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After my [admittedly unusual] tough couple of weeks at work, I volunteered for paperwork duty - closing roughly 1300 tickets using our exactingly obtuse online system. Its been a double-edged sword. Many things are.

But I've enjoyed the pace.

In setting aside my unix administrator duties, I've no longer required all my available assets, which allowed me to consider performing my duties in a less formal setting - more specifically, the couch - a first for me.

I'm still getting used to it, but the change in venue has allowed me to better focus on my temporary responsibility. Awkwardly, I've had a sharp increase in conference calls during this same time, but I found the couch particularly well suited for those.

It surprises me sometimes how long it takes for me to reframe things, as I've been working from home now for two years, and only now just left the office.



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So, here's our MINECRAFT server. You'll need the MINECRAFT 1.6.2 client, with the FORGE MODLOADER and the BIOMES O PLENTY mod. Thankfully all the client parts are fairly straightforward, and your chances of getting the three integrated are increased exponentially if you run a Microsoft operating system.

The kids picked the hostname and the mod (due solely to the below video and its score - this mod adds something like 80+ new areas to MINECRAFT). So just point your client to paladinwarriors.com :)

I'm still working on integration (to do what I want to do sometimes works and sometimes does not - the critical components are only in beta), so the world you connect to at any given time might be different. Still running private instances on the home servers because each child wants multiple new environments...




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Creating a remote standalone linux MINECRAFT server was not as glib a task I'd assumed it would be, and despite the (yes, literally) hundreds of HOWTO videos on numerous different forums and threads, all of them assumed much, and imparted little. I was attempting what seems to be a fairly common combination: MINECRAFT + Forge ModLoader + Biomes O Plenty Mod. Yet the least amount of information was found on the "official" sites, deferring to the forums instead. So after about two weeks of combing through "All you have to do is..." (and related videos which mostly showed people with Windows how to double-click an icon) I found YouTube user Wine X who illuminated the missing piece for me, through apparent trials and errors of his own. It was a relief to finally understand the missing piece, but incomprehensible that it was not documented anywhere, and I'll also admit that I was probably further discouraged because I'm a unix systems administrator by trade. All of this should have been much easier, and if not, at least well documented - and there were dozen of permutations to address. I ended up building an x64 (had to toggle my processor flag in the BIOS - had no idea it wasn't already) openSUSE gnome (as MINECRAFT wouldn't run out of the box on XFCE) vm, building there, and scp'ing up the finished code, which turned out to be fortuitous as I used that same box to later learn and document the `Download only` method of patching production SLES servers.

Once I finally got it doing what I wanted it to, I discovered my 512M box in Germany was woefully inadequate for the task. As far as I could tell from top the high load averages were causing java exceptions which kept dropping us from the server, and this with only two users logged in. I briefly considered hauling out my largest Xeon server - a 32G box, upgrading my home network and ordering a static IP, but went vps shopping instead as the cloud is far less expensive. (Although I did inquire about the DL380/G6 I might be getting from a neighbor in Anna). Cloudwise I ended up with a 2CPU/2G CentOS box on an SSD RAID which deftly processed all tasks effortlessly. As an aside, have I mentioned lately how much I dislike CentOS? I've grown so accustomed to, and adept at SUSE, I was fumbling my way through the Red Hat variant.

So yeah, the MINECRAFT server was up and running for a day or two, until I posted here revealing it. That is, before we learned about griefing; players who wreck havoc by destroying as much of a world as possible on public servers (thankfully, this never actually happened to us). But in order to harden our instance, it has to run a special version of the server in which to add the hardening plugins. Given the sheer amount of difficulty I had in just setting up a vanilla server, I assumed this next course of action would introduce a whole host of new problems (each version of the above may or may not be available/compatible with each other in the new configuration). I therefore quiesced the game, and made two copies - one a backup of the original working game, and two, a development tree; a completely different server path so I could tinker with the hardening without breaking the working instance. Its difficult to keep up with all the changes occurring so quickly in an unfamiliar environment.

Lastly, its been a bear of a week at work heaped atop last week's bear of an on-call; there were many...highlights to my week. In a related story it was nice that our Director cited, "busy learning all the new technologies" as to the reason I wasn't instantly fluent in the handful of deprecated technologies we support...on my day off. This, while my dad is trying to call twice a week or so to give me updates on my mother who is still in a nursing facility after all this time. I try to call her at least once a week, but she's been moved around so much from facility to facility, I have to await my father's call before I can call her. I do appreciate the flood of emails and texts I've received when its noticed I've stopped posting - despite the various forms they may come in (I had one ask if I was upset at them). I swear once school starts I'm going to get back on a schedule and start walking again and start posting again. Too much, too often with not enough down time in-between this last month. I guess sometimes it really does all add up. And for this level of energy deprivation, I'm finding I am drinking far too little. I go through these phases where I enjoy drinking daily for six months straight, and then won't drink at all for like a year. Right now I'm in between the two. Only I wish I were drinking, but haven't found the time to do so, and that is surely, by any definition, "too busy."
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Having been put on the night shift during our Disaster Recovery Exercise, I didn't get to see my peeps, but I did make the rounds regardless. The EHOWTON!SHRINE was still there, creepily untouched since last visit, but my biggest surprise was walking into Miguel's cube and seeing pictures of Estanislao's wife and kids.

"So that's how it is," I uttered under my breath, a little surprised.

Turns out they share a cube now, and one works remote most of the time.

I always suggest jumping to conclusions as the most inaccurate representation of reality. What we think we know is usually limited by our perspective, and announcing that perspective surprisingly reveals to others much about how we view the world. The number one response I get when I suggest things may be different than how they appear, is "Nuh-uh" because (I kid you not), "I know what I saw." Actually, they don't. Ensuring a stable, unchanging worldview is paramount to those who are incapable of piecing together logic and/or making sure it doesn't clash with what they believe should be true. All of this is frighteningly automatic compounded from a lifetime of maladaption; seeing truly is believing - believing what one wants to believe rather than a much closer version of truth. The same can be said for auditory processing through conversations "You said..." What I say and what people hear is usually colored by what they expect to hear. Its really no wonder these people are so frustrated all the time. Everything around them must seemingly conspire against them!

As for me, I'll remember the fun lesson of Miguel and Estanislao, and leave those who believe what they see to the magician circuit.
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[CHAT TRANSCRIPT BEGINS]

hi Eric
unix machine account issue
they is a password expiration on an account in x app servers
the user y
it works in dev but not on the dr servers
can you help me set so that we ssh to it and setup .ssh folders?
we are trying to resolve the issue for production deploy

Eric: which account is expiring on which box? and you want the other box to also expire, or to not expire?

the user is y
and the server is x
let me know when it is done
thx

Eric: let you know when what is done, exactly??

finish the y account setup
we can ssh to x user account
that's the issue

Eric: so...you want me to disable ssh access to that server for that user?

no
sorry
we CANNOT ssh with y
and we want to be able to
that is the issue
sorry for the misunderstanding
please let me know

Eric: its prompting me to log in. are you saying you cannot?

yes, I want to connect

Eric: how about i just reset the password for you?

you can if you can

Eric: try it now.

ok
let me try it please
tada!!
cool!
thx a lot!

[CHAT TRANSCRIPT ENDS]
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The week-long ordeal with my mother seems downright surreal at this point, and we're on the scrubbing data portion of the Disaster Recovery Exercise which means I've since slept.

It was a wonderful experience on many different levels this time around, and I'm thankful for having been chosen to participate. Our room this time was much larger - I was able to spread out my laptops (after the first night I was encouraged to bring my "externally connected" laptop) and second monitor without appearing entitled or feeling hoggish. Not that it stopped me the last two DREs, I was just more comfortable in doing so.

