The Challenge:
– Post 3 things you've done in your lifetime that you don't think anybody else
on your friends list has done.
– See if anybody else responds with "I've done that." If they have, you need to
add another! (2.b., 2.c., etc…)
– Have your friends cut & paste this into their journal to see what unique
things they've done in their life.

1. Bought a house, and within 24 hours had 10+ people there cleaning firearms in its backyard, then blew up a watermelon using a dry ice bomb. Note by this point, I didn't even have appliances, or anything more than a bed and a couple of chairs. 🙂 (okay, so this is joint with Becky but since she never posts I get to count this)

2. Got arrested by the FBI while traveling to the airport in a limo, then went into work the next (work) day, trying to play it off like nothing happened (not realizing my name was in pretty much every major newspaper in the nation, and was mentioned on every morning drive news program in Detroit). Needless to say: Awkward!

3. I was the IT guy for a NBA all star player straight out of high school.

Click to access 104881854.pdf

Hard hitting news from almost 100 years ago. Fluff pieces are not a new thing. 🙂

(found accidentally while searching for some ATIS documentation)

Happy independence day!
Originally uploaded by Paul Timmins.

Okay so when I was at work becky got Defend Your Castle for the wii (it's downloadable in the wii store)

Becky said she was having problems beating level 7. She went to take a shower. This was 8:30pm.

She got out, and I was still playing.

11:45 my arm got sore and i was wanting the dinner that was sitting right next to me. Without dying once, I got to level 40. Then my arm got sore and I got beat. I rested, played it one more time, and beat level 41.

NOT BAD FOR A FIRST TRY GUYS RIGHT?

So that's how I spent my friday night. Playing a goofy game where you kill stick figures with a bread twist thingus. At least I wasn't throwing my life away doing something unproductive.

1+1 Linear APS protection group? Check!
911 in all SBC Michigan territories? Check!
Trunking to all SBC Michigan territories? Check!
Over 24 hours of battery plant? Check!

Now off to redefining telecommunications in Michigan.

(To the non geeks, all this crap means all the work I've put into building a facilities network since last July has come to fruition. Finally.)

It's getting to the point where when I talk about what I do at work all day, most people won't understand it, though the result of my work are things most people in America use every day, like telephones and the internet.

It's like, I try to explain a concept, and most people, even many of the technical ones I know, are hearing:

So today I *bla bla blahed* this on our telephone switch, then *bla bla bla bla bla bla bla*, and then my network had a *bla bla bla bla bla* issue that was corrected quickly, which is a result of our excellent monitoring systems. Then I had to deal with *bla bla bla bla bla bla bla* and as a result accidentally disconnected our ability to call radio station contest lines in the *bla bla bla bla bla* area. (not that anyone would notice that for such a small duration of time!) All of that and *bla bla bla bla bla bla*. But we also *bla bla bla bla* ported *bla bla bla* phone numbers that we *bla bla bla bla* accidentally from another carrier.

Today I also *bla bla bla* website *bla bla bla* and soon we'll be able to fully market in the next state we're entering. We just have to *bla bla bla the industry jargon bla bla bla bla* and then poof, we'll clear all the regulatory hurdles.

Oh, and I drank a lot of mountain dew and sent emails.

Hopefully tomorrow I'll get to rickroll the Oakland County Central Dispatch while we're doing 911 test calls. Though that probably won't happen until Monday.

(See this *bla bla bla 911 jargon* formatted file entry, with some parts randomly removed for cleanup reasons:
C24857476001287 S COMMERCE RD WALLED LAKE MINEVER GONNA GIVE YOU UP NEVER GONNA LET YOU DOWN CLEARRATE TEST 20WXXXXXX0462485747600 0640 8 CRC 48390

When I make the test call, the dispatcher will see:
CLEARRATE TEST
1287 S COMMERCE RD
NEVER GONNA GIVE YOU UP NEVER GONNA LET YOU DOWN
WALLED LAKE, MI 48390

as my address on the screen. It's okay, because we're doing 911 test calls and pretty much anything goes as long as the trunk works and they know it's a test. It's coordinated with the dispatch center so they know to expect wacky things. 🙂

That's today's story, in layman's terms. See, I'm doing cool stuff, but I just don't know how far down the rabbit hole to go. Ideas?

since my last public post:

+bought a ups that doesn't suck
-it ate itself in less than 24 hours
-i haven't had a chance to rma it yet
+hung out with friends
+work's been sorta crazy like that's anything new
+we have been eating lots of delicious grilled animal flesh
+i'm finally almost in sync with all my bills again, it was kinda screwed up for a while because of the furnace being replaced and the mortgage servicers getting things unfucked. it's good not to have the fucking robocallers doing their ridiculous prerecorded "we have an important message for …. pault immins … if this is you please press 1" bla bla bla.

and since I haven't posted since, RIP Dan, you'd be really geeked by what I'm doing right now, moreso than last year and the year before. You're missed.