(no subject)
As of Sept. 25, I've been working as a Junior System Administrator at the Scientific Computing and Imaging Institute at the University of Utah. It's been good to get back into an administrative role once more, and come Feb. when the new building is finished, for the first time in my computing career I'll have my very own office (on the 4th floor, with the whole exterior wall being one huge window, and a nice view eastward of the Wasatch mountains from the east bench of the Valley).
It's a good job (full time, full benefits, TIAA Cref retirement plan, and challenging to keep me interested), and according to my manager (had an informal quarterly review today) I've been doing good work. It's been keeping me busy, but such is the life of an admin. I've become the resident expert on Apache administration, MySQL, PHP, and sympa, and have taken on most responsibilities for DNS, DHCP, and NIS. In Jan., my manager says I'll probably start Cisco training, with the end-result of Cisco certification.
My manager will also be off in Germany for the next three weeks, leaving the other Senior admin and myself covering things. Shouldn't be too bad, though I will have to be more "on call" than I have been before.
Been without a vehicle since early Nov. Vehicle registration (got one too many 'expired registration' tickets), and now I'm in process of replacing the power steering pump. However, my commute is between 2.5-3 hours, so having time to -do- said work (and other things, ie. FFA, anime club, etc.) has been in scant supply. I have the parts I need, hopefully I can finish the hardware work this weekend and get inspections done on Monday.
I've generally finished building my "new" computer, with the last two parts being a new Raptor HD for the OS, and an Nvidia 8800 GTX video card. I'll probably pick up the Raptor with my next paycheck, but will have to put off the video card (again...) 'til Jan. The new job pays well, but I can't be too crazy with spending...
While I genuinely like living in Dave's house in Orem, I've been considering a relocation to the Valley again, as my sights have swung back to the U (come summer, tuition will be at half price). Time shall tell...
Getting the car finished will take a lot off me, and I'll be able to start doing things regularly that I've wanted to. This month's certainly looking up in the general scheme of things, but that's also when things tend to hit the fan. We shall see.