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Thursday, October 31, 2002 ( 4:23 AM ) iggry Happy B'day to me! Alhumdulillah, I am another year older and OUCH! The car was acting funny, and the engine light was on, so I took it to shop. They politely told me that I missed my 30k tune-up, and had toasted the catalitic converter. I could have it replaced to have it go out again, or I could have the 60k tune up and they would slip the converter in under warrenty instead of negligance :-| Well, I had the tune-up done, even though some of it was redundant to what I had already done, but I got an extra $250 in parts and such...I still feel abused though, especially that their labor fee is a glorious $93/hr... I would be very happy to change oil/plugs/fluids for that much. That was my weekend. Anyway, back to something happier... Sunday Oct 27, we went on a 12 gauge Mini Steam Engine ride. It is cool! A 2 mile ride though the fall leaves on the bank of the Meramac River. And it is a real steam engine, running on coal and water. They were running 4 engines that weekend. # Sunday, October 27, 2002 ( 3:17 AM ) iggry SLEEPY still. TGIF. Ok, maybe it is not actually Friday, but my weekend is on Sunday/Monday night, so it is the day before my weekend... Happy early Bidah day to me! I feel so old, but I know it is my lack of sleep taking over. I say early...My parents came over for dinner and brought a b-day cake and presents. It was a delicious chocolate cake with home-made chocolate-fudge iceing. Mmmm, it was so good! We served lasgania, and salad. Work at the Railroad Last night was so busy! There were two of us, and we easily did the work of 4 people. IAlhumdillah we are a good team. Other shifts couldn't have handled themselves as well as we did. A quick lession about the railroad... Automated Equipement Inventory (AEI) is cool! The railroad put bar-code readers along the train tracks, and every car has a bar code. These readers are networked to a UNIX server. the location of each car on a train is updated in the databse each time it passes one of these bar-code readers. Another team developed a web application which allows clients to type in their invoice number to look up the location of their shipment. So our customers can find out almost exactly where their shipment is at any time of the day. I always considered the Railroad to be ancient, and never expected them to have such an advanced IT department. # Saturday, October 26, 2002 ( 8:11 AM ) iggry Maybe it's the rain, but I am still sleepy, and have a hard time getting up for work. My mind is in some kind of slow phased-out state, and I have a hard time remembering what I did the past two days. I mis-behaved by starting an AoEII game, and have wasted a couple of hours a day on it. Thursday, I slept through CSI, and decided to go to bed. Hey It was Friday today:) Friday Prayer was good. Iman Hasik talked about how the Sahaba use to spend the 6 months before Ramadan praying that they would live to see the next fasting month, and making extra dua's. After Ramadan was over they would spend the next half year making extra duas of thankfulness. Our Prophet SAW, fasted more this month than any other month except Ramadan. Also he talked about weekend warriors who sit in the office all week, then try to be very active on the weekends, only to injure themselves. As Muslims, we should practice fasting in preparation for Ramadan so that our body and spirit will have a better ability to adjust when we fast for the month. Alhumdulillah it was all good. After Prayer, we went to visit a friend, and I had a good time talking. His son is home-schooling, and had some questions from his Physics book. Alhumdulillah, I was able to remember enough to help out some! I had to peek at the chapter, and examples to remember how to do it. And his wife made some delicious food for a snack. (Sorry, I don't remember the name of the dish, but we ate it with peanut sauce). It was a good visit. # ( 12:35 AM ) iggry Heh, I didn't quite make it for Friday, but this should be close enough! Friday Five 1. What is your favorite scary movie? Alien 2. What is your favorite Halloween treat? Either Snickers, or Reeses mini Peanut Butter Cups 3. Do you dress up for Halloween? If so, describe your best Halloween costume. Nope. 4. Do you enjoy going to haunted houses or other spooky events? When I was younger, I use to love it! Now, I haven't been to one in 10 years, and I don't really feel that I am missing anything... 5. Will you dress up for Halloween this year? No... We are allowed to dress up at work, but not many people do. # Wednesday, October 23, 2002 ( 6:46 AM ) iggry YEA! I built the first fire in our fireplace. Soon downstairs was a toasty 80 deg, and I had the air circulating upstairs also. Now, all I need is a lot of firewood! # Monday, October 21, 2002 ( 6:41 AM ) iggry Alhumdulillah, I was able to go to Masjid today. The guess Imam from New York was still here. He presented a 2 hour lecture on the inner dimensions of fasting. The time passed to quickly listening to him speak! May Allah forgive him of all his sins, bless him for his visit here, and guide him safely back home. He likes to refer to being happy like a Llama, or happy like an Angel. All that a llama knows is to eat, drink, sleep, copulate, and play. But lama's have no higher ability to reason. To be happy like an Angel is to be able to appreciate the higher levels of life. Humans and Jinn were created to serve Allah, and to pursue anything else is to not live up to our full potential. Yea, I get to go home in an hour!!! G'night! # Saturday, October 19, 2002 ( 4:32 AM ) iggry Wish me luck, I just added Comments by HaloScan. I also added a counter a the bottom of the page. I feel like I accomplished something tonight!! Right now, I am reading the Thirteenth Tribe. I saw it recommended on Sound Vision, and thought I would check it out. I was fortunate enough to find an online copy. # ( 3:58 AM ) iggry Today was a good day. I didn't get to sleep much, but I feel at peace with the world. The brick layer showed up at 9:30am, ready to work. He did a wonderful job. It was interesting to talk to him, and fun to watch him work. His wife helps him on his projects, and they make a wonderful team! Heh, his wife looked a little surprised when I came down for Friday prayer, dressed in traditional Middle-eastern clothes. YEA! the inspectors will come on Monday, and we can have our first fire by Monday night!!! Friday Prayer was wonderful today. We had a guest Imam from New York. # ( 3:06 AM ) iggry Alhumdulillah, My co-worker gave me a book to read, and I finished it in about an hour. It was a wonderful book! Jonathan Livingston Seagull: a story, by Richard Bach. # Friday, October 18, 2002 ( 2:51 AM ) iggry Friday Five (.org) 1. How many TVs do you have in your home? We have 1 TV in our house. 