I just added a new poll to the SDO sidebar.  Are you ready for Christmas? - Sean

My current employer asked me to stay till January 16th 2009. I have accepted the offer as I still don't have a new position lined up. If you know anyone who needs an IT guy please drop me a line. I have experience in System Administration, Business Analysis, Unix and Windows Server Administration, Telephone System Administration (Audix and Definity by Avaya) and Networking Administration (Cisco). - Sean

If you read SeanDareOnline via a feed reader then you will need to unsubscribe and then re-subscribe to the feed.  I made some changes to SeanDareOnline and moving forward you will not recieve feed updates unless you unsubscribe and then re-subscribe. Look for more posts soon now that I have WordPress working again. - Sean

A very good friend of mine who goes by "Mombii" has started her own blog.   She is a naturally funny writer with an interesting perspective.  Take a minute and check it out.  You can link to her blog by clicking here or by clicking the "Mombii Speaks" link in the Blogroll. - Sean

I have had a lot of post ideas the past couple of weeks, but I have also had an inoperative WordPress installation so I couldn't publish them.  After repeatedly impacting the keyboard with my forehead in frustration I found the following on the WordPress support forum

They [the files] need to be uploaded with an ftp client, in binary mode.

I checked my ftp client settings and sure enough I had been transferring my files using ASCII mode instead of binary mode.   UGH! Once I changed the settings and reloaded the WordPress files everything started working perfectly.  It feels good to be back in the saddle. - Sean

Regular visitors to Sean Dare Online will notice a pleasant change.  No longer do you have to wait until "the blog loads".  I have made some changes in the background that allow seandareonline.com to load without forwarding to seandareonline.com/blog/.  The difference in load times is significant.  Not to mention the URL looks nicer in the address bar.  If you have bookmarked my site please alter it to reflect http://seandareonline.com for easier future reference. I also upgraded from WordPress version 2.5 to 2.6.3.  The upgrade only took an hour this time as I am getting much more familiar with the upgrade process.  Future updates should be even faster.  Hopefully spending entire Saturdays to upgrade are a thing of the past. - Sean

Congratulations...

...to Shannon who caught the reference in my last post.  The quote was from "Stripes" circa 1981.  Bill Murray's character uttered this phrase after losing his job, his pizza and his girl friend.

Funny Stuff

My brother sent me an email with the following...

For those of you who have never had the pleasure of owning a British car, but want to know what it's like:

Next big rainstorm, wait till dark, roll down all windows, leave off the lights, heater and wipers and go for a drive. Stop at every intersection and throw out a twenty dollar bill. It's not exactly the same, but it's real close. - Mike Nash

One More Thing

When I posted the passage from Matthew, see "And Then Depression Set In", I left out the last three verses.  At the time I didn't think they were important, but after re-reading the passage I concluded they were the most important of all.

For the unconverted pursue these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them. But above all pursue his kingdom and righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well. So then, do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Today has enough trouble of its own.  Matthew 6:32-34 (NET)

Re-read my last post and then include these last verses.  It makes the passage even more poignant. - Sean

Can anyone name the movie reference?  Anyone?  (Leave your answer in the comments) For three weeks I have been trolling for a job.  Three weeks and not even a nibble.  I have faith that God will provide. (see below)  What I don't know is what he will provide and when.  The suspense is killing me.  I need prayer for patience and strength as I move into the doldrums of job searching.  But more importantly I need to remember Jesus' words to Christians who worry.

Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink, or about your body, what you will wear. Isn’t there more to life than food and more to the body than clothing?  Look at the birds in the sky: They do not sow, or reap, or gather into barns, yet your heavenly Father feeds them.  Aren’t you more valuable than they are?  And which of you by worrying can add even one hour to his life? Why do you worry about clothing? Think about how the flowers of the field grow; they do not work or spin.  Yet I tell you that not even Solomon in all his glory was clothed like one of these! And if this is how God clothes the wild grass, which is here today and tomorrow is tossed into the fire to heat the oven, won’t he clothe you even more, you people of little faith?  So then, don’t worry saying, ‘What will we eat?’ or ‘What will we drink?’ or ‘What will we wear?’   - Matthew 6:25-31 (NET)

Maybe I should commit these words to memory. - Sean

Tuesday morning started poorly.  While working my way through the crowded server room at my office I snagged my favorite Cardinals shirt on a small metal tab.  The resulting "snick" told the whole story.  I had put a hole in yet another shirt.  Frustrating as this was I had no idea how much worse Tuesday could get. After swapping the backup tapes in the server room, and calming down from the shirt "disaster", I got on a support call with one of our sales reps.  Two hours later I had him up and running and I was wading through the myriad of voice mails that had accumulated during the call.  One voice mail was from the VP of Consumer/LCE sales who happened to be in the building that day.  I decided to track him down to solve his issue personally. While snooping around for the VP I was instructed that he might be in the conference room.  Poking my head in the conference room didn't turn up the VP, I later found out he was at lunch, but it did result in a sit down conversation with my boss, the president of the company and the HR manager who all happened to be in the conference room.  If you can't tell by the list of meeting attendee's the result of this meeting did not turn out well. As it turns out my company is merging with another and my position, among many others, is being eliminated.  Everyone who was about to lose their job was being pulled into the conference room one by one to be told the particulars of the decision to merge and the details of their dismissal.  Since I was busy on the phone for the previous two hours I had no idea what was going on.  In my meeting I found out that I am considered instrumental to the merging process and that they would like to keep me on till the bitter end, in this case until December 31st 2008.  The timing is a blessing as many people who are being let go are being given much less notice.  Some as little as 10 days notice. I have been reflecting on this turn of events for a few days and have come to a couple of conclusions.

1. Things like this happen, it is the way of things.
2. In general the people of the US have no idea what hardship is and are not prepared for it.
3. I need to publicly thank God for giving me 10 weeks to search for a new job.

The truth is if you didn't see this move coming at my company then you were blind.  My company, which I would like to keep nameless for propriety's sake, has been for sale for eight years.  Any time you combine or merge companies the duplicate job functions are eliminated.  This is the way business works.  I have known for over a year that my position would be a "duplicate job function" if we ever got sold or merged, but I stayed on in hopes that I could build up a nice work history in my burgeoning IT career before the penny dropped. All that to say I am in the market for an IT job and I will be available January 1st 2008.  You can view my LinkedIn profile here.  You can also submit any job listing for which you feel I would qualify here. As for me?  It is what it is and I need to find a way to make this opportunity work for me and my family.  Now I just need to figure out how. Oh yeah, and thank God I have 10 weeks to look for a job...seriously.  I feel God's hand in this in more ways than one. - Sean

While trolling YouTube this evening I came accross this rather creative MacBook Air video.  Enjoy! - Sean httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OKQPpq2Mo8g