Finally Friday Fun - Road Trip

I am taking a road trip home today.  I am packing up DD and DS and we are headed to Michigan.  I have been anticipating our trip all week and can’t wait to stop by The Stray Dog tonight for dinner.  As I have mentioned before, DD and I have been there recently, but DS has not yet and he will love it.

Along the road home are some other sites and fun things, and since I am thinking about them all, I thought I would blog about them in case you ever happen upon the road from Chicago to Michigan.

There are a few fun little wineries springing up along the Michigan West Coast that I think are fun to try.  Of the three I have tried; FennValley, Tabor Hill, and St. Julian, I like Tabor Hill the best.  It is no California, but for a nice little weekend trip I recommend you reserve a seat on one of the tours at either FennValley or Tabor Hill.

Another fun place to stop along the road from Chicago to Michigan is The Chocolate Garden.  As their website states, they have been featured a few times now on the Food Network, so you know it has to be good.  This time, since Mother’s Day is right around the corner and I need some gifts, I can justify a visit.

Kalamazoo is also along this road home, and it hosts a few attractions that are worth noticing.  First, there is Wings Statdium, home to the K Wings.  If you are more of a history buff than a sports fan, there is the Air Zoo that looks absolutely amazing.  Like the outdoors better?  How about a trip to the Binder Park Zoo?

All this between here and there, I just can’t wait to get on the road!

Cafe Thursday - Hobo Dinners

My family and I call these packets, but my mom first started me on these, calling them Hobo Dinners. When we used to camp in the summers when my brothers and I were young one of the things we looked forward to the most were making these Hobo Dinners. These simple dinners are basically meat and any veggies you want, wrapped in tinfoil, and baked till the meat is cooked through and the veggies are soft.

Now that I have a family of my own, I realize how very difficult it is to feed several people who all have their own likes and dislikes. That is where the true goodness of these Hobo Dinners lies. Each one of us can create our own ideal dinner of meat and veggies. The hardest part of this recipe is the chopping of the veggies, but I recommend you include everyone and really have fun with this.

Recipe:
Take one large piece of tinfoil. Coat it with plenty of Olive Oil. Add the meat of your choice, raw (chicken, fish and groundbeef are the best we have tried). Pile on all the veggies you like (potatoes, carrots, celery, onions, peppers, and zucchini are all delicious). Add the seasonings of your choice, depends mostly on your meat choice (we like steak seasoning best and salt and pepper) Fold in tinfoil so that no heat escapes your pile (DS makes a hershey kiss sort of shape, I usually make more of a big square packet). Bake on a baking sheet at 450 for about 35 minutes, but test for doneness after 30 minutes.

Let cool a bit. CAREFULLY open your packets, the steam will be HOT. Add steak sauce or katsup and enjoy!

Ah yes, the weekend is coming, and I am preparing for it ahead of time. It has been a very long week both at work and at home, and I have been thinking all morning about some of the fun Christmas Cocktails I have seen and how I can’t wait to try them.

Before the mad cow kicks in (yes, I am a closet Boston Legal fan, and I know it is a terrible show but it is just so darned entertaining and impertinent that I LOVE it) I thought I better jot a couple of these down.

1. I first want to try a Candy Cane Martini. I found this yummy sounding recipe at my new favorite Christmas website; CandyCaneMartini.com. Combine the following: 3/4 oz Peppermint Schnapps, 3/4 oz Creme de Cacao, 1/4 oz Grenadine, 1/4 oz Half & Half, and a splash of 7-up.

2. How about a White Christmas? This recipe comes from the folks over at Fine Living: combine 4 oz of Eggnog, 1/2 oz of White Chocolate Liqueur, and 1 oz of Southern Comfort.

3. Next, I may have to try Emeril’s Candy Cane recipe. To make this, add the following ingredients to a large bowl filled with ice cubes: 3 candy canes, crushed , 1/2 bottle vodka, 1 1/2 cups cranberry vodka, 1/4 cup Grand Marnier, 2 cups macerated cherries, 2 quarts cranberry juice, and 2 tablespoons grenadine.