I also go to work with a manager I've never worked with before and a Database Administrator (DBA) I've not worked with before. Both were very pleasant surprises. It helps when you're a professional working with a team of professionals - each night we accomplished far more than I thought
possible; my goal each night was to complete as much as I could as to not further burden the day shift team. It worked well, especially alongside my counterpart, who readily agreed to work the components I was not strongest in. Our evenings were damn near serendipitous.

A couple of funny things that stand out for me, using the word "Karmatic" in reference to my boss looking over and telling me, "God I love Excel" the day after this post despite having not read it, and the subsequent conversation:

"Is that even a real word? No one is going to know what you mean when you use it."
"You knew what I meant."
"..."


But hands down was in reference to this old post, where I came clean admitting my learned lesson to the co-worker in question. She laughed and laughed and laughed. Then asked, "Who was it?"
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The idea behind flattening management structure is supposed to make employees more productive by making them feel as if they are part of the decision-making process, and streamlining both customer and personnel feedback by removing layers of middle-management. That's the idea.

In reality the most personal relationship I have with anyone in my management chain is my direct manager, whom I report to. He knows my strengths, my weaknesses, and the team dynamic - who works well together and why - which team members are more adept at which tasks. He personally juggles and doles out tasks based upon this knowledge and planning for future tasks. What it has always come down to for me is nurturing that relationship - attempting to work closely with the one who both writes your annual review and who's eyes you have to meet when you fail. And that's what it comes down to. Context. That very personal relationship you have with your first-level supervisor no matter your level.

So while horizontal organizational structures are all the rage, severing my personal relationship with a real person and placing me under a remote manager I'll never meet in another part of the country is not going to foster a close relationship. Its not going to make me feel more productive nor part of the decision-making process. My annual performance review will now be written by someone who's eyes I don't have to meet, and both of us will suffer for that.

Or, like I told him when he called to introduce himself, "I have been unimaginably successful every time I have had a local, on-site manager. The inverse has been painfully accurate each time I've reported to a remote one."
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I used to think so many people committed suicide in hotels out of some sort of premeditated anonymity. I was foolish for thinking so. Its the free "HIGH SPEED" wireless coming in at a whopping .9/Mbps. If the smiling verbal regurgitator at the front desk would only not use the phrase, "HIGH SPEED" it might be incrementally more tolerable, but that's only a theory. I feel like I'm getting dumber every moment I stare at that barely-moving progress bar, thinking any second now and all will be well. This must be what hell feels like.


Hotel Hell Fun

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Monologue:

Did you hear the one about the brilliant-but-eccentric system administrator who didn't know how to manipulate data in a spreadsheet? Its because he was a brilliant-but-eccentric system administrator.

[Cue laughter]

Opening Scene:

"How can you not know Excel?"
"How can you not know what I do for a living?"

Fade Out...

Its like I asked the Project Manager who had requested the spreadsheet. "When was the last time I asked you to log into a unix box and fix a filesystem for me?"

Being in imagery intelligence (versus, let's say signals or emissions intelligence) was equally as problematic. Your average visiting dignitary never wanted to second-guess your interpretation by "reviewing" your wavelength. Whatever. But if you had pictures? Well then EVERYONE was a photographic expert!

Heh - "reviewing your wavelength." God I crack myself up sometimes.
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In 1992 I was stationed at the newly commissioned Joint Analysis Center in the United Kingdom. I was on a secure line, relaying classified information to a superior, when I turned to a co-worker and asked him to clarify a piece of information I didn't have immediate access to. Rather than recite the requested information, he asked me who I was talking to - he wanted to know who was on the phone.

The exchange of classified information doesn't work that way, and I explained he wasn't required to know who was on the phone if I was the one asking for the information. I was cleared, I already had access to the information, and I simply needed him to recite it for me.

It was a simple request. He refused until he knew who was on the other end of line.

And I haven't run across a scenario like that since. Until last week.

A coworker sent out an email to everyone with a ticket number he had opened. I made note of the server and deleted the email (for a technologies company we're given a woefully inadequate amount of online email storage). When the monitoring center contacted me the next day asking about the server, I recalled the information, but had not (obviously) committed the ticket number to memory. So when I asked the admin for the ticket number again, he naturally asked why.

Telling him why, however, started a philosophical conversation about why they were asking me for it - a conversation I wasn't prepared to get embroiled in - I was in the middle of numerous simultaneous tasks - he felt he had a need to know. And while I appreciated that, and readily agreed to have that conversation with him at a more appropriate time, I simply required the ticket number immediately.

It turned out to be too difficult a request.

Then I went all passive-aggressive on my boss, which is embarrassing only because I don't do passive-aggressive. Like, ever. When I apologized to him later I cited, "potential confluence of events" leading up to my communication. Still trying to figure out *why* I responded in a such a manner despite my frustration. I think it was simply reliving the 1992 event. Is that some serious baggage or what? Maybe its out of my system now forever!
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Remember my mother falling and breaking her hip? Right, so she was supposed to have been released into the care of my father and brother, with the understanding that my brother would be doing all the heavy-lifting. Apparently he fell off the ladder while putting up the new carport and broke his hip.

Dad called and asked if I could help out this week. Is it just me, or is it odd these things happen exclusively during the summertime DRE's?

I do actually have a hypothesis behind this - DR would normally be a mental and physical stressor, but following events of family drama, DR is like a vacation! Its no wonder I can be all smiles no matter what :D

Perspective is a wonderful, wonderful thing.
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gkrellm looks awfully impressive on my 8-core box as compared to my laptop. But beware working from your mobile device while upgrading - I must have come off as strangely passive-aggressive with my "Fine" reply to a basis architect requesting sudo on a handful of boxes. I had meant to reply, "Done" but was auto-corrected! "What an ass that [livejournal.com profile] ehowton is!"

On to the notes - I needed someplace to keep these in an attempt to leave the wheel, as we know it, previously invented.




Building and running cisco anyconnect requires 32bit libraries. Lots of them. And 32bit firefox. Also be sure to:
ln -s /etc/ssl/certs /opt/.cisco/certificates/ca

SUSE's lack of DKMS means compiling the virtualbox module. Though LXDE was added atop a basic (runlevel 3) installation, it uses a desktop kernel - the sources of which cannot be discovered through a zypper kernel source search. To add it therefore, run:zypper dup. And here's the command for copying a *.vdi, and the subsequent command to correct the UUID setting when you use a unix cp or Windows drag & drop:
VBoxManage clonevdi Master.vdi Clone.vdi

./VBoxManage internalcommands setvdiuuid /path/to/virtualdisk.vdi



setvdiuuid changed to sethduuid in v4.0.4:


./VBoxManage internalcommands sethduuid /path/to/virtualdisk.vdi

(And if Cannot set a new UUID: VERR_VD_IMAGE_READ_ONLY try running PowerShell as Administrator)


pidgin didn't come with sound equipped, and it was frustrating trying to determine *why* it would not play. From Tools --> Preferences, in the Method drop down list, select Command (so it will highlight) and enter, aplay %s. Also, meanwhile (IBM SameTime) plugin for pidgin isn't listed in a zypper search for pidgin plugins because meanwhile's package name lists it as libpurple; zypper search meanwhile. And it requires a tweak of the ~/.purple/accounts.xml in order to work with upgraded server versions by adding or changing the following:

<setting name='client_major' type='int'>30</setting>
<setting name='client_minor' type='int'>8511</setting>
<setting name='fake_client_id' type='bool'>1</setting>
<setting name='force_login' type='bool'>0</setting>
<setting name='client_id_val' type='int'>4608</setting>

Also works in Windows if you break your system with an incomplete ZYPPER UP and have to run your Windows Enterprise VM from a different hardware platform; find it in C:\Users\[ehowton]\AppData\Roaming\.purple (or simply 'run' %appdata% for us Minecraft types out there). BE SURE TO OPEN NOTEPAD AS ADMINISTRATOR.


