August 26th, 2008 by cybrpunk
I don’t know exactly how it happened, but one of the projects that got dumped on me when I got back to the St. Louis office is helping to get Single Sign On working between Active Directory and PeopleSoft. I know nothing about PeopleSoft. Abso-smurf-ly nothing. And yet here I am. It’s running on HP-UX Unix and an ancient Informix database as well. Uh….
And this isn’t just the SSO where PeopleSoft uses LDAP to populate the user IDs. No this is the SSO where people will automatically get logged into PS because they are already authenticated in Active Directory. It seems there is a big difference.
So I don’t know if anyone out there has any experience with that sort of thing, feel free to leave some tips or links in the comments. Otherwise, I’ll just be sitting here… Googling….
August 21st, 2008 by cybrpunk
I had a look at my falling karma score on Plurk and saw someone posting this actual quote: “some very sad and disturbing news from China“. So I click the link thinking I would see something about a bombing or a murder or an athlete being crippled.
But no….
It’s about some stupid kids who actually decided to publicly display a banner to “Free Tibet” outside the Olympics in Beijing. This isn’t sad and disturbing. This is stupid. This is the kind of thing you do if you like foreign prisons. The only way that this could actually be sad or disturbing was if the people involved really had no clue as to the culture and politics and thought that they would be allowed to just do this and walk away. That kind of stupidity would be sad and disturbing. Them being jailed for a stupid stunt in a country like China is just what I would expect and exactly what they should have expected.
I mean come on… we’re talking about a government and military who will never live down the tanks and killings at Tiananmen Square. If these kids with their clever little LED sign only get life in prison then they should count themselves lucky. Of course their parents will complain to the US government to get involved and this will become a media three ring circus of hype and rage and then the American people have “one more reason to hate those evil Chinese”.
What the fuck people. Start thinking: for yourself and for your own good.
August 20th, 2008 by cybrpunk
It’s Wednesday of my second week back in the St. Louis office and things are going fine I suppose. I’m spending about half my day working on issues and projects for Asia Pacific and the second half of my day working on getting up to speed on new projects. Nothing too difficult but very time consuming. A few deadlines are arriving faster than I’d anticipated but I think we can manage. I hope.
We bought a new car on Friday night after work. I’ll post more details about that as well as some pictures later. I don’t have them with me right now.
August 15th, 2008 by cybrpunk
Well, it is Friday morning and I’ve survived my first work week back here in Saint Louis. The jet lag has been hitting me pretty hard as it usually does when I’ve flown back to the States. But I was doing pretty good yesterday and feel pretty good today. I’ve had a persistantly random cough of the phlegmy nature since the flights which also isn’t too unusual for me travelling long distances. The people in the office are a bit concerned that I brought SARS back with me. I tell them they are just being silly. It’s Bird Flu.
I’m planning on leaving work today and venturing up into the unknown wilderness known as St. Peters to buy a car. I’m sure there are ogres and dragons that far away from civilization but there are also a ton of car dealerships so it’s still rather convenient. I’ve got an orange Mitsubishi Lancer GTS being held for me to buy tonight. It’s pretty damn nice. I’ll get some pics snapped maybe this weekend while it’s still all clean and shiny.
August 12th, 2008 by cybrpunk
It was a rough weekend. It was a crappy week. It was a long and tiring month of problems, confusion, anxiety, quiet and sadness. But now I’m back in St. Louis, Missouri and trying to figure out what happens next.
I’ll post more later when I get settled about some of the things that have happened. Not enough time right now and I have to get ready for my second day of work already. Tired.
August 6th, 2008 by cybrpunk
Well, good thing I didn’t actually shut down my computer yet. I woke up this morning to the sounds of water leaking in and getting the clothes I set aside for the next few days as wet as possible. Nice. Hello Typhoon Signal 8, how are you this morning? You blow? Why yes you do.
Just a bit ago, the winds at Ngong Ping (just over the mountain from my home) were blowing at 158 kilometers per hour. For the easy reference of other Americans, that is 98 miles per hour. Wind. 98 miles per hour. That blows.
So now I’m sitting here with nothing to do because everything is packed or at least disconnected. The movers aren’t coming because Hong Kong shuts down completely during a Signal 8 and I have no food in the house or a way to cook it if I did. The milk is spoiled too. This is turning out to be a most excellent experience.
August 5th, 2008 by cybrpunk
The movers are scheduled to arrive at 9:30am tomorrow morning to pack everything up and haul it away for shipping. Muse’s computer is all broken down already and mine’s next. I had to look up some phone numbers and back up all my data before the big move and that took some time.
I’ve got two giant suitcases to check in at the airport and one tiny suitcase to use as my carry-on. The carry-on case pretty much is completely filled with my XBox 360 and Playstation 2 and one of my external hard drives for backups. That and some towels and t-shirts for padding. It’s the only way to be sure.
Tired. I was up till 1:30am last night packing and had to get up early to go to work early. I was falling asleep in a vendor presentation this afternoon. Considering they were presenting to me, that was probably kind of rude. I’ll probably be up again late tonight as it’s almost midnight. Then the circus starts tomorrow morning.
I won’t be in front of a PC again till I reach the office on Thursday morning. I’ll try and give another update then.
August 4th, 2008 by cybrpunk
I’ve got less than four days till I leave Hong Kong. There’s way too much stress and way too many things not going smoothly at all. Things are going the opposite of smoothly. They are anti-smooth. This is one of those cases where having lots of money would fix things. Thus the stress.
The training of my replacement is going well but his arrival delays have introduced even more stress to the situation. I feel like I’m talking non-stop and gushing information but I’m worried how much he’s absorbing. So far, he’s still not getting the names in the office right. I hope he’s only bad with remembering names. Otherwise it could be a long couple of years.
Regardless, I’m still plugging along. I’m trying to get a buffer of comics done for A Little Scary so I can stay on schedule during the move. The Monday comic is up and Thursday’s is ready to roll but I need to create at least one more to make it through the move.
July 31st, 2008 by cybrpunk
My replacement has been here in Hong Kong for a few days now. The training is going along swimmingly I suppose. There’s a lot to cover. I don’t think I’ve talked this much… well… ever.
Some of the things I tell him he already knows. I think some of the things come as genuine surprises. It’s not an easy job. Usually.
Met with him in Wan Chai for a few beers tonight on my way home. Now it’s late and I have a headache. More to do tomorrow.
Medicine and sleep.
July 30th, 2008 by cybrpunk
Haibane Renmei DVD box art
I just finished watching the last few episodes of Haibane Renmei. It’s not the typical anime that would normally appeal to me and I hadn’t even heard of it till I happened to see clips of it from an anime music video. It’s only 13 episodes long and it’s a sad but sweet story that I really enjoyed.
The pacing of it and the feeling I got while watching this show was similar to how I feel when watching My Neighbor Totoro for the ump-teenth time. Which is a good thing because I absolutely love Totoro. Haibane Renmei just seems similar to me for some reason. There’s no real action, no bad guy, no ‘obvious’ conflict. I wrote more but deleted it. If anyone is actually inspired to watch this short series, I’d hate to give away any clues as to what happens. All I want to say is that this is the type of story that will have the more sensitive types with at least a few tears.
And for those who see the characters in this have halos and feathered wings and immediately dismiss the show then it’s your loss. The characters may look something like angels but there’s nothing religious about the series. It has its own mythologies and beliefs that, as far as I could tell, should offend no ones sensibilities.
If this sounds like something you’d like, I would definitely recommend at least a rental. I watched it in Japanese with English subtitles. I know some people are put off by subtitles but they aren’t bad at all here. The dialog is easy to follow.
