R.I.P Bronx
(1997 – 2009)

Be good Bronxie…. We’ll miss you!!

Bronx, Home & Family | 1 Comment »

 

Family Picture

People say that when there is death, there is also new life. I wonder if it is true for dogs?
Today is April 1st, Fool’s Day to be exact. This day will always be memorable to me because Bronx was born on this day. For those who don’t know who Bronx is, he is my family dog. He came to us as a coincidence and I think it was fate, but who knows…. All I know is that the love he had for my family and I has changed who we are and how we live our lives for the better…. Who would have known that a dog could have so much power and influence on one’s life. Who would have also known that on Bronx’s 12th birthday, we would be celebrating not only his birth but also his last few days on earth…
I called the vet today at 4pm and booked an appointment for Bronx to be put down on Saturday, April 4th, 2009 at 4:30pm. It’s hard to play “God,” to put a life in your hands and decide when that life should be lived or be taken away. My mind plays a broken record, contemplating on when to let Bronx go. Do we part from Bronx when he seems to be ‘relatively’ okay or do we play the waiting game until we see him suffer even more? Which is the best way? I don’t think anyone will ever know…

Bronx, Home & Family | No Comments »

Wow…. I can’t believe that 2008 is ending and 2009 is just around the corner.  This year went by sooo fast… Shall I reflect… hmmm well maybe later.. I’ll create a separate page for it …

Anyways, I want to wish everybody a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.  Please spend your holidays responsibly, but have fun.  This holiday, surround yourself with your cherished ones and fulfill this occasion with love and joy – even if it’s only for a day.

Christine, Rex and I wish you a Merry Christmas, Happy Holidays and Happy New Year to all!!!!!  Have fun and be safe!

Casual, Home & Family | No Comments »

Woo hoo!! I finally picked up the long-awaited Pearl White Ducati Monster 696 today! Rode it home, that’s it so far. Just a quick update, pics to follow soon.

Yay!

UPDATE: http://gallery.andie.ca/ – a few pics

Casual | 3 Comments »

It has been a while since I posted anything, so here’s one. I don’t have much to say really, but I thought I would post one so Devina can read it.

I’ve been thinking about buying a bike lately and I even have one in mind – the Ducati Monster 696. I used to think that if I was to go get a bike, I would get a Super Sport Bike rather than a “naked” bike or a Streetfighter, but when I saw this bike on the net, I was attracted to it (I still do like the Super Sport Bikes as well though, I’m also comparing prices). Even though it has a 696cc engine, the bike is among the shortest bikes out there (seat height wise – 30.3in/77cm); it is also one of the lightest bikes too (355lbs – 161kg). Anyways, the dealership I talked to told me that the M696 will be arriving this May or early June – I hope they get it sooner, I want to see it up close.

Christine and I have been pretty busy with work lately, but it’s a good busy. Other than that, well… nothing really new, nothing that I want to share up here anyways. Okie, well.. leave me some comments (if you have some) and tell me what you think about the M696.

Dev, if you are reading this, say hi to everybody for me okay (especially Popoh)…

Casual, Home & Family | No Comments »

And it’s not over yet…. It started on Monday, that morning I felt a little “tickle” in my throat.  I was coughing a bit but that was it – I shrugged it off.  After I arrived at home, I suddenly have cold sweat all over my face, my body was all tingly and a headache was pounding my head.  I already missed last week’s soccer game, I was not planning on missing this week’s – I toughen up and rubbed Vicks VapoRub on my chest, back and neck.  The game was not until 10:15pm, so I had a bit of time to “recover.”  I even had Christine “kerokin” my back (picture in the link is NOT a picture of my back), it’s what we Indonesians do when we get a cold – it’s supposed to KEROK (scoop) the “bad wind” out.  Against my better judgment, I played anyways – we won.. (not because of my presence, but rather because our team played very well).  Before the game I drank a can of Red Bull, rubbed Vicks on my chest & neck and took an Ibuprofen – ya not smart.  After the game, I felt okay – took a shower and went to bed.  The next day, I woke up with a pounding headache and a fever.  I had the chills and I was sweating – I decided to take a sick day.  I tried to sleep it off most of the day (as I usually only need a day or so to recover from a cold) but I was not able to.  The headache was not willing to give up, it just kept pounding and pounding.  By evening on Tuesday, my head felt like it was filled with liquid and the pressure, oh my…. it was not nice.  I took Buckley’s, Advil cold, and Vicks Night Time (hoping that it would knock me out so I can sleep).  Well, I was awake all night, my eyes were so sore from the pressure that every time I close my eyes I felt like putting a needle through it to release some pressure.  2:30am… 2:45am… 3:30am… and before I knew it, it was 6:00am.  I asked my lovely wife if she could take the day off to drive me to the doc. and she put in a request for a sub last minute.  She drove me to the doctor and we waited in the clinic for about 2.5 hrs.  The doc told me that I have a sinus infection – never had that before, but man I don’t want to have it anymore.  She prescribed me antibiotics and advil cold and sinus.  Took one in the afternoon and again after supper – Thank God, I was able to sleep last night.  Woke up this morning with the chills and high temperature, so I decided to stay at home (even though the sinus infection is not contagious, says internet but not the doctor, but the cold behind the infection is).  Christine is now showing some symptoms of the cold, d’oh!  She is now laying down and coughing like crazy – poor Christine… all because of me.  To make things worse, I was throwing Rex’s play-rope this evening and playing with him when he accidentally mistaken my hand with the rope… so ya … now my hand has a puncture hole…  What a week….

