Month: November 2006

70 Something Hours In LA

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Technically I started the mission timer at 77 hours and 5 minutes. Yes, I am actually counting down until my departure from LA on Thursday. Also a yes to the fact that the function on my watch calls it “mission clock”. I mean my Omega was designed for NASA, so the name makes sence. hold on, actually the function is CDT or count down time. There is a mission time function but that is just a term to refer to the GMT time function on the watch. My bad. Last year I started counting down trips to our other office or other short trips. Keeps things in perspective. No real reason for it, besides I was bored in the cab on the way to the airport.

LA is hotter than NYC. To be expected, but I was finally getting happy with the cooler weather in NYC and now I spend a few days in hot and sunny land. Lets face it, most of the time in LA will be spent indoors anyway.

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The Obligatory Airplane Blog

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As always (most of the time) when I fly, I like to write. I have time to think, and I really don’t have anything else to do. I am off to LA (California, not Louisiana) for a conference. It was all last minute. I didn’t have the approval to go until last week. I actually got a halfway decent deal with Delta. I have been hesitant to use them after my tour of nowhere 2 years ago with them. So far (and it is only halfway through the first flight) things are ok. The 757 I am on has been upgraded and they have TV’s in all the seats like Jetblue. The channel selection isn’t as good, but at least it is a start.

I got the last Aisle seat on the plane when I booked, so I am happy. There is a baby one row in front of me and thankfully he has been very good. I don’t want to jinx myself since as of this writing I have 2 more hours to go on the flight. I am tired and since it is warm on the plane I feel like I am borderline getting a headache.

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P2V

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Since we had such good luck with a P2V (physical to virtual server conversion) a few months ago, we decided to try again with another critical server that we would all feel better if it was on different hardware. it is another of those box’s that would be a nightmare to rebuild so virtualizing makes sense. the only problem is that after two attempts we have yet to complete the conversion. The issue at first was the CD drive was busted, and we couldn’t fix it before our maintenance window ended.

The second try also was a bust since we ran out of time to let the conversion to run. We are regrouping again and will try a different tool instead of the P2V assistant from VMware. We are going to take a look at the Platespin tool. We have been using it to do V2V (virtual to another virtual server) on another project and we love the fact that it requires almost no downtime during the conversion. We are investigating the different tool this week. Hopefully news soon.

Yes, allot of writing about virtual stuff. It is on my mind recently and we are doing allot with it. it is some amazing stuff.

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First Migraine in a While

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I had to take a Butabitol for the first time in a while for my migraines. I don’t think I would have made it through the day if I hadn’t. The Alive didn’t seem to work, and I didn’t have any Amerge. After what the Butabital did to me last year around my birthday I am not a fan of taking it, but you cannot argue with results. I just know I need to take that stuff in moderation.

I was feeling better enough to go out with people from work for a few drinks after work. I only had 2 and headed out early. I was afraid of causing the headache that the medication prevented earlier in the day. Turned out to be a decent day, but for a while I was worried.

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VMworld

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My boss never ceases to surprise me. At the last minute Jayson suggested someone be allowed to goto VMworld, since the number of servers we operate are more and more virtual. He thought it was a good idea, and we got last minute approval. I leave on Monday, and I just got my travel arrangements done. Sean suggested I fly directly into LAX since it could be a bitch of a drive from Long beach where Jetblue flies into. Turns out I got a Delta ticket for the same amount as Jetblue would have been.

The problem with this conference is that there are too many things I want to do, and not enough time. It doesn’t help that I registered late and some of the good seminars are already booked. I ended up picking a mix of high availability and enterprise management of VM’s classes, as well as some on VDI (Vitrual Desktop Stuff). They are the two basic things we are currently working on. Hopefully I will learn a bunch of cool stuff that we can apply at work. I am also hoping to see the VMware Workstation for the Mac in action. Updates next week.

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