2. On average, how much TV do you watch in a week? I am not a great TV fan. Since last friday, I have watched 6 hours of TV. 3. Do you feel that television is bad for young children? I feel that too much television is bad for young children. In moderation, and censored, there are a lot of educational programs for young kids, that are also entertaining for them. 4. What TV shows do you absolutely HAVE to watch, and if you miss them, you're heartbroken? I use to miss watching CSI, Stargate, and I like watch Jackie Chan with my kids. Since moving to 3rd shift, they just don't seem as important anymore. Sleep is my biggest luxury right now :-) 5. If you had the power to create your own television network, what would your line-up look like? I would move CSI to my nights off, and start watching it again. Otherwise I don't feel like I am missing that much # ( 2:32 AM ) iggry Grumpy me today! We are getting a fireplace installed this fall. This is suspose to be a happy time, but it seems like a cursed endeavor, and is generating conflict in the family. After much shopping, we had narrowed the choice down to one from Buck stove, and another from Worthington stoves. The fireplaces were about the same, and Buck was more than a thousand cheaper and they are giving me 6% off for paying cash. We selected them. After the estimate, John comes out and looks at the fireplace, tells us it may be a challenge since the insert is 4 inches longer than our rough-in fireplace, but says he can do it by extending the wall. We get the wall opened, and find that the builder didn't finish the inside of the chase. Building codes dictate that the builder put fire-resistant drywall up the wall against the house inside the chase. John comes out again, examines the hole, and tells us that the unit will not fit because the stove pipe for this unit is placed at the front of the stove. It would have to occupy space where the wall exists, and he encourages us to reconsider which fireplace we want. We chose a smaller one, and they get it in without problem. The smaller one isn't nearly as attractive, but it is acceptable... I come to pay for it, and John says he can't give me a discount for this stove because the other one was reduced for some convention in town. I told him it wasn't my fault he couldn't work around the problem and I shouldn't be punished for his inabilities. He talked to his wife, and accountant, and she agreed with me so we got the reduction. John at Buck Stove gave us two companies to pick brick from, but they didn't have much of a selection. I talked to the brick guy, and he gave us two better companies with a bigger selection, and gave us more information than John did... Anyway, sorry for rambling so much...The whole endeavor is proving to be an unpleasant experience. # Thursday, October 17, 2002 ( 5:35 AM ) iggry So much to learn, and so little time. Ever have the problem of work getting in the way of Personal life. I am a mathematician, living a life in IT. As sick as this sounds, I miss my math. My dream job is to become a professor at some small university, where I could focus on teaching, and not worry about the publish or perish philosophy at large schools. As soon as my kids graduate (or sooner if someone would like to give me a large grant :) ) I want to go back and complete this desire. Retire from IT, and computers and make my living in front of a classroom. Alhumdudillah, it is almost time for Ramadan! This year I want to spend more time in the mosque. My co-workers claim that I cheat when fasting! How Rude!!! Just because I eat a lot on 3rd shift, go home, and sleep most of the day away! I do have to be careful to stop eating at the right time. Cool! I managed to add an IMood indicator to my website! # ( 3:53 AM ) iggry Live as a consultant Well, I have been reading more about this stuff, and looking the the format of other blogs. Eventually, I will get around to re-organizing this one, and making it more attractive... but for now, I am more interested in the therapy of working through my cluttered mind. I am an IT consultant working for the railroad. Technically, I work as a UNIX/Novell/NT system administrator providing second level support. For the past 7 years, I have provided system support in some way. The company that I am at, they are relocating to another city next year. Fo rme, this means that my end is drawing near, an I will be reassigned some-place else. On the plus side, NO MORE THIRD SHIFT!!!!! This is great, because it has been disrupting to my family life, and I am constantly at least 25% asleep, and usually half asleep most of the time. On the down side, thanks to our wonderful President, and strong desire to destroy the economy, layoffs are abundant, and the market is saturated with blokes like me, and with my skills. So I am learning web authoring skills in my free time. # Sunday, October 13, 2002 ( 1:49 AM ) iggry Assalamu Aliakum! Woohoo, My first entry to my first blog! Wow, what a night. Welcome to the world of a 3rd shift worker! # |
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