back in the swing of things…
by Travis on Jan.06, 2009, under General, Personal
You know, I have to say I’m extremely glad to be back into a “normal” routine. There is only so much time off someone should take and I think I maxed it. lol I ended that vacation a wreck. The last two days have been nice getting back up at 430 in the morning to workout and being at work during the day. I miss hanging out with my family but my body is so much happier. It seems to be operating in a little smoother, albeit ready to shutdown by 8pm, mode. Either way, it’s good to be doing some productive work again. I’ve come into the new year with new projects to get my butt in gear right off and so far, so good. Lots of fun things to work on.
So I’ve picked up Russian again. Hopefully this time I’ll get it to stick a little better and be able to use it more regularly since Amanda is interested in learning it. Due to the fact the kids will be raised bilingual in Spanish and English we have to have something to communicate in that they can’t understand right? lol It’s actually been pretty remedial throughout this first part of the course. I’ve blown through the first two units and have remembered most of the vocabulary and for a change I actually have the alphabet down pretty well. The hard part is that stupid grammatical nonsense. So frustrating but what do you do? I’ll get it. At least this time it’s much easier to remember where and when to change the last syllables of words. At the rate I’m going I should be finished up with Level 1 by the end of the week and be able to move on to Level 2. That’s where the big slow down will be, lol. I’m sure I’ll spend a good solid month on that.
In other news, the kiddo is getting huge. Well, both of em… Arwen is just a couple inches shy of 4′ (46″) and Travis is an inch shy of 2′ (23.5″). It’s hard to believe she’ll be 6 this year and he’s going into his third month. The little guy is already trying to babble his head off sometimes. It’s amusing. I actually forgot how entertaining it can be to have a baby around.
Well, that’s about it for now. 🙂
mid-holidays
by Travis on Dec.30, 2008, under General
It’s that place between Christmas and New Years… Not quite the spot between asleep and awake but you get the point. It’s a haze none the less. Some are on vacation, some are working for a few days… many find themselves preparing those “New Years Resolutions” in recap of all the craziness of Christmas and the aftermath that ensues naturally with consuming too much food and sometimes too much alcohol. So what’s yours? Do you have the typical ones? Lose weight, be a better parent, perform better in your job, save more money, get out of debt? Funny how many see that new year mark as a new beginning, a place to “start over” while others just see it as another day and the doorway to another birthday approaching. Well however you view it, may it be a safe one and if you have them, may you carry through with all your resolutions to the fullest.
I’m going to go back to enjoying my vacation and doing… NOTHING. 🙂
Stroking the ego of Exagrid :)
by Travis on Dec.15, 2008, under Tech Stuff
So, it’s been a while since I’ve stroked some ego’s over at Exagrid in a blog post so here comes one and it’s more than due. First off, those who have read the posts and reached David Lyne or as we’ll call him from here on out “The Dave”, thanks for passing along that you got info from my site. It makes me feel like it’s worth writing these posts and people actually read them. 🙂
So… onto the expansion of self-image and speaking of “The Dave”. We had received three units for other locations in the company and upon setting them up we discovered a completely new look courtesy of the latest version update that included an overhaul of the GUI. Two words “F`n Sweet”. Everything I want to know about my sites in a nice summary snapshot with the ability to drill down into reports on anything I could think of at the touch of my fingers. The only thing lacking? Our three units previously installed had no love.
One quick call over and David was on it. Updated completely on all systems in less than an hour. The product has come a long way even in the short time we’ve been using them. I truly have enjoyed being able to check on information about specific deduplication jobs while they are occurring and seeing how they are faring. Not to mention being able to summarize all jobs based on the share and find out how it’s handling new additions to the backups.
So it’s not the clearest screenshot due to size constraints in this post, but the visuals are not the only reason why we’re ordering more. LOL Our average de-duplication is still rocking along. I’m able to retrieve data back to June and we’re still clearing 11.67:1 in the whole site. Our biggest backup portion is at 13.63:1 that totals 41,135.6GB down into 3,018.84 GB. How’s that for some fun? Even better is the SQL backups. 18.66:1 (1,446.6 GB collapsed into 77.53 GB)
This build also seems much more stable than it’s predecessors and has been running quite well since we upgraded a few weeks ago. I’m really impressed with how things have been improving. Only one more site to go and we’ll be fully deployed. Ahhh… to be able to sleep at night. 🙂
All in all I have to give those guys out there at Exagrid a pat on the back for a job well done. Both in development *AND* support.
As always, if anyone has questions, feel free to send them my way. I will hopefully get some time in the next few weeks to finish up a little white paper on optimizing bandwidth utilization using EX5000’s with Commvault.
Back to the grinding wheel! 🙂
How do you know when the US economy is in bad shape?
by Travis on Dec.15, 2008, under General
When Mexicans pack up and head back, move to the South East and even crazier… move to Idaho or Alaska!
Seriously… I’m not poking fun and you couldn’t make this up.
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DENVER (AP) – The traditional holiday migration back home for many Mexican nationals living in Colorado is different this year.
Some say they have no intention of returning to Colorado, citing layoffs, dwindling job opportunities, and a perceived anti-immigrant sentiment.
Mexico’s consul general in Denver, Eduardo Arnal, says proof that more people are going home for good is in the rise in applications by Mexican nationals wanting to take all their belongings home without being tax. The consulate says it now receives about three applications a day, compared to one per week in 2007.
Nationally, applications for the exemption rose more than 25 percent this year.
That’s hardly an indicator of a reverse migration trend, according to Carlos Rico, Mexico’s undersecretary for North American affairs. However, Rico says there is proof that some Mexicans are moving to other states — often places that historically have not seen a large population of Mexicans. Rico says they include North Carolina, Georgia, Idaho and Alaska.
