Gay Marriage In Hawaii

Posted on November 20, 2009 by mike

I was at this bar when I was in Hawaii. It was about a block from where I stayed. It was a pretty cool bar with lots of cute guys. :-)

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Trip To Sandy Hook

Posted on November 11, 2009 by mike

Thanks to getting a few extra days this year and having a lot of dates where I couldn’t take vacation, for most of November I have been on vacation.  The date of this posting happens to be one of the few days where I am actually working.  On November 9th my friend Rick and I decided to take a trip to Sandy Hook, NJ.  In a month not unknown for snowstorms, we had a bright, sunny 71 degree day for our trip.  It took us about an hour to get to Sandy Hook and we spent a few hours taking pictures and video of the shoreline, Nike missiles and the Sandy Hook Lighthouse.  Afterwards we went to Olive Garden for lunch.  Below are two videos.  The first is the video I took of Sandy Hook, the second is an animated slideshow from the pictures taken with my Rebel XTi.  You can find the actual pictures via my Picasa photo album.

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Integration

Posted on November 10, 2009 by mike

On Wednesday, November 4th 2009 Merck & Schering-Plough merged.  While I was supposed to have that full week off, I came in for Day 1 integration support.  I was expected to work from 11:30 AM – 8 PM, however I wanted to attend the Day 1 global webcast as well as be able to find a parking space, which can be a challenge at 11:30 AM at Whitehouse Station.  I decided to come in a little before 7 AM.  The global webcast went quite smoothly with the exception of the audio from Brazil.  Each Merck site had an EC (Executive Committee) member.  Whitehouse Station had Bruce Kuhlik who is Merck’s chief legal counsel.  I started my Integration shift at 1:30 and thanks to good timing, got to be in a group picture with Chris Scalet, Merck’s Chief Information Officer.  I managed to call a customer back at 2:00 and quickly take care of her Flash issue.  I was told that integration support was going to be dull.  I don’t know who this Murphy guy was, but I seem to be an unwilling, yet strict adherent to his law.  There was a major issue was with the new “Merck Today” social network site that we are using for integration related news as well as to allow legacy Merck & Schering-Plough employees to introduce themselves to each other (people couldn’t sign on).  At 2:00 the site was brought back up for testing by IT (Information Technology) and despite continued issues, an email went out to the legacy Merck population at 3 stating it was available.  Cases started to come in.  I had to quickly scramble to not only get a group created in our help desk system but get accounts created as well.  While I was doing this, Mr. Scalet also needed a count of the number of cases we received since the 2:00 “soft launch.”  Getting reports from our help desk system is never an easy process, but let’s just say there was an hour or two that were quite hectic for me.

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Woohoo! November!

Posted on November 3, 2009 by mike

We’ve come to November already and things are happening.  Thanks to a combination of only using a few days and working for Merck for a decade as an employee, I have a ton of vacation days to use.  Since I couldn’t really take vacation in March-May and again in October, I have them all squished into November and early December.  I was supposed to be off this entire week (11-2-11/6 and the following Monday) but something is happening that will preclude me from getting the whole week off.  As referenced, there are some big things happening that should make this month exciting.  In addition to the former, I will be ordering a new computer for my parents.  There is Thanksgiving later this month and at the end is a trip to Las Vegas!  Stay tuned to this blog for my experience with the “Big Event.”

Here are the specifications on the Mac Pro I will be configuring for my parents:

•    One 2.93GHz Quad-Core Intel Xeon
•    8GB (4x2GB)
•    1TB 7200-rpm Serial ATA 3Gb/s
•    ATI Radeon HD 4870 512MB
•    One 18x SuperDrive
•    Apple LED Cinema Display (24″ flat panel)
•    Apple Magic Mouse
•    Apple Keyboard with Numeric Keypad (English) and User’s Guide
•    Final Cut Express preinstalled
•    HP Photosmart Premium Wireless Fax All-in-One Printer, Scanner, Copier
•    AppleCare Protection Plan for Mac Pro (w/or w/o Display) – Auto-enroll

