So there has not been very many changes in my life recently, so I’m going to make this a smaller updates post. And for starters, I’m going to cover some changing to my hosting. Which if you’re not familiar with my hosting, then you can probably skip this paragraph. So yesterday I decided to switch my from hosting from Hostdime to Imnotion Hosting. I had to start paying a bit more for it but it was worth it since Hostdime was starting to make changes that were really starting to get on my nerves. I don’t know if it’s because they’re trying to move more to become an everyman’s hoster or something else. But the first thing was a change to their default PHP configuration and disabled several PHP features my current scripts were taking advantage of. Running a Hosting Business 101, don’t disable PHP features unless you’re absolutely sure your clients are not using them, you should at least give them a fair warning. Plus to make this change even crazier, I had a reseller account, which means I could be a sub-hoster myself who now has to scramble to remedy this problem for all the clients under me. Fortunately, this is not the case as I use my reseller account to host all my own domains and a few sites for friends and family. So you might ask, “So what did they disabled? Was it GLOBAL_VARS or…” NOPE! To give you an example, I tried creating a new site using the MediaWiki framework, a.k.a., the framework that Wikipedia runs on. But with these new PHP limitations, even MediaWiki was reporting disabled features. So I e-mailed them about this and voiced my displeasure in never receiving a warning and pointed out how these limitations even broke MediaWiki. But as I expected, their response roughly translated to the tune of, “Too bad!” They told me if I really needed those features I have to put a modified php.ini file in each directory of my websites I’m hosting. Well, thanks for the suggestion but I have to date, 30 domains with around 10 directories each. Doing the math that comes to 300 copies of php.ini I now have to manage. And yet again, I repeat; I could have been a hoster with actual clients under me. So I gave up on them and switched to a new hoster and I got my own VPS, a.k.a., Virtual Private Server. Meaning it’s like a dedicated server but it’s emulated. So no more shared server resources.

On another note, today is Halloween and tonight I’m going to wear my Yakata to work. We were permitted to dress up and I’m so excited. I showed pictures to our Assistant Manager and he loved it much he insisted that I wear it. Unfortunately, he’s on vacation for the weekend, so that’s not to his benefit. My family never celebrated Halloween in the past, so this will be the first time I’m technically wearing a “costume” for Halloween. Okay, I take that back, when I was like 8 years old, I dressed up as Bill Nye for a Halloween party at my cousin’s house. But my mom got the car hit by a Semi on the way and I think that’s one reason she’s been against celebrating Halloween. She claimed the accident was an indicator from GOD that she shouldn’t be celebrating it. I don’t think she very much believes that anymore. So tomorrow I have a store meeting then I close, I think I might tell Gwen that I will no longer be available for Fridays. I just hope that doesn’t mean she’ll start scheduling me on Sundays. I honestly hate working Weekends, especially when Sundays at Blockbuster can come like a venomous snake. I suppose that’s a bad metaphor for how busy Sundays can get. And it’s even harder to work a weekend from end-to-end. Once I had Friday, Saturday, and Sunday in a row and absolutely hated it. We’re open till midnight on the weekends and 10pm all other nights. Crazy honestly.

So in other news, my dad and I decided to try starting our own business installing surveillance cameras. For the time being, we decided to call ourselves Greenetree Surveillance Systems, a nod to our last night since my grandfather has also used Greenetree in his business names. To be honest we started this business last September of 2008 but we hadn’t had any new jobs until earlier this month. We went back to a customer of ours and moved the surveillance system we installed to their new location. Then he recommended a friend of his to us that was located an hour up north. My dad made the comment that it seems our jobs keep getting further and further away because we might have another job coming up that’s 3 hours away. If we got that job, we’d make a full day trip of it and stay in a hotel. The current job is not at all bad but it’s a bit of a pain in our neck. 1) It has taken almost 4 weeks on and off to get the job done. 2) My dad and I were going to make about $700 each and the guy is being a jerk by delaying his final payment till Friday when we finally finished on Tuesday. This is especially annoying when it clearly says in our contract that payment is due upon completion. At first, my dad wanted me to put a password on the system until they paid but then the guy had a fit about how unprofessional that is. But come on, it’s unprofessional if of you do not pay when we had agreed. My dad gave in and had me take the password off but I sort of wish he held his ground. You let people not keep to commitments now and they will likely not in the future.

Today, my mom pointed out that I’ve seen lots of favor in my job, money, and people in general. Like the other day, my dad asked me to request Thanksgiving off so we could go spend some time together inline for Black Friday specials, something we’ve done together the last couple years. I asked my boss and she said it was mandatory that all employees worked either Thanksgiving and/or Christmas. She said I could choose to work Christmas over Thanksgiving but I told her how much more Christmas off meant to me and Dad wanted to spend time with me. When I told her that, she said that since I’m one of her senior employees and because I work so hard, she would make an exception and I wouldn’t have to work either holiday. — Thank you, GOD — Honestly I’m sort of surprised how much she likes me because I have been late a couple times and I only started in November of 2007. I guess that makes me a senior employee, I at least don’t consider myself one since there are many other employees who have worked there longer than I. I thank GOD for what he has and will keep doing in my life. I don’t work as much as I probably should but I’m being blessed with money. I’m a faithful tither, but it sort of scares me that I miss one tithe, I might bring misfortune upon myself somewhere down the road.

So time to make some enemies; we’re only 5 days from the US Presidental Election and I’m going to be straightforward, but I hope and pray that John McCain and Sarah Palin win the election. Sue me! I don’t care! If he does not win, this country will become socialist in no time at all and I would say this marks the end of days for sure. Think of it, the Bible talks of people being blind in the last days and look at how many people think Barack Husan Obama is just so wonderful.

Anyways, I’m sort of blabbing away now, so bye for now.

P.S. Nothing new in regards to Japan and still no answers from anyone. I am more than ever still passionate about it and if anyone has any encouragement for me, please comment.