Lewies Blog

Second Life looks like it is really starting to pay off. After a year of experimenting, playing around, building stuff, and meeting new people, I appear to have an impressive cash flow income. I’ve recently started to sell off my lindens each day. I used to store them all into a ginko bank account, but the interest was getting pretty low that it really wasn’t worth the risk. I pulled my lindens out and sold them all off at once (about 800 US$ worth). Now mind you, I’m still buying lots of junk in-world as well as renting stores, sponsoring classes, and paying for advertising. I’ve made 260.11 US$ since the 23rd of last month. 15 days with an average of 17.34 per day. I believe that I’m getting roughly 500 US$ per month from a game. A GAME!

My success has encouraged my family to start paying a little more attention to this game as well. A few of them have already been playing, but this latest trend of me selling rather then hoarding L$ has really opened there eyes to what this game is capable of.

Well, If you want to see more of what second life is about, I have another blog with lots of pictures almost every day. Or you can just go ahead and sign up for a free account.

Order Id	Order Type	Quantity Ordered	Quantity Filled	Limit Rate	Time Opened	Time Closed	Closure Method	Gross US$	Net US$
177####	Limit Sell	L$1,225	L$1,225	L$266 / US$1.00	2007-03-07 22:50:34	2007-03-08 04:11:54	fill	US$4.61	US$4.44
177####	Limit Sell	L$4,500	L$4,500	L$266 / US$1.00	2007-03-07 06:20:21	2007-03-07 07:09:45	fill	US$16.92	US$16.32
176####	Limit Sell	L$1,500	L$1,500	L$266 / US$1.00	2007-03-06 21:54:14	2007-03-07 02:50:31	fill	US$5.64	US$5.43
176####	Limit Sell	L$5,500	L$5,500	L$266 / US$1.00	2007-03-06 05:55:35	2007-03-06 12:37:33	fill	US$20.69	US$19.94
175####	Limit Sell	L$1,750	L$1,750	L$266 / US$1.00	2007-03-04 23:24:02	2007-03-05 08:26:55	fill	US$6.58	US$6.34
174####	Limit Sell	L$1,500	L$1,500	L$266 / US$1.00	2007-03-04 18:08:42	2007-03-05 05:01:15	fill	US$5.64	US$5.44
174####	Limit Sell	L$3,500	L$3,500	L$266 / US$1.00	2007-03-04 00:22:25	2007-03-04 08:52:15	fill	US$13.17	US$12.70
173####	Limit Sell	L$4,000	L$4,000	L$266 / US$1.00	2007-03-03 09:28:36	2007-03-03 10:40:48	fill	US$15.04	US$14.51
171####	Limit Sell	L$2,500	L$2,500	L$266 / US$1.00	2007-03-01 22:26:22	2007-03-02 01:07:24	fill	US$9.40	US$9.07
171####	Limit Sell	L$7,000	L$7,000	L$266 / US$1.00	2007-03-01 06:11:49	2007-03-01 10:37:43	fill	US$26.32	US$25.39
170####	Limit Sell	L$1,750	L$1,750	L$266 / US$1.00	2007-02-28 06:29:39	2007-02-28 12:58:07	fill	US$6.58	US$6.34
169####	Limit Sell	L$3,000	L$3,000	L$266 / US$1.00	2007-02-27 17:16:50	2007-02-27 18:31:10	fill	US$11.28	US$10.88
169####	Limit Sell	L$2,000	L$2,000	L$266 / US$1.00	2007-02-27 06:21:01	2007-02-27 12:59:58	fill	US$7.52	US$7.25
168####	Limit Sell	L$3,000	L$3,000	L$266 / US$1.00	2007-02-26 21:12:32	2007-02-27 09:10:51	fill	US$11.28	US$10.87
168####	Limit Sell	L$2,500	L$2,500	L$266 / US$1.00	2007-02-26 16:14:41	2007-02-27 06:00:14	fill	US$9.40	US$9.06
168####	Limit Sell	L$1,000	L$1,000	L$266 / US$1.00	2007-02-26 06:25:35	2007-02-26 15:12:17	fill	US$3.76	US$3.62
167####	Limit Sell	L$6,000	L$6,000	L$266 / US$1.00	2007-02-25 18:11:37	2007-02-26 09:38:19	fill	US$22.57	US$21.77
166####	Limit Sell	L$1,500	L$1,500	L$266 / US$1.00	2007-02-24 15:26:07	2007-02-24 15:33:11	fill	US$5.64	US$5.44
166####	Limit Sell	L$9,000	L$9,000	L$266 / US$1.00	2007-02-24 14:27:01	2007-02-24 14:55:17	fill	US$33.85	US$32.65
165####	Limit Sell	L$2,000	L$2,000	L$266 / US$1.00	2007-02-23 15:09:34	2007-02-23 18:14:34	fill	US$7.52	US$7.25
165####	Limit Sell	L$7,000	L$7,000	L$266 / US$1.00	2007-02-23 10:49:16	2007-02-23 12:22:31	fill	US$26.33	US$25.40
165####	Limit Sell	L$220,000	L$220,000	L$266 / US$1.00	2007-02-23 05:24:34	2007-02-23 08:52:25	fill	US$827.18	US$798.08