LXDE doesn't have what you might call "frontend" multiple monitor support (mirror only) so run an xrandr for port names and resolutions, put the results in ~/screenlayout/shellscript.sh and call it from ~/.profile;
#!/bin/sh
xrandr --output LVDS --mode 1680x1050 --pos 1680x0 --rotate normal --output VGA-0 --mode 1440x900 --pos 0x0 --rotate normal

Increasing the capacity of an undersized vbox Windows volume was something which plagued me for a very long time; migrating my remaining fully-operating Win7 Enterprise VM to the new platform required action. Once again, the bane of Google, "All you have to do is..." posts which at best misunderstand scenarios in which their simple fixes aren't applicable, I chose a path from my own experience, which thankfully worked:
Install backup software, add two equal-sized [.vdi] virtual harddrives, image to one, restore to the other, stop the virtual machine and remove the backup drive and the old root drive, boot.
Inelegant, yet effective. That said, opening full-screen vmware consoles inside a full-screen vbox instance on an Intel-video equipped laptop over vpn? Yeah, that just sucks. In other news, growing my linux vm with the dd command did an admirable job of duplicating the smaller disk with a little gparted resizing-fu.

That which took me the second longest to work out was having a non-root user avatar display in the LDXM login screen while retaining password authentication. There is an overwhelming amount of incorrect/inaccurate data out there. The answer is two-fold; place an avatar (96x96 seems to be MSRP) in your home directory changing its name to .face, then copy that same avatar, naming it [username].png (or .jpg) here:
/usr/share/pixmaps/faces


Set login wallpaper here: SuSe_Start --> System --> Preferences --> lxdm-config

I also wanted to lock the screen with the Windows[flag]key-"L" combination. This required adding/replacing the following to the ~/.config/openbox/lxde-rc.xml file:
<keybind key="Super_L">
 <action name="Execute">
  <command>xscreensaver-command -lock</command>
 </action>
</keybind>

And lastly, if you run into an inexpensive local vps which offers openSUSE 11.4, it is NOT a good idea to get it and upgrade to 12.3 - stick to the German vps which offers it natively ;)

Everything else can be found in /etc/lxdm/lxdm.conf:

And to reduce the size of an otherwise unwieldy (vdi) disk file, I've done the linux one with great success:

run defrag in the guest (Windows)
nullify free space:


With Linux guest run this:

sudo dd if=/dev/zero of=/bigemptyfile bs=4096k
sudo rm -rf /bigemptyfile

With Windows guest, download SysinternalsSuite and run this:
sdelete –z


shutdown the guest VM
now run VBoxManage's compact command

VBoxManage.exe modifyhd thedisk.vdi --compact

This reduces the size.

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Eric Howton Dull Boy March 2013
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When I was in the military, temporary duty (TDY) assignments were commonplace travel, and my first corporate gig was 2-weeks every month on travel. That has slowed down quite a bit as my career has mutated, but I still find myself on various assignments two or three times a year. Because most (not all) of my military assignments were to other bases, travel allowance and payout was pretty straight-forward. Go to the travel office, present orders, get cash. While at new base, go to the travel office, present orders, get cash. My first corporate gig was a combination of spreadsheets and fax machines. Nowadays we have online web-based reporting and automatically-linked credit card purchases. Import the credit card charge and it is payed directly. Easy as pie. In theory.

Because I checked in for a week's stay, they charged my credit card accordingly. When I left a day early, they refunded the unused portion. Our super-glamorous accounting software won't let me submit it because the receipt differs from the actual stay, and I cannot import the refund because that number is (obviously) not "greater than 0." Being smarter than this software I simply checked "include taxes with room rate" and averaged the total. However, with three decimal points it was either under, or over by $.01 - which is a flagged exception disallowing submission.

To further complicate matters, two days were less expensive than the remaining days to (presumably) a seasonal rate change and a special "weekend rate." So after a 15-minute wait-time phone call to support, they suggested I manually add each day separately - with an attached note as to why - then submit. I'll get the money instead of my credit card, then I can pay it myself.

Its a crazy world when spredsheets and fax machines are more effective.
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Prepping my body for the DR exercise was tricky business insofar as I have been working odd hours the past several weeks. So when I awoke at 0900 Saturday morning knowing I was going to be getting up for the drive to Texas at 0100 Sunday morning, I anticipated a very rough drive. All was for naught however in what I can only describe as a perfect harmony of being as I grew tired and went back to bed a mere seven hours later for an additional 11 hours!

Perhaps more aggravating, after sleeping in Texas Sunday night, I showed up to work bright-eyed and bushy-tailed very early Monday morning and was told, "Go get some sleep, you're on second shift." Hrumph!

Perfect harmony of being triumphed once again because I drove straight back to the hotel, mere minutes away, and fell into a deep slumber in which I dreamed...

I don't remember much about why we were on a tour bus, but it was a very active place with lots of excited conversation. I can no longer remember the details, but at one point was surprised to see Martin Freeman among the passengers! When we reached our final destination there was even more mingling and conversation - outdoors on a white patio shaded by trees and broken up with long white tables and short white-bricked walls. I approached Martin Freeman for his autograph - which he readily signed - but kept insisting I try the Merlot.

I wanted to try the Merlot, but was afraid it would come up short as compared to what they served at SUSEcon. To that end I kept looking around for "The Architect" because I knew he'd be drinking the Merlot and could guide me on my best course of action. In my dream Martin Freeman was very engaging and very friendly.

So in between the long, odd hours of not sleeping, I do seem to be able to will myself to sleep when I need do, even if I am unable to do it when I want to.
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The Blackberry is, without a doubt, the enterprise standard for corporate communication, and rightly so with its rich feature-set leaned toward such. As a remote IT professional however, I seem to go through them about one per year. Recently added to the availability list, with help from an Enterprise App - the iPhone 4S. So I chose to go that route this time.

Sure the tactile keyboard is huge draw, but other than the minor email navigation hurdles (keyboard & touchscreen versus touchscreen alone) and some of the multi-tasking differences (physical keys make it easier to absolutely "back out" without closing down as compared to the single-button UI of the iPhone), I really do love this platform.

Right now I'm just struggling with various combinations of notifications (for rotating on call), which I thought would be way more configurable than the Blackberry, and while it may be, I haven't struck gold just yet. That and the Blackberry would connect to my bluetooth earpiece no matter which was powered on first - not the case with the iPhone - and if I answer the iPhone on the phone with the bluetooth attached, it assumes I don't want to actually use the bluetooth, rather the built-in speaker and microphone. Hrumph!

But it is nice having honest-to-god functioning apps over the occasionally-working Blackberry ports. And free apps. Damn near everything on the Blackberry is for-cost. 4G is nice too :)


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Productivity Supercenter

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Change isn't nearly as funny as people are about change. "I knew that would happen," they say when something unfolds as they predicted, as if imbued with magical gifts of precognition they call, "common sense." What is fascinating is what they say when they're wrong. Nothing. Unless pushed. Then excuses. Never ever a change to their rigid paradigms which may require updating.

My own predictions are made with far fewer inflexibilities. Not because I'm smarter than anyone else. On the contrary, I seem to shoot about average on predictions, as do the majority of us. Mostly because I'll make a guess and then sit back to see what I've learned in its unfolding. Even if I have a dog in the fight, I can learn from either outcome. Unlike those with "common" sense, I often fail to account for irrational, inapplicable results. And then, because they are irrational, and shouldn't seemingly apply to each and every scenario, I'm often surprised by them again. My bad. One can certainly anticipate an outcome which benefits them, but should not expect it. That would be short-sighted and successively problematic.

