john munoz dot com » Stuff

Living vicariously through other kids

john — Fri, 20 Aug 2010 14:25:59 +0000

You know it’s band season when you get out of your car at work to hear off in the distance a metronome and band director giving orders over an electronic megaphone.

At first I was thinking to myself, man it’s only been one night and i already have those sounds stuck in my head. Last night was parents night at McHi along with the 1st band boosters meeting. For some reason through no cohesion of our own, the McHi Band website was assigned to Patti and I. Last night we got to officially launch it to the parents. Over the course of the summer I began constructing the framework for the site, settling on a design and workflow method. The last few weeks however have been keeping the nightly CVS’s very busy. Even up to last night i was up until 2am working on a portion of the site after i decided to nuke the photo gallery and replace it with the one i should have started with in the first place. I did however get to upload photos from the performance last night. The band did this really neat thing where the parents get to stand in with their kids on the field and work through a few marching drills together with their parents. It was really fun to watch.

My childhood band experience was fun, even though it was short-lived. The school decided to ax the football program my sophomore year. In middle school i was in the middle of everything as much as i could. They were great memories. It still brings chills to me sitting in the stadium watching Hannah and the band perform these awesome shows. I regret sometimes not having the opportunities that they have. Getting to help water the kids, do this website, and participate in other band booster activities helps me make up for it though. What’s best is that it’s for the kids. People are always coming up to patti and i thanking us for the things we do with the boosters, but it’s all for the kids not for the glory of ourselves. it’s amazing how much can get done when no body cares about who gets the credit.

So it’s back to php and ajax scripting with the sound of tick, tick, tick at 110 bpm.

seriously?

john — Tue, 11 May 2010 16:47:07 +0000

Another common attempt at spreading malware but the reason i wanted to share this one was because of the address it was sent from “Tricking@raymonco.com”

Come on guys.. at least let your bots use something a little more meaningful like SERVICE@DHL.COM not Tricking.

To friend or not to friend?

john — Thu, 08 Apr 2010 00:29:08 +0000

I got a friend request the other day from a name i didn’t recognize.

Is this someone i actually know or just someone who knows i don’t share personal information with strangers and if i friend them, then they will get the chance to find more information. “Fidelia Gribble” was the name. Ok.. so Facebook does this cool thing where it shows your mutual friends with someone else. If this is really someone i know, surely someone else i know has them a friend too. In this case i had NO mutual friends which is really odd. And when i initially got the request this person only had 8 friends. Someone that dull obviously I would have had better recollection of. And finally, i decided to google (v.) the name. The only result came from one of those pay-to-find-people services.

Sorry Fedelia, your getting the ignore button.

Common Sense: Your privacy settings only work if you let the system use them. If you add any person who comes your way as your friend just for the sake of increasing your friend count, your just asking for any of those “friends” to have more information about you than you normally would IRL.

mac –vs- pc

john — Tue, 29 Sep 2009 00:49:41 +0000

So in the new office, they are about 50% Mac, 50% PC. Being a part of the A&M University, it’s not likely i can convince them to go 100% PC so if you can’t beat them, figure them out. I got my first Mac last friday and spent the weekend trying to figure this thing out. So far i’ve learned about the Dock, Time Warp, Finder, Apple Mail, and safari. I also got to learn about installing the OS. Then i didn’t know the previous owners password so i found out about Single User Mode (thanks Jonny), come to find out if you boot in Single User Mode you get a linux prompt! Hey.. i know linux. So back to a familiar command prompt and a few lines later, we had the user name discovered and the password changed.

I ran protools on it (because they say it works better on a mac) it does.

The wifi autodetect is pretty slick.

But..

the exchange integration only works with 2007,

I imported two videos side by side. (pictured above) One of a PC and one on a Mac, the mac took longer because it wanted to build tons of thumbnails. I don’t want thumbnails, i let my editing program do that.

The updates took a while. The appear to be coming from akamai and i was about to do a blanket block of akamai at the office only come to find out all of this traffic to akamai was mac updates.

So.. i’m putting in an order for mac server. See how well these things can be tamed. I’m curious.

suspicion

john — Fri, 04 Sep 2009 04:49:15 +0000

I literally LOL’d on this one..

end of one book, ready to start another

john — Sat, 15 Aug 2009 02:13:59 +0000

Yes, it’s true. I turned in my resignation on Wednesday. Around January of this year i started watching sites like Dice, TWC and Monster for job openings. That’s when word started going around about job cuts here at clear channel. I’ve been laid off before when i was at Mobile (now Shell) It’s a sucky feeling. Thank goodness i had a job opening already lined up by the time that word came down. Now that sucky feeling was starting to set in all over again. I updated my resume and posted it hoping to see what was out there.

