Hairy

Some guys seem to have nice orderly beards or goatees when they grow out.  Mine looks like mess.  The hair doesn’t lay down, instead it shoots straight out at various angles.  I have been told that with the beard it makes me look like the guy that used to play Hercules in the old movies, a mountain man, and “mean”.  I really don’t enjoy the look all that much but am determined to stick with it through the end of the contest at the end of the month.

Our anniversary night wasn’t all that bad.  Ali decided to skip ballet and I got stopped at Carraba’s on the way home for take out.  We enjoyed our fine meal on the couch as we watched Biggest Loser on tivo.  No I am not a total loser.  I had roses sent to the house and made reservations for a nice dinner for us Saturday night which Ali is looking forward to.

At work we participate in a program from Microsoft called the Action Pack.  For 300 bucks a year you get a ton of software from Microsoft to use in your business on a limited basis.  You get all the betas, all the new stuff that comes out.  It is the same as what you buy in stores and most of it comes with licensing that allows you to install each copy 10 times or so.  It is a sweet deal.

 We have to renew it once a year and when that time comes around I ALWAYS have an issue doing it.  In order to take advantage of this you have to be associated in the Microsoft Partner Program. Every year when I try to log back in to renew I have problems because you have to remember your Windows Live id which I basically never use except to renew the Action Pack.  The problem is further complicated since over the years I have established no less than three Windows Live (formally called .net) accounts. 

So when I try to log in t the site I am told that my account is not associated with a partner.  I try all of the account names  I remembered, none of them worked.  Eventually I break down and call Microsoft to get it sorted out.  I spend a very frustrating 40 minutes on the phone with a rep that was polite but basically got me nowhere.  The call ended with me still being locked out but getting a case id from Microsoft and a promise that they would call me back.  I was pretty sure I would never hear from them.

Then for the hell of it I tried logging in with an ancient account that I created six years ago that was based on a msn.com email address that is defunct.  That worked!  I was able to reactivate the partner account and invite the other Windows Live id’s I had.  I sent myself an email with every single ID, username and password associated with our partner account so I don’t have to go through chasing my own tail year after year.  Through the process I also discovered that Microsoft has a TON of comprehensive, online and most importantly, free training on their products.  I went through a few of them and the information seemed similar to what I experienced in classroom training.  It used to be that you had to pay for this sort of stuff.  I plan to dig into it some more.  In IT you can never sit still on your existing knowledge base unless you want to become a dinosaur with limited value.