Our own ideas about things are often based on too little information. Which is why I cringe when nearly anyone suggests they have the answer to complex social issues. Here's an rather comprehensive chart on money. Just one aspect of multiple interrelated and equally complex systems that have to function together to properly work. And yet I hear advice all the time from coworkers and pizza delivery professionals both who "know" the answer to the worlds problems. Sadly, they fail to take into consideration that other people might feel differently than they do. The only thing I know for certain is that I can't grasp every thread of every relational system. Also, just because I may disagree with with something doesn't mean I think it's wrong or that it won't work. I even get accused of being "too complex" when I raise the point.

Election Day I saw a political advertisement where Obama concluded his ideas for a prosperous nation with the statement, "...and ask the rich to pay a little bit more." I'd quipped on a friends blog that the sentiment sounded great! However, Obama and I disagree on what is considered "rich" and our definition of "a little more." For my 2013 benefits election my employer moved to a "salary based" cost-structure in which my healthcare costs doubled.

Which brings me to disbelief. When facing a situation, "I can't believe this is happening" is not an acceptable answer for a workable solution. Furthermore, why not? We are each responsible for maintaining a general understanding of causality and the role we play in it, or at least the recognition that we could all be faced with situations in which we were not prepared. It would be foolish to coast through life thinking things would never change. The fact that we weren't expecting it is not a sustainable end-game when repeated ad nauseum. Personally, I can believe a whole lot of things, though I usually want to know why - the motivation and intent. That said, everyone copes.

I don't know what's going to happen with my benefits next year, next election, or what the general face of healthcare is going to look like in a decade. As long as I'm employed, I'll consider it a win. Besides, I'm well aware that something far more consuming than healthcare could become a new priority that we'll have to face and adjust for.

As for me, I'm not making any predictions.

When you're deprived of all freedom...you still have the most important freedom of all, which no one can take away from you: that is the freedom to choose what kind of person you want to be.
― Ingrid Betancourt


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I don't remember my first introduction to the Jellyvision game, YOU DON'T KNOW JACK! an irreverent, pop-culture game-show which used brilliant allusions and wit to unravel logical connections. I do remember [livejournal.com profile] drax0r and I playing it the 3 months we spent in Massachusetts one year and later, with my father after I introduced it to him.

So it was with as much suspicion as surprise when I saw the little Jellyvision logo on Aetna's Benefit package selection page for work. Their AI which asks you questions about your family and annual doctor visits in an almost identical style to their humorous game! It was an interesting yet fascinating mixture using that game engine for this purpose.

The world is indeed a funny place.
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I wear my bluetooth earpiece so often I sometimes wonder if I might suffer the same rare fate as those who use tampons.
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"The Architect" got us backstage passes to the Blue Man Group!





Why does he look so doubtful?





Dinner at Pat O'Brien's :)





Cigars & Scotch afterward...





Universal Studios Orlando





Thank you SUSE, Thank you Intel!





SUSEcon was a very enriching experience - their "first" annual - it was filled with the *actual* German developers and engineers who not only support the product, but worked on its entire lifecycle. A very engaging group of people whom I enjoyed tremendously, and learned much in the process. I was thrilled my employer authorized us to attend and to be working side-by-side my client "The Architect"; though we have different missions, collaboration at this level will be mutually beneficial for a successful deployment.

The hosts were gracious and the attendees, while diverse, were a joy to meet and visit with. Topping out at 500 convention-goers, vendors and staff, it was a small enough group to allow a very attentive and personalized discourse.

Wow! Just...wow.
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Doug Balog, General Manager, IBM System z



What a keynote! Starting with the President and General Manager of SUSE talking about the explosive growth of SUSE over the last several years followed by Dirk Hohndel, Intel's (inhale a breath) "Chief Linux And Open Source Technologist" (what a title!) comments about being part of the open source "ecosystem" from the start to what turned out to be my favorite, Doug Balog, General Manager of IBM's System z!

A while back I was considering either an OpenVMS emulator on x86 OR installing OpenVMS on my Itanium box, but after the keynote I wanted to crate an *actual* mainframe into my house (I know someone who has two, surely he would let me borrow one, right?) Then I discovered rather than playing with 3-phase power and running 208 to my basement...I could simply get a SLES vps running on the System Z!

Yeah, I'm geeking out.

And tonight? SUSE's 20th birthday party bash!




System z MAINFRAME

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One would think that in a room full of stereotypical introverts a cultural shift due to compensation at critical mass would form. One would think. But that's not what happened. In a room of about 300 introverts, a live trio, and a all the beer and wine one could consume as well as a veritable cornucopia in its most literal definition, introverts did what they do best - clung to those they knew in several small groups of groups.

I did the same for a short period of time before becoming annoyed at the whole introvertedness of this collection of introverts. So....several glasses of wine later, this extroverted introvert did what needed to be done to the amazement of his small group. I went out, introduced myself to individuals, brought them into my ever-growing group of introverts, and found amazing people to talk to!

It was a great experience, one I hope to repeat over and over this trip - in the words of my client, who was also present - "A great asset." During one very terse exchange, a man who communicated to the sales force directly from the kernel engineers in very droll reply to the comment, "So you're how all the rumors get started!"

If you hear it from me, its not a rumor.

What a great reply! At the end of the night, mine was the largest interactive group. We were all there to learn, and I learned a great many things just at the informal opening reception, as did all those I interacted with - and I found that in some small way, we were all connected. From the ARM processor guy who lives in my old stomping grounds of Peterbrough, UK to the North Texas Texas Instrument guy who worked in the same building I did a decade ago.

Until tomorrow!


Me and "The Architect"

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Going to SUSEcon!


Gonna get my geek on.


SUSECon is the first annual global conference for SUSE customers, partners and community enthusiasts. This event will become the premier Linux conference where SUSE users can learn about the latest developments in enterprise-class Linux. SUSECon will be held from September 18–21, 2012 in the Grand Caribe Convention Center at the Caribe Royale Hotel in Orlando, Florida.




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I would like to say that I am comfortably lounging as remediation from my 90-hour week, but that would be a lie. Some sadist put me "on call" the Monday after the Disaster Recovery exercise, which wasn't as bad as also requiring the infrequent 0700 Monday morning production refreshes this morning. So here I sit.

I would like to report that both my parents are home and resting comfortably - my brother procured a hospital bed for my father and set him up in the living room, and the friends my kids were staying with in Anna while I worked are now here in Newton with me. Saturday I drive to Guthrie, Oklahoma to return them, then school starts.

I haven't exercised in a week.

Though I did smoke an Arturo Fuente natural-shade Hemmingway while gulping real, from over-the-border Mexican tequila directly over ice while standing adjacent both the grill and the smoker in already 100+ degree temperatures readying something like six pounds of various meats and peppers for the coming week yesterday. No, its not really a surprise I have a headache, but I have to wonder where the time goes?

While I did slumber 10-hours last night I had restless, uneasy dreams about trying to take a commercial flight to a war zone - something which took several hours to accomplish, it was all very frustrating in the airport trying to find a travel agent and a place to check in - I was either back in uniform or a member of the Behavioral Analysis Unit from Criminal Minds. Maybe both. There was a lot of dismemberment. I was a sniper who did my job unemotionally, but the fallout from everyone else's reactions disturbed me, as did the wanton violence of the dismemberment. There was really no need for any of that.

I couldn't begin to imagine what the rest of my week will look like.
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I got three hours of uneasy sleep between my first two 20-hour shifts. We're at this until Sunday.

