Looks like I worried about my driving route to class for nothing. When I went out this morning to head to class I found the road had been re-opened, apparently they only close it off on the weekend. I got to the training center early, as is my habit, and got registered and signed in. Turns out there only four of us in the class and three of us have some NetApp experience. Should be interesting, this is just the Data ONTAP 7.3 Fundamentals class, so hopefully I will get some good information out of the class. The instructor seems pretty knowledgeable and easy to talk to, should be a fun and quick paced class due to both the small class size and the people here. The first day went by pretty quick and so far the knowledge was pretty basic and stuff I already knew, but some of it I had never used so the labs were pretty useful. Looking forward to what the rest of the week brings.
Category Archives: Family
Arrived in Phoenix
Landed in Phoenix earlier today and made my way to my hotel. I actually managed to take a wrong turn on the way to the hotel even with having a GPS unit in the car (a Toyota Corolla) so I am not to thrilled about the potential of me getting lost over the next week. To top it off the main road is closed right outside my hotel in the direction I need to go to get to class. I was able to find a different route to class already, but I have to do it by driving the opposite direction than the GPS says to go, thus forcing it to calculate a new route. The area is nice, though I am already tired of the dessert colors, all of the houses are painted a muted yellowish color or a kind of sand gray, on the bright side the temperature is in the low 70s and the sky is a brilliant blue. I wouldn’t mind having this kind of temperature year round! Can’t wait to see what tomorrow brings.
Training, finally.
For the past year I have been trying to get training approved to help me in my day to day work of supporting a number of NetApp filers, today I was informed that this training has finally been approved. While this is a good thing and I am happy to finally be getting some formal training, I am a little disappointed in the timing. Seems that my manager wants to make certain this training falls on the 2009 budget, so I have pretty much two choices in regards to when I can take this 5 day training class; I can either go to Phoenix AZ next week (11/15/2009 – 11/21/2009) or I can go to NYC the week of Christmas. I really don’t want to be out on training during Christmas, so it looks like I am going to Phoenix next week. I’ve never been to AZ, in fact this will be the furthest west I have ever been, so that is cool. However, I was supposed to be on vacation next week so I could go hunting, so I will miss hunting season for the second year in a row and will need to reschedule my vacation. Well, at least I will be getting my training, I just hope it is worth it in the end due to how much I have already learned from dealing with this hardware on a day to day basis.
Holiday Portraits
Today we went to Sears and had Kylie’s holiday portraits taken. As usual they came out terrific and Kylie did a great job! The pictures are up in the gallery and can be found here. I love that I can get the pictures instantaneously on CD with the copyrights from Sears, so even though we wont have the physical prints for 2 weeks; we already have all the shots from the session. Aren’t digital pictures the greatest?
One Down, One To Go
Today, while I was at work, Joe Richmond from Auto Electronics & Accessories came by and installed my remote starter. I was really satisfied with the work that Joe performed and I loved the fact that he came to me to perform the work. I was able to go out and show him where the truck was parked and hand him the keys and go back in to work while he installed it. When he was done he called me and I went back out and got my new key fob (that controls my locks and the remote starter and replaces the factory key fob, plus the new fob is smaller than the factory one) and he showed me how it works. The distance seems to be pretty good too, so I shouldn’t have any issue starting the truck in the morning at my apartment. I would recommend Joe to anyone looking to have a remote starter installed in their vehicle. Now all I have to do is save up some money and pick out the iPod dock I want to get.
Kylie’s Sick
Tiffany decided to take Kylie to the doctor today because she didn’t look right this morning and has had a fever off and on for a day now. When I met them up at the doctor’s office Kylie, as usual, appeared to be just fine. She was happy and playing and jumping around, but I knew she wasn’t feeling well by her eyes. When Kylie doesn’t feel well here eyes lose there shine and appear to get kind of dull and glazed. This is the main thing that made Tiffany think Kylie wasn’t well and needed to go to the doctor in the first place. Once Kylie was called in they checked her weight (42 pounds) and took her temperature (99.9) and then we waited for the nurse practitioner. When she came in and saw Kylie she asked us what was wrong and Tiffany said “I think Kylie has Strep.” The nurse was shocked and said “This Kylie? You think she has Strep?” After checking Kylie’s ears (which thankfully were clean) she checked Kylie’s throat and said that it was in fact very red, she told us she would need to take a throat swab but was considering having someone else come do it because Kylie was so sweet and happy that she didn’t want to b the one to upset her. We told her that she didn’t have to worry about it because Kylie would do the swab with out issue because she was good with all that type of stuff. So the nurse finally decided she would do it and when she was done Kylie said “That wasn’t bad at all” which made us all laugh. After a few minutes the nurse came back and said “I wouldn’t believe this if I didn’t see the test results myself, but Kylie has Strep.” Tiffany just smirked because she knew Kylie had it to begin with. We started her medication tonight and hopefully in a few days she will be feeling much better.