Map picture
Map picture
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New Directions

Posted on October 22, 2009 by mike

I see my life headed in a slightly new direction.  Some of the people in my life are not in my life anymore and like them, I have moved forward.  I think about new opportunities ahead of me and wonder what they will yield.  In my professional life, I see a wave of change ahead.  Like life itself, these waves can be unpredictable and all I can hope for is that I ride this wave out.  The month of October has been a decent one for me.  Work has been challenging as always.  I continue to enjoy the company of my far-flung friends.  I just wish some of them lived a bit closer.  The month ahead brings virtually nothing but vacation days (I think I work a total of 6 days) with the topper, a trip to Las Vegas at the end of the month.

“Day 1″ can be any day now.  It could be today, October 22 (congrats Microsoft on your Win 7 release) or it could be November 2 or any other day over the next couple of months.  I look optimistically to what lies before me, for the only way you can control the past is by controlling the present.

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What’s New

Posted on September 26, 2009 by mike

Not a lot of new stuff. I had a bit of a non-standard work week last week. I had two days if training on Covey’s “7 Habits of Highly Effective People”. I listened to Covey’s book a few years ago so this was a nice refresher. Also there’s a lot to be said about in-person training. On Thursday I had a quarterly all day staff meeting. I also put in my reservations for a Vegas trip at the end of November. Three days and four nights with hotel and airfare for under $400. How could you go wrong with that? Monday is Yom Kippur which is a 25 hour fast day. Let me tell you, there’s nothing “fast” about a fast.

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Glee Pilot

Posted on September 12, 2009 by mike

Looks good. I wish I had TiVoed it when I had the chance so I could watch it on the big TV. Mini just can’t handle Hulu streams. Poor thing.

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It’s September and Disappointments

Posted on September 8, 2009 by mike

I figured I’m falling into a trap of re-posting YouTube videos on my site instead of new content (that no one but me reads).  Well, we’re a little bit over a week into September.  Work, so far is going well.  I’ve been busy working on a trending utility with a co-worker of mine.  There’s some bugs that have to be worked out, but I hope to get it into beta testing this week.  Speaking of this week, it’s a full one for me.  I’m only physically going to be in the office on Tuesday (the day of this posting) since Wednesday is my normal remote day.  Thursday I’m remote in the morning and then doing a Technology Expo in Rahway in the afternoon and Friday I’m doing Habitat for Humanity.  Looking at the month ahead, it’s the high holiday season with Rosh Hashana and Yom Kippur just around the block.  We also have our quarterly departmental meeting.

The month started off with three disappointments.  The first is that my trip to Italy scheduled for October had to be put off since my friend Flavio couldn’t get the time off.  The good news is that it’s not canceled, just “postponed” until maybe June.  After 18 years, what’s a few more months?  Disappointment number two was that someone who was very close to me let me down by first saying he is “80% positive” he’d go on a trip with me to telling me the following day that he doesn’t want to go.  Disappointment number three is the same said friend also promised to send me something that he knew I wanted, but in no shortage of words told me that I’m not a priority to him.  You can’t have a friendship when it is one way.  If he wants to remain friends, he has to give as much as he receives or heck, give something. While I am disappointed in that, it’s up to him to salvage our friendship. If he feels it is important, then he will make an effort. If he feels it isn’t important and not a priority, then I guess we’re no longer friends.

Life goes on

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FUCK YOU

Posted on September 8, 2009 by mike

TO ALL OF YOU RIGHT WINGERS…

I just had to post this on my blog. The message is so important. The word used might be considered “strong” by some, but the message is clear, intolerance and bigotry has only one valid response. This music video conveys that response quite clearly.

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Rachel Maddow: Gay Marriage Is A ‘Defense Of Marriage Act’ In Mass

Posted on September 4, 2009 by mike

Rachel Maddow: Gay Marriage Is A ‘Defense Of Marriage Act’ In Mass

Want to lower the divorce rate (Catholic church hates divorce as much as it hates abortion), then allow gay marriage! Simple as that. Lowest rate since before World War II.

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