May 31 2007
I swear, I’ve learned more SQL in the last month than in the previous 10 years of system administration.
I may end up having to add “data base administrator” to my resume skills section after all.
Looks like that copy of MySQL & mSQL from O’Reilly will come in useful after all.
May 30 2007
lights out at work. Too bad computer power is on a separate circuit.
May 18 2007
From this week’s “United Methodist News in brief” news letter:
The commission charged with clarifying the ordering of ministry within The United Methodist Church will carry a resolution to the 2008 General Conference calling for four more years of study. Created by the 2004 General Conference, the 25-member Ministry Study Commission sought to address the “continued ambiguity in the denomination’s understanding of lay, licensed, and ordained ministry” and is to bring conclusions to the April 23-May 2, 2008, gathering in Fort Worth, Texas.
So, they’ve been studying the subject of confusion of the roles of different people within the church for four years, and they’re conclusion is to ask for four more years to study it?
Sounds to me that if even the church conference itself can’t figure this out after four years, studying it for four more isn’t going to yield any clearer answers. It is instead, time to re-define these roles entirely such that there isn’t this confusion.
May 17 2007
This week, I…
Morton:
May 14 2007
We spent the day getting all the boxes out of the living room. For the first time since we moved in we can sit on the couch.
I got the stereo wired up and we were able to sit down and watch a movie. (I was only intending to check that I had the DVD player, stereo, TV and speakers all correctly wired for sound and video, but we ended up watching it all the way through.)
By god, this place will actually be ready for visitors soon.
May 12 2007
I can’t believe the data migration I started yesterday afternoon is STILL running.
Jeez, how long does it take to move 372GB from one drive to another?
May 11 2007
Fixing our ftp server quotas, rewritting the script that updates them.
May 11 2007
I was woken up at 0300 by a phone call from work. Apparently one of our databases was down and they couldn’t get a hold of the other SE. I woke up again at 0400 and realized I’d just fallen asleep again. Bad me. Got out of bed, logged into the VPN and checked the app that talks to that database and it’s running like a champ.
Either it fixed itself or the other SE got his voicemail and fixed it.
By now I was wide awake, so I read my comics, a bit of Livejournal and just saw it’s going on 7. My alarm goes off in 30 minutes. No point in going back to bed.
May 09 2007
The mail server is receiving the output of a cron job 20 minutes before the cron job even runs.
If I can find out how that’s happening, I should be able to make a fortune!
Received: from < deleted> (deleted[127.0.0.1]) by (deleted) (8.13.6/8.13.6) with ESMTP id for
Received: from unknown (HELO deleted) (deleted)
by mail.deleted with (DHE-RSA-AES256-SHA encrypted) SMTP; 9 May 2007 07:39:21 -0000
Now, allowing for the time zone difference of 5 hours, how does that mail arrive 20 minutes before it was sent?
The sending server:
> date
Wed May 9 17:08:44 CDT 2007
The mail server:
$ date
Wed May 9 17:09:56 CDT 2007
As you can see, they’re clocks aren’t off (allowing for the time it took me to log in).
May 09 2007
Gotta love working with an “engineer” who can’t explain anything and thinks your an idiot for asking detailed questions.
We started a new “fault tolerance” project to make all of our services completely redundant across data centers. When trying to explain how it works, my co-engineer used DNS for an example. All he could tell me is that “all the data will be replicated across all data centers so if one goes away, the others will answer”. When I started to try to get more details about how this will work (”Are all servers just going to point to the same IP and the system will redirect that IP to a working server?”) he couldn’t tell me. Then got frustrated with me because I was focusing on DNS. He kept wanting to give me the Executive Summary of the project, while I was asking specifics. And he doesn’t know the specifics and doesn’t understand the relevance of my questions.
To put it another way: this guy is not an engineer. He wants to be an engineer, he got the job title, learned a few things about a few specific services (and specifically, the software we use to implement them) but get outside of that and he’s lost. Problem is, I know next to nothing about the software we use to implement these services. I AM familiar with the concepts however. He mistakes not being familiar with our specific software for ignorance (even though he doesn’t know the general concepts.)
May 08 2007
Until you’ve heard Beethoven’s 5th jazzed up on traditional Chinese instruments.
May 08 2007
May 08 2007
Enough with the on-line world tonight. Off to bed with me.
May 07 2007
Reading old LJ entries of a friend I’ve only recently gotten back in touch with.
May 07 2007
Just got off the phone with my best bud. He’ll be flying out for my birthday, joining us for cider making and Scarborough Fair!
May 07 2007
Quick weekend update, ’cause I got lazy and didn’t get started until 0100.
Friday night, stopped on the way home to get contact lens cleaning stuff and roach killing stuff.
May 07 2007
Crap. Must remember to disable Twitter plugin when editing old posts.
May 07 2007
I don’t get too much into “memes” any more, but once in a while one tickles my fancy:
That travel meme, last seen at klwalton
Bold the places you’ve been and italicize the places you long to see. Add one place you’ve been and one place you’d like to go to the bottom.
May 06 2007
I don’t get too much into “memes” any more, but once in a while one tickles my fancy:
That travel meme, last seen at klwalton
Bold the places you’ve been and italicize the places you long to see. Add one place you’ve been and one place you’d like to go to the bottom.
May 05 2007
Outdoor work done. Lawn mowed, edged, walkways swept. I’ll let the car go another week before washing it again. Weather isn’t good for car washing.
Two toilettes fixed, both running smooth and silent and NOT running when they shouldn’t. Much better.
Shower time, then sit down to pay bills.
May 04 2007
Trying an alternate route home. Just passed the Bell Helicopter plant.
May 02 2007
giving an idiot coworker a ride home while he “podcasts” from his phone. What a moron.