6 and a half years ago i was working for TWIN internet as their network administrator. my sister called me saying she heard a commercial on the radio that they were looking for a computer guy. i didn’t hear the spot myself but i ended up finding it later on.

I met with Danny Fletcher, Lori and Kevin who apparently was the guy doing the IT stuff around here. So that interview obviously went well. I remember when i was young i wanted to work at b104 back when it was b104. *sigh* In those six and half years i’ve gotten to some amazing things that i am truly grateful for those chances. built 4 new radio stations, helped install HD, figured out how to run HD2, help setup other markets HD2, installed SatL and figured out how to test them, setup DID and PRI functionality, disconnected about 30 pots from Verizon, EVDO codecs, helped setup a newstalk station, did the live engineering of football games on that newstalk station, setup internet streaming.. and i’m sure lot of other things i can’t think of right now.

I got to work with allot of people who have grown to be more than just co-workers. I’ve made friends. and i don’t pick many people to be friends with. I’ve gotten to see them get married, have their first child, be at their birthday parties.. laugh with them, yell with them (or listen to them yell) and cry with them.

The time has come, to talk of other things.

I did a few interviews. I’ve always enjoyed interviews. It’s kind of like being a pushy car-salesman for a change. Trying to sell myself to these companies. Back in June of this year i got an email from this company. Due to previous commitments they were not going to be able to interview until august. I made an appointment and let time pass. Well.. the day of the interview came and i can honestly say i had the best interview i ever had. I didn’t even realize that almost 4 hours had passed. I made it conversational, i knew my talents and my abilities and was confident from the beginning that I was the best person for this position. I made sure to dominate the conversations and not pass the control to the other teams. Until i was exhausted and out of questions to ask.

A few days later they emailed back and wanted a 2nd interview. We talked again and got into some more specific questions and task. What if’s and how would you’s mostly. With the experience i have, i was able to answer most of the questions with.. “well.. when i had that problem once i did this…”

so later that day i get a 3rd email. This time they wanted to meet to make an offer. I already knew i wanted this job. The chance to be a part of a research time on the cutting edge of some of the most exciting things being done today. A chance to get back in a network admin position. And the chance to design a network and data infrastructure basically from the ground up.

So the next day i turned in my letter of resignation. Today i turned in my letter of acceptance with the Texas AgriLife Research and Extension Center part of the Texas A&M System. My first day is Sept 1.

I am so excited. September can’t get here fast enough.

vacation recap

john — Sat, 11 Jul 2009 15:28:10 +0000

The long awaited vacation finally arrived. Keeping in typical jm fashion, i couldln’t just sit and rest through the entire week. on monday morning i took hannah and arryn to the beach. we got to schlitterbhan early just as they opened so had the run of the place most of the morning. i hadn’t had that much fun in quite a while. when it started getting really hot we took off in search of food and shade. taco bell of course was the meal of choice, then we went to the condo to rest for a bit. after a little while of playing in the sand we went back to the water park to use up the rest of the day. I had a good time just floating around where ever the current took me.

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came back home the next day. got one of those 100,000 mile health insurance check up things. Everything came out good. my LDH was a little low but i’m not going to go start a vegan diet anytime soon.

wednesday worked on a project for church. Trying to get them ready for the HD conversion, just a few months after the switch over mind you. If only it was as easy as it is for your home where alll you have to do is buy a new tv or converter. i’m looking at replacing cameras, signaling, ccu’s robotics, ptz control, master control, audio-pass thru, archiving as well as down converting for the old SD stuff we still have.

thursday another early morning road trip, this time to san antonio. Hannah and arryn in my car, megan and her friends following behind in their car. got to san antonio and headed for the at&t center for Warped Tour. after parking and walking up to the building the line was wraped all along the building, along the side, up to the rear of the building. ok.. so we probably stood in line for about an hour before we got in. it was 11 in the morning and at least 105 degrees. out their. we got inside finally and it was a very minture version of cornerstone only without tents and dirt and pig water. the heat index must have been 115, it was standing room only on the parking lot of the att center. after about an hour i found a cozy spot under a tree with all the other parents. i don’t know how i used to do this every summer for a week. while we were sitting there under the tree some guy came by looking for people wating to work some of the stages. i thought about it for a second, how fun it would be to get to work a stage at warped tour, but the attempt to peel myself from the blacktop and make my body corporate with my intention to stand up was a failed attempt. i just sat there. and melted.

