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May 31, 2006

Termination of Fiber Optics

I learned how to do something really neat today. I can now terminate a fiber optic cable using LC ends. Now, before you go "ooh" and "aah", it's important to note that this is the easiest possible way to field terminate a fiber cable. These ends are designed to install fast, as in under a few minutes. There's no polishing or epoxy required.

Here's what a LC terminated cable looks like.

Here's the jist of how it works:

1. Strip the outer coating which in the world of fiber optics is called the buffer.
You have to measure back 40mm to make the strip, make a mark and use wire strippers to pull the buffer off. You have to be careful here, otherwise you can break the fiber.

2. Remove the kevlar string.
This stuff just goes everywhere and is hard as hell to cut. A typical pair of scissors just won't cut it. You really need scissors that come in a fiber optic cable kit.

3. Once the 40mm buffer has been removed, remove 4mm more.
Since we've removed the kevlar string from the original stripping, we're going to uncover 4mm more. This 4mm of string is important for the stability of the termination.

4. Take the termination kit and put on the boot, the snap-on clamp thingie, and the metal jacket ring.
All of these things come with the termination kit. They're all important, and need to be put in place in the order that I gave before you strip the fiber clean.

5. Strip the cladding, the color coating covering the fiber.
To do this, you have to use a special tool that cuts the cladding just right and allows you to pull it off so to expose the fiber. It's important to note that you will need to make this cut roughly 4mm from the base of the buffer, which in turn will leave 4mm of cladding exposed. While holding pressure and holding the fiber cable at a straight line, slowly pull the tool towards the end of the fiber to remove the cladding. Too fast or too hard, and the fiber will break and you'll have to start again.

6. Clean up the fiber and break it to length.
Once the cladding is removed, you'll have 40mm of bare fiber. You won't want to use the entire 40mm. Instead, you use a tool to measure out a certain amount of exposed from the exposed 4mm cladding. A clamp holds the fiber in place while a razor edge makes a clean cut and allows you to break the line clean.

7. Setup the terminator to accept the exposed fiber.
At this point, the fiber cable is ready to go. It's just a matter of setting up the terminator to accept the cable and then be crimped. This portion is hard to explain unless you have the crimp tool in front of you. Needless to say, it requires a laser light, a fiber jumper cable, an adaptor to plug into your terminator end and a crimp tool to hold it all.

8. Insert the fiber and crimp the terminator.
Using the laser light, you can determine if your fiber is inserted into the terminator properly. If it's not making a good connection, the laser light bleeds out. Once a good connection is made, then the light goes out. A simple press of a lever crimps the fiber into place on the terminator. At this point, there is a metal jacket that is crimped between the terminator and the cable to hold them in place and provide strength to the overall end.

9. Place the boot and clip in place.
Once the crimps are done, the boot and clip that hold everything together are slid up from the fiber cable and locked into place on top of the metal jacket that is now crimped to the cable and terminator.

10. Rinse and repeat.
This is only one end. You need to put another terminator on the other end of the cable. Then you need to test it out and make sure that it's all working properly. If not, then you've wasted two terminators and need to start all over again.

Sounds like a ton of fun, eh? And just think ... this is the EASY way to do it.

Bleh.

~out...

Posted by ed at 08:20 PM | Comments (0)

May 28, 2006

Under 3 Weeks To Go

Today marks the 2 week and 6 day point from which Amanda and my wedding will take place. I'm not going to do the countdown in this post, as I'm sure that people are intelligent enough to do the math their own. If you're not, just know that it's coming up soon.

Today:

Amanda's best friend, Jennifer, showed up at our apartment today with her mother, Virginia. Since Virginia hadn't seen Amanda in the wedding dress as of yet, Amanda stole away into the bedroom to put it on so that she could see it. When she came out of the bedroom and into the living room, the look on Virginia's face was priceless. Before you knew it, all three of them were in the hallway just near tears.

It's just a wedding dress...