I hope I survive.
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The World is my Teleconference Room

I have a new meeting space, its the walking path around the water-filled ditch (read pond) in the subdivision adjacent our own, about a sixty second walk from the house. At four and a half miles an hour, each lap takes me about 10-minutes. This is where I take all my scheduled calls. We have a daily meeting at 0900 which lasts between half an hour and 45 minutes. I arrive early and get a good hour in in the mornings.

If we don't have an afternoon call, this is where I spend my lunch hour. I try to spend an hour there in the evenings as well.

Only I haven't been doing as much walking as I have running. Interval training. And I'm surprised that I'm able to do it the full hour, three times a day. Especially given my weight. That being said, I was afraid my Merrell's might no longer be up to the task. But "traditional" style running shoes have been replaced with minimalist "natural" "barefoot" running shoes. Shoes with no cushion, no heel, and no support. The opposite of what someone of my size/age requires.

[livejournal.com profile] catttitude and I were in the Wichita mall one Friday after work and I stopped at a Famous Footwear because we have one here in the outlet mall in Newton. I found the most expensive pair of traditional running shoes they had for $125 - Asics. I've never had a pair before but I think [livejournal.com profile] celtmanx wears them regularly. This morning I found them at the outlet mall for $90. They arrive in a week.

If the gel does what they say it does, I may end up increasing how many times a day I run, or how long.

I feel compelled to.

This exercise is made more effective because I gave up wine. This exercise is made more effective because I started getting adequate sleep. And this effective exercise attunes my mental health.

I am becoming more powerful at an alarming rate.


Asics Gel Nimbus 13 "Fire"

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I personally know those who cannot live without the latest/greatest most sleek gadget in their area of interest. I also know those who value function over form no matter what; those who view any cosmetic shell as whorish and cheap. It would be foolish to judge either party, for their convictions are akin to stereotypes - damned funny when exaggerated and unfairly applied too liberally, but nonetheless steeped in a history of truth.

Despite knowing that scantily-clad supermodels are ridiculously photoshopped and that great effort in post-processing is required prior to publication we nonethess continue to fall victim to the media onslaught that happiness can only come from bedding hot chicks and driving expensive cars. It works in part because we are programmed to acknowledge that level of exposure. I also know people who believe that shit. That nothing bad can ever come from dropping serious coin on some new gadget, that it can actually modify their personality and make other people like them. And no, I'm not talking about my 12-year old. In this case he's smarter than some adults I know.

While I am not an early-adopter, I do attempt to balance form and function. I pretty much assume sleeping with the tight 19-year old next door would be fun only once, and not a viable long-term solution to my ongoing happiness. So it is potentially with anything new and shiny. It seems prudent to weigh your options, but that's just me. I've discovered that change for change's sake is not nearly as rewarding as carefully planned and expected change. Change is going to happen regardless - you can be inflexible to it and toil away fruitlessly forever, or you can fluidly adapt and live successfully.

My work laptop, Ubuntu 10.10 has served me well. But it reached end-of-life last month. And when your company doesn't like anyone running anything but Windows even if you are a unix administrator running an operating system that no longer supports security fixes would not be a career-enhancing move. Knowing this, I began the incremental updates to current.

Everything worked.

Like a champ.

Until 12.04.

I can no longer VPN. Non-mirrored dual-monitors no longer work (and I still really, really dislike Unity). Because I am full time remote, I am attempting to make these grievous errors transparent to my employer, but at some point I will absolutely require a fully functioning system.

Perhaps consumers aren't the only ones who fall prey to sexy. Perhaps a every-six-month-upgrade roadmap is too aggressive? Perhaps the shiny, whorish exterior is attempting to cover a multitude of sins? Like the song says,

If you want to be happy for the rest of your life
Never make a pretty woman your wife.


Conversely psychology has shown that "In couples where the wife is more attractive, both partners tended to be very content."

By installing 12.04 I feel like I just entered that tight 19-year old next door. Wholly exciting and frightening at the same time.

I'm going straight to hell.





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This is the chair I bought in 2007 and subsequently have been sitting in up to 18-hours a day as a result of the working-from-home learning curve. And while I initially wanted the Herman Miller I really couldn't justify the cost without first trying on something intermediate. So off it was to compare Office[Max/Depot] where I discovered a wide variety of the same Chinese chair.

This is nothing more than the one I settled upon, the leather Serta Executive:



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Its been nearly three years since I posted about mouses. The two mouses I use to date are a black version of the Microsoft mouse in that picture, and a silver version of the Logitech scroll-mouse. Still my two favorite.

But I found myself in Texas and in need of a good mouse. Something formidable since my hand is on it sometimes sixteen hours a day. And since my hotel in near MicroCenter, that's where I went first. But they don't open unitl 1000 and I needed to pick up an overnight FedEx at the front desk pretty early, so I went on to Fry's Electronics.

Fry's had probably 75 varieties. I wanted once which was built as sturdy as a gaming mouse, but didn't want side buttons, which bother me when moving from left to right. I wanted laser, but the last time I spent $75 on a Logitech laser mouse, it didn't hold up well. I like my mice to last me at least a decade, and that one did not. I found my standard marble scroll-mouse, but what I needed this time was a wheel. I finally decided I needed a braided cable, but only the gaming mice came with those - in fact, it was hard to find a non-gaming mouse which wasn't wireless. Unless it was a no-name brand. And of the seven $5 mice I brought home the day I found them that cheap, only three survived the first year. Not good odds.

And while I considered all the price ranges, I was hoping to spend less than $100 on a freaking mouse, and hopefully half that. But I was getting into some pretty slim pickings with my requirements. For awhile, I was going to to with an $80 gaming mouse, until I saw the R.A.T. - by Saitek - the manufacturer of my amazing keyboard.

They also make something unusual; a wireless gaming mouse. It was $149. The full adjustable one was $79. And their "first" R.A.T. was $49 - with an additional 5% off at the register. I'll admit I was skeptical, but I love it! My favorite? The thumb rest. It moves with the mouse. My second favorite? The side buttons are not at striking distance when moving the mouse. Which, with the thumb rest, wouldn't matter.

What an weseome input device! And something I could really do with, given the nature of my work, and my play.



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Two days after returning from Texas for Spring Break, I'm back on business. And at this Embassy Suites again. Have wine, will travel.

Glad I got tires when I did! Me driving - its the only way to fly!
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While its true I rarely venture from the murky depths of the submersible, and I'm rarely shod in anything fancier than Crocks, this gorgeous Ralph Lauren Rugby shirt is fully half-off at rugby.com - only $69.99. Doesn't it look cozy? If only I didn't need an oil change and tires...again. And I do need those things as I'm Texas-bound for Spring Break. I'll be in Anna over the weekend, then Wise County.

Sometimes, because I do so rarely disembark from my magnificent undersea technological wonder I feel disconnected - as if nothing I do really matters. I suppose its one of the pitfalls of working from home full time, lack of affirmation. And while I've never required it to motivate me, in my isolation I sometimes wonder if my toiling is for naught.

After my unusual dream, I contacted my old neighbor and coworker via our corporate chat to tell him of it. Without prompting, he volunteered that he hears my name floating up and down the hallways all the time, and heard it three times that very day from two different people onsite and once as a kudos at the corporate-wide quarterly all-hands. Affirmation. That I don't toil unnoticed. I don't require it to motivate my actions, but its nice to hear from time to time. Especially when you're 20,000 leagues under the sea.

Domo Arigato, Mr. Roboto
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Concerning Dr. House, MD as a role model I had made the statement several years back that attitude was as important as skill. Unfortunately, the person I was speaking to entirely missed the point making the comparison that no one can walk in, off the street, without credentials, and be hired as a surgeon, for example.

