automaticable

Hey, a post!  I feel that this story deserves some internet coverage somewhere, so why not automaticable!  And maybe this will convince the others to post something, other than April’s Fools Posts.

So, as some of you may know, I have been working for a commercial printing company doing IT for about half a year now.  The company has been in the middle of a massive merge and building-consolidation process.  All-in-all, everything has gone quite well.  One server crashed, but everything was recovered from backups.  However, working in a small business during poor economic times means working with some painfully old devices.

Last week I was given a pretty simple task.  I needed to set up a networked label printer that had been moved from the old shop.  Easy enough, it should just grab an IP via DHCP, and I can log onto its web interface to set it up – no big deal.  I hooked up the printer and voila, 192.168.2.13.  It was set up.  Went into our router, changed the IP from dynamic to static, and headed out for the evening.  Seemed like everything had gone great.

Now fast forward to the next morning, the pressmen are just getting ready to pull the press data from the servers, and – oh crap.  The press computer is down.  This press prints out 16,000 sheets per hour, and each sheet has 2-3 pieces on it.  You can imagine how fast I got the phone call.  I went straight to the press when I got in to see an error about an IP Conflict.  Our presses are all assigned static IP’s, so I went in to the network config – the IP assigned was 192.168.2.13.  Sounds familiar.

Turns out this label printer (I won’t name the brand, but I can’t say I’m surprised by this faulty setup) does not quite understand the meaning of DHCP and IP conflicts.  When it booted up the BOOTP process assigned it any random IP, regardless of what else might be under that IP.  I quickly unplugged the printer, and the press came back online.  In the end, I hooked the printer up to a more manageable HP JetDirect, and avoided any more IP conflicts.

The ironic part of this story?

A desk label printer this small :                                                Shut down a printing press this large :

No, not really. Well I guess technically yes, but no, not really.

This is more of a way to force myself to put a post up of the new house with awesome before and after photos. If I say I’m going to do it publicly there is no backing down, right? Well here it is:

Sometime next week anyone and everyone (and I KNOW there is a huge automaticable following that has been waiting patiently for months for a new blog post) who wants to see the massive upgrades to the new house will get a blog post of just that. THERE I promised. There is no backing down.

Hey everyone, I know it’s been a while, but hopefully with this new post I can spark some enthusiasm into my dead beat brothers to start posting here again.  Have you ever wished for something and hoped that it came true?  Around the last couple times I posted, I stated that I got my extension to work in recreation.  I’ve enjoyed this new job for the most part, but as any job, it has its ups and downs.  The upside is some days I get to either work on the dock  with boats all day, or work the “gates” position, handing out wristbands and interacting with guests and kids.  The downside is that at a resort, there are “custodial” positions that I have to work as well that aren’t fun at all, very labor intensive, and the other cast members don’t treat you very well because the position has the word “custodial” in it.

Well, since the extension, a lot  has gone on.  I went home for my brother’s graduation which was amazing to say the least.  I also went on vacation for family reunion and I’m going to talk about that a little more extensively in a little bit, and lastly, I got my 2nd extension just a few short days ago to transfer into Transportation.  As most of you may have heard, there was a fatal accident recently in WDW on July 5th at 2AM involving a monorail.  Two cars were on the same track traveling different directions and unfortunately these two cars collided, killing one cast member, and minor injuries on only a handful of guests.  After about 3-5 days of investigation the monorail HAS reopened.  Am I worried about my new transfer because being a monorail driver is probably what I’m going to be doing?  Of course, but for it to be the first accident in 38 years of the monorails operation, the odds of something drastic happening are very slim.

Now about family reunion.  This vacation in general was something I was looking forward to for the last two years, and it couldn’t have gone any better.   I started out the vacation by leaving a full 4 days early to drive up to Atlanta to meet up with my brother Kyle as well as surprise my parents.  I wasn’t supposed to be able to leave for vacation until the Monday after the festivities began, but I pulled some strings and left directly after work Wednesday night and arrived very early Thursday morning into Atlanta.  My parents didn’t have any idea that I was going to be in Atlanta, so when they arrived Thursday evening, I popped out from hiding behind my brothers car and surprised them all.  It was the perfect way to start vacation.  After garage sale shopping for a day or so, we were off on vacation!  After a short six hour drive we arrived!  We hung out at one of the towny bars for a while waiting for our vacation homes to be ready to moved into, and once we all moved in the fun began!

