How was I going to come up with the money??

A month ago I had to go to the hospital for 2 1/2 weeks. Well I just got a bill from the hospital for $1500 that I wasn't expecting! I don't have $1500 just sitting around, so I started getting really worried about how I was going to come up with the money.

I checked my BCBS statement to find out what hadn't been paid for, and it indicated that none of the Doctors bills were paid for during the second week I was in the hospital, but the first week and the last week was paid for. I called BCBS (the person on the phone was very helpful!) and was told that the insurance forms indicated I was home during the second week (someone filled out the insurance forms wrong!). The person from BCBS told me to have the Doctors office resubmit the paperwork for the insurance, and that everything will be covered.

I was a sick sick boy!

I was in the hospital from July 28 until August 14 with a bad case of Diverticulitis. I am doing much better now, and on August 25 I was able to return to work.

Sun's BigAdmin

While reading through Sun's BigAdmin, I've found a few good links that are going to help me on my current Solaris 10 project, and I thought I would share what I found.

• How to Upgrade the Solaris 10 OS With Non-global Zones Using Solaris Live Upgrade

• Configuration Management and Quality Assurance Script

• Derived Jumpstart Profile

• Creating a Script for Scheduled MySQL Backups

• Automating Unmirror and Remirror for Solaris Volume Manager Volumes

IT Toolbox

I really have to get less of a life (so that I can start writing about the little life I really have). One thing that is new is that I've just joined IT Toolbox. (You can see my profile here). IT Toolbox is a place where IT professionals can work together to make everyone's work a bit better. At least that is the hope, and the reason I joined. Time will tell!

Michael Yon Online Magazine

I've only read a small amount of this blog, so don't consider this as an endorsement. Simply read it yourself, and come to your own conclusions.

I thought I was dieing (sleep apnea)

For a few weeks now I have been very sleep almost all of the time. This was true even though I thought I was getting a good night's sleep. Sunday, Monday, and Tuesday of this past week were so bad I kept falling asleep during the day (including at work!).

I woke up Wednesday morning completely out of breath and very weak. I called in sick, and went to see my Doctor. He did an EKG on me, and didn't like what he saw. He had me go to the ER, where they kept me for 24 hours while they checked out my heart (blood tests every 6 hours, 3 more EKGs, plus a "stress echo" at the end before being discharged).

I'm very glad to say that everything is fine with my heart. The Doctors at the Hospital weren't testing me for this, but they told me that everything seem to indicate that I have sleep apnea, and that was causing my breathing problems, the lack of sleep, and my irregular EKG. So now I have to go see an ENT Doctor, followed by a few nights at a sleep clinic. After that I should be a good as new.

Learning Linux - kinda

Our department is pushing us to learn Linux. This is a great idea, and something we should have started doing years ago.

Unfortunately, the training center we are using to get us up to speed with Linux has no classes targeted to UNIX SysAdmins migrating to Linux. Nor will they let us skip the intro Linux class before taking the Linux SysAdmin classes. So here I sit, in a Linux class, with 15 years experience as a UNIX SysAdmin, and the teacher is talking about the ls, cd, and chmod commands. Oh well....

Once I finish this class, I can take the different Linux SysAdmin classes and start learning the things I really need to be a Linux SysAdmin.