Lots of work

We did a major IT change at work this past weekend. This results in 2 things.

1. I spend a large amount of time making changes to the network, computers, software and a pleura of other changes.
2. I spend even more time addressing the bugs that pop up and the user issues and training that has resulted from the large change.

So I've been very busy the past few days and it has finally slowed down to where I can blog. I am excited for the changes we have made with our system. It is now a more secure system and I have more responsibility with translates into greater job security.

Jen and I finally found an out of town excursion that we can do. In April we will fly to Denver and enjoy a sci-fi convention that we've enjoyed before. Thanks to my Mom taking our kids and Carl for getting us discount ticket. That, plus spring finally arriving, has made life look happier and fun.

Power to the people...who pay their power bills

I have a very cool little device in my office called a sensor phone. It is cool because it can call me if someone walks into my office, it detects water in the server room, the air conditioner has gone out or the is a power loss. The device is cool because it can do these things, but I have started to loath the device as it has been keeping me from getting a good night sleep on Sunday nights. 3 of the past 6 Sunday nights, I have received a call from this device in the middle of the night about a problem. This week of was due to a power outage.

Sunday night we had a pretty strong wind storm. Because our company gets its power feed from hanging power lines, it was affected by the wind storm and we lost power at 11pm Sunday night. Apparently we were not the only ones affected as the power company did not get out to see us until 1130am, conveniently the same time we had our generator finally hooked up and going. At noon, we finally had the power restored. That was when my life got busy.

Since I am in charge of all the servers for the company, I then spent the remainder of the day bringing the servers back up and testing to ensure that everything worked. We had also performed some upgrades to our delivery system over the weekend so not only was I trying to fix the problems caused by the power outage, but also the bugs that are showing up from the upgrade. This kept life pretty busy for me. Although there are advantages to being busy. Time flies and your day does not seem to be long drawn out moment of boredom.

I like my job and am very thankful for the means it gives me to provide for my family. But an example given by my boss correctly describes how life in the IT world works. "IT is like a plane ride. For most of the time, things are running extremely smooth. But at the end there is usually 2 minutes of hell."

Vivia Las Vegas

I am the IT specialist for my entire company. That includes all the branches that we have in Ogden, Orem, St. George and Las Vegas. So I occasionally need to go to these branches to provide on site IT services. This last Monday I flew down to Las Vegas to set up the phones and Internet connection for our new office in Las Vegas.

As many have found out, it was hot in Vegas. I found myself sweating a lot while I progressed with my work. When I has done, my local co-workers commented that I was lucky to be in town while it was cool. I thought it was hot and so was glad to not be there when it was truly hot.

I had arrived with a list of tasks to accomplish and was disappointed that one could not be completed. I could not get the new office to securely connect to our main office, via a VPN tunnel. By the time I left town, the issue was out of my hands, but I was still disappointed as this was the first trip I had taken like this where I did not complete all of my goals. We got the connection corrected by the next day, so I guess it was OK. But the perfectionist in me was mad that it was not done before I flew back home.

Thanks to the help of my friend Shane (or as I call him, Doctor Cox, because he is like a mentor.) I had some entertainment while I was waiting in the airport or on my flight. He had loaned me the movie "Hot Fuzz." The movie was absolutely hilarious. A super cop from London is sent to the most boring country town in England, but uncovers a underground local conspiracy to murder. The movie had some language and graphic murder scenes. But even those were trying to be funny when they were used. I found myself extremely entertained and it helped me pass the time during the travel.

Hopefully my next post will be about our current housing situation. When we have any official word, we will be happy to share it.