I took one of those quizes ( Belief-o-matic ) to figure out what religions I align with the most. Not that I’m looking for religion. I just heard about it through the dawn and drew show ( Episode 485 ) and figured, why not? Interesting how I’ve strayed away from Jehova’s Witnesses (my childhood religion). Well, here are my results.

Your Results:
The top score on the list below represents the faith that Belief-O-Matic, in its less than infinite wisdom, thinks most closely matches your beliefs. However, even a score of 100% does not mean that your views are all shared by this faith, or vice versa.Belief-O-Matic then lists another 26 faiths in order of how much they have in common with your professed beliefs. The higher a faith appears on this list, the more closely it aligns with your thinking.

1. Unitarian Universalism (100%)
2. Liberal Quakers (92%)
3. Mainline to Liberal Christian Protestants (89%)
4. Secular Humanism (86%)
5. Theravada Buddhism (80%)
6. Neo-Pagan (76%)
7. New Age (72%)
8. Mahayana Buddhism (71%)
9. Nontheist (65%)
10. Reform Judaism (61%)
11. Taoism (60%)
12. Bah?’? Faith (59%)
13. Jainism (49%)
14. Christian Science (Church of Christ, Scientist) (48%)
15. New Thought (48%)
16. Orthodox Quaker (43%)
17. Sikhism (42%)
18. Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints (Mormons) (41%)
19. Scientology (40%)
20. Mainline to Conservative Christian/Protestant (37%)
21. Hinduism (33%)
22. Jehovah’s Witness (30%)
23. Orthodox Judaism (28%)
24. Islam (27%)
25. Seventh Day Adventist (22%)
26. Eastern Orthodox (9%)
27. Roman Catholic (9%)

Been looking into online colleges and such to get my degree.  I settled with University of Phoenix Online and completed the application process.  They seem to be more my style in that I need to interact with them for 4 days a week and one course per semester.  It’s also a set program in that I don’t need to scratch my head trying to figure out what class I should take next and if I have the prerequisites for it.

Seems like a lot of forms, or at least a long one for Financial Aide.  Doubt I’ll get the financial aide, but hey, it’s worth a shot.

School starts near the end of the month and I believe I still need to take a placement test too.

I was still recovering from being sick when flu shots came round the first time where I work. Fortunately, they came around a second time. I got the shot today. I hear that the earlier shots were of the wrong strand anyway for the flu this year. Who knows. What I do know is that I didn’t get sick all year until flue season came round again a few months ago.

I’ve been having probs with my iPod for such a long time now. The white head-phones died out pretty quick. Speakers don’t work in either bud. Click wheel seems not to work, but is easily solved by rebooting the iPods operating system.

I don’t know if it was iTunes via upgrades, or the iPod, but i’ve lost 66% of my music collection some how.

Lately, the iPod has been corrupted. It gives me errors complaining that it can’t write to disk, or that it can’t read. It prompts me to revert back to factory settings. Even then, it has trouble reading and asks me to revert again.

I am starting to have doubts about getting another iPod. For the price, it just isn’t worth 1 1/2 years of service. Would you pay 16 $US per month for a device that plays music, but gives you such problems until it finally goes bad? I’m just glad I didn’t pay for the thing to begin with.

On top of all this, a coworker had problems with his click wheel on a different model iPod. Rebooting didn’t help and he ended up getting it replaced free since he had only purchased it a few months before it started happening. He also had the same problems with the ear buds too.

I’ve been learning quite a bit lately about restoring databases from a complete database failure.  Although rite now, I’m am working with a test to verify we can restore from one.  I’m not involved in all the steps such as tape restoration, but I am involved in one of the most critical parts.  The restoration of the Master database.

It turns out that you can’t just restore a master database in SQL Servers normal operation mode (multi-user).  I had to start the service in single-user mode from the command line.  From there on out, you can go into enterprise manager and restore the master database.

Why is the master database so important that it needs single-user mode?  Because it contains all the data that the server itself uses for its own operation.  Everything from maintenance plans, other databases in the ssystem, user accounts, etcetera.

Just make sure if you restore a master database, that the version of SQL server is the same that it was backed up from.  This includes having the same service pack installed as well.  SQL Server SP3 master database can not be restored on SQL Server SP4.

A few years ago, I purchased a new phone.  I really went all out on it. I got a camera phone with internet access and a color screen.  It was even capable of running programs downloaded from the internet.  Coolest of all was its screen that could flip.  It was the Samsung SPH-A600.