I lucked out and stayed in the beach front home, so every night I was able to fall asleep and wake up every morning to the sound of the ocean.  The first night I hung out on the beach with cousins, and ended up fishing with them and caught a shark!!  It was so exciting!  It was about 4 feet long and about 10-12 pounds.  Put up a pretty good fight and was so exciting to pull in and hold up close.  For the remainder of the week, there was alot of just hanging out, playing in the water, fishing, and then going to the local raw bar called Eddie Teach’s.  They had THE BEST old bay shrimp and raw oysters I have EVER had, and with $4 pitchers of PBR, we made that our place for the week.  I probably ate about 20lbs of shrimp that week, all at Eddie Teach’s, so if you ever find yourself in St. George’s Island, FL, make sure to check it out!

The last day of the trip we went out on a kayaking trip in the snakelike rivers of the area, got to see some alligators, and just spent some quality time with my relatives.  Overall, the trip went really well and was something that I just really needed after 5 months of working for Disney, and not really seeing anyone that I truly knew.

That’s all I really have for now.  It’s getting late and I have to be up early in the morning.  It’s great to be posting again and hopefully we can get Automaticable back up and as lively as it was before.  Who’s with me on getting this blog awesome again?

Well folks, again last week was a very hectic week for me and I didn’t get around to posting again, but that just means I have a lot to write about!  The last couple of weeks were a real blast because I got a bunch of days off, and used that time to really treat myself to some fun outings.  I have been mainly just chilling with my roommates, but I did get a chance to go mini-golfing at a pretty sweet course during the time between my last post.  If you don’t know me, then let it be known that I LOVE mini-golfing and go-karting, probably two of my most favorite things to do to hang out with friends and such like that.  The place was kind of expensive, but I had buy-one-get-one free coupons, so it turned out to be about average price.  I also got too take some time and actually get some sun down at the pool, and let me tell you, it’s probably the most relaxing sensation in the world to just lay out in either the direct sun, or a partly overcast day and be at peace with yourself and your surroundings.

Work’s getting tougher and tougher with longer hours, early mornings, late nights, and redeployment folks that don’t really want to be in their new location and learn how the new location works. I’m being placed as a point person more and more now, which is amazing.  I love being the leader of a stand and being able to control the flow of how things work, because I have definitely worked in stands where there’s no control or direction.  Now that I’m a point/run I am able to help my team work as a well oiled machine within at least 2 hours.  The start of the shift is usually a little rough because people don’t want to listen to me, just because I’m a college program student, or they’re extra hours or redeployment people and feel they’re exempt from learning anything new, but as soon as I inform them that they can either A) listen and work as a team or B) go home and lose the hours they’d be working that day, they usually choose option A and are glad they did.  I let them know that if it’s a new position for them that they’re on, I’ll be right there next to them to help them if they have any questions, as well as train them on how to work that position effectively and efficiently as possible.

I have also decided that I’m going to extend my program.  I just submitted my application to extend about an hour ago, and I’m really excited to hear the results back from them soon.  I either want to stay in my location doing QSR F&B (Quick Service Restaurant Food and Beverage) or move on to Attractions or even Parking.  We’ll see how things play out.  If I am accepted to extend my program, I’ll be down in Orlando until August 14th.  This is another 3 months added onto my program, which will be perfect because with work and classes right now, I have no time to really network myself and try to get myself into the professional internship, but this extra time on my program will put me in a position to where I can do that.  There’s just so much going on right now, and all of it good and that excites me!  Well, as the excitement continues, I’ll try to keep better track of what’s going on and keep all you kids back home updated!  Take care everyone and I hope you all had a wonderful St. Patrick’s Day!!!

So within the last couple days I’ve really been reminiscing about the past and I’ve come to the conclusion that I truly miss my childhood.  All this growing up and making adult decisions really isn’t something that I want to be doing.  I’m sitting here drinking coffee out of a mug the size of my head that’s decorated like Jack Skellington from The Nightmare Before Christmas and watching my roommate and my neighbor putt in my family room.  This sort of relaxation and carefree lifestyle reminds me so much of when I was 10 years old and would gather all my friends on the street to play hide-and-go-seek or flashlight tag.  Twelve people all around the age of ten gathering around a cul-de-sac at 8 o’clock with a curfew of 10:00.  Being a seasoned veteran of the game, I knew exactly where to hide, when to pop out, and when to run like hell to try to tag safe.  Of course people began to catch onto my plan and began to look specifically for me, but that’s when I would start working as a team with the other hiders and tell them to all hide together and where, and they would all come out like thirty seconds after the seekers pass them up.  Oh I miss the old days.