Hopefully things will be better tomorrow.  I don’t know what’s going on, but after my wisdom teeth surgery, my health has not been the greatest… coink-a-dink?? Maybe…

Casual, Home & Family | No Comments »

Oioi,

So I just switched the site’s “hoster” to a different company; so far so good. I am still missing the gallery, hopefully I’ll be able to restore (or start a new one – haven’t decided) it this weekend. Well just a quick update…

Casual | 1 Comment »

Oi,
Well I didn’t really have much sleep last night, I was up pretty much all night because of an allergic reaction to what I ate for dinner last night. I think it was the crab cakes, it may have contained shrimps (I asked, and they said it didn’t). It wasn’t pretty, bumps everywhere and the itchiness… oh my…

Okay so yesterday was craaazy. I bet you there was more people in here yesterday and there is in most small town in Canada. The number came out to be some 10,100 peeps yesterday. Sessions were full, the line-ups were long and the way they handle the entry to the session was not the best method either. Anyways, I attended 3 sessions yesterday (and I missed or came late to the other 2). There was also a big “solutions exchange,” it’s like a big vendor expo – I got a few goodies to give to some co-workers.

So, VMware announced that their new ESX server (ESX 3.i or 3.5) will be shipped inside a chip. This will reduce deployment time as the hardware vendor will have the chip built inside their servers. The new ESX will no longer has a service console (RHEL 3) with it, it is just the kernel – hypervisor (footprint of 32MB, as compared to the 2GB with the service console). Dell also announced that at the end of November there will be LIMITED RELEASES of their new server class which will include the ESX “chip.” Well, here’s a little background of the “chip.” VMware was testing the new ESX using a USB key to simulate a chip. Long story short, the new Dell “chip” is not actually a chip on the motherboard, but rather a MEMORY CARD READER (ya …!! like the one you would find in your Camera or Nintendo DS) builtin, as a riser card, to the motherboard. Hmmm…. you will then insert the 2GB memory card (probably will be SD) and there’re your ESX Server. Of course there are pros and cons to that, but I’ll have you guys comment on it. HP will also do a similar thing, except I heard they will have a USB plug right on the motherboard (most newer blades already have these). They may certify specific brand of USB key to be used inside these servers (imagine one of them melting inside your server…. ooh.. gave me the shivers). If you still want to use your old hardware, you can just plug the USB key (with the ESX kernel… sorry ESX hypervisor) to the server and let it boot from it. And yes, it will just dangle in front (or at the back) of the server… I thought that was kinda scary

As I mentioned earlier, VMware announced a new product for DR management called VMware Site Recovery Manager. It is a product that will enable you to manage your auto/manual recovery/failover in the event of a disaster. The product is attached to the VC. It takes advantange the ability of the storage replication technology (if you already have this implemented) and allows you to automatically create/configure the VMs that are in the primary site to the secondary site. VMware SRM will use VC as a proxy to communicate to the ESX hosts. It will NOT do: reports on the replication, quiesceing, or automatic failback. It will run in active-passive configuration and power-on operators can be configured by priority levels (priority levels can also be configured). It also has the a neat testing procedure so you can test your DR scenarios before it happens (knock on wood…. <knock> <knock>). This product will definitely needs to be reviewed later (when we have a proper working DR site and after we implement the SAN replication technology, but for now…. ).

VMotion between CPUs – summary. VMware pretty much said that they have been working with CPU vendors to make sure that there is a uniformity between each chips so VMs can be VMotion between them. Of course, we’re talking about the next ESX roll-out. They all agreed that the base chips must at least support SSE3. This new version of VMotion is called “ENHANCED VMOTION.” It works with different CPU types (same or diferent vendors) by hiding CPU ID instruction feature bit but does not disable the associated instruction feature opcodes. I have more on my notes, but I’m not going to write it all down in this blog.

The last session I went was a “sales” session from DoubleTake and their virtualization solution. For more info, go to http://www.doubletake.com/

Well it was a pretty busy Day 2, but it was a good one. I will try to write Day 3 tomorrow, it’s getting so late…

VMworld 2007, Work | 2 Comments »

Hullo,

Well today was the first day of VMworld 2007 and it was a pretty good one. It wasn’t too full but it wasn’t empty either. I attended 3 labs today:

• Leveraging VMware Consolidated Backup for Disaster Recover
  • A special Thanks to Fred from Dell who kindly gave me his spot so I could do the lab.
  • I was hoping that it would be a little bit more advanced, but it wasn’t.
  • What’s new in VCB 1.0.2:
    • Recognizes “friendly” names from VC
    • iSCSI support
    • Enhance snapshot features
    • LUN IDs in VCB proxy do not have to match with ESX LUN IDs, VCB uses LUN signatures now
    • PowerPath can now be used
    • TSM v.5.3.3 is now supported
    • Needs ESX 3.0.2 and VC 2.0.2
    • WIN2K3 Ent. is recommended
• Leveraging VMware ACE 2.0 to Enforce Security Policies
  • It’s pretty interesting, I think this is something that we can use at the U, but not quite.
• Using VMware Virtual Desktop Infrastructure for Hosted Computing
  • Looks like it’s pretty easy to use and deploy, more info on the lab manual.

There is also an announcement from VMware, here it is: http://www.vmware.com/company/news/releases/esx3i.html

Well so far so good. I think tomorrow it’s going to be a lot busier.

VMworld 2007, Work | No Comments »

Well we didn’t put a single entry while we were down in Indonesia, how shameful (tsk.. tsk.. tsk..). Truth is, we didn’t really have much access to internet and when we did, it was too short and the connection was a pretty slow. Anyways, we’re back in Calgary now… The trip was great, but in my opinion, it was just too busy. 11 years was just too long to be away, I’m going to try to see if we can go visit more often.

There you go, I updated the blog. For those of you who wanted me to update the blog, my job is done (wow.. didn’t really know peeps actually read our blog… ).

Casual, Home & Family | No Comments »