4. My Grandpa used to make Grasshopper parfaits for all the adults at Christmas when I was a kid, but I had to settle for the fudge parfait instead. This recipe for a Frozen Grasshopper will no doubt be good, and also bring back childhood memories. You blend the following ingredients: 3/4 oz green creme de menthe, 3/4 oz white creme de cacao, and 2 cups vanilla ice cream.

5. And just in case it is as cold by you as it is by me these days, I thought I should add at least one hot drink. How about a Hot Nuts: pour 1 oz of Amaretto almond liqueur and 1 oz of Frangelico hazelnut liqueur in a coffee mug, then fill with hot chocolate. Top with whipped cream and pour 1/8 oz of Cherry Brandy carefully over the whipped cream. Top with a cherry.

Career Counseling

In a former job, I had college students reporting to me, and I have stayed in touch with many of them, and it distresses me to see so many of them struggling with indecision now that they have their degrees.

 I can relate to this, as I too wonder what could have been if I had been forced to think about what I wanted to do with my life more in high school.

I want to encourage parents to help their kids think through this, so I will post some links below that may be helpful.  If you have or know someone who will be going to college, or is in college, and they don’t know what to do with their lives, please encourage them to really put some time and effort into this and make a plan. 

I love the Wall Street Journal’s site CareerJournal.  It has some really great articles, including some interviews with people about their jobs.

Another great site is MSN’s Collage Grad site. 

And another good idea for all high school aged students is to look through some current job postings to get a feel for what jobs and skills employers are looking for.  I got my last job through a posting on CareerBuilder, so I recommend that one here.

Great Thanksgiving Clips

I have such happy memories of Thanksgivings of the past, both in the long ago past and the not distant past. Of these, there are two videos that help me sum up, with a chuckle, those memories and I plan to share these both with my kids this year.

The first is the Charlie Brown Thanksgiving special. . .take a look.

The second is less appropriate, but I was a teenager when this first came out and I remember watching this with my brothers and laughing well into the morning! Those are very happy memories.

How about you? What fun memories do you have?

Google Tips, FSMO Roles, Vista command line, and Server Config Tips

Google Tip for Sys Admins
There was an article published 07/07/07 at the Internet Storm Center that gave a couple of “defensive googling” tips to search for compromised sites on your network.

site:myorg.org porn and
site:myorg.org cialis buy

FSMO Roles
It all started with a check of one of my favorite blogs, Daily Cup of Tech. I was checking it for the first time in a couple of weeks, as things have been busy here, and realized that the author is in the middle of a really good series. It seems he had some server trouble recently and has been kind enough to document some fo the lessons learned there. Lesson #3 is really about riding AD of a failed DC, and while beginning that reading, he mentioned FSMO roles, which believe it or not I have never heard of. So, not wanting to waste a perfectly good opportunity to learn more, I jumped to this very informative site on wikipedia. Flexible single master operation roles (there are 5, 3 Domain-wide roles and 2 Forest-wide roles) or Fiz-mo roles are basically specialized domain controller tasks.


VISTA Command Line
I wanted to flush my local dns cache today, and realized that I would need elevated status in VISTA in order to do this. As it was the first time I needed to do this via the command line, I had to do a quick search to come up with the correct command, so here it is for next time:

runas /u:Administrator “ipconfig /flushdns”
the command to display the cache, by the way, follows here: ipconfig /displaydns


Server Configuration Tips
I am still on the Daily Cup of Tech blog site reading about his server failures and have come across another tip that I very much appreciate and want to remember. He says:

“I generally build my domain controllers with five drives. Two in a mirrored configuration for the OS and three in a RAID 5 configuration for the data. The nice thing about this is that the OS and data are separated. I have experienced three systems now where the OS container on the RAID system corrupted and left all of the data completely in tact. Had I not configured these systems this way, I believe that I would have lost some or all of my data.”