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it really wasn’t bad. not exactally any bands i really enjoyed but it wasn’t a bad experience. i think i had more fun watching the kids and hanging out with them. remembering was it was like to be that age. *sigh*

came back home the next day to finally spend some of my vacation with my wife. she didn’t get to join us, because of work and she can’t handle being in the heat at all. not the type of vacation she woudl have enjoyed

Psalm 139

john — Tue, 14 Apr 2009 20:21:10 +0000

I was looking up one of my favorite Psalm’s and wondered what it looked like in The Message translation:

^1-6 God, investigate my life; get all the facts firsthand.
I’m an open book to you;
even from a distance, you know what I’m thinking.
You know when I leave and when I get back;
I’m never out of your sight.
You know everything I’m going to say
before I start the first sentence.
I look behind me and you’re there,
then up ahead and you’re there, too—
your reassuring presence, coming and going.
This is too much, too wonderful—
I can’t take it all in!

^7-12 Is there anyplace I can go to avoid your Spirit?
to be out of your sight?
If I climb to the sky, you’re there!
If I go underground, you’re there!
If I flew on morning’s wings
to the far western horizon,
You’d find me in a minute—
you’re already there waiting!
Then I said to myself, “Oh, he even sees me in the dark!
At night I’m immersed in the light!”
It’s a fact: darkness isn’t dark to you;
night and day, darkness and light, they’re all the same to you.

^13-16 Oh yes, you shaped me first inside, then out;
you formed me in my mother’s womb.
I thank you, High God—you’re breathtaking!
Body and soul, I am marvelously made!
I worship in adoration—what a creation!
You know me inside and out,
you know every bone in my body;
You know exactly how I was made, bit by bit,
how I was sculpted from nothing into something.
Like an open book, you watched me grow from conception to birth;
all the stages of my life were spread out before you,
The days of my life all prepared
before I’d even lived one day.

^17-22 Your thoughts—how rare, how beautiful!
God, I’ll never comprehend them!
I couldn’t even begin to count them—
any more than I could count the sand of the sea.
Oh, let me rise in the morning and live always with you!
And please, God, do away with wickedness for good!
And you murderers—out of here!—
all the men and women who belittle you, God,
infatuated with cheap god-imitations.
See how I hate those who hate you, God,
see how I loathe all this godless arrogance;
I hate it with pure, unadulterated hatred.
Your enemies are my enemies!

^23-24 Investigate my life, O God,
find out everything about me;
Cross-examine and test me,
get a clear picture of what I’m about;
See for yourself whether I’ve done anything wrong—
then guide me on the road to eternal life.

Slumdog Millionaire

john — Sun, 22 Feb 2009 17:57:45 +0000

Wow, talk about an amazing movie. If it doesn’t win Best Picture tonight i’m going to be disapointed. Patti, Hannah and myself went to go see it last night after a fun filled sunday. We’ve had some amazing weekends lately. Yesterday we got to stay in bed until around 10 when we finally got out from the covers. We got to clean up the kitchen, did launry, patti mopped. Around 1 we went over to Marilda’s and had an amazing lunch with her and her family. I hadn’t gotten to hang out with them in quite a while so that was really fun. We got home, took another nap and once the kids finally started waking up we decided to go to the movies. I would hightly recomend you to go check it out. You won’t regeret it.

Hello World

john — Fri, 20 Feb 2009 18:20:28 +0000

Ok, so i’ve been on an unofficial leave of absence for a while. I’m already sick and tired of borderfest and it hasn’t even started yet. They have some good ideas, but their execution leaves allot to be called for. And that’s because i’ve only had to deal with one of the ladies out their. I feel sorry for Irene and Billy who have been talking with these people much longer than i have.

what else has been going on, well St Jude’s radiothon is today and yesterday. After 6 years of doing these, it’s gotten really easy. Of course it helped to find out that two of the jacks i’ve been using have deal pairs on 4&5, oh well.. a project for next week.

Also setup a system called star fetch. when ever one of the ladies here would get an order from one of our networks, she would get about 20 a week that would take several hours of her day to fill out. well.. the network would send the orders too but apparently the ladies here never knew that so they were entering in all that stuff. Today i setup our system so the order are automatically entered and all they have to do is approve each one and vola.

what else have i done this week… ah.. the church website got a facelift. and alot of backend updates too. i was afraid it was going to break the podcast software but it still seams to work somehow. i’m going to tweak the css and images a bit but it’s mostly done.

oh and Ellie updated her site too. Check out the Galleries…

Monday i was doing sound at church for a thing going on for ECISD. Apprently they are required to put their paraprofessionals through so many hours of training each year. well.. the morning was boring. just school stuff. but the rest of the day was.. um.. different. the 1st part was a circus act and the 2nd part was a comedian/magician. oh well.. as long as it was on the school’s tab.

Rodger Irish showed up last night. well not literally, but in my email box. It was kind of bizzare because i was thinking of him last night as i was driving to the ATM drive thru. He drove through the ATM backwards once. Talk about living dangeriously.