Murphy's Law

Ok, if you are easily bored by computer talk, stop reading right here.

So the crap hit the fan today at work. At 8 AM, our DS3 line went down. Blah, I thought someone cut the cable again but that was not the case. If that were the case, then maybe we'd luck out and be the 3rd client up and running like last time :-) But I called our provider and found out that there was a fire and/or a possible battery explosion in Verizon's central office in Newark. So it really hit the fan then. Some clients came up pretty quickly but not us. It took us until 2-ish to get connection back. In the meantime, my manager was luckily at our disaster site so he was able to get people up and running there. The support guys at our provider must be so annoyed with me. I kept calling like every 10 minutes to get updates. We weren't the only one's affected but I didn't care! Then once we were back up we had email problems. It was a loooong day.

If this happened on any other day, it wouldn't have been AS bad. I mean, don't get me wrong; it's insane to not have connectivity for 6 hours, but it was much worse today. You see, today was month-end so pretty much every group in the company is swamped. To top it off, we're going to finalize an asset transfer for a major client tomorrow so we needed to prepage. And of course, whenever we have a major network/system outage, our group is under-staffed. haha it's so funny how it always ends up that way.

I was so exhausted when I left work that I almost fell asleep on the bus. When I got out of the bus, I looked out way, way into the distance and I saw fireworks. I don't know why there were fireworks today. But I was walking in the general direction of Newark. Verizon better not have another fire!

Blah

I'm kind of bummed because a friend of mine from work was recently let go. I don't know the real reason for his dismissal but I've heard that it could be "performance." I really doubt that because this guy was the type of guy who would work up a sweat lugging boxes or water bottles or whatever around. If something broke, he'd be on top of it. This was his job. So if "performance" is the reason being given out, then it's insulting to the hard work he put in while he was here. Maybe I'm letting my personal friendship w/ him overshadow something else. Maybe he did something he wasn't supposed to. I don't know and I don't really care about the real reason he was fired. I do know that he was a really nice person who was willing to help out where he can. And I also know that this guy was really stressed about money. You see, his wife is 7 months pregnant so their first baby is just around the corner. He had even been working part time after work at a bar to save up some cash. So knowing that, I really felt bad for him. I really hope he lands on his feet.

Taxies

So I started my taxies today. I only got the federal done so far. TurboTax says that I have one error. I'm too lazy to fix it right now so I'll do it this weekend. I'm also waiting for Samir to get back to me about the LLC taxies. So after that it should be smooth sailing.

So why do I call them taxies? Well it's from a very special episode of Full House after Becky and Uncle Jessie got married. Michelle asks Joey what Jessie and Becky are doing in their attic room and he responds by saying that they're doing their taxes. Michelle then asks if they're going to do their "taxies" every day and Joey says that they will for the first few months. hahah. Oh Full House!

The Roots

I was just watching the awards and I saw that the Roots have an album called Game Theory. haha. Now I'm going to have to go download it.

Idle Mind

I had signed up for a Network Security night class at BMCC and it got postponed until the summer semester because there weren't enough people enrolled in the class. :-( Oh well. It's funny because when I signed up for my CCNA I class at BMCC, it got postponed for a semester as well. That wasn't so bad because my mind had been idle for so long that another 3 months didn't hurt. But it's different now. I really wanted this class to start because I can't be stagnant any longer! The CCNA class also went through the entire summer and I sort of felt like I lost a summer. And now if this class does start next summer, then I'll end up spending another summer in class. blah! Plus what complicates this matter is that I had gotten approved for partial tuition reimbursement from work. So now I have to work out with HR to move the money allocated to me until next semester.