AD Replication and Career Advice

AD Replication
I read a fantastic article in Windows IT Pro today and don’t want to forget where I read it and what I need to do. . so here goes. Sean Deuby wrote a really great article on troubleshooting ad replication, and what made it so great was that even a newbe admin like me understood most of what he had to say. Here are the steps I need to take to make sure AD is replicating here at our location:

1. Check the OS on the server (DC server that is)
2. Check the health of the directory service.
3. Check the communication between other DCs
4. Verify protocol of direcotry services and determine whether the DCs are authenticating correctly.

For all the details, check out “Troubleshoot AD Replication: Magic wand no required” in the June, 2007 edition of Windows IT Pro.

Career Advice Worth Noting

In that same edition of WITP, there was another really good article, this time one on getting ahead in the career game. Ben Smith breaks career advancement into 5 easy steps, some I am doing and others are goals. Really good take-aways for me are:

1. Find mentors and have them make suggestions on goals
2. Go after jobs to develop needed skill sets, like budgeting and management
3. Track and Qualify Achievements; Make list of accomplishments

List of Things to Do

Programming Language
I think that it is because I have been so unsuccessful at it so far, but for some reason, a couple of times a year, I get the bug to learn a programming language. So, here I am today, scouring the internet, looking for an easy way to learn. I think this time I will include my teenagers, as perhaps they can keep me motivated at this task which I continually put off. Couple of sites I like today are:
http://nostarch.com/frameset.php?startat=wcj_rev for books to read
http://www.mindview.net/ great reference tool

Packet Analysis
I also realize every now and again how little I know, and how much I need to learn about packet analysis. I have installed Wireshark on PCs I use, but am promply intimidated after one packet capture by the information there. I found a book (Practical Packet Analysis by Chris Sanders)today online that I would really like to buy, but I have promised myself that I will not purchase anymore books until I have finished some of the ones I already own and never have read. But in case I forget all about this book, this post.

Monday Musings

Family Time
I have to find a way to cut out more time for my family. I leave the house around 6:30 am or 7 am and don’t get home until 6 pm. After a long day at work, I find I have to spend at least 30 minutes running/working out and then have to cook dinner. If I am lucky, I can sit down to enjoy a book, take a motorcycle ride, or hang out with hubby and the kids around 8 pm, leaving only 2 hours of fun time! This can’t be right. . .can it?!

Back to Networking
I am headed back to the books today. I got away from them last week as I had so much to do here, but it seems this week will be a good time to catch up on my CCNA studying. I also still have that pesky switch that will no longer let me log in.

Salesforce.com
It seems I need to download and install this, as our sales folks have decided they can’t live without it. I am hesitant, but hey, one more thing to add to the resume is always fun.

Reflections

The more I read other peoples blogs, I realize that even the very good technical ones occasionally get a bit. . .off target. People like to muse sometimes, so I am going to also.

When I got this new gig, I thought it was the perfect move for the direction I had decided I was heading in. . and it is. But I also thought that all workplaces were mostly the same. . .and they are not. I have really only worked for 4 companies is my short little 11 year career, and they have been the small business flavor, or the big educational institution. Both have their advantages and disadvantages I am finding. . but I think I prefer the educational institutions. Generally speaking, people are more friendly, honest, and believe it or not, hard working. I also realize that the benefits one receives from a college or university can’t be matched in the small business world. Additionally, as an IT person, I LOVED the free flow of money that goes on in College IT departments, I really like being able to test new toys and products.

Furthermore, as I sit here and feel sorry for myself and prowl the internet for job openings at nearby colleges, I am thankful for having those jobs in the past. While my kids were little and growing, I averaged 4 weeks of vacation a year, which is nothing to sneeze at I now realize. I would give much to be in that position again, but until I can be, I will concentrate on being thankful for the years of great benefits in the past, and will rest secure in the knowledge that I will unashamedly look for those benefits in my next position. After all, I love my work, why not enjoy it even more?