My first day of work at Fayetteville State University was on August 7, 1995.  Today is Friday, August 7, 2015.  Twenty years working at FSU.  I was hired by Mr. Leo Taylor, then Director of MIS (later became ITTS) Management Information Systems.

Leo and I became good friends.  His direction, in my writing a job description,  was instrumental in my receiving a significant pay increase several years into my employment.  He retired from FSU and then worked several years for Sprint.  Leo was originally from Washington, NC (“Little Washington”), and his mother, “Silver,” still lived in Washington until her death at the end of 2013.  Leo had a “love-hate” relationship with Silver.  He loved to hate her;-)  Leo died in April of 2014.  I miss him.

I had breakfast at the Rainbow Restaurant before work this morning.

The morning was the usual blend of various technical feats.  I walked across campus and installed a couple of updates of software in an office.  I did the last push to get some FIU technicians their account info so that they could login to our Canvas LMS.  They will be assisting some of our Accounting Department faculty with getting the curriculum fully online.

I was thinking about what might be a special treat for lunch and then decided to go to the “Hibachi Grill & Supreme Buffet” on Ramsey Street.  This restaurant is in the remodeled, former Golden Corral.  I used to go to the Golden Corral at least a couple of times a week.  Although the restaurant looks little like it did for many years, I still feel comfortable there and enjoy the Oriental Cuisine.  However, I do like the shrimp and normally get a “mess” of them, peeling, dipping them in Cocktail Sauce, and eating them as my first plate.  I’ll get a slice of watermelon, and/or a slice of cantaloupe and add sweetner to the melon and salt the cantaloupe.  I may get a cup of egg drop soup, to which I may add some steamed won tons, and some chopped onion tops.  I’ve finally reached the age of a “Senior.”  They only charge $7.12 (tax included) for the Buffet and water.  I think the normal cost is $8.43, or there abouts.

If they want to charge more for the Senior meal, that’s okay with me.  If they don’t want to give a Senior Discount, that would be okay also… but, if they are offering a discount, then I am going to take advantage of it.  I have spent many years, not being a “Senior,” and paying full price.  I don’t want them to go out of business either.

After a late lunch, the afternoon became progressively more stormy.  And then, there was a crack and the office went black.  There was an unusual grinding sound as if something was attacking a large mechanical unit and then the sound of several battery backups beeping.   My monitors were black screened and no hum came from my PC.  I did note that the power light was still on for my laptop, which is running Ubuntu OS, but that is because some time ago I replaced its dead battery with one from one of the old laptops that was being retired.  I had also doubled the RAM in similar fashion.

The offices and halls were dark except for the degraded light filtering through the large exterior windows.  A year or so ago, a film was applied to the glass panes to reduce the heat & light to the interior.  This was a mixed blessing because the office environment was made more pleasant, but the exterior always seems to be either early morning or twilight.  I have a yard light that is solar powered sitting on my window ledge.  It used to gain enough power during the day that the light bulb would shine when you covered the top of the unit.  It doesn’t charge enough now with the film on the window.

The offices were quickly abandoned as staff found their way outside for various reasons.  I decided to go home.

At home, I notified several people of the power outage and which apps were affected.  The battery backups kept some apps running for a while, but then I think most or all of the apps were shut down until power was restored.  Blackboard, Canvas and WordPress became unavailable.  Although Blackboard and Canvas are both hosted off-site at different locations, authentication (ADFS, LDAP) is handled from our server(s) on-campus and these were unavailable to authenticate users for several hours.

So, that was my day… twenty years at FSU and counting.

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In early 2011 I was diagnosed with Type 2 Diabetes.  Note that I had a rapid weight loss.  It is amazing how disciplined I can be when necessary.  However, there does seem to be a plateau at about the 230 lbs. range that I mentally cannot get beyond.  I hit this area, and then flounder and pretty quickly regain most of the weight.  Look like I’ve managed to reduce by about 20 lbs. during this time.

I had bought a cheap Dell Inspirion touch-screen PC for home, somewhere in the last year.  I got it from Best Buy, and it was a “return” unit.  It had Windows 8.1 on it, which I was not enamored by.  I did note that the unit would often go to the “Blue Screen of Death” and I had thought that the unit probably had some bad memory which was causing this.  So, I had left the unit off for months, just sitting there collecting dust.

Then over the weekend, I decided to start it up again, and then it came to me to see if I could get the free Windows 10 upgrade.  I found the upgrade request site and put my email address in.  At some point the little Window icon appeared on my Task Bar, and when I opened up the window from it, it said that Windows 10 was downloading in the background and it would notify me when I could start the Upgrade process.

Last night, I finally saw that the files had finished downloading and I started the Upgrade to Windows 10 process.  I think it took less than an hour, and when it was through I started using Windows 10.

Windows 10 seems to start up quicker, and I have been pleasantly surprised by the interface.  Enough like Windows 7, which I still use at work, and yet combining the Windows 8 interface.