But my mind won't stay idle. I have resources. I've been buying books left and right on network security and MCSE and I also have a whole bunch of CBT's from work that I can make use of. It's so hard to study at home because it's so noisy and there are so many distractions. Plus if I'm studying at home, it's a given that someone will ask me to do something and I'll be called away from my reading. I had studied at Dunkin Donuts with S before but that place's anti-loitering policy is in direct conflict with the loitering involved when one studies. So I'm thinking of going to Starbucks near work or maybe the Wiley's cafeteria in our building. I'll go right after work and read for a couple of hours a few times a week - Monday, Tuesday & Wednesday. I think it's easier if you make a routine out of it. Plus since I haven't done much reading after work, I feel like I should be productive during the weekends. And that takes away from doing fun things during the weekend. So this after-work studying sounds like a plan to me. S is invited to study with me too but we'll see how that goes with her starting a new job and all. I start my study routine tomorrow! Yay!

Cold ears -> Winning Bets -> Game Theory

I haven't posted in a while but there's a reason. I was going to post on why my ears couldn't feel the cold. You see, one day I came home from work and my hands were freezing. I put my hand against my cheek and it was so cold, but when I touched my ear, my fingers didn't feel cold at all. This led me to believe that ears couldn't feel cold and I was going to post on this matter but then I thought that I'd think about it some more. I came to the conclusion that my ears were too numb to feel my cold fingers. Duh. So simple. That was an example of how dumb I am but here's an example where I'm not so dumb.

I love winning bets. Actually if it's something that I can control to win the bet, then you better believe that I'm gonna put in 1000% to win it. A guy at work made a bet w/ me that I couldn't un-wrap the text in a text file report and then put the text in the right columns because he had tried doing that many years ago and there were too many variables that made 100% accuracy impossible. And I agree, it is a pretty complicated report, but I took him up on the challenge. The secret is finding all the patterns in the data and then creating the code for each pattern type. At first glance, I couldn't find a pattern and thought he was right, but after staring at it and going through each line of data, I found a pattern! I felt like John Nash finding patterns in newspaper and magazine clippings (minus the made-up people in my head.. they're not made-up, they're real)! After you find the pattern, it's as simple as writing the code to manipulate the data the way you see it in your head. It's hard to explain, but when I was looking for a pattern in the report, I was actually thinking up loops and conditions in my head that would produce that result. And not just thinking them up but actually visualizing the steps to get what I need in the output. I tend to forget such thoughts easily so I had to go and draw out the flow of the program so I could refer to it when I'm actually coding.

Anyways, that probably bored 99.99% of you, but I think I got the code to work! Now my co-worker owes me lunch! Mendy's! And it's not a meal if I only order soup. Soup is not a meal... unless I crumble (my manager made that clear). Actually, I shouldn't put up the "Mission Accomplished" banner yet. I only got the code working with one set of data. I need my co-worker to send tons of reports to it to really test it. But if anything, I'm really close!

Let's go back to John Nash for a second. Was the coding example above an actual example of game theory? If there's an economics major reading this, please let me know. Wikipedia gives the following definition:

"Game theory is often described as a branch of applied mathematics and economics that studies situations where players choose different actions in an attempt to maximize their returns. The essential feature, however, is that it provides a formal modelling approach to social situations in which decision makers interact with other minds. Game theory extends the simpler optimization approach developed in neoclassical economics."

My co-worker made a decision to challenge me and also to tease me that I would never be able to do it (albeit jokingly). I made a decision to prove him wrong. Although he had one goal by putting up a challenge and insisting I couldn't get it to work and I had a goal to prove him wrong, the maximized return would be a correctly formatted report created in a short period of time. Is that or is that not a social situation in which decision makers interacted with other minds to maximize results? Or is that a stretch?

Hi, did you bring me my presents?

Today after work, we went to my nephew Saahil's birthday party. He turned 5 today. That little groundhog! The first thing he says to us when we walk in is, "Hi, did you bring me my presents?" hahaha When we went to his mother's birthday a few weeks ago, he kept asking if he was getting presents. Well, we did get him presents. A Spongebob soccer ball, the main dude from the Cars movie and a remote control car. I wanna play with the remote control car. When we visit him tomorrow, I'm totally playing with all his presents.