I got a comment about my pictures not being easy to find since they're all over right now. So for now I put links to them all in one place. Hopefully in the somewhat near future I'll consolidate them all into a better system.

Pretty usual week, thus the lack of posts. Friday night ended up rebuilding my powerbook since the partitioning tools from Apple suck. There's no good reason to not allow changing partitions on a system drive (I could see the system partition maybe, but not others). It seems to be running better for the most part. This time I actually went through custom and chose not to install the stuff I never used anyways (and discovered used way too much space). That includes iCal, iPhoto, iDVD, iMovie, GarageBand and the like. Unfortunately they still include too much crap. Like Address Book, Chess, iChat, Internet Connect, Mail, and Stickies. They already have a custom install, why make us still have to delete a bunch of crap afterwords? At least it still sorta resembles it's unix roots and I was able to drop in my home directory and have it work. Why it can't be on it's own partition you never have to touch when reinstalling without worrying about the partitioning issue if you want to move space around though...

Saturday was a busy day. Woke up in the morning to some pages from idiots who decided our blocking them from the mail servers meant they should try again in the middle of the night from a different machine (this one doesn't look quite as cracked). It was rather nice of them to include paging the sysadmins as part of the spam run though... Then there was a Soccer game followed by Football. It was cold and the lens didn't like the cold much. I had to help it focusing occationally, and still ended up with an unfortunate number of not-quite-focused shots. After the football game ended up taking some pics up at seminary since I was there and there was a good view with the colors and the lake. Took a look at the inter-building cable runs too since I hadn't been up there since they went in - interesting. After that was off to my parents' place for dinner since it was my mom's birthday. Pizza, followed by Radio. Good movie, good story.

Sunday was Salem and listening to Politics in church. That was interesting. Then some sitting around the house. Finished off the day by watching 3 movies. Started with Red Dragon. It's definitely an interesting story, seemed stronger and doesn't seem as held back as the other two. Second was The Shining. Seems like a failure compared to Kubrick's other films. I heard bad things about it, but tried to think it couldn't be so bad. So the movie starts off with the shadow of the helicopter they're shooting from visible in the shot - and doesn't get any better. Oh well, I guess they can't all be perfect. I ended up realigning my projector a bit during this one. Finished off the night with Conspiracy Theory. I liked that movie. It's one of those ones where there's action and they reverse the plot a ton of times. Some people like those, some don't. And now I need to get up early again tomorrow, so that's it.

Sunday went well. First movie was Reindeer Games, which was actually pretty good despite Ben Affleck. Then there was Equilibrium. Definitely better than I was expecting. Think the plot line of Nineteen Eighty-Four, mixed with The Matrix with more fighting style and less special effect, and taking down the man in the end.

Monday ended up getting up entirely too early to return the lens and teleconverters from Saturday. Luckily I can pretty easily avoid 35W for most of the troublesome parts, so it only took like 10 minutes to get to Minneapolis even at 8am. Then there was work, which was sorta just miscellaneous stuff again. It's another one of the just busy enough to be wondering which thing to do, but not so busy that you actually get time to worry. Working on stuff that makes me wait for it doesn't help the problem either. Oh well, hopefully I'll start getting stuff sorted and started enough where I don't have to worry. Unfortunately it looks like I may have another server which is flaking out... :( I did manage to lock up my powerbook completely today too. To the point where I had to hold the power button. Crazy thing is starting to be slow again. Stuff is way too integrated and it has too many internal dependencies. It's one way to maintain a basic "user friendly" interface, but it kills predictibility and therefore productivity in the process. Allow events which aren't dependent on relative timing to happen even while waiting for other things to go. Oh well, enough ranting for now.

I went grocery shopping today. Against my better judgement, mostly because I still hadn't tried it and wanted to see what it was really like, and the fact that it was only $0.89, I grabbed a bottle of Mountain Dew: Pitch Black. First reaction when pouring it into a glass (with ice, as it had only been in the fridge a short time) was "this looks like what happens when you pour pixie stix into pepsi, but not as bad". BTW, if you've never tried that do it over a sink, and that the drain is fully open. Anyways, after trying it my opinion didn't really change any. It tasted like real Dew with Pixie Stix. After downing an entire glass of the stuff (I gotta do something with it), I decided to do an experiment. I pulled out some real Dew and poured it in a glass. Unfortunately I was out of the Maui Punch (blue) flavor of pixie stix, so had to settle for only the Grape (purple) ones. The similarity is surprising. I may have to invest in a new package of Pixie Stix and try further experiments. I think I'll wait 22 days for that though. We'll see if I remember by then...

Big highlight of the workweek was probably a new system in the IncidentBase where it should automatically handle a large portion of the need to track whether users need to be called back a second time or the Incidents closed - both are now handled automatically. Hopefully that'll go well. Other than that not much interesting. Finished up some stuff and started working on stuff that had been sitting around for a while. Friday was break for students, but we had to work. Sorta annoying since there's nobody around so it feels like it should be a vacation day but it's not...

