Christmas spirit

Sometimes I wonder what happened to the Christmas spirit. Our last shift, we had a strong arm purse snagging, a bank robbery, and a home invasion in one day. A friend of mine's son in law has had to pull his gun twice in a month's time. Another friend witnessed the theft of two iPhones at the AT&T store.
When everything seems hopeless, I finally heard about this story. A man walks into Walmart in Huntsville and pays for everyone's layaway accounts. Finally the spirit survives!
http://itemonline.com/local/x1666049662/Christmas-comes-early-in-Huntsville

Busy time of year

Just finished my computer class except for the final next week. But working like crazy and remodeling the kitchen before we host Christmas.
Total demo today, work fire academy tonight, fire station tomorrow, off to A&M the Friday for Chloe'e's field trip the next, back to fire station the next, then resheetrock the kitchen Sunday Painters coming in on Monday. Next week is no better, working two more fire academy nights on top of work and Shaina wants to redo the fireplace too.
These pics show the soffits above the cabinets removed plus the drop down box of lights over the island. The second pic shows burnt wires and insulation because of the last owners handy work.

iPhone 4s

Finally got my phone upgraded. My old one was slow as hell. I want to plug my Kingwood AT&T store. The manager, Ruth, was the only one who would tell me when they will receive the phones and even called me when the UPS truck arrived.
I now have all kinds of more useful apps including being able to use my tasks from my work outlook exchange from my phone.
By the way, this is my first post from my iPhone blogger app!

I think a database administrator, or DBA, is a very interesting career. The skills listed by Wikipedia for this job are strong organizational skills, strong logical and analytical thinker, ability to concentrate and pay close attention to detail, ability to think broadly and consider impacts across systems and within the organization. All of these sound like my kind of challenge. I handle many database management duties at my current career. I work with systems built on Firefox and SQL.


I don’t see myself leaving my career anytime soon as I am a retire-at-one-place kind of guy. But, things happen and I would consider this career as a backup. I am not sure if I would go for a full on DBA job or as a consultant for one of the specific databases that I currently work on. I think there is a job niche open for firefighters with technical abilities to assist other departments that are too small to have full time DBA’s. I could bridge the gap between the database designer and the regular firefighter and make a system do what they need it to do in a way that they could do it. I think a lot of careers need a person in there corner when databases are set up and designed.

According to Monster.com, the salaries range from $35,000 to $115,000 and the majority of the jobs available require a higher degree.

Approximately 38.6% of the listings on Monster.com require a Bachelor’s Degree and 23.5% require a Master’s degree. There are several certifications that would be obtained during the career, but not to get hired for the lower salary range, entry level jobs.

Bibliography
 
Database Administrator. Web. <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Database_administrator>.


Database Administrator. Web. <http://my.monster.com/job-profiles/Database-Administrator.aspx

The next few months should prove to be pretty busy.  I am going way ahead in my Intro to Computer class so that I don't get behind.  I just finished my last project for week 3and have started on week 4.  The class is still in week 1. 
I wasn't much use to the family yesterday as I was up all night and stayed most of the next day at work to install a billing system update.  When I got home, I showered and hit the couch.  Acacia, Shaina's sister, came over though and she is helping keep the kids entertained. 
I have to be packed up tonight because I won't be (really) home again until Monday.  I leave in the morning for work.  After about 4 hours, the assistant EMS chief, another Captain, and I are headed to Arlington for a Medical Director's Seminar.  I get back home Saturday night and do get to sleep in my own bed before working another 24 hours on Sunday.
After about a week at home, I have to go to another convention in Ft. Worth for 5 days.

Back to school I go.

So, I am finally getting around to finishing my degree.  You know the story, go to school, make a little money, don't need to continue school because you make money, then you are old with no degree.  Should have finished then, now I am going to have to take more classes to get through it. 
Most people don't realize that in Texas, a full time firefighter can go to school nearly free.  As long as the degree is related to the fire service, your tuition and lab fees are paid for by a grant through the state.  So, it is a no-brainer to get it done.  I am thinking about after my degree, switch over to nursing and then onto anesthetist school.  This way, most of my core classes will be paid for and the nursing specific classes won't strain my pocketbook too much.

Off to the hospital

My wife had an appointment yesterday for a possible hernia. Update: Turned out to not be a hernia after all.  Was a Sorama.  The doctor just happened to have a last minute cancellation, so we are off this morning to have her fixed up.  Gonna give me time to work on homework.  What I can't believe is that her whole operation will only cost a couple hundred dollars.  Everytime I go to the doctor for the first time in a year, I end up forking out my entire out of pocket and deductible of $2500.  Looks like I might have to switch to her Kelsey-Seybold insurance in October.  I have been holding off going, but I can feel that my kidneys still have stones and I don't want to be out that much cash over night.  The worse part is that everytime you see a new doctor or clinic or technician, they want their money.  I don't blame them, but I try to explain that I have already paid out this much and they can't have any more than that.  But, because my insurance hasn't posted it yet, they won't take less.  So, in the end you pay more than your out of pocket and deductible hoping to get refunds.  I just got a refund from Houston NorthWest last week.  I was 1 year ago, that they told me that they would refund it!

New Gaming Computer

I haven't been able to sleep for 3 days because I ordered my parts for my game computer.  They finally arrived yesterday.  I bought an AMD 955BE CPU, 8 Gb of Corsair RAM, a Gigabyte motherboard, and a new power supply so that I don't blow it up.  Cost me just shy of $500.  But, you couldn't buy a machine this fast for that much.  I didn't buy a discrete video card yet to save money as the motherboard has built in video.  I thought my old one was AGP, but I found that it is actually a PCIe.  So, I may be able to use it for now.  Surely it is faster than this built in board with shared memory.  The old one has 256 megs of RAM.  An update: According to Tom's Hardware guide, my old video card is six tiers better than the built in chip, so I will definately reinstall it on this machine.  http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/geforce-gtx-460-radeon-hd-5570-gaming,2697-7.html The on board is a HD 4250 and the discreet card is a GeForce 7900 GS.  Gaming for me is more on the line of simulators with a few simple games.  I don't go ape-*** over graphics like some people do.  At the very least, I got to move up to Windows 7 Pro and I don't have to borrow my wife's laptop to do my homework anymore. 

Depressing blog

I started this blog to motivate me to ride more as this has seemed to help Bill stay motiviated.  But, I find that it just depresses me because I am not riding.  I am now in Intro to Computers at Lonestar and we have to start a blog.  I already have this one, but decided that I need to revamp and include more interest.  This will make me happier and maybe I'll be more motivated this way.  I know, it seems strange.  You have to know me to understand. 

Winter is over and Biking is so hard!!

Well, it is finally warm everyday and I no longer have an excuse not to ride or excercise. Some of you may not understand, but I HATE the cold. 70 degrees is alright if the wind isn't blowing. Anyway, Bill and I went out this morning and did a nice little warm up ride for the season. It was hard making myself go, but it really wasn't that bad and I felt great afterwards. Looking forward to more good times on the road.