Wow this coffee’s strong….

But yeah, that doesn’t really keep you updated with what I’m doing down here, but that’s alright, because I don’t even remember what I’ve done within the last couple days.  I know I went to the theme parks and saw more of Hollywood Studios than I’ve ever seen before, I started up my new classes (they were just general information days, no real work yet), but other than that, it’s been a pretty mellow week.  I’ll try to see what I can do about posting more often, or waking up earlier to post, because so far it’s looking like I’m only really going to be able to post on days that I have off, just because I’m too busy otherwise.  I’m off to go bake in the sun, rotisary style, catch ya’ll later!

I want to formally apologize to all loyal readers of Automaticable for my lack of post last week.  It’s been a very crazy past couple weeks for me with lots of work, very little down time and crazy parties that last ’till all hours of the night I just haven’t found time to sit down and just be able to collect my thoughts.  I’m in the process of trying to remember things, and really, all that’s coming up is a giant blur. I know on my days off I went to Blizzard Beach and had a blast.  There were next to no lines for any of the slides, so I was able to do the entire park with my roommate in under 3 hours.  It’s nice being a Disney cast member because you get free admission to just about everything, and when you tell people that you’re a cast member, you notice their eyes light up in a special way that you don’t really see in many other cases.  Immediately following this you’re bombarded with questions about the parks, your job, your experience and how many Mickey’s are there?  (There’s only 1 by the way)

The other days were all work days, and there was either a softball game, soccer game, or some sort of dance competition going on where they stuck me in the Stocker position.  Being a stocker you do exactly that, stock.  You make sure that the stand, and possibly surrounding stands, have completely full stock, and if they’re running out, you have to go get it.  The only problem with this is you’re either stuck at a stand completely too far away from the stocking kitchen, or stuck at a stand where people only tell you one thing at a time, so you’re running back and forth to a kitchen all day.  That’s all I’m going to complain about with that, because frankly? I love my job.

I would much rather be working at the Wide World of Sports any day then one of the main theme parks because last week I was stuck at Hollywood Studios (formally MGM) for a day, and I was kicking myself in the ass because of how difficult the job was.  I give major props to all the concessions people in the main parks because of how many people they have to deal with on a regular basis, as well as dealing with the stress of doing no less than four things at a time.  I have to work there again tomorrow and possibly wednesday (I’m trying to get it off because I have class earlier that day and won’t have time between class and work).

So, tonight I made enchiladas for dinner and, basically, they were very delicious to say the least.  I fed about 8 people with them and each and every one of them all agreed that I need to cook for them more often.  I tried a few new things with it that I haven’t tried before, like using a canned Enchilada sauce than just making it from scratch, as well as adding a few spices in there that I’ve never thought of putting in there.  All in all, I was very pleased with how they turned out.

Again, I wish to apologize to you all for the late update, but trust me, you’ll get another one by Sunday morning!  Enjoy the snow Chicago!

Well, the first week of my vacation/internship has concluded, and I still have a smile on my face!  My first day of training at the Wide World of Sports was cool, but trying to get home was a pain in the butt.  It takes me an hour and a half to get to the park by a double bus transfer, but if I had a car to drive there, it would only take half an hour.  Going home is where the real problem is, because the bus doesn’t stop at the Wide World of Sports very often to pick up cast members (that’s what they call Disney employees).  So I called the bus before I went out to wait, which I then waited an hour, called the bus company AGAIN then preceded to wait another half hour until the bus came.  Once it arrived we rode to the Pop Century cast back lot to go over to Costuming to get our Disney Regulated uniforms (costumes).  We were there for about a half hour, and were pushing our luck on trying to catch the next bus (which left at 4:00), and we arrived outside at 4:01 and JUST missed the bus and had to wait ANOTHER half hour to catch the next bus.  Once that one came it was a half hour ride home, and a fifteen minute walk from the bus stop to my apartment.  All and all, it was about three hours from the time I clocked out until the time I stepped back into my apartment.

Other than that little fiasco, work has been pretty good and very enjoyable.  The rest of my training has consisted of stocking condiment shelves, stocking ALL of the concession stands, and then yesterday was our first day of event work, and I worked in a very non-busy tent selling Soda, Water, Power aid, Turkey Legs, Hot Dogs, Hamburgers, Pretzles, Nachos, and Candy.  Right now the event is the College Cheerleading, Dance and Mascot National Championships, so that should be alot of fun, I’ve already ran into a bunch of the cheerleaders and mascots so it was quite exciting.

