Random and occasional thoughts on

A week is an eternity for someone like me to live without their main computing machine, so facing the prospect of 2 weeks of waiting and fighting with the rest of the family for computer time was daunting. But that was the only way to get my laptop back to fully working condition. Return shipping to the repair center was "next afternoon" service, so I was pleasantly surprised when the next morning I got an email (email on the phone has become vital without a laptop) saying they had received it and were starting to work on it. Estimates were 7-9 working days before they would send it back. The next afternoon (Friday) I got another email saying it was on it's way back. FedEx web site confirmed that it was on its way and should be home Monday afternoon. Now the questions are: 1. Is everything working? 2. Did I get my own hard drive back or will I spend the next 2-3 weeks reinstalling and reconfiguring things to my liking? Stay tuned for updates...

My main machine is in a box on it's way to Texas for repairs, so updates may be a bit scarce here for the next week or so. I have all my important files and stuff backed up on 2 different hard drives and am planning on using the family machine to get a few blog posts up, but there will probably be less posts for the next couple weeks. In the meantime, feel free to browse some of my older posts. Comments on the older posts will not be posted till I moderate them, but that is just to make sure a spam-bot doesn't go crazy on me. Plus that ensures that I don't overlook a comment on an older post. Also, you can feel free to checkout my photoblog over at Flowing Desert Photography . I may be a bit less frequently visible on Twitter during the week, but feel free to give me a shout there if you want to say hi. See you soon.

St George Utah is a very scenic place and Utah is close for me, so I could drive there and not worry about shipping my bike. May temperatures in Utah should be no worse than April in Arizona was last year. It would be a beautiful area to race in, but I am wondering how tough the course is going to be. I remember pulling our camper through this area years ago and remember some brutal climbs, but I don't know how they have mapped the course will lay out. Has anyone done a mapmyrun or mapmytri on this yet? Anyone already register for this? Leave me a comment or shout out on Twitter .

Twitter is a great tool for making connections. I think of it as a cross between email and instant messaging, combined with a dose of bulletin board and forums. What do I mean by that? Here is how I see these different technologies being commonly used: Email: Usually used for non-real time communication for things where an answer can wait anywhere from few minutes to several days or longer. All parties in the communication do not need to be present at the same time for email to be effective. Email is "directed messaging", that is to say, you specify the username(s) of the intended recipient(s). Barring security glitches or forwarding by a recipient, anyone not on the distribution list is not going to see the message. Instant Messaging: IM is usually used for interactive conversation. Very helpful for troubleshooting or actively working on a problem. If all parties are not available at the same time, IM does not work. Like email, IM is "directed messaging". ...

Though I have been an Oracle DBA for about a decade, I have only recently started taking on responsibility for some of the other tiers that are part of Oracle Applications, Portal, Enterprise Manager and Oracle Management Server. I am a part of a small team that has not had much training other than on the job experience in these areas. We are managing pretty well, but are still trying to find easier and better ways to manage things. The latest issue was discovered by one of our team as they were doing some preventative system checks. They noticed some largish log files and added them to the archive and clean script. These new files bring to 4 the number in this particular system and as we were discussing it, we wondered several things. The current list $ORACLE_HOME/mid/webcache/logs/access_log $ORACLE_HOME/mid/j2ee/OC4J_Portal/log/OC4J_Portal_default_island_1/default-web-access.log $ORACLE_HOME/infra/j2ee/OC4J_SECURITY/log/OC4J_SECURITY_default_island_1/default-web-access.log $ORA...

Giovanni arrived to the world late last week allowing my little brother to finally become a fellow member of the "Fathers of boys" club. I am sad to report that none of Giovanni's cousins that have met so far wanted to spend any time with him. Just kidding. Not since the arrival of the Wii game system in our house have I seen my boys argue over sharing this much. Giovanni's parents also seem to be pretty taken in with him which is a good thing since they will be spending a lot of time with him for the next 15 years or so. A few more pictures over at my photoblog if you still have not gotten your fill of baby pictures. Clicking on any picture will take you to a bigger version.

My youngest son told me a few weeks ago that he didn't remember ever shooting a gun. He had come with a few years ago once or twice when I took his older brother, but he hadn't wanted to go since then. As it had been about a month since I had been to a range, we made plans to go to a local public range this past weekend. My Dad came with and brought his .22 revolvers with as they were a good size for a new shooter. I brought my guns with as well since I wanted to shoot the long guns as well as get some trigger practice with my 9mm pistol. The weather was a perfect Arizona winter. Not cold enough for anything more than a t-shirt and not hot enough to get dehydrated. After showing my son how to load, cock, aim and fire one of the .22 revolvers and supervising him for awhile, my Dad took over supervising duty and I loaded up the .308 and got started on my targets. My target was about 40 yards away and I was shooting from a bench and leaning on a cement shooting table withou...

I just watched The Flying Scotsman about cyclist Graeme Obree. I thought it was a pretty good movie and it got me thinking about other sports or athletics movies. I realized I could not think of very many off the top of my head so I asked my friends on Twitter for some ideas. Instead of just giving you a list of movies, I am going to put them in some general categories. I know they could all be put in other categories, but I'll let you provide feedback as I have not seen most of these. Leave me a note in the comments and I'll continue refining this list with better categories as I get them. Documentaries What it Takes Ironman - Triathelete documentary Running on the Sun - about the Badwater ultramarathon The Runner - about ultra runner David Horton Spirit Of The Marathon Other (motivational, inspirational, love story, etc.) The Flying Scotsman Breaking Away Remember the Titans Little Giants Rudy Facing The Giants Hoosiers Tin Cup Comedies Wildcats Sandlot Mighty Ducks Roo...