While the women were gushing and such, I spent the time playing with the kids. Nolan spent his time on the Xbox while Mason and I played with a helium balloon with a small plastic weight on it in the shape of a clown. We bounced the balloon back and forth for a bit until he got tired of it and moved on.

Finally, Jennifer and her mom said it was time to leave and as quick as they had arrived, they were gone.

In other news:

With the little time remaining before the wedding, I realized tonight that I have yet to see the church where we're going to be married. Keep in mind that this is the church that Amanda's mom and grandmother goes to, which is the main reason why we're having the wedding there. I've never personally been there, but I've heard good things about it.

There are several things that I'm wanting to look at:

1. The audio area
Since we're poor and as such will be doing our own music, I want to get an idea of the media room at the church and what it can handle. I'm thinking of loading up a DVD with MP3's but I want to make sure that they have the equipment available to play the DVD. If not, I'll have to bring in my portable DVD player which *does* play MP3's off of a DVD.

2. The reception area
I have no clue what size the reception area is going to be. I would like to know exactly how big this area is so that we can make some final decisions in regards to the music that's going to be played. If there's no room to dance, then we won't need to worry about dance music.

3. Video camera position
My biological father, Ed, gave Amanda and I an early wedding present last week, a digital video camera. His thought was that we might want to record our wedding, so he gave us the present early. It was a nice thing for him to do, but now we need to find a place to setup the camera so we can record the wedding.

I'm sure that there'll be more things to add to my list regarding the church once I have some time to look it over and figure out how everything is layed out.

Well, these weeks keep flying by faster and faster. Look for another post around this time next week.

~out...

Posted by ed at 10:22 PM | Comments (0)

May 21, 2006

Suse 10.1 and Linksys WPS54G Print Server

I just figured out how to get our Linux machines here at the house to print to our Linksys WPS54G wireless print server using Suse 10.1. Since it works so well, I thought that I'd write up a how-to so that I can 1) teach others and 2) remember how the heck I did it should I ever have to do it again in the future. Keep in mind that we use Gnome here at the house, so if you're using KDE, I'm afraid that your out of luck. Sorry.

First, you need to configure the wireless print server to have a static IP address using the Web based interface on the device. Once this is done, you can move on to the printer configuration of your machine.

The Suse 10.1 Gnome Applications menu navigating to Printers.

By default, Suse 10.1 (and 10.0 if I remember correctly) installs CUPS and has an easy to use printer configuration tool. To get to this tool, you click on the Applications menu, followed by Utilities. Inside of this menu, you will see another option called Printing. Click on this option and three more options will appear. Click on Printers to continue. This will open the Printers window.

The Printers window, where you can add a new printer.

To add a new printer, simply double click on the "New Printer" icon to begin the process. This will open the "Add a Printer" wizard, which allows you to select either a locally attached printer or a network printer. Since this is a network print server, we're interested in the "Network Printer" option. When selecting Network Printer, the drop down menu to the right will be selectable, allowing you to select a network printing option. In this case, we're interested in using the CUPS Printer (IPP) option that is selected by default.

The "Add a Printer" wizard allows you to install printers on your machine.

Once you have selected "CUPS Printer (IPP)" option, you will be given an additional option to enter a URL. In this field, you will need to enter the following, replacing the xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx with the static IP address of your network print server:

ipp://xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx:631/ipp/P1

Once this has been done, you can click on the "Forward" button to continue. At this point, all you need to do to finish up the installation is to select a printer driver that either matches with your printer or is close enough in make/model number that it won't look like garbage when you print. Luckily, my HP printer is listed in the printer list, so it's 100% supported.

Once you've selected the printer, you'll be able to finish the installation. When this is done, a properties window for that printer will then open, allowing you to do a test print and make adjustments to your printer configuration.

~out...

Posted by ed at 05:35 PM | Comments (0)

It draws near

Today marks the "under a month" point for the wedding. Officially, there just under 4 weeks from the point when I post this message to the blog. It seems like it was only yesterday when I made note that the wedding was 7 weeks away, but that time has just flown by so fast that it really does seem that I made the comments just the other day.