On my days off that I had last week I did alot of shopping as well as went off to the amusement parks with with my roommates and that was alot of fun.  This week has also helped me create alot new friends around the apartment complex and find people to hang out with when I have nothing better to do.  Well, it’s getting to be around lunch time around here, and I have to start getting ready for work as well, so I hope you all have a wonderful week and I’ll write again next week!

P.S.  Hope everyone in the Midwest is doing okay with all that snow and and cold weather you guys have been having.  Stay warm, stay safe, and stay up to date by subscribing to our RSS!

Hey everybody!  Good news!  I made it in Orlando, FL safely! YAY!  I left around 6:30 AM on Wednesday, and everything was pretty smooth flying, and I got a window seat, so I took a bunch of pictures while in the air.  When I arrived, I got to the baggage claim and my bags were the first ones off the chutes, so it was perfect!  After that I went down to find my shuttle to the apartments.  The ride from the airport to the apartments was pretty fun because I shared the shuttle with other people from Chicago, Ohio, and California, and when I told them that I was going to be a Disney Cast Member, they all became really excited and had millions of questions for me.  I remember a couple days before I was leaving for Orlando, I was so nervous, stressed, and scared because of all the unknowns coming down here, but upon my arrival, all my worries left me and I became extremely excited.

The first day was all the registration nonsense, which took an hour and a half, mainly because the fingerprinting process took 45 min in itself.  After that I went off to go to my apartment, which was unfortunately (in some aspects) is on the third floor.  But I can’t complain, because the apartment I’m in is brand new, in great condition, and I get my own bathroom for my room.  Once I found my apartment and got situated and everything, me and my roommates headed off to Walmart to pick up a few things, but were all greatly disappointed that the 1000 other people that showed up today, raided the same Walmart and took all the hangers!  It was the one main thing that I needed from Walmart last night, but alas, we all struck out in the hanger department.

Yesterday was another long day, but luckily it wasn’t alot of registration stuff.  We had to go through SOME stuff, where we signed up for classes, got our work assignments, and turned in our I-9 information.  After about 45 min or so I was done, and made a trip to the wonderful Chic-fil-et for lunch, and it was D-E-L-ICIOUS!  On our first day they gave us coupons for there, so lunch was pretty cheap and well worth it on such a beautiful day.  After lunch, we waited bout 30 min for a few more of our roommates who got caught up with the registration process, but once we all were home, we made our second Wal-Mart trip, but to a different one, and it was perfect.  I spent a good chunk of money, but I should be set on groceries for about a month or so.  That night was alot of fun, all my roommates got together and we held a small party where we watched the BCS Championship game (GO GATORS!!!) and just hung out for the rest of the evening.

Today was another long day, but luckily it was a later start day so I get some extra sleep.  Speaking of sleep, the beds that we have feel like they are just pieces of plywood with some fabric over them, so I went out and bought a mattress pad, and oh man, it made the bed amazingly more comfortable.  But back to day 3….Today was our Traditions class which was a 5 hour class where you sit in a room and go over all the legal issues like harassment, the two finger point, the Disney Look, and the Show.  It was alot of movies, and alot of very boring information, but obviously essential for a company to work as well as Disney does.

Tonight’s going to be a pretty low key night due to me starting my work training tomorrow and having to be awake at a very early hour tomorrow, but I get done early tomorrow so I think I might hit up the theme parks and hang out with my roommates and neighbors.  But for now, it’s about 9:30 here, and a few of my roommates want to watch Donny Darko, so I’m going to go join them!

Oh, btw, I hope all you kiddies from Chicago don’t get buried in snow!  I’m glad it’s supposed to be in the 70’s here tomorrow!

I’m a couple days late, but Happy New Years!  2008 was our inaugural year for automaticable, and it has been a huge success.


