinking for a few days but rather a couple of years. Scripture seems to be clear that at the very least self defense is alright:
Luke 22:35 And He said to them, “When I sent you out without money belt and bag and sandals, you did not lack anything, did you?” They said, “No, nothing.” 36 And He said to them, “But now, whoever has a money belt is to take it along, likewise also a bag, and whoever has no sword is to sell his coat and buy one.
It is not a stretch to assume that defense of others would also be allowed since God is not a generally confusing being. The scene at Christ’s arrest is oft quoted in defense of pacifism.
Matthew 26:51 And behold, one of those who were with Jesus reached and drew out his sword, and struck the slave of the high priest and cut off his ear. 52 Then Jesus said to him, “Put your sword back into its place; for all those who take up the sword shall perish by the sword. 53 “Or do you think that I cannot appeal to My Father, and He will at once put at My disposal more than twelve legions of angels?
(Read the article)
Yeah I know it’s a goofy title. But one for the reasons my ‘doze partition has continued to exist is PCDJ FX. Well since I have Ultramix, which is cross platform, I have no need for the MS hell. All the games I play run perfectly under Cedega so that isn’t an issue. Yes even warcraft is perfectly capable of running under it and getting great framerates. So I will be moving files around to create larger partitions and get all of the important files over to EXT3 partitions. Ok I am a huge geek but everything I do I can do in Linux and some it I can do better in Linux. Given equal ground I see no reason to keep around the ‘doze partition and everything is equal in my environment at this time. I do love my tweaking….
I caught something nefarious. Of course it didn’t fool me. Right after I updated yesterday I started getting a pop-up on the main page of the site asking for a user/pass. I checked on the lovely wife’s computer and didn’t get the same. I checked all the file on the server they were all right. I took the time to uninstall some plugins I wasn’t using and then started scanning my machine. I found all the usual tracking cookies and whatnot and even a threat popped up on ClamAV. Of course I had knowingly downloaded the threat so I wasn’t worried about that. I eventually had to remove my settings dir for firefox to get things back to normal. I still don’t know what caused it but I am faily certain it was Windows related. I am certain because I hate Windows and it seems like a good culprit at this point.
I splet late today. I have been doing that every day the be honest. It’s not technically oversleeping because the manic keeps me from sleep for long periods of time. I am getting about 4-5 hours a night right now and am alright with that. But it’s playing hell on my poor stomach.
Michelle isn’t feeling well. So the house is bordering on dirty. Don’t get me wrong me and the kids are trying but it’s honestly not good enough. I don’t know how she does it but she does it better than me. It’s not liek gross or anything but it sure ain’t company worthy. She complains about being bored because there isn’t enough to do and I just think she’s insane. But next week I am back at work and things will magically get better in the house. You see I throw a wrench in the household workings. This week it’s not bad because Michelle is actually ill. I wanted to try and get up on time and help her like she asked me but because of what’s going on her sleep schedule is all broken as well. It’s the amazing heartburn stage of pregnancy so she has to sleep when she can and that is not always when the schedule allows for it. Next week will have to be different.
So life is life. Not much else right now. Nothing to horrible going on and nothing great. Just surviving.
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