Wedding countdown:
3 weeks, 6 days, 7 hours, 45 minutes
27 days, 7 hours, 45 minutes
655 hours, 45 minutes
700 minutes (damn, how's that for being accurate?)

We've managed to get quite a few things accomplished over the past few weeks. The wedding invitations have been mailed out. Originally, we were going to be spending a pretty penny to get these things mailed out to everyone. However, at the last minute Amanda found a great deal where we could get 100 invitations for $15.00. We just needed to write them up and print them out ourselves. Hell, that was no problem to do at all. We had plenty of ink in the printer. All we needed at that point was stamps and we're good to go. We received notice from several people this week that their invitations were received.

We've also gone through and updated our wedding registries. We're registered at some pretty generic places, but it ensures that people will be able to find a place to shop for us. We're registered at Target, Wal-Mart, Pier 1 Imports and Pampered Chef.

... Why in the hell are we registered at Pampered Chef? Obviously this is one call that I didn't make. As a matter of fact, the only one that I've been responsible for was Wal-Mart.

We've gotten most people fitted for their tuxes and dresses at this point. I'm still chasing down a few people to make sure that they have been taken care of. I haven't heard back from two people as of yet. I'm going to be making phone calls again today to see if these people have taken care of their rentals. You know, it's interesting that this works out the way that it does ... people always need to be chased down to get the tuxes or dresses taken care of. It's happened to me in the past ... people calling me and/or e-mailing me to get fitted before a certain date. For some reason, I and other people like to procrastinate. We're always waiting till the last minute, making other people sweat it out.

Now I know what it feels like on this end.

The wedding photography has also been taken care of. One of my employees at work, Matt, is also a wedding photographer. I asked him if he would be interested in doing our wedding, and he said yes. This is really cool, because I think very highly of Matt and his work. Granted, I've only been working with the man for about 2 months now, but his work ethic is fantastic and I couldn't picture a better person to take the photos at the wedding.

And here's a plug for his Web site: Broad Spectrum Photography.

We've also gotten the man to marry us. His name is David Blankenship, and he happens to be the father of two very old friends from my childhood: John and Andrew. They used to live one street over from Elkhorn Drive in Frankfort, and I really enjoyed them as friends. Unfortunately, time changes all things and they ended up moving away. I did see them in high school from time to time, but we never stopped to say hi or even acknowledge one another. It's a real shame, because I always thought very highly of them both.

We've also ordered and received the wedding rings. We decided to go with yellow gold for the color. Amanda's ring is 4mm while mine is 6mm. I decided that I wanted to go with something that was a little bit bigger than the size Amanda was going to have ... if for any reason to be able to tell who's ring is who's. Amanda and I have the same ring size ... that's the Amazon Woman (tm) coming out in her.

Here they are, the rings ... 4mm on the bottom and 6mm on the top.

At this point, most things have been taken care of. There's only a few more things that still need to be worked out, which Amanda is on the phone taking care of as I type this out. The rehersal dinner, music, reception stuff ... but it's all slowly coming together.

~out...

Posted by ed at 11:45 AM | Comments (1)

May 19, 2006

Update on Suse 10.1

So I've been using Suse 10.1 for about a week now. I've enjoyed it so much that I've installed it not only on my desktop, but also on Amanda's computer and on my work laptop as well. The guys at work also seem to like it, especially the Xgl part.

So here are my thoughts thus far...

First things first, Suse 10.1 is a great operating system. This is made in large part to several new features that really make it stand out against the rest of the Linux distrubutions available on the market today. Sure, the other Linux distros out there will eventually release their updates and catch up, but Suse 10.1 was the first to have several of these new features.

