Just Telling My Story
We had a good time with the family this last Halloween. Stayed up late and played board games while watching scary movies. Below are a few pics of our time together as well as a few pics from work.
#6pack #family #halloween #2014 #work
Things have been pretty crazy in the Lewis family. We just got back from a trip to Denver. It was a fun trip we got to see my brother, Nate and Beth’s sister, Melissa and her family. Breckenridge has snow already! I have only been in California for 10 month but I was grateful to be home after freezing in Colorado for a few days.
Currently we are looking for a house in the greater Sacramento area, which means we will be moving once we make a decision on one of them. I can’t wait to start playing drums again. Drums and apartment life don’t mix well. :-/
My family is also coming to visit Oct. 25-28. Parents, Grandma and my Aunt are all attending. So far we have plans to visit Muir Woods to go on a little hike on the first day and then check out Sonoma for the 2nd day they are here. Then the rest of the time they are going to check out our location in Sacramento and see where we live and what it’s like in California.
I have been going through an Invisalign treatment to straighten out me teeth. Most people say I already have straight teeth which is true but they have been shifting and I’d rather do the 6-month treatment with Invisalign then wait and have to do braces for 2 years and Invisalign for another year like my mom is doing now. So far it hasn’t been horrible. Teeth hurt every now and then but nothing extreme so far.
My new job has been great. I’ve been learning a lot when it comes to development which has been humbling but also rewarding. I’m grateful for the team I’m working with and their patience and I am excited to see where things go! So far I couldn’t be happier.
Beth and I joined a dodgeball team, we play every Sunday and we are starting to learning the official rules. It’s been great getting to meet people.
So many fun things happening, I’m excited to see what’s on the horizon.
I’ve spent the last 2 weeks working for a new company Bourn Creative. So far I’ve learned a lot and really enjoyed it. This is the first time in my professional career that I’ve worked with another developer. Needless to say I’m learning more than I ever have in the past. It’s been a very humbling 2 weeks but I’ve been lucky because my boss, Brian Bourn has been a great teacher and has been more than patient with me so far. I’m thankful to have a full time job and a developer to learn from! It’s a very exciting time for me.
Before taking this job we had a mini-vacation planned which consisted of going to Monterey and Carmel for this next weekend, Monday, and Tuesday. We are still going on this vacation with Beth’s side of the family and I’m very excited. I’ve heard great things about the area.
Lastly, I’ve finally got my blog set up so that when I take a picture on my phone it goes directly to my blog. So when I take pictures when on vacation everyone will be updated in real time. :) I hope you enjoy!
Not long ago I purchased a NAS device. My end goal was to build my own cloud storage device which would allow me to access my data from my laptop via the internet no matter where I’m at as well as my iPhone. I wanted to do this because I travel quite often and I wanted a way to move large files around for my clients and not have to pay a monthly bill with a cloud storage company. Think “my own personal dropbox” but I’m in charge of the server and their employees can’t snoop through my files. :)
At first, I thought I’d be in way over my head just because its a complex problem and I’m not one to know much about setting up networks. But I figured, what the heck lets give it a shot. After I started digging in and researching the best solution for me, I decided Synology was the best route. They had great customer reviews and a solid price for performance. I researched this solution for months before purchasing since NAS devices aren’t cheap. Once the device got to my place I had to go through a setup which was a bit intimidating for me. I obviously installed my hard drives and after that connected the device to my wireless router. Not long after that the NAS showed up on my computer which allowed me to install the proper software which is the key to allowing me to full fill my own personal cloud storage.
I had a road block, one of my hard drives failed on me while I was setting up the software. I thought I had done something wrong initially to cause it to fail but the company was fine refunding me the money so I could purchase another one. Once I was back up and running again I finished the installation process and started configuring the devices for me to organize my files. I wasn’t for sure after I started using the NAS if it was worth the money. For some reason everything was slow and I was having a terrible user experience. I was about to sell the device as I was getting frustrated and confused with the process. I sat down and decided to spend a day messing with configurations before selling the unit. Believe it or not, I actually started to figure out what I was doing.
There comes a time for me when working with software where the light bulb comes on and I feel pretty stupid for about a week. I had so many settings change that I had screwed up a lot of what I was doing myself. I figured the best way to fix this was to start over. I ended up wiping the device… not much fun but well worth it. I ended up re-installing the software, setting up the cache, and configuring the devices to utilize offline storage effectively. This helped a ton! I also noticed that the NAS was cycling through all of my images to generate thumbnails. This was super CPU intensive which is why it was running so slow the first time. After letting the NAS finish this process the device worked great!
The device was actually fast after I was up and running. I set Beth up as a user as well so she can view, backup, and store all of her photos. I think she enjoys the device more than me because of this feature. I also set it up so that she can watch movies online and offline on her iPad which she loves as well. Now that everything is set up and running great I’m really happy with my purchase. I’ve even found a way to server up my media onto my TV which was a bonus step in my goal to having a NAS. I must say I’m very happy and would recommend it to anyone. Sometimes the getting over the most frustrating hurdles gives you the biggest rewards. I’m pretty sure I’ll always have a NAS around moving forward because of the connivence its made in my digital life.
I want to continue to learn about how this devices can help me out. One of my next steps I’d like to take is to learn how to set up my own hosting for my website. This maybe challenging but would save me another monthly bill. Plus I’d be learning more tech in the process. :)
This last week I had the privilege to travel with Elizabeth again. We went to Dunsmuir and Reno which was quite a bit of fun. Needless to say we didn’t win any money. This week I’m at home working away while she gets to attend a College World Series game on the behave of Union Pacific in Omaha. Below are some pics from our trip last week.
Today while Elizabeth was working hard all day long. I did what ever other tourist in San Francisco does… went to the Golden Gate Bridge. I took quite a few photos of the event. Check them out below.