Saturday I didn't get to sleep in since the plan was to leave my parents' place at around 9am to head up to St. John's for the football game. Was a good trip, and took a lot of pics. Ended up using a 70-200mm 2.8L lens with a 2x teleconverter on my Rebel for the game. That was nice since it meant I had an effective lens length over over 650mm and could sit up above the stands and get good shots of guys on the field. :) At one point some security guy even came up to us and asked if we had media passes. Which is sorta funny when you realize St. John's doesn't really have them. And that we were out on the way to the parking lot to do some tailgaiting after being in the stadium already. Unfortunately Bethel lost horribly, which was bad since Bethel thought they had a good chance and the St. Johns team had been sorta freaked out about the game all week. After the game took some other pics over one of the lakes with the chapel and the trees on the way out. Then some more scenic stuff too at Lake Maria state park. Now my arm is a bit sore from carrying that thing around all day though. :(

Was a decent day I guess. Second free food day this weekend too. Got up a bit early for church, because of said free food (and my bro was going canoeing). Then went to the parents' place for food and some other stuff. Helped move a desk upstairs, which actually went quite smoothly considering it was big and heavy and we literally only had 1/4" clearance through one opening (total, that's 1/8" on both sides). Then brought my sister back to Bethel and poked at the network problem while I was there and sorta fixed it for a while. Then an hour later it came back apparently pissed that I messed up its chaos before and started taking out most everything. Doug seems to have sorta tamed it for now though (although netsaint still says some stuff is messed).

As for fun stuff for the day, this is the coolest model airplane ever. And what kind of crap is the music industry putting out if it takes until October for someone to debut on the billboard charts above the American Idol crap? I think the music industry has just devised that whole thing as a way to continue to get people to listen to music they actually control rather than independents. At least for people without taste...

People think I'm nuts because I like cold. Shortly after the last post, I got sick of sitting in the hot server rooms, and went to wander around outside. Ended up on the hill watching the wiring and cleanup happen. I was asked at least 3 times if I was cold. The temp was in the 30s, and I was standing there in my usual winter clothing selection (jeans and t-shirt). It's not like anyone else was wearing much else, most people just had a jacket and most didn't even have gloves (other than the big rubber ones when they started turning back on the 13.8kV feeds). Finally went back in the buildings about 2 hours later, and worked a bit inside. I got home around 10:30, and the window was open with the fan blowing in just like it has been for the past few weeks, and the house was around 60. Didn't bother me, just went to sleep for a few hours. Then spent more hours outside (soccer game), and home and sat in the basement for a few more hours (below 60 down there). Now I think I'm starting to realize why the cold doesn't bother me - somehow I just adapt. When I first came home from the game I noticed it was a bit chilly. The usual things, fingers and toes slightly numb, muscles tense, etc. A few hours later, I'm normal, all extremities feel normal, relaxed, and the thermometers say stuff is the same. Maybe I'm just weird or something. Oh well, all I care about is I don't need to bother with lugging around a jacket, just have to deal with how hot it feels inside for a few minutes when coming in until I adapt back.

Well, I'm sitting in one of the server rooms at Bethel right now, and it's actually sorta quiet. We shut most of the stuff down, and it's just a placeholder server (keep a basic "stuff is down" up for all web servers) and the network equipment up. Lots of complaining UPSes though. The funny part is walking down the ITS office is louder than the server rooms because of all the beeping (the server rooms have big UPSes with a distinctive beep that gets attention but isn't annoying, but the offices all have little ones beeping away like crazy). If all goes well things should be up in a bit over an hour, and hopefully we can get stuff up quickly and I can go home and get some sleep. Bill Buchanan just stopped in too. Sounds like it's a late but relatively smooth night so far - no issues have come up.

Nothing too interesting. No big attacks or anything. After work has basically been sitting around relaxing. Did rebuild 3 servers, two of them with Ross, so we got time to chat. That was nice. Did hit up Eddingtons for lunch on Friday, which was nice. Haven't been there for a long time.

Well, it's getting hot in here (most equipment is shut down, but with no AC it still gets hot quickly even with the door open). Over 80 on the cool side of the room. I think I'm gonna go walk around campus for a bit or something.

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Another week complete. Nothing too exciting during the week. Got advisor mailing lists up and running, and some other miscellaneous stuff. Sesame Beef, but they apparently didn't give Wing all that great of meat this time. On Friday stuff crashed, people didn't tell people, and Nick and I figured it out when tracking down other problems. Then more stuff died, we blocked stuff, and it worked. Then the router paniced loosing the block rules, and I hacked root and added them back, along with a startup script in case it crashed again. Did get monitoring up though and since then nimda has created a couple dozen Incidents for machines which are misbehaving. 1.4GB of blocked SYN traffic so far - wow. Nick and I finished off the night by going to Taco Bell and ended up eating outside because the inside was closed. Oh well, it was a nice night.

