Wednesday, September 12, 2012

OTRS hint and trick

More internet research!

We use the OTRS open source ticket system to manage IT projects including help desk requests. Today a tech put in the wrong amount of time. Instead of 0.50 hours, it was entered as 50 hours. How to change it? There's no place to correct that time. Any additional comments add to that time rather than editing it.

http://lists.otrs.org/pipermail/otrs/2010-October/033600.html

There's the solution! Enter a new note or comments with a negative time.

For example, with it reporting 50 hours, enter a ticket with the time as -49.5. It will do the math and report the time as 0.50.

Problem solved.

Monday, March 5, 2012

Alternative to water flavors

I love Propel and Crystal Light. I'm not a huge fan of plain water.  Even on sale they are so expensive.  I found a great, tasty, inexpensive alternative.

Additional unsweetened frozen fruit.  It cools it like ice. Add your favorite sweeteners if desired.  Or squeeze most of the juice from a mandarin orange and drop it into your water bottle. 

Yummy water and fruit to snack on later.


Sunday, March 4, 2012

Breakfasts

Option 1: Homemade Egg McMuffin

I found a link on Pinterest to this site with instructions for home made egg breakfast sandwiches.


I made some tonight and Success!

18 AA eggs: 1.99 = .11 per egg
English Muffins (2 pkgs, 12 muffins total) 3.00 = .25 per muffin

What I already had, small amounts:
Pam cooking spray
butter
Cheddar cheese (2 slices made 6 muffins, good sharp cheese) .66 total.

About $1.13 per muffin.

It's more than the $1 McDonald's charges, but the savings comes because the meal is not purchased (hash browns and coffee). Also, the ingredients are a much higher quality.

I made six as a test run. I'm excited to make more. Super easy.

Living Frugal

Facebook and Pinterest are inspiring me to be a DIYer and live a more efficient and conscientious life. Living simpler is my 2012 goal. Documenting things here will help me to keep to my goals and remind me of things that work.


Saturday, January 8, 2011

Research Topic of the Day - Programming the remote

Certain technologies still stump me. I still giggle a little to see the TV actually boot up rather than just turning on or warming up. I will admit that I have trouble programming remote controls for my TV and Blu-Ray/DVD player. Back in the day I was someone that didn't mind the VCR blinking 12:00.

In times like this I turn to the internet for assistance. I love that manufacturers post PDFs of instructions guides. I was able to search for our LG BD270 and find the manual online and read the programming instructions for the remote. I was able to successfully reprogram it to turn our LG TV on and off and adjust the volume again. Woo hoo! It worked.

And, when it unsyncs again, I can just go here to view it again: http://www.lg.com/us/support/product/support-product.jsp

Saturday, September 12, 2009

Lists

1. I love my family. I love that as we get older we have much more in common than we did as children. I love that my parents will drive from the Bay Area to Redding just to see me, Peter and any brothers that show up.

2. It's amazing how one day can change how I feel about my job. I really enjoy it.

3. I don't have much to say, can't seem to make it very far into this list for now.

Wednesday, September 9, 2009

Hope and Change, but without the Change.

Change is bad. Very, very bad. Allowing change opens up the door for people asking for more.

Give an inch... they smother you with requests for kilometers.

Arg. Not a happy day.

Sunday, August 30, 2009

My voice is my passport. Verify me.

Imagine visiting your best friends blog and hearing her read her latest post to you. Imagine visiting CNN.com and hearing Carl Kasell of NPR fame reading news stories. Imagine opening your email and hearing your Grandmother read you a bedtime story. Now imagine Chuck Norris reading your Twitter feeds to you. We know that it is possible to make an audio file of a voice recording and transmit it via email or post on a website to be downloaded or played. We can also use a text to voice service or plug in to read to us. I imagine the future of the internet includes personalized automated synthetic voice applications becoming widely available. Using a hosted service or plug-in, hear anyone say anything.

Wednesday, July 1, 2009

Note To Self: Blog subjects

Yes, I'm using my blog to remind myself of books to read and now subjects I want to post about one day...

* Bumperstickers

Saturday, June 27, 2009

It's safe to like dogs again

A book may be compared to your neighbor: if it be good, it cannot last too long; if bad, you cannot get rid of it too early.
-- Rupert Brooke

First, the legend:

Family #1 - Neighbors directly to the left. Father likes to drive his jeep offroad in the desert, break it, come home and fix it with Father of Family #4. Mother was close friends with the Mother that used to own our house. Boy and girl kids are ~7 & 9.