First off is Xgl. The 3D effects that are part of Xgl are just truely spectacular. Everyone that I've shown Xgl to, with the only one exception to speak of, has thought that it was awesome. For my own personal use, I've been very happy with it thus far. There are some bugs, like the mouse buttons mysteriously not working (thus resulting in a much necessary ctrl-alt-backspace X reboot), but considering that this is the first release of new software, it makes sense that it would have bugs that need to be worked out. I've tried Xgl on several different machines, each with different video cards. My desktop's ATI just has fits, but that's due to the video driver more than the Xgl software. Nvidia cards, on the other hand, handle Xgl well and it's fast and fluid. What really surprised me, however, was that my generic Intel video card included in my work laptop not only supports Xgl, but it handles it extremely well. So well, in fact, that I leave Xgl running while I'm at work.

I just wish that ATI would improve their Linux driver so I could enjoy Xgl on my desktop.

The next big thing is the network manager. I've had much more time to play with this over the past week, especially with my work laptop. Network configuration has finally become easy in Linux with this utility, especially wireless. What's really nice is that this program auto-discovers wireless networks, allowing you to change wirless connections with a single click. What really surprised me is that it was able to detect a wireless connection that required a certificate, and made options available so that you can add a certificate for that connection. There's also a nifty VPN manager that you can install as a module for the network manager, but I haven't had any real opportunity to try that one out. The one big thing that I can say about this program is that it's extremely solid. By far my favorite feature of Suse 10.1.

While there are several great things with this update, there is one major thing that just annoys the piss out of me. The system update tool, aka rug, has one bug that is very frustrating. When you add a third-party repository, some don't have the proper information and return an message that says just that. There is an option to disable this message, but it does no good. Every time you update from the repository, the message comes up again and again and again. I know that this will be fixed with an update in the near future, but MAN ... what an annoying bug.

Overall, a great distribution. I can't wait to install it on my personal laptop here in the near future.

~out...

Posted by ed at 09:24 PM | Comments (0)

May 14, 2006

Movin' on up

I almost forgot to make a post about this: I've been promoted!

The 8th of this month marked my 90 days with PFS. It was a quick 90 days, but the IT department was able to get a lot taken care of in this short period of time. In addition, we've grown quite a bit as well. We started off with a department of 3 and now have 7, including myself. And we're still hiring, so it's going to continue to grow.

Since my 90 days were up, I knew that my review would be coming sometime afterwards. Sure enough, my bosses grabbed me this past Wednesday and pulled me into a small room where we could discuss my 90 day review. It was all very positive and some nice things were said about my work. But what made it perfect was the announcement of my promotion from System Administrator to IT Manager.

That's right, I'm once again an IT Manager.

This wasn't a huge surprise, mind you. Since the time I started with the company, I've held a kind of management roll. I've been managing the technicians on a daily basis and to some degree, the other Sys Admins as well. I've been doing all of the interviews for open IT positions and making recommendations for hiring. I've also been doing the training of new employees and handing out duties for all shifts. So, in a way I've been doing the work of an IT manager since day one ... but now it's official.

I appreciate the trust that has been given to me by my managers. They're all very good people and I think very highly of them. I also like my staff as well. They're all very hardworking individuals and are very good at what they do. They all work well as a team and make sure that the job that they do is done right. I do my best to encourage them and make sure that they know how much their work is appreciated.

It's good to be part of the team.

~out...

Posted by ed at 05:20 PM | Comments (0)

Suse 10.1

If you weren't aware, Suse 10.1 was released this past week (May 11th, to be exact). It's an update from Suse 10.0 and has many new features that those who're running older versions of Suse may find very interesting.

I downloaded and installed Suse 10.1 over the weekend. I intially tried to download the software immediately after the release, but the mirrors were really non-existing at that point and downloading directly from the opensuse.org Web site was painfully slow. What's even more interesting is that the Torrent wasn't even moving along that fast. At one point, the fastest that I was seeing was just about 20kbps.

That's painfully slow.

So this weekend there were enough mirrors and the like out there so that a person like myself could download the update with minimal issue. The only downside to getting the 10.1 update at this point is that you must download the 5 CD ISO images ... the DVD isn't ready until the 18th, nor is the "install from the Internet" option. Anyone that knows me well will understand my frustration with this: I'm a DVD user, and don't like to waste CDs.