The only current tech news I read these days is, LinkdIn's "Top 5 things you need to know in the news this week" which arrives each Monday morning. For those of you who remember my self-appraisal this past year, management concurred with my analysis but I didn't know why. I assume they agreed with me. Nonetheless, I was surprised to find this in my inbox Monday, from Hire for Attitude:

Virtually every job (from neurosurgeon to engineer to cashier) has tests that can assess technical proficiency. But what those tests don’t assess is attitude; whether a candidate is motivated to learn new skills, think innovatively, cope with failure, assimilate feedback and coaching, collaborate with teammates, and so forth.

Soft skills are the capabilities that attitude can enhance or undermine. For example, a newly hired executive may have the intelligence, business experience and financial acumen to fit well in a new role. But if that same executive has an authoritarian, hard-driving style, and they’re being hired into a social culture where happiness and camaraderie are paramount, that combination is unlikely to work. Additionally, many training programs have demonstrated success with increasing and improving skills—especially on the technical side. But these same programs are notoriously weak when it comes to creating attitudinal change. As Herb Kelleher, former Southwest Airlines CEO used to say, “we can change skill levels through training, but we can’t change attitude.”

The first time I heard that quote was from my own boss, drp back in 99. Made a lot of sense to the younger me. Over the years, I proved it to be an accurate statement. When I explained this to the person who used Dr. House, MD as a role-model, you'd think my obvious success and empiricism would've been proof enough. You would be wrong. "Nuh-uh," he said.

In last week's "Top 5" we had the highly motivational How to Be Happy at Work which can be summarized thusly, "Happiness and unhappiness (in work and in life) result entirely from the rules in your head that you use to evaluate events. Those rules determine what's worth focusing on, and how you react to what you focus on. Many people have rules that make it very difficult for them to happy and very easy for them to be miserable."

Some people think its weird that I actively seek out that which could destroy me and yet the first step in being happy at work is to answer the following two questions:

What has to happen for me to be happy?
What has to happen for me to be unhappy?

"Now examine those rules. Have you made it easier to miserable than to be happy? If so, your plan is probably working." This is a game I have been playing for many years and I am quite adept at it. For something different, rather that tell me why you disagree - try it. Try it and prove that it works. Don't try to disprove it, for you're already succeeding at that.

And my Dr. House, MD friend? Moving up in the world. Learning his own lessons. No shortcuts for that one, he's going to do it on his own, and there's nothing wrong with that either. Sometimes to better understand a lesson, one has to experience that lesson. To each his Dulcinea.





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Based on the various installation issues I've run across these past several months, I was asked for my assessment on the new Suse Enterprise Linux environments now that I've several under my belt; whether or not the problems were typical of new installations or indicative of something far more problematic. When I explained it would be irresponsible of me to determine at this point, the question was obviously, "Why?" An answer I was pleased to explain:

Environment #1: VMware Virtual Machine on Network Topography Alpha
Environment #2: Bare-Metal install on Network Topography Bravo
Environment #3: Blade Chassis on Network Topography Charlie

Three dissimilar server architectures on three dissimilar networks. Yes, I had (presumably) six different types of problems. I'll know the next time I work through them.
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Eric Howton The 18th Hour 2012


I'm getting too old for this shit.

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My son wanted me to play some game with him or come look at some achievement he'd gained - they're not yet used to "just because Daddy is at home, doesn't mean he's not working" and I told him I would be available as soon as I was done with my current project. That's when he asks me the question I've been waiting him to ask me since he was born. Peering over my shoulder, he squints an asks, "What is "sudo su - ?" A father couldn't be more proud.

The last thing my wife saw last night before bed was an advertisement for DVD release of new new Pirates of the Caribbean movie, and subsequently dreamed she was fighting alongside Elizabeth Swann aboard the Black Pearl. When she awoke her arms were sore and she confided in me that swordfighting was NOT as easy as it looks.

And I have nothing to report, as a 90-hour week has sapped 100% of my energy, and my emergency reserves. I am but a hollow shell of my former self. I hope I get this weekend off, but I'm not holding my breath. Let's face it, I'm not holding much of anything. Except maybe the bag.





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I never made it to Andover. The work, nonetheless still required doing. I worked 12-hours on Saturday, 13-hours on Sunday, and 14-hours on Monday. I burn through my blackberry's battery once-per day, Within a day this weekend my bluetooth headset went from intermittently not working to only intermittently working. As it was a long day, I was in a near panic. I stumbled through and now have two bluetooth headsets. Not cheap ones either. The kind which will run for 6+ talk-time hours continuously.

Given what I do for a living, I never thought I'd be one of those guys.


My new Blackberry 9800 "Torch" paired with the Plantronics Voyager PRO+

The Bold was soooooooooo twenty-ten.


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No wide-eyed, eager, wholesome, innocent Sunday-school teacher for me,
That kinda girl spins webs no spider ever... listen boy, a girl who trades on all that purity,
Merely wants to trade my independence for her security.





I put a copy of the ESXi image on every peripheral I brought with me - a USB memory stick and two USB hard drives - and one on my laptop's Win 7 virtual machine I was using to install the hypevisors on 20 blades, 10 per chassis. Opening their consoles via the Integrated Lights Out functionality, then resizing and arranging them on my desktop as I pointed their fiber-channel BIOSes to the SAN for the boot-array, I rotated through the image locations as I rebooted them back-to-back and installed 10 hypervisors simultaneously using my laptop as an image hub.

It was magnificent.

The only affirmative she will file refers to marching down the aisle;
No golden, glorious, gleaming pristine goddess, no sir! For no Diana do I play faun, I can tell you that right now.
I snarl, I hiss, how can ignorance be compared to bliss?
I spark, I fizz, for the lady who knows what time it is...
I cheer, I rave, for the virtue I'm too late to save!
The sadder but wiser girl for me.


THE 7 STAGES OF TRAVEL

1.) Yay! Monotony Be Gone!

2.) Eat/Drink without the spouse's judging disposition!

3.) What do you mean I can't use my work laptop for porn?

4.) Wait, but this is like, work, right?

5.) Ugh, work. Only...inconvenient and shit.

6.) Resignation sets in.

7.) There's no place like home.

No bright-eyed, blushing, breathless baby-doll baby, no sir!
That kinda child ties knots no sailor ever knew - I prefer to take a chance on a more adult romance
No dewy young miss who keeps resisting, All the time she keeps insisting
No wide-eyed, wholesome, innocent female, no sir!
Why, she's the fisherman, I'm the fish, you see? Plop!


Despondent. That could go right after resignation, but before going home. I still have work to to, but I no longer want to do it. I want to be home. To exacerbate matters, I saw what I'll be attempting to put together once I arrive in Andover, and it ain't pretty. Today, I concentrated my efforts on configuring the ESXi servers on the chassis which is going where I'm not. That one should pretty much be plug and play. Which leave me even more work on the one I'm following. I once flew from the East Coast to the West Coast then back again on a job. I hope that's not what happens here. But just in case, I'll be ready.

At least I was where there's great Mexican food and good drivers!

I flinch, I shy, when the lass with the delicate air goes by
I smile, I grin when the gal with a touch of sin walks in
I hope, I pray for Hester to win just one more 'A'
The sadder but wiser girl's the girl for me, the sadder but wiser girl for me.


15-hour days.

I could use a day off.

And some pampering. Like, really hard core pampering.



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Pants. You heard me, pants. six weeks after severing the cubicle tether, I was put on travel...back to Dallas. Hands-On equipment touching. Yep. For the first time in six-weeks I had to slip on a pair of jeans. Felt...awkward. Like a sheep standing on its hind legs. Ugh. You know, its too bad I couldn't just show up in shorts. Someone would say, "Hey! Why no pants?" And I'd be all like, "100% remote." And they would nod in understanding, as if the position granted a certain privilege. The privilege of a relaxed dress code. The privilege of no pants.

