First Game of the World Series - Challenges for a Met Fan

I've been Met Fan for my entire baseball life. Perhaps it was because from the time I was 14, I could take the LIRR (that's the Long Island Rail Road) to Shea Stadium with my friends. Or because my Uncle Julie was pissed that the Giants left for Cally, and the Mets were the next best thing. In those days the cost of a trip to the ballpark didn't rival the GNP of some Third World countries.

As a Met fan, I haven't been a Yankee fan. Especially after Clements beaned Piazza. At that time, the only team hated more were the Braves - perennial NL East contenders. With Chipper and John (I don't do subways) Rocker, they were despised. Now with the Phillies and the Yankees, what's a Met fan to do?

I've decided that the Phils are the new Braves - with Jimmy (not the Greek) Rollins, and his big mouth; and Shane Victorino, who looks like the Steve Buscemi character from the Sopranos. And I don't hate the Yankees any more. Jeter, Posada and Mo are players to be admired - it's not these Yankees I dislike, it's their obnoxious fans with their "Got Rings" T-Shirts.

So let's go Yankees, plus with Fox covering instead of YES, I won't have to hear about A-Bombs from A-Rod or "The Yankees Win, ttttthhhhhheee Yankees Win".

Windows 7 Launch

Today is the official launch of Windows 7. I've been using it since May, and if you have a Vista computer, an upgrade is a must. My boot time from power up to loading a web page went from seven minutes to under two. And I firmly believe that junking Norton and McAfee Anti-Virus/Spam/etc. in favor of Avast and malwarebytes also helped.

Why does software f#ck everything up?

I ended yesterday's post with this erudite statement.

Little did I know that this very fact would rear its ugly head tonight. I put a DVD in the drive on my PC tonight and nothing happened. The light on the drive lit for a few seconds and went out. The PC 'saw' the drive on boot up. But no disc - DVD Vid, data, CD Redbook would read. Checked the connections. Thought I had a dead drive, and was plotting a stop at Best Buy to pick up a replacement.

Then, old habits kicked in. Took a peek at Device Manager, and something was a foot. Yellow '!' for the DVD, and my two memory sticks. All had the same error. Bad or corrupt driver. I cut and pasted the error into my trusty google toolbar and viola the solution. What happened?? Don't know - I really use the DVD rarely, except to install software. Is tooling around in the Registry for the faint of heart - no. But thanks to the world of information on the internet, I was spared the expense of a new drive, and a phonecall to some support line.

One of my all-time Favorite Things...

I've had a TiVo for eight years. Actually I've had two. I can watch a 30 minute sitcom in 19 minutes. The current one is an HD model and kicks the snot out of Cablevision's HD-DVR. Why?

1. I can 30 second skip through commercials.
2. I can watch in slow motion, just like NFL refs.
3. I can stream my iTunes collection from a PC in my home office over the home theather equipment in our den (No I don't have a 'Home Theater' - the kind with big leather chairs with cup holders).
4. I can view my thousands of digital pics from my PC on the TV. Great for showing the in-laws pictures of the kids (they don't do Facebook).
5. I can stream movies from Amazon, Netflix and Blockbuster, and watch YouTube.
6. I can transfer stuff directly to my iPod.
7. I can (but probably never will) order Domino's through it.

And when it breaks, I can put a new software image on a fresh drive and I'm almost good as new.

Actually, I can't do 3. and 4. above. TiVo software doesn't work properly with Windows7. I've been waiting for an update for six months.

Which leads me to a topic for another day... Why does software f#ck everything up???

Here I am - Again

After Setting up this page some three months ago, I'm finally getting around to do some real posting. This decision has come about as I close my Twitter account, as 140 characters are hardly enough for me to properly express myself.

So what will you see here? Likes, dislikes, raves and rants. Larry's Favorite Things. Working in a field of Gen Ys, while I carry an AARP card.

I've been doing this IT thing full time now for about nine years. But my involvement in tech things goes back to the mid-seventies when a friend showed me how to install a phone extension (at that time, only "Bell Telephone" could do that, and it was expensive). I purchased an IBM PC in 1984 for what was the equivalent of approximately 7% of my annual gross salary. Learned Lotus 1-2-3. With Macros. Formatted a hard drive (by mistake). Installed a card in a PC with the power on (sparks!).

Professionally, I've been in the real estate world pretty much since the beginning. Held a variety of financial positions up through 2000. At that point, I was able to move into tech full time - using my accounting and real estate background overseeing business applications. Five years ago, I joined Acadia Realty Trust, a REIT based in White Plains, NY where I am their VP -Information Technology.

I consider myself extremely fortunate that I love what I do.

At home, my wife and two sons and I use 8 network devices. Keeping it all running optimally is another challenge. And being an IT guy means that I am often asked to keep technology running in other homes too - those of friends, neighbors and co-workers.

Hopefully, this will last longer than my latest diet.