Let’s look back with some stats:

• Total Posts: 147
• Total Comments: 376
• Total Visitors: 54,679
• Number of Visiting Countries: 154
• Number of Sites Linking Here: 364
• Busiest Traffic Day: Sept. 21 (10,285 views)

Here are some of the most popular posts from our first year:

• Lock Down Your Ubuntu Computer with A Bluetooth Cellphone and BlueProximity
• How-to: Enable Surround Sound on Ubuntu Hardy
• Organize Your ToDo List in Ubuntu with Remember The Milk and Tasque
• Electric Sheep: A Screen Saver That Learns (and is the best I’ve ever seen)
• How To: Host a Subversion Repository in Ubuntu Hardy
• Comcast Blocking DD-WRT?
• Void My Firefox Warranty?
• How-to: Mount a Network drive in Ubuntu
• Customize Your Dual-boot: GUI Frontend to GRUB
• Easy Subversion GUI for Nautilus and Ubuntu

And as the New Year is upon us, I’d also like to make some personal goals for myself.  I don’t believe in New Years resolutions, but I do have a few things I’d like to improve in the upcoming year:

• Run More: Last year I started excersing and running regularly, and even did a half-marathon in the Fall.  I’d like to keep it up, and push even harder this year.  If all goes well, I’ll be running the Chicago Marathon with a friend later this year.
• Study More: I’m coming up on my last semester as an undergraduate, but it really doesn’t end there for me.  I just applied for graduate school, and hope to pursue a Masters in machine learning starting next Fall.  I want to end this year strong, and get ready for harder classes and more research in graduate school.
• Revive automaticable: You may have notices lulls in posting during our first year.  This is mostly due to my own lack of time and motivation, but I’d like to fix that in 2009.  Brian has already alluded to a few changes we are planning in the site layout, and there’s a few other things we have planned as well.  Stay tuned.

These are my goals for 2009.  Have you made any for yourself?  And as we begin a new year for automaticable, what would you like to see more of on the blog?  Leave your thoughts in the comments.

Hey loyal readers! I know it’s been a while (Holy crap, 3 months?!?!?) since our last post, but that does NOT mean that we Wegnerians have given up on you.  We’ve just all been swamped with school, work, social lives, or lack there of.  There are some changes that you will notice to the site as soon as the New Year, which includes a brand new Tab dedicated to me!  Why me? Because #1 I’m awesome, #2 I’m special, #3 I have a class project with my new internship that requires me to keep record of what I’m doing (I’ll post more on this later on).

So, I’m sitting here thinking, and I realize I only have about 32 more hours before I’m off on a flight, leaving the U.S.A. to go be in warm, 85 degree weather during some of the most brutal snow storms Chicago’s had in quite a while.  The family and I (yes, all automaticable bloggers) are taking a GLORIOUS trip down to Jamaica for my parent’s 25th wedding anniversary.  This is a trip that has been in the makings for about six months now, and I’m as gitty as a school girl.  With a brand new camera, and skin as white as the snow we’re leaving behind, I’m fully prepared for a 7 day, all expenses paid vacation in the Caribbean.  Our resort includes a poolside bar, sailboats at our leisure, a beach, and endless amount of sunshine.  I don’t want to brag or anything, but it’s supposed to be 85 degrees EVERY day that we’re there.

Now, being it the holiday season, we were torn at first, at what to do about “The Big C” (Christmas), but in the end, we decided…..we’re skipping Christmas.  Yes, I know, shocking, because every year we have Christmas Eve at our place, and 45 people will all be disappointed this year because Santa will be coming down the stairs this year, instead of the elevator.  The fact that we’re skipping Christmas this year, is kind of difficult.  All my friends are asking me what I want for Christmas, and the only good answer I have come up with is “A Tan.”  I’m saving a bunch of money for not having to buy any gifts this year, but I can’t seem to put a close to 2008, even with New Years on its way.  Without Christmas, my year just doesn’t seem to be complete.  Oh well, Jamaica will still be fun, and I’ll be tan for my arrival in Orlando.

So here’s the deal, starting January 7th, I’m leaving the cold once again to live in Orlando, Florida for 5 months.  I have been offered (and I graciously accepted) an internship at Walt Disney World.  I will be working in Quick Service Food and Beverage, but I won’t know which exact park or where IN the park until I arrive down there.  The new tab I was talking about is for the Coop-Internship side of things, where I have to keep in contact with a faculty member at my college so they know I’m actually doing something down there instead of just enjoying the warm weather.  I’ll try to post ATLEAST once a week, and there will also be pictures to support my posts.  This is an exciting thing for me, because it’s an opportunity of a life time, and will give me direction and motivation on what I really want my future to hold.  With that being said, it’s now close to midnight on Saturday and I only have 30 more hours, before my flight leaves for Jamaica.

A Bon Voyage to you all, as well as a Happy Chrismahanukwanzakah with a Jolly good New Year!