Wonderfully, I drove myself! Scoffing at those who fly, I packed my car with all the luxuries of home - things you can't get through airport security. But because I couldn't sleep the night before, I left Newton, Kansas at 0230 after being awake for 19 hours. Because there was zero traffic at that hour, and I was no hurry (I'd planned to stop by my folks on the way in and they wouldn't have been up had I arrived too early) I stopped at the Waffle House in Oklahoma City, marveling that I hadn't been there since 1999. When I left half an hour later or so, I remembered why. I'll revisit in the year 2023 just in case. But not before.

I arrived at the Embassy Suites on the corner of 75 & LBJ at 1500, and after four free "Happy Hour" Scotches (Grants [blended] from the Glenfiddich distillery) I passed out after being awake for 38-hours. I awoke in the same position I fell asleep in after a solid, uninterrupted 8-hours, and as a bonus, 15-minutes before my alarm. Embassy Suites makes a mean omelet. But I should sue them over the use of "high-speed" in the descriptive nomenclature of their internet service, for it reads like an adverb, but at .013 Mbps down I wanted to shoot someone. My trusty 3G aircard hovers around 2.0 Mbps. I can't believe I almost decided against bringing it! High-speed my ass.

And just like that I was back in Dallas traffic, zipping in and out around cars as I traversed Central Expressway Northbound at 80-mph to start the day in McKinney. Invigorating! Nothing at all like the geriatric-laden slow pace of Newton. And air! Sky! Things the basement has kept from me like secrets I was able to experience again. A beautiful morning and a beautiful evening. In between the same group of guys I had dinner with at Chuy's in Austin took me the one in Richardson - Ah, Mexican food! That and Whataburger I think will be the only things I eat out while back in Texas. Unless [livejournal.com profile] drax0r wants to munch some FREEB!RDS. I'm always up for that.

So I'm building out two HP C7000 blade chassis with 10x blades each and installing ESX on each blade so each chassis will have 10 hypervisors. Were DNS available I would've been also installing Linux and (ahem) Windows guests on them. As it is, as soon as these are completed, we're dismantling them and shipping them to different coasts. I'll be following one to Andover, Massachusetts next week for re-assembly.



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An excerpt from my May 14th 2010 post where I compared frustrations with things which should be relatively simple to a trip I once took in Saudi Arabia where the street signs pointed opposite directions for identically named locations.

Logically, I understand that processes change, people quit, new people are hired & trained, sub-contractors win & lose bids and we live & work under constant flux of minute variation.

Statistically, myself and THREE THOUSAND OTHER PEOPLE have been getting our badges renewed on an annual basis for something like ten years.. Given the numbers, on any single day of any week in any month of any year, you're renewing ten badges. Ten badges daily. 3000 a year.

Departmentally, you have an entire staff dedicated solely for the handling and creation of badges and badge paperwork.

Emotionally, why is it every single goddamn time I have to get my badge renewed, you proceed as if its the first time you've ever seen one, and appear genuinely surprised at the process involved? It couldn't possibly have changed that severely since last year, and if it did, I expire in May which means you've already processed nine hundred (900) badges before me!
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I'm down to one monitor in place of my usual four because I left my desk in Texas, so that's been challenging. I won't get to decompress after this frantically pressuring week (both the move and the load at work this particular week - more resignations and half-staff due to an annual project) because I need to use the weekend to retrieve the few remaining items from the Anna House - then start all over for another hectic work week without a break. And while I'm prone to "overworking" when I WFH (Work From Home), I need to try to learn and temper that with family now that I'm 100% remote.

But not this week.

And probably not next week.

My son's computer wouldn't boot when we arrived so he's using one of the guest computers, I bought Dungeon Siege III from Game Stop down the street because our computers met the "minimum requirement" to play, but the 4GB needed for installation was not accurate. It needs a whopping 39GB!!! Space my son's 72GB drive does not have. Also included in this bastardization is the REQUIREMENT to install 3rd-party "Steam" assware.



In replacing my primary Windows platform with one with 8GB DDR3 and a faster system bus (everything else is identical) I've used this opportunity to update my existing box for flowdown to my Clone (who could really use the quad-cores) except that Windows cannot apply the updates, and the error codes are seemingly meaningless. Microsoft has two tools to assist with this, one is a Windows "revalidation" tool, and the other a Windows Update "Hotfix" both of which failed to install initially, and once I was able to overcome whatever HooDoo was preventing that, once they did install effected no visible change - the updates still failed to installed with no rhyme or reason why. Its the most concentrated cesspool of reasonless idiocy I've encountered in a while, causing me no end of stress.




Add to that the miserable bandwidth I was experiencing with my brand-spanking new 55Mbps/5.5Mbps cable company appropriately named, "Cox." That turned out to be a wireless lan driver issue with Ubuntu and was solved by running a 100-foot cable up the stairs to my temporary office until I can relocated adjacent my rack in the basement. An easy fix to be sure, but troubleshooting the problem amidst everything else just added to the pile.

I try not to yell at the kids who vacillate between running through the house like bobcats on booze and being frustratingly bored out of their skull, which is why I was so eager to get their computers set up. The DirecTV installation alleviated some of that, but we were only able to unpack one of their receiver units, the other still nestled somewhere in an unmarked box in a cavernous garage filled with boxes upon boxes.



And Brasero, the Gnome disc-burner that I've never gotten to reliably burn anything, ever, amongst a myriad of different hardware platforms, linux distros, and burners failed once again to save the day when Nero on a Win7 Vbox instance refused to allow me to use the identified host drive as a valid volume. Sadly, I think it will be some time before all these issues are corrected and I'm back to some semblance of a steady state.

There are a thousand more things needling at my psyche right now, and I'm trying and failing to look like I still have my cool. But work takes precedence, and I have that in spades. When I am able to step back from the sticky pit which is my life right now, I see happy children, and productive, forward-thinking wife and clone. This makes me happy, and I remember my troubles are all temporary - that I'm the one who has a problem with letting everything get to me. I haven't exactly been grace under pressure - an aberration for me; So I'm working on that. Learning to step back and enjoy all the wonderful, wonderful things which I have surrounding me.

And once I've mastered that, maybe the homesickness will abate.
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Newly tinted windows on the Tiburon

To recap, I missed the second and last week of my 72-hour per week project with a death in the family, my wife's paternal grandmother which necessitated an emergency deployment to Kansas - and thank you all for the kind words.

All of this has taken place in 110-degree weather, both here and in Kansas. Hot, hot, hot! As soon as I got back we sunk an even grand into both Hyundai's; synthetic oil changes, State Inspections, two new tires on each, and after 4-years of ownership I finally got my windows tinted. But its quite obvious I need to invest in a car wash.

Then the A/C in the house went out.

Did I mention its 110° out?

Of course during all of this we're moving. Everything. And quickly. So, pretty much chaos everywhere.

And I'm flying to Wichita on Monday for an overnight stay.

At some point, I'll need to clean out my desk at work, which between Kansas and my Garland activities I won't have seen for nearly three weeks by the time I get there. I'm also hoping to appropriate all my flat-panel monitors and two 1U x86 servers.

Just in case, I have this order on hot-standby as an ESX 4.1 server for home use:


The Dell PowerEdge R210

And I'll be trading in my cheap-as-fuck dry-loop DSL in for some hot 55Mbps down/5.5Mbps up $100/month COX cable action - the only broadband provider in all of Wichita and the surrounding area. Unless you're in a spot which gets AT&T's U-Verse. And I'm not.

I ♥ Cox. (Say that aloud, its embarrassing, trust me - [livejournal.com profile] danzigfried knows!)

So much more to do, so little time in which to do it.