I did happen to find a nifty little thing on the opensuse.org Web site that shows you how to combine your 5 CD ISO images into one DVD, however. I'm going to try this sometime later on in the week.

The Network Manager applet in all of its glory.

So, after my installation of Suse 10.1, I noticed several changes in the way that software works ... not to mention some new software additions altogether. I think my personal favorite at this point is the new Network Manager applet. In the past, the applet has been used more for providing information about your network connection. In 10.1, it plays more of an active roll, especially with setting up your wireless network connection. You have to enable this service, as it is disabled by default. During the setup process, you're given an option to enable it or if you skip past this part it can also be enabled later in the Network Card section of Network Devices in YaST.

Security options when setting up a wireless connection.

Speaking of YaST, Novell has done a great job of redesigning the main interface, removing alot of unused space and making it much more compact. Now, if they will continue this trend into the other components that make up YaST, I really do believe that they'll have a great software/hardware management product on their hands.

And, speaking of software management, there are already repos available on the net for use with Suse 10.1. What's even better is that the opensuse.org Web site has a list of several great repos that you can manually add into the Installation Source option of YaST. On the site, there is information about these repos and what they're designed to do for the end user. For example, some of the repos are designed for specific processors in mind (i.e. i686 or x86_64), others are designed to allow installation of non-oss software, such as MP3 players and Windows codecs.

Personally, I highly recommend installing the Packman source. You'll be glad you did. Additionally, I also install a source that's not listed on the opensuse.org site. The kernel.org Web site, which is where you can download the Linux kernel, also plays host to Linux operating systems, such as Suse 10.1. You can use the kernel.org site to replace the need to use CD's or DVD's on your machine. Here's the information:

protocol - HTTP
server name - mirrors.kernel.org
Directories - /opensuse/distribution/SL-10.1/non-oss-inst-source/
/opensuse/distribution/SL-10.1/inst-source/

Use these two directories to provide 1) a CD/DVD replacement and 2) a non-oss installation directory. This is great for pulling down non-open source software. Here are some things that I recommend installing after you update your Installation Source in YaSt:

Mplayer (installs all kinds of video and audio codecs)
Flash (the Macromedia Flash player)
Acroread (the Adobe Acrobat reader)
Xine (installs the ability to play DVDs)

Regarding speed and Suse 10.1, I've found that this version of Suse is a lot more reponsive than the last. Gnome seems to be a lot quicker than in the 10.0 release. Applications, such as Firefox, seem to open very fast. Even the menu structure seems to zip along, where before it would sometimes hesitate to open.

The only downside that I've uncovered thus far is with the 3D drivers distributed by ATI. Not that this is a huge surprise, of course. While the latest Nvidia drivers seem to work with no problems, the ATI drivers that I downloaded and installed caused my X to go nuts. After about an hour working to recover everything that was changed, I was finally about to get back into my GUI. This is obviously not a good thing, but until ATI finally starts playing ball, this is going to be a common thing with updated Linux distributions.

Maybe it's time to switch back to Nvidia.

~out...

Update: I have managed to get the ATI drivers up and running, but not before almost taking down my system twice. It's a bit complicated, but with the help of a few web sites out there it wasn't too bad. The important thing to remember is that you need to read the README after installing the fglrx module. It will have you run a command against SAX2 and add a line to /etc/ld.so.conf and run ldconfig.

Xgl in action ... click for a larger image.

But, after the driver is installed properly, it's a breeze to get Xgl working properly. All you have to do is open the Software Manager in YaST, do a search for Xgl and compriz and install them. Once this is done, there will be an icon in the Gnome Control Panel where you can enable or disable the 3D desktop. The wobby windows, zooming, virtual cubed desktop and other nifty 3D effects are pretty darn neat ... not to mention the dropped shadows.