The Envoy Has Arrived
I turned in my 2006 Dodge Dakota today. The lease is up the first of December, but I have already made my last payment and have already found the new used vehicle I am going to purchase so rather than missing the opportunity to purchase the vehicle I want I decided to turn the Dakota in early. In order to make sure the turn it went well I had the dealer (Cueter Chrysler Jeep) look at it the other day. They found some scrapes and scratches on the front bumper (looks like someone scrapped up against my bumper at one point in time) that could have cost me a penalty to turn it in. So I decided to have my insurance company look at it today and they found me not to be at fault for the damage, and seeing as I have broad form collision coverage on the vehicle, I do not have to pay my deductible to have it fixed. Turns out that there was about $300 worth of damage to the bumper, I am just happy that I do not have to pay anything for it. I do, however, need to make one final payment of $450.50 to Chrysler just to turn the Dakota back in to them, which is more than my truck payment was ($330.00) for the lease.
After spending the afternoon at the insurance companies adjustment office to get the quote and check for the damage to the bumper I went to Cueter to turn in the Dakota, sign off on the ending mileage (27, 622) and present the repair quote and check to their body shop. While this was going on Melissa was nice enough to remove my plate from the truck and then we were able to go get my new truck.
I now own (am buying) a Silver 2006 GMC Envoy 4×4 from Jim Bradley in Ann Arbor. This vehicle has everything I was looking for in an SUV:
- 4 wheel drive
- step ups for Kylie
- tow package with trailer wiring
- remote key-less entry
In addition I still have everything the Dakota had (including adjustable lumbar support, and fog lights), plus I got a few additional features that are just an added bonus:
- Moon roof
- Roof rack
- Auto rearview mirror dimming
- Heated sideview mirrors
I am also having them install one of the other two things I was really looking for; a remote starter. The only other thing I want to eventually add is an iPod dock so I can directly attach my iPod to the stereo. The starting mileage (24,204) is even lower than what I had on the Dakota.
All in all I am really happy with my decision to purchase this vehicle. Even with the added things that I got with it, my monthly payment only went up by $6.88 a month (total purchase price of $19,300), not to bad I think. I am hoping to be able to pay it off sooner than the 6 years I have financed it for as well. The one down side is that I couldn’t get the extended warranty, hopefully nothing goes terribly wrong with it. 🙂
One Point Two
Weighed in this morning at 284.6 for a loss of 1.2 pounds this week. Nothing staggering but it’s always better to lose than to gain. I still need to be more active, but apparently I am doing better. It’s still encouraging to know that I can get back on track if I am more vigilant about what I eat and taking advantage of little exercise I have the ability to get.
Two Tenths
That’s what I have lost over the last week, two tenths of a pound; my current weight is 285.8. I guess it is better than gaining two tenths of a pound, but it’s still not very good. I am not really sure what to do about this situation. I am still trying to find more time to try and be active, but with everything else going on it is just so difficult. I guess this has always been my weak point though, finding the time and the motivation to do the things I know I need to, at least when it comes to this. I need to try harder, be more vigilant, be stronger.
C is for cookie
Tonight Kylie and Melissa made some Pillsbury spooky cat sugar cookies. Melissa was at 
the store the other day and saw them and thought it would be fun for her and Kylie to do something together, so tonight they made them. Kylie had a blast laying the cookies on the cookie sheet and spending some time in the kitchen. We don’t do much baking of any kind here so this was also the first time we used the Calphalon cookie sheet I bought like three years ago. I find that amusing. The cookies were very yummy and Kylie was very proud and happy that she got to help. I even remembered to snap the above picture of the cookies before we ate them all (there was 24 in the pack). Hopefully this is something we will do more of over the cooler months, perhaps we could even make some from scratch?