Saturday I got up early to attempt to make it to the Bethel football game. Go out to my car and it just clicks when I turn the key. After a bit of troubleshooting and poking with meters and vaporizing metal, determined that it wasn't a dead battery, but actually the battery was broken. Luckily figured that out just in time before Betsy and Pete came over to give it a jump (thanks for being willing to help out), saving them the trip. The thing was apparently leaking acid (there was a puddle of probably .75 liters of acid in the battery tray only visible once the battery was out), and it had caused the post to corrode and come off the battery. At first it only looked like it had broken, thus the attempts to bridge it and the vaporized metal (ah, the fun chemistry of lead acid). Ended up with a trip to buy a new battery (under $40), going through a few boxes of baking soda do neutralize the acid, and a jump to get it over to my parents place where we cleaned it out, got the old battery post properly removed from the cables, and washed and siphoned out the tray, and it's back up and running. More excitement than I wanted for the day. Only got one acid burn from it and it's pretty small.

Mixed in with all that were two sports games. The first was Bethel's at Hamline. Even saw Mr. Boyum there, and got a picture of him avoiding looking at the camera. My dad got his 20d Friday so I got my camera back and got to use his 28-70mm USM IS lens that came with it (he was using a 70-200 USM IS 2.8L). Nice lens, and very fast focus. Probably should get a little closer than the stands with it though. Another photographer there loaned him a 1.4x teleconverter for the day, so his photos should be interesting. After that went to my youngest sister's soccer game, and ended up swapping lenses and using the L for a bit. That one's even nicer, although having a lens that weights 3x as much as the camera and is worth 2x as much feels a little odd. Probably can't justify buying it, but they can be rented in the cities for about $25/day (a weekend is a "day"), so may have to do that occationally.

Finished off Saturday (well, other than the car thing) by Betsy, Pete, brooke, Joe, and Travis coming over for movie night. We watched Rushmore which is a decent movie, although seems a bit rushed. Probably could have stretched it out to 2 hours and not had it been too boring. Sunday was church at Salem, which I was tired for. I must not have slept well since I was both tired and sore. Oh well. Closed up some stuff for work (stuff from Friday night), and just sorta relaxed for the afternoon. Watched Underworld, which was pretty decent. Think the Matrix movies without the disappointment of what happened to the story, mixed with something like The Crow. Lots of shooting and chasing/acrobatics, along with a scarily realistic soundtrack. You know how most movies sorta have lots of vibration when shots happen? This one you feel the shots. And there are lots of PoV shots when one person gets attacked by another - and you feel those impacts too. Fun movie.

Short week, but nothing too eventful. Tuesday was L&O day with pizza. Wednesday was Nick buying a car, and Dave skipped out since he was sick so I gave him a lift up there. Got a free lunch at Noodles out of the deal though. Thursday and Friday the boss was sick. Luckily Dave wasn't though, as that would have really been no fun. Had a meeting with some ITS people and HR to sort through some organizational stuff and how it should be stored and handled for some processes. Effectively was a crash course in how the whole system is set up and stuff for me, which was interesting. Hopefully once it's sorted out it'll be easier for everyone. Friday was lunch at Chipotle, which is much to rare of an occurance.

There was more of the what's lately become usual talking with people too. Friday night I started looking over some stuff and thinking about it. Saturday I ended up writing a bunch of documentation and sorted out some other things. A handful of knowledgebase articles and an email were the result. Hopefully that will solidify some policies and push other people to write more and also help this whole situation a bit.

Besides the above there was lots of sitting and just listening to music to relax. I need a better music listening chair though. Maybe I need to rearrange some stuff from upstairs. Saturday went out to dinner with the family after the soccer and football stuff they went to. That's becoming a trend on Saturdays, but I'm not arguing. My dad is continuing to take a ton of pictures with my camera - really liking it in combination with some lenses he's been renting. Hopefully his will come in soon so I can have mine back.

Sunday started off with Salem. The parking lot was amazingly empty, even though for some reason I was thinking church started 15 minutes later than it did so was late. Actually that's how it started after I woke up. Last night was the power outage fun at Bethel. Luckily I didn't have to go in, but Brent (and I think Doug) were there shutting down things. All my stuff in my office stayed up, as the outage was only a bit over an hour. A few fewer problems to deal with. When I got up I only had to start SMTP on the exchange server as that apparently didn't get started before the outage (it was down for an unrelated reason). After church was just sitting around relaxing for most of the day. Starting in late evening was movie marathon. First movie was Poolhall Junkies. I really liked that one. The soundtrack especially seemed better done than most. Next was Spawn. That's an odd movie, but decent. Finished off with The Professional, which is another good movie. And that concludes the weekend, or at least the interesting part.