ADDENDUM [8/15/15]:  I have continued to be happy with Windows 10.  I haven’t had a “blue screen of death” since I installed W10.  I installed Snagit successfully yesterday.  I’ve modified the background screens.

Michael Diamond’s TWC marketing letter came to me while I was waiting for my “rescheduled” appointment with the TWC Installer.  The letter encourages to come back to TWC and there are no hassle, 1 hour scheduled wait times for services installation.

Well, the TWC installer showed up sometime before 5:32 pm on the originally scheduled afternoon, and left a notice about “Sorry we missed you,” when the schduled time was to be between 6 pm – 7 pm, and they never came back that afternoon/night.  So, I rescheduled for a “first hour of the day” installation time, even though I had to come into work a little later, and the installer showed up and everything went fine.  The installation was 11 days from the originally scheduled time.

I’ve been in this apartment for about 3 years.  About 3 years ago, the TWC installer was supposed to show up between 6 pm – 7 pm… They didn’t show up then either.  No one came to the door.  No one tried to call, because I had my cell phone with me all during that time.  The next day when I called to reschedule, I was told that I hadn’t been at home.  I corrected that bit of misinformation immediately.  That rescheduled appointment was for first thing Saturday morning.  The TWC installer came and everything went fine.

Okay, so if I ever need a TWC installer to come, I’m damned sure not going to schedule a time after 5 pm.  You can’t rely on those tasked during that time to show up, or call.  I’m not saying all evening installers are untrustworthy, but I’m batting 100% so far, to the negative.

So, that is why I say that Michael Diamond with TWC doesn’t have a clue about 1 hour scheduled times for installation.  If he did, what could he do?  Probably not a thing… except quit promising something that HE couldn’t deliver in his marketing letters & TV commercials.

—

Yale School of Drama Board of Advisors, MFA

Paines Plough Theatre Company

I think the former restaurant was called “Miami Subs”.  They tore this down and built PDQ.  I thought there was no reason for me to go to a “chicken tenders” place, but I’m glad I did.

They have a very good Grilled Chicken Salad, which includes warm grilled chicken chunks, sliced roasted almonds, dried cranberries, small red tomatoes, thin carrot sticks and assorted lettuces.  They have a default blueberry dressing, but I prefer either the Ranch or Honey Mustard ones.

There is a large helping of salad here for under $7 including tax and water to drink.

The drink dispenser reminds me of something out of the Jetsons.  It has a computerized interface.  Press the little aqua colored digital “Water” button and then press the actual dispenser button for water.  Get lost, there is a small Back arrow in the upper left of the interface.  Trust me.  I did not find that on my own.

The staff are friendly, upbeat, and attentive to customers.

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If the act they were engaged in was a felony, wouldn’t “felony homicide” apply and the death, although an “accident,” would be considered “murder”?

I did a quick search and it seems that drug trafficking would fit under some form of “felony”.

I was just visiting the Azalea Festival 2015 web site and started looking at past queens and dignitaries.  I find it hard to believe that the list included Martha Hyer, Esther Williams, Shelley Fabres, Debra Paget & Ronald Regan.

I don’t think I ever see a movie with Martha Hyer in it that I don’t say, “Now that’s a pretty woman!”

It’s been a long time since I posted to WordPress via email.

Sent on a Sprint Samsung Galaxy S® III

Not sure what prompted me over the weekend to purchase an Amazon Fire TV box (with game controller). It arrived yesterday afternoon (12/9/14).

I had heard Payam talking about getting his and how fast it was, how easy the setup was, and how well the voice recognition feature worked. He was right!

I just hooked up the HDMI cable (came with it although the documentation said it wasn’t included) to the box and my TV. The little black box is about 5.5“ x 5.5” and about a half inch thick. I hardwired a network cable into it. I didn’t have to enter any authentication info for the network connection. The System also already had my Amazon Prime account so I didn’t have to put that info in the first time. *I say first time because at some point, I was setting up my YouTube account, and the sound went out on all videos. I didn’t know a better fix, so I just reset the whole Fire TV setup, which meant this time I had to manually enter my Amazon Prime account info… and my Netflix account info (which I had done the first time also).

After the reset and completion of the Fire TV setup, the audio was working on all videos, including the YouTube videos. I also connected my YouTube Channel (had to use my phone & browser to activate).

Previously, I have been using my Logitech Revue to view Netflix, and my Chromebook to view my Amazon Prime videos. The Review works well, but the video quality wasn’t 1080p, and the video player for Amazon Prime videos in the Chromebook would regularly fail. But, both Netflix and Amazon Prime videos are crisp (even Goldfinger, James Bond 007) and there is no delay. They have played, for half a day with no hiccups.

I hooked up the game controller and tried one of the games that came with the purchase. I have passed my gaming days. I just don’t want to spend the time to become proficient in playing them as I did when I was younger.

Overally, the Amazon Fire TV is a very good purchase and experience!