Posted by ed at 04:28 PM | Comments (2)

May 10, 2006

Take flight

When I was growing up in Frankfort, I spent a good amount of time playing video games. I have some very fond memories of great games on my NES, SNES, Genesis, Sega CD and Atari. Yeah, there are the classics, such as the original Zelda, Zelda 3: A Link to the Past, all of the Mario brother games, Madden NFL, SimCity (SNES Version), Final Fantasy and so forth. But, while all of these games hold a special place in my heart, there is only one game that I can honestly say was my favorite. That game is Aerobiz.

My all time favorite video game ... Aerobiz.

Yeah, there are other games that are pretty high on my list, but this game has always been at the top. It was one of the first real, in depth games that I ever played. To this day, I still think of it as one of the greatest simulators ever created. I've yet to find a game that is as in depth as Aerobiz is, yet doesn't take away from the challenge or fun that makes it a good game.

If you've never played Aerobiz, the concept is very simple. You're the CEO of a startup airline. It's your responsibility to choose a home hub (sorta like how Delta has Atlanta) and to branch out from there to other cities. You negotiate spots at terminals around the world so that you can send flights from your hub. As the game progresses, you create smaller hubs so that you can create more flight routes all over the world.

When you create a route, you have a great deal of options available to you. First, you choose a plane model to assign to the route. You have to be careful about the plane you choose, as different models have a different amount of seats, flight distance, and fuel efficiency. Once you choose a plane, you need to select how many flights a week there will be. This is limited by the number of spots that are available at the hub. If you don't have enough spots, you won't be able to increase the amount of flights for that route. After you've chosen your plane model, the number of planes assigned to the route and the number of flights per week, you will need to assign a ticket price for the route. Once you have chosen you options, and assuming that you have enough capital, you can open up a route to your selected city.

Now, in order to create routes, you'll need to have planes. You have four different manufacturers to choose from:

• McDonald Douglass
• Airbus
• Boeing
• Markov

Each plane vendor provided 1 to 4 different models of planes for sale, which would become obsolete over time and be removed and/or replaced during the game process. New or upgraded planes are also introduced throughout the game as well. If you purchased too many planes or your plane needs changed throughout the game, you also have an option of selling back unused units.

Buy and/or sell your airplanes all over the world.

Once you have your planes and routes in place, then you needed to make sure that your equipment stayed in top shape. Not only that, but these planes aren't going to fly themselves either. So, you need to create a budget for maintenance, flight attendants and so on. As your routes grow, the more money that you have to put towards these services to make sure that you stay on top of the game. As the game progresses, the average rates for services changes, so you must continuously monitor them to make sure that your people are happy. If you don't, you may be looking at a strike. If you have a strike, it's reported on the news and your sales go down.

You don't want that.

Okay, so you have your routes, planes and services. You also have the option to build hotels at cities where you have routes open. These hotels, depending on their location, can bring in a nice profit or can sink the ship. Once they're in place, you must monitor your hotels closely and close the ones that are costing you an arm and a leg.

Once you have all of your routes and hotels in place, you need to get the word out so that people will fly your airline and stay at your hotels after their flights. To do this, you have a marketing service (similar to that of maintenance and flight attendants) budget. You can create promotions for two routes at a time. If successful, your promotions will increase traffic on those routes (and others) for 4 quarters.

If you're into the stock market, there's something in here for you as well. There are charter companies that are already established in the game. These charter companies have home hubs, much like your own, and routes open to other cities. You can begin investing in these charter companies to grow your capital. As a charter company becomes successful, their stock prices increase. You have the option to buy or sell stock to make a profit. If you're lucky and acquire 51% of the shares, you have the option to take over the charter company and make it a part of your airline.

How cool is that?

During the game, you're not alone. As your company grows, you will have the advice of four staff members available immediately at any time. Want to know what route to open? They'll give their opinions. Want to know what to do with a route that's loosing money? Maybe you need a smaller plane? They'll let you know for sure. Want to know if there's a price war going on with your compeditors? These are the people to go to. There's a wealth of information available from your staff members.

These people will help you take your company to the next level.