And life just keeps getting in the way.
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This quarter’s report found an end to downtime, as 91% of mobile workers use their personal downtime to check their smartphones. Nearly 30% of mobile workers check their smartphone every six-to-12 minutes during downtime. The report, which drew from the experiences of more than 3,700 mobile employees at 1,100 enterprises worldwide, also found 61 percent of mobile workers sleep with their smartphone; 43% within arm’s reach. This intimate relationship with the smartphone has led to 38 percent of mobile workers waking up to check their smartphone during the night and 35 percent checking email first thing in the morning – even before getting dressed or eating breakfast.*


You know who they probably didn't survey? Short-order cooks. Waitresses. Construction workers. Those who blissfully dig ditches for a living. I bet those assholes still have downtime. As for me, this is what I signed up for. Before smartphones, it was a pager by my head which awoke me in the middle of the night. And as an IT Manager, it was just as bad for different reasons.

Before smartphones [livejournal.com profile] drax0r slept with a keyboard, mouse and LCD monitor on his bedside table. He could do all that above too without requiring a smartphone, and did. How does that figure into statistics? I'm also curious about this one:

29% of mobile workers find that their mobile technology usage causes friction in their personal relationships, specifically with their significant other or spouse.

Surely they mean mobile workers who's spouse is in a dissimilar field? I say that because I know couples in which both are IT or management and each understands the pressure to be connected and able to respond to emergencies at a moment's notice. There's no friction there - how could there be? What a steaming pile of alarmism.

So sure I check my blackberry before I even get out of bed. I'm available 24x7, its the nature of the beast. The quicker I respond, the more I know, willingness to participate, being easily accessible - these things not only help me stay employed, but those who annually assess me notice it too. And who says you can't charge back some of the time you spend on those emails anyway? There are days it seems I work 24-hours a day outside of being accessible. There are also times I enjoy a myriad of personal pursuits during those non-busy times I'm at work. Where's that latitude in your statistics?

Of course there are those who are always going to skew the numbers, but I'm not going to speak on those non-tech, Facebook addicted crackbabies - that's a beast of an entirely different color I have no desire to wrestle!






* iPass Mobile Workforce Report Q2 2011
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I've been working between 12 & 17 hours a day this week in Garland. Ugh.

Hope to catch up with you all soon.
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Human Guise

Fraught with the damaging effects of a negative anticipatory first day back, my glorious return to man-flesh occurred in the twinkling of an eye and a flash of light. I was spectacular as I arrived on site with three dozen donuts from local Anna PT DONUTS, announced by self-proclaimed donut connoisseurs to be among the best they've ever had, handshakes all around, then facing a very different landscape than the one I left. Several more had either quit, or were let go, and many new faces surrounded them with the promise of more new faces to come, and more familiar faces to depart (of their own accord). I sighed the deep sigh of the Babylonian king Belshazzar who watched the enormous Mitt of God emblazon the interior of his edifice with foreboding and doom.

Suspense

Its a game of cloak and dagger versus cat and mouse I play with my employer, providing them feedback as to their effectiveness in my life as they provide theirs to me. Sometimes to see who can outlast the other and other times to see who can trump the other. Between work and home now that the kids are out of school and my period of enlightenment has concluded, I feel as if I'm being dropped through Carl Sagan's Contact Machine as simply as the line was written through the circular arrows in Cobb's drawing to explain manufactured reality to Inception's Ariadne. I wander the timeless wormholes of my imagination ceaselessly while real life passes much more quickly than dream time. Yet still, I run out of hours.


Vicissitude

Back when Rebecca DeMornay was ultra-hot she gave some advice about riding on trains. Now I don't know about you, but on the tracks in Germany and England I had mixed emotions about finding it so pointedly true. Gentle rocking back and forth is good for lots of things, and when I was a young man in a rear-wheel drive V8 finding myself on a field of mud in polyester tires (happened more often than you'd think) I found it was good for getting out of ruts too. Another metaphor of life being harshly illuminated. I don't find myself in many of those these days, neither the ones created from moist earth nor those which are offspring of perdition. Then again rocking slowly to the beat of your own drum is often considered more psychologically suspicious than marching to it.

Stay tuned.
ehowton: (Default)

Please take your Lotus Notes away from me
Please leave my 1700 emails in archive history
If I power on my blackberry I'll be blue
'Cause catching up is hard to do

Remember when you didn't call
You managed to stand on your own, you didn't fall
Think of all that I've been through
Catching up is hard to do

They say that catching up is hard to do
Now I know, I know that it's true
Don't say I can use my weekend
Instead of catching up I wish I was setting up my out-of-office again

I beg of you, don't welcome me back
Let me just ease back onto the fast track
C'mon VPN RSA fob, let's start anew
'Cause catching up is hard to do...
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I didn't bring Marko. I did bring the wine.
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My *actual* submission:

Given the turmoil amidst contractual friction this year, compounded by pay-cuts which seemingly should have been shouldered by those not providing excellent service on a daily basis at the client site, while simultaneously taking on added responsibilities through massive layoffs and resignations, I consider each and every day I set my hand to a task a significant accomplishment; my reasons being far more subtle than numbers tallied up on a ledger or the completion of high-visibility projects: Attitude.

Despite being appraised annually by an abject stranger, I manage to radiate a positive, can-do attitude with each and every interaction I engage in, never turning down an opportunity to accept new challenges, even those which far exceed my scope. Why this year alone I have taught myself HPVM/IVM & VMware technologies to the point I have been placed as backup to the WINTEL Server Team and point of fact have installed and troubleshooted more Red Hat Linux servers than Solaris and HP/UX combined – while maintaining my full time UNIX duties. But its not always what you do. Most of the time its how you do it. And I do nothing begrudgingly, an art lost on remote authority, yet something which can make or break a client-facing team.

I have been magnificent this year.
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I rarely keep up with the news anymore. So-called "human interest" stories which clutter the headlines make me nauseous, and listening to any news organization's slant on news is akin to following windshield wiper manufactures recommended wiper replacement schedule. I can't even read online news, because most of what I want to read is in video format only, and that just slows me down. I simply cannot afford to do news these days.

That being said, I did catch some of the Wisconsin demonstrations yesterday, which was oddly reminiscent of the Cairo revolution, and on the heels of that in my old stomping grounds, Bahrain! But it was Wisconsin that tore me in half.

Why I'm torn is I was sympathetic to the demonstrators until I saw the IBEW union jackets. My previous experience with unions has left me unabashedly polarized against them. But teachers and firefighters? This is another reason I no longer watch the news - I don't recall now whether it was the current Governor of NJ, Chris Christie or NY Mayor Michael Bloomberg who said, "We cannot afford to lose any teachers, but I'll cut 6000 of them if I need to." What the hell is that supposed to mean?

I'm torn because while making unions pay more for benefits (essentially creating a 7% cut in pay, the news said) isn't any different than us non-union types. We haven't been given raises in three years, our benefits package cost has gone up, and we've just been subjected to a "temporary" 10% pay cut. For those of you weak in math, that's more than 7% on top of the other.

You know what I did when I heard the news of our pay cut? I fucking rioted! Oh wait, no I didn't. I kept my mouth shut and maintained my exemplary attitude and work ethic. I promised myself I wouldn't lament over something I had no control over. I'm thankful right now just to be employed and I don't need to give anyone any reason to consider otherwise.

I'm not perfect, but if the government isn't going to cut services to get themselves out of a deficit they should've seen coming, and I'm not going to storm our nation's capitol to oust the president as part of the "youth of the revolution proudly lifting the head of this country" as a Muslim cleric might say, I might as well keep doing what it is I do. Other's may disagree - I'll let them fight their own battles. After all, not everyone is strong enough to shoulder personal responsibility.

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