Family #2 - Neighbors directly to the right. They have the barking dog.

Family #3 - Neighbors two to the left. Father is a US Marshal and Army Reserve. Mother is all up in the neighborhood news. Oldest son is 15. Younger son is ~12.

Family # 4 - Neighbors three to the left. Father owns a pool cleaning business and likes to break his jeep out in the desert with Father #1. Don't know anything about Mother and kids.


Turns out Mr. C and I were correct about Family #2. They are renters. I should say... They WERE renters. They're moving out. We're very happy about that. They kept to themselves, which was nice, but they didn't keep up their front yard and.... the dog. We don't have an HOA here, thankfully, but there is an unspoken rule to keep a certain level of maintenance. Family #4 has even offered to let us borrow their pressure sprayer to clean the dirt off the stucco on the house from the last rains.

We were talking to Mother #3. She told us that most of the neighbors have called the police about Family #2's dog multiple times. The owner of the mobile home behind us has also called the police. Apparently the rule is to call the non-emergency line and get the incident number.

Now we know.

The family is moving. Now a new family will get to be trained. Hopefully they'll be nice.

Thursday, June 18, 2009

Management Memes

I love when my boss brings up interesting articles in team meetings. A few weeks ago it was a very dry NIST article on patch management which has lead to a huge project. This week she brought up an article that revealed 10 things your boss hates about you.

  1. Lateness/absenteeism
  2. Lack of initiative
  3. Too much initiative
  4. Bitching and whining
  5. Disloyalty
  6. Lack of passion or interest
  7. Trying to be their best friend
  8. Petty lying
  9. Childishness
  10. Wanting their job

I'm trying to not read too much into it.

In other news, more proof that dogs are far superior to cats.

Thursday, May 28, 2009

You can't blame me

One of the best disclaimers I've read in a long time, courtesy of Clue Wagon

I am not a lawyer. I’m an ex-HR person. That’s not even close to being the same thing, because lawyers make more money and don’t go around telling you not to wear flip-flops to work. Also, only idiots take legal advice from some blog they found on the internet. If you get sued, “The internet told me it was okay” is not a good defense. So before you go around talking smack about someone you used to work with, talk to a real lawyer, okay?

Later she writes "Not being a weenie is a good strategy on pretty much every level." Now there are some words to live by.

License Plate Spotting - 6HNN

6HNN

It has taken a while. Car sales have indeed slowed.

Tuesday, May 12, 2009

Saturday, May 9, 2009

Doing More Before 11am Than Most Do Before 2pm

Some days it's a bad sign when you forget to turn off the alarm and wake up thinking you have to get up for work. This was not one of those mornings.

Around 5am we grumbled if we should sleep in or go crowing. Mr. C told me all about his wacky dreams. I mostly slept through his story telling.

We ended up sticking to the original plan. I set the coffee robot to make us our tasty beverages and started putting on my gear. Today I rode the motorcycle on the highway for the second time. I took the scary offramp that's a 270 degree turn with a posted speed of 20 MPH.

Epp! I knew my jacket was big on me, but I didn't realize that it poofed out to make me look like I have a big belly! Oh well. It's really comfortable, pink, and had reflective lines.

We didn't see many crows, but we discovered a new bird that we're calling the red-shouldered dog fighter.



Lt. Pete "Maverick" Mitchell only wishes he could fly like these little guys!

When we arrived home we did some chores and then back out for errands. Overall, a very fine morning.

Sunday, May 3, 2009

Post-Apocalypse Skills

1. Driving a stick shift -- Done
2. Operating a motorcycle -- Done
3. Operating a shot gun
4. Basic first aid -- Refresher course needed
5. Sewing -- Done
6. Metal crafting
7. Fishing
8. Farming
9. The skill an electrician has
10. Profit?

Thursday, April 30, 2009

Why spy on neighbors when there are crows?

Crow vs Peanut in our front yard. I call it success!



Unsalted peanuts of course. It's much better for them than cheezits.

Tuesday, April 28, 2009

IHNJH, IJLS...

"you've got trouble with a capital T, which rhymes with P, which stands for pool"


IHNJH, IJLS = "I have no joke here, I just like saying"

Thursday, April 23, 2009

License Plate Spotting

I also like to track California license plates. Highest so far: 6GXS...