Once you get a handle of how all of the services in the game works, things will start to heat up. There are four total players in the game, with at least one of them being human. You have the option to play against 3 computers or to have your friend take over the controller and play another airline. The only downside to this is that you have to wait for the human players to take their turn. This part of the game can take a while. I personally take at least 15-20 minutes to make all of my decisions during my turn, so having more than 2 people could make this game last a while.

When your turn is over and everyone else has had their chance to make their moves, the game progresses 1 quarter (3 months) and it then becomes your turn again. During this point, you will see how your competition is doing. You can see how much money they're making, how much net profit that they're making, how many people are flying their airline and so forth. You can also see a 3 month report for your airline to get an idea if you've made or lost money in the quarter.

Like I've said before, this is my favorite video game of all time. Sure, there are newer games on the market with great graphics and game play, but nothing has ever quite reached me as much as this game as. Heck, even today I can start a new game and play for hours on end and never get tired of the game. It's just a great combination of planning and spending that really sets this game apart from any game available on the market.

The main screen where all the decisions are made.

Koei, the company that released this game, put out another version shortly after called Aerobiz Supersonic. While I liked the game, it just never had the appeal that the first one did. There were just too many new options available. While the new options were nice, I missed the less complex version that was the first game.

I only wish that someone would make an updated version of this game. I don't really see it being for a console, though. These kinds of games are just too high-brow for console developers these days who're looking to produce a game that can out-do Halo. Instead, if this game were to be updated or re-released with newer airplanes, it should be developed on the PC. After all, graphics wise, this game is pretty tame. All the real work is done by the backend, doing number crunching and such.

I'll admit that this is something that I'm looking for all the time. When I go into a game store or a shopping center (like Wal-Mart), I check the bargan areas for simulator games hoping that I might come across a "Airport Tycoon" kind of game that would be similar to this one.

Oh well, here's to hoping...

~out...

Posted by ed at 08:06 PM | Comments (1)

May 07, 2006

Bueller? Bueller? Bueller?

I'm sitting at home on a Sunday, and I'm watching Ferris Bueller's Day Off. What a great movie. I think that this is one of Matthew Broderick's greatest movie rolls, if not the absolute best. I've watched plenty of other movies that Matthew has starred in, and none of them have even held a candle to this one.

But enough of that drivel.

Tomorrow marks the end of my 90 days at PFS. I can honestly say that this is the fastest 3 months that I've ever encountered at any workplace. If feels like I just arrived, but then again I can look back and see how much has been done and I realize that 90 days has indeed passed. Not only that, but that a lot of good work has been done.

I'm interested in seeing what my 90 day review will hold.

In other news, Amanda and my wedding is fast approaching. As of today, there are 5 weeks, 6 days, 1 hour and 30 minutes away. As I write this, Amanda is at that store called Michaels ... where they have fake plants and stuff ... to look for all of the crap that we need for flowers for the brides maids, groomsmen, Amanda and myself. She just called to say that she found 100 wedding invitations for $15.00, which isn't bad considering that we've been shopping around for them. The ones that she found are plain, meaning that we have to print them out here at home.

Thank the good Lord that we decided to purchase extra ink for our printer a few weeks ago while at Wal-Mart.

Speaking of Wal-Mart, we've been working on our wedding registry. We currently have 3: one at Pier 1, one at Target and one at Wal-Mart. If you'd like to get something for us (and I'm sure you do), you can go online and shop our lists and order something for us. To find us, you can do a search for either Amanda Parker or Ed Engelking on their online wedding registries.

Oh, and we purchased Amanda's wedding dress a few weeks ago. I have some pictures of her in it, but they're not the best (she wasn't very happy when the pictures were taken). Regardless, it's a beautiful dress for a beautiful woman. I can't wait to see her in it when she's all dolled up. Maybe, if she gives me permission, I can take a few more photos and post them here so everyone can see.

Here's to keeping my fingers crossed.

Well, that's all that I got for now. I'm going to relax a bit and finish watching Ferris Bueller's day off.

~out...

Posted by ed at 06:05 PM | Comments (0)