On Wednesday, a coworker asked me for a paperclip. I handed him a colored one and he responded "No it has to be silver." Confused, i found a silver one and handed it to him. "Ok, now put it on your pocket." Still confused, I did so and asked him why. "In the Navy, on a sub, a paperclip on the pocket indicates someone is a short timer, leaving active duty soon." I wore it with pride for the rest of the day, and i think ill continue next week.

In 4 more work days I go from Grizzled Vet to FNG all over again. During a team meeting on Wednesday, the director of the RNOC called me a traitor in jest. I actually have a meeting with my manager monday which I'm guessing will be some sort of informal exit interview. Hopefully i can convey the message that i want to leave on good terms and work towards better communications between Tier4 and the RNOC.

I did find out that one of my first "official" training sessions when i get over to the new department is going to be Juniper training. it sounds like Juniper is going to be used a lot more in the Core networks with CPE (Customer Premise Equipment) being Adva or Juniper switches. I had planned on trying to get a CCNA, but maybe a entry level Juniper Cert work be better. Heck, maybe ill just go for both! After the wedding I'm planning on putting together a CCNA lab, and probably building a hacked Juniper router for practice. You can run JunOS on just about any computer since its based on FreeBSD and their system controller cards are essentially just blade computers.

I spent yesterday working on the Jeep and Melissa's car, and i plan to spend today gaming and cleaning up the apartment a bit. Its going to be a bit odd not having Thursday and Friday off any more, but i think it will be good in the long run. In other general life news, We got a kitten about a month ago that we named Ninja, and we are 30 days until the wedding!

I got good news last week. On August 20th I’ll be moving over to the TWC Business Class department and getting a promotion to Network Support Specialist. It’s going to be interesting, yet another step up in this company, yet another growing department, and yet another chance to learn all I can. For at least the immediate future, I’ll have a regular 8-4 Monday through Friday schedule. There will be actual troubleshooting and fixing, rather than just monitoring like I do in the RNOC now. I'll also have more opportunity to hopefully obtain a CCNA finally.

Leaving the RNOC is going to be interesting. I spent most of this week migrating our internal website over to a new sever. Next week I get to write the guide on how to admin the server and website since I was it's only admin. I have a few other small projects and transition items to complete before the 20th, but migrating the website was my big hurdle. Other projects that were on my to-do list were not so luckily. It was actually pretty refreshing knocking 5 or 6 various projects off that list.

I'm the third in the line of employees to make the jump to Business Class. One of the new hires in the RNOC asked me a few days ago if it was that much better over there. I responded honestly: "The grass is not always greener, but it is different." I'm not moving to get a better job, I'm moving to leave a job thats no longer a fit for me. The RNOC has changed a lot since I first started there. It's filling roles I don't think any of use expected it to fill when it first went live. The more the RNOC changed, the more I realized it was not going in the direction i hoped it would. That more than anything is why i chose to move. Time will tell if Business Class will be better, but i can guarantee it will be different.

Yet again, the Friday Rants and Raves have been few and far between, but today had a few news stories I just cant help talking a punch or two at. More »

So i got my prize last week, and quite the kickass computer.

Rather than post all the pics and description here again, ill direct you to the [H]ard|forums thread i started.

Needless to say, its rekindled my love of PC gaming. Team Fortress 2 feels RIGHT finally. In fact, i really want to go out and pickup BFBC2 for it even though i already own if for the 360, just because i know it will look and play better. Even though im pretty much back to PC gaming, i still picked up a Xbox 360 wireless receiver so i can use the 360 gamepad on it. Games like Dirt2 and Just Cause 2 seem much better suited for playing with a gamepad rather than a Keyboard. Of course i had to load up Flight Simulator X and tool around in that for a while, just gazing at the great graphics.

I do intend to try and get up to a LAN in Akron sometime soon. Maybe even the next one if my schedule dictates.

The paperwork came in yesterday, and I got the domain name, so I guess it is official-ified and all. I am now the proud founder of RomLabs LLC!

In reality, RomLabs is not a new idea for me. It has existed for while in various forms, mostly as things I’ve stamped with an “official” sounding business name. In fact, it’s the dabbling in the past that caused me to pick the name that I did. While the first products are going to be iPhone apps, there’s no telling where it will go from there. I do have some long term goals and ideas, but I need to take care of short term things first!

http://romlabs.com is going to be the eventual homepage to my mini empire. And of course just like every new startup, you will be able to follow @RomLabs on Twitter and be a fan of RomLabs on Facebook. I’ll post more about those later once I get them ready to go public.

I have a personal goal of trying to get the first App out by the end of summer, but we will see how it goes. The next major steps business wise are going to be getting a bank account opened and getting setup in the iPhone Developer Program.

I know I’ve been pretty quiet about the whole business thing; it’s just been a busy past few weeks. Luckily though, I got my yearly bonus from TWC, which is what I was waiting on to move forward with my plans. Of course, using the term “Venture Capital” is a bit of a misnomer, since we are not talking millions, even thousands of dollars to get up and running.

So what is the big plan at this point? Well I will reveal some more, and don’t worry, I won’t bump anyone up the list for this. At its core, what I am starting is going to be a software development company with a focus on mobile markets. Gasp, I know, it’s so original right? And even more shocking, is that I plan to start with apps for the iPhone.

So what inspired this? Well for one, Apple’s tagline of “There is an App for that”. I blogged before about some of the limitations I found, even within the first week of owning an iPhone. Further I've seen examples where the apps that exist for something are just terrible. So in the spirit of Rule 34 of the Internet I have decided to take matters into my own hands and fill some gaps I have found where I think I can be successful.

