travis' brain dump

well not really. I would think if I was slacking off I would post more. The truth is I’ve been extremely busy and I don’t think it’s going to end anytime soon. On a brighter note, things are progressing well all around. The garden is growing out of control. The remodel project has entered into it’s framing phase for the downstairs now that we have the fireplace and I’m about to get around to fixing my car finally and that’s just to name a few.

It’s been a mad rush to get a lot of things completed by the time the baby comes along. Thankfully I’m still running on schedule for the remodel downstairs and should be all complete by the end of September. The downside to that is, once Arwen has moved downstairs and the upstairs room is free, it’s cram time to get that room done in two months. Thankfully I don’t have a ton to do or I would be a little stressed. *cough*

Work is going well. We’re on the road to completion of the backup solution so with three sites left I can see the light at the end of the tunnel… oh wait… that’s the headlights on the Exchange 2007 deployment. *sigh*

Anyway, still alive and hopefully I’ll be posting up plenty of new posts in the near future.

So somewhere in between all of the work I’ve been doing lately, the workout routines and the random stuff I’ve been posting up lately I’ve neglected to just post for no other reason than to just say hello to the world and give a little status to my friends/family out there who swing by here on occasion.

Most of the happenings in my life have been followed through the previously mentioned categories but there is one thing worth mentioning which has not been covered. For some of you who have kept up with the private posts, this is old news… heck you’ve even seen some pictures, hehe. But for those who don’t, then this will be news for you. Come this November, our family will be increasing by +1, a little boy. Terrifying thought, I know. I personally find a balance between absolute joy and complete fear, hehe. I mean c`mon, another me running around? *gasp*

Well, if life wasn’t busy enough, here it goes again right? 🙂 We’re really excited though and there will be plenty of pictures up for those relatives who wish to “follow the baby”. I’ll be setting up a photo gallery when I get a chance this weekend if all goes well. That is if I can fit it in, LOL. 

Other than that things are going well otherwise. We finally got a pretty good garden off the ground. Some slight failures in the brocolli, peppers and melons but the cucumbers, pumpkins, corn, carrots and beans are definitely taking off. Amanda seems well please with it’s progress although she’s a little irritated at the weeds and the squirrels who keep stealing her strawberries right now. We definitely need to come up with a solution which doesn’t involve me poisoning the entire batch or sitting out back with a high powered pellet rifle. 🙂 Maybe some small chicken wire or something, who knows.

I also took a little break from remodeling the downstairs last weekend to upgrade Arwen’s playhouse which was a lot of fun. It was a nice switch up from other projects going on around the house. I was able to remove the rotting out wood porch and replace it with brick and replace her shake roof with a nice modern asphalt shingle one. She’s quite pleased to say the least and waiting impatiently for me to finish up the inside and clean it out. After that it’s up to Amanda to get some paint picked out for it and finish the job. I’ve been informed I have terrible taste in color picking for a little girl’s playhouse. *shrug* I think that’s a good thing though, lol.  

Back in the house, I’m hoping if all goes well to have the downstairs finished up and waiting on carpet and a fireplace by the middle of August. If I can just make that goal then I’ll feel pretty comfortable about getting the upstairs room done in time for the baby. Like I said, it’s definitely going to be busy for the next 4 1/2 months but I’m confident I’ll be able to get it done.

Well, that’s about it for the public/personal update. 🙂 Hope all is well with everyone.

Ok, this week is by far the busiest week I think I have ever gone through, PERIOD! 

For the record… It’s never good when you’re doing a MAJOR deployment of a company DR/Backup solution to have your counterpart on vacation… This entire week has been one thing after another, lol. If it hasn’t been the rush of things breaking it has been the constant workload trying to get this solution deployed. Nothing like juggling the usual issues rolling in with the deployment while having two people in your office for half the week. 🙂

And in case you ever wonder…. CommVault Galaxy + Exagrid = abso-friggin-lutely awesome! Nothing like doing a backup that took you 50+ hours to tape in less than 24 for the first backup then using synthetic full’s being able to complete all backup jobs to disk in less than 5 hours from there on out. We’ll still have to see how the tape portion moves this weekend but it should be a lot better considering we have dedicated connections between the storage point and the tape devices now. So far I’ve gotten our Denver and Tulsa offices online. That only leave 5 more to go, LOL. All in all it should be pretty quick now that we have the system all figured out.

I’ll be so glad when this is all deployed… Then we can sleep at night. 🙂

In both cases, it’s survival of the fittest.

For the record… I am super glad the party did not exceed the 15 people it did today… nothing like having a birthday party planned out based on a weather forcast that states ‘ 20% chance of late showers ‘ all the way up until the night before where it basically says ‘ the day is going to suck, hope you didn’t have outdoor plans ‘ … Yes… it rained on Arwen’s birthday and it forced the entire party into the house. Words cannot describe how happy I am that there were only five children present for my daughter’s 5th birthday. All in all despite the jungle things could be much worse. The house isn’t in too bad of a wreck and the only casualty seemed to be the kitchen floor which is a big win I say. Most the house has been cleaned and things have calmed down… back to work tomorrow so I need to get to bed. 

Thanks to those who came out to pack the house and chow down. 🙂