Step a head to the present and my phone is out of date.  Sure, it does everything I need it to.  That is, it makes phone calls.  Everything else is just for kicks.  I’ve been over-paying my cell phone account for a while now building up for this big moment.  A pocket-pc phone.

Yes, I have a pocket PC.  I have one of the first.  Just like my cell phone, I purchased the pocket pc on the first day it became available to the public.  The HP Jornada 540 still works, but has the same problems.  I couldn’t upgrade its operating system like the other two that came out that day.  It doesn’t support the .Net framework that I program with today (the existing software I made programs on wont even install on my computer anymore).  Also, it was a pain to even type since that screen started getting out of synch with where I tapped the stylus on the letters.

So today, this little Pocket PC had all of those things worked out.  It has a sliding keyboard, and runs latest version of Pocket PC (which should let me program for it again). My mobile phone company has other handheld assistants, but they are for the Palm and Blackberry platforms.  I don’t know where to begin for programming for those.

When I asked about hands-free sets, the associate directed me to bluetooth ear attachments.  I’ve seen people using these things before, but I had assumed that they were the entire phone.  These things look like something from star trek where a small gadget attaches to you and does everything for you.  The only problem is that you look like you are going around talking to yourself when you are not using it in the car.  I was in the restroom once where someone was using one.  Talk about potty talk and bad mannors.

So anyways, the money I have in my mobile account would do more then pay for it.  I could get it for $449 today but they were out of stock.  I’ll have to look up some other stores in the area to see if they have one in stock.

So today I ate chinease.  Half the time, fortune cookies are horrible at giving fortunes.  It’s usually a statement, or some wise saying.  Today I got one that was just plain insulting.

You should be able to make money and hold on to it.

And to make things worse, it had a smiley face at the beginning and end of the fortune.  Ok, so this cookie is assuming that I either don’t make money, or I can’t hold onto it.  Even worse, applying “In Bed” or “Between the Sheets” onto the end of it makes it sound like I’m paying for services, or servicing others.  What is up with that?

They should have worded it different like “You will be able to make money and hold on to it.”

Is it ludicrus to sue a chinease cookie company for punitive damages or misadvertisement?  I kinda expected a fortune in my fortune cookie and ended up being insulted.

In the middle of my working day, I ran into a problem. I was sort of going blind. Not completely. I could see parts, but it was like a ton of blind spots in my eye that I kept trying to, but just couldn’t see around. It was horrible. It wasn’t just looking at my computer screen, but just everything around me. I remember just looking at the screen and all of this white space on it. My eyes started to hurt and I looked up.

One thing that I did earlier in the weeky was change the resolution of my monitor to be much higher. Lucky for me, I made all my system fonts bigger too. I was able to make out enough parts to make the resolution smaller. I also turned the brightness down to the lowest setting and turned the contrast down a bit as well. Although it was easier on my eyes, I was still having this problem.

So many thoughts went rushing through my head. Maybe I should just go home. How the heck could I drive home? Would anyone be able to pick me up? What if this is perminent? What if this is a look into the near future? How am I going to be able to ever work on a computer again? Is it something I ate? Is it because I’m not eating enough? Is it from stress? Is it my medication? Is it going to get worse?

So many questions arrise with life changing events like these. Lots of coincidences and paranoia just come to light. I remember a co-worker commenting about how an LCD screen would be better on the eyes then the monitor I have. I thought about my posture, and perhaps a protective screen on the monitor.

The good news is that it gradually passed over 15 minutes. It just shocks the heck out of you. I left my monitor settings dark and in a low resolution for the remainder of the day.

I did one thing very different today.  I canceled a trial before I was billed for the real deal.  Over at Ancestry.com, I signed up for a trial account.  You can either choose to be billed immediately and each additional month for 29.95, or you can go with a 14 day free trial and pay an annual fee of $155.40 ($12.95 / month).

I went with the free trial.  Usually, I forget about trial expirations and such and let accounts expire.  Sometimes, services such as Ancestry.com will bill you immediately after the trial expires.  The extra hoop to jump through with this service is that I was required to call them within specific hours of the day as well in order to opt-out of the service.

Just 2 days to go and I called them up.  I had forgotten about it for most of the past week too.  So in reality, I just saved myself $155.40 in a service I wouldn’t use.

I guess this is one of the small things that I’m doing that is helping me get that financial comfort cushion in the bank.  I could really use that money on something else - like a set of new computers for my wife and I.  I think a lot when I go grocery shopping like this too.  I could get a snack, or put that money towards something else.  Yes, it’s only $5, but another way to think of it is that it is $5 extra in my pocket if I don’t use it.  It’s like rewarding yourself with your own money you don’t use.  Best of all, it’s tax free.