Earlier today I filled out questionnaires and initial information to start the LLC creation process at LegalZoom. Now starts the 30 or so business day way to get the official documentation back. I’m waiting on LegalZoom to let me know if my proposed name is available. Once I know for sure, I’ll buy the domains, and announce it here. After that, it’s a matter of getting into the iPhone Developer Program, then the real fun will begin!

So another year has passed. I can’t say that I’m sad to see ’09 go for a variety of reasons. But I don’t want to dwell on the past, but look towards THE FUTURE!

Seriously though, we are finally to a year that can be said in a futuristic fashion. Saying “TwentyTen” sounds right. “Two Thousand and Nine” is so last year. And I can say I’m right on this since car companies are following suit with the 2010 model year cars. Maybe this was the one barrier we have had from finally having flying cars and futuristic clothing. I bet in 2010 we get the future that has always been promised to us!

Or maybe not, but it does not really matter now does it? I mean think about it, look at the advances in technology over the last decade. While we might not have flying cars, we do have some pretty impressive technology! It was interesting to listen to This Week in Tech Episode 228 since it really summed up my views on the decade and brought up some pretty amazing points we just don’t really think about until you look at the whole picture.

I first hinted about the business idea I had back in September. I’m happy to say I’m going forward with it and it’s one of my major projects for 2010. I’ve spent the past few months fleshing out some details and it’s looking good to announce it sometime in the first quarter of the year. Next step is getting my tax return and ’09 bonus so I can acquire a domain name, and get the LLC setup. Yes, I’m going to try and build a business properly. Since I promised a hint or two, here is one: I will be watching the Jan 26th Apple event VERY closely.

Of course that’s just one of the things I hope to make happen in 2010. More will be revealed in time!

So I think we can all agree that the 2000’s were a pretty cool decade, but how will we refer to them? I mean, it was pretty obvious with the 70’s, 80’s and 90’s. I guess I’ll leave that to the experts: VH1. I can’t wait to watch “I love the 2000’s” and all the associated remixes and redoes that are inevitable. “Hey do you remember when MP3 players were huge and clunky? Do you remember the Y2K bug?” Yes, yes I do.

Well, I finally got to play Left4Dead over the weekend. It’s pretty darn fun and a great pickup and play game with friends. Definitely play it co-op though, I could not imagine trying to make it though with the AI players. Also over the weekend Melissa and I finally picked up Wraith of the Lich King for WOW. We have been leveling in Outlands at a pretty good clip, so it was about time. Everything I’ve read says head to Northrend at 68, and since the advice worked out in Outlands, I think we will try it again. As of last weekend we are about 3 and a half levels away from that anyway, so it should not be too long. I’ve also created a Death Knight on the Etrigg server, and trying not to be a Death Knoob. So far, DK has been an interesting class to play, but we will see what it’s like once I get out of the starting area.

Hopefully Melissa and I can slog though the leveling in Northrend pretty quick. We both want to get some Heirloom gear for when Cataclysm comes out. I’m actually pretty excited about it. Old world flying is going to be an awesome change. After seeing how flying in Outland has helped us level, I'm not looking forward to not having it in Northrend. I stand by my statement that this is as close to a “WoW 2” as we are going to see. I think Blizzard has made a smart play in that regard, no nasty splits of the community, and they keep working on what is fundamentally a quality product.

I can’t wait to see more of Star Wars: The Old Republic. I’m cautions though, since in the Developer Walkthrough Videos they said many times they want every battle to feel epic. The problem is I think the battles will become diluted in a way, and battles that are truly supposed to be epic feeling will feel the same as killing a random wamprat. I also wonder where they are going with Space Combat in the game, since BioWare in general has been pretty hush about it. My big fear is that SWTOR will end up being just a glorified multiplayer KOTOR.

I think most of all I want a truly massive MMORPG. I want to take WOW, combine it with EVE: Online for all the business and commerce aspects, and mix all that with a game like X-wing vs Tie Fighter for the space combat aspects. I hope that SWTOR will deliver, but I’m afraid all it might end up being is a star wars version of WOW.

It should come as no shock to anyone who reads this blog that I’m a bit of a bit of a procrastinator. Ok, so maybe a lot of a procrastinator. But I’ve been trying to apply the “Getting Things Done” method, albeit slowly, to my life since March. Today I came across another information/time management system. It’s called Inbox Zero.

The Idea behind Inbox Zero is pretty simple, Keep your inbox empty. I won’t go into the whole system in depth here, the best way to understand it is to Watch this Video. Now I had always tried to keep my inboxes empty, but they ended up being more like its own separate ToDo list rather than an input to my GTD system. Also, Inbox Zero suggested something that kind of shocked me: Only have 1 or a few archive folders. Why so few? Well, Gmail and Outlook both have pretty decent search systems, so there is no need to deeply compartmentalize email. I actually only made a slight modification to what Merlin Mann presented; a folder marked “Daily Stuff” that all the daily reports and change tickets the RNOC has to monitor get placed. At the end of my shift, I clear the folder out to get ready for the next day.

After I started implementing the system, I realized that I was using email as a storage place too. I had emails from years ago I apparently kept because of pictures or files attached to them. I found online order receipts for things I purchased YEARS ago. Stuff that I really had no business keeping, at least in an email form. It felt cleansing to delete it.

I hope this way I can focus more on getting things into my GTD system, I think I was hesitant of putting things into the iPhone because I knew it was already in my inbox. I also gained a whole screen on my work station. Since a portion of my work is email based, I always felt like I needed it up. Since its empty, it felt OK to keep it in the background, since I would get a popup if an email was sent to me anyway. Time will tell if I can stick to it, but I must say, it feels good seeing nothing in my inboxes.

Up until now, my RFRs have been either Rants or Raves. Today will be the first “Double Whammy”. A Double Whammy is both a rant and a rave at the same time. Today’s target is the Apple iTunes Store. More »