Work

System Monitoring

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I spent most of the day yesterday trying to fix a problem we had with Whatsup Gold monitoring system. One developer group said they were not getting pages. We saw tons of pages for them, but we looked into it. Well turns out the system was working, but had trouble with reboots to the server we had it on. After a reboot the monitoring system didn’t start up properly, even after we initialized it. While I was looking at the system it completely stopped sending pages. I got fed up and moved it to a different box. now it is all happy and working. Not sure why it wasn’t working properly. Maybe it was Backup Exec running on the same box, or Windows 2003 (even though we have used it on 2k3 before). I don’t know. I just know Gus wanted it working, and now it is.

While I was investigating my problems I checked (for like the 10th time) to see if Microsoft posted Microsoft Operations Manager 2005 (MOM) to MSDN. It finally had, and I downloaded it. I really want to see if it will solve my other issues I am having with Whatsup Gold. We have the guys over at BMC also giving us a demo of their software, but I haven’t had time to run a test server of their BMC Patrol. I will look over MOM in a bit more detail next week.

The Backlog

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Since I am feeling fine today, and I am not in DC (like I planned on) I decided to make a dent in the backlog of work I have piling up. Right now I am taking a break (while my printer is working for me) from going over resume’s. I am still looking for a helpdesk person in NYC. It is a grueling process to go over hundreds of resume’s. I just printed out like 40 for someone else to look at before we call some of these people up.

I am also trying to do some updates to my companies domains. We own way too many of them. The amount of changes I have gotten are piling up. I need someone to do some data entry and make all the changes. It will take days. For now I am doing the most urgent stuff when I have time (like now).

I just finished cleaning out my inbox. I had a few hundred emails to go through and sort. I also went back and cleared out a ton of automated messages I get every day. I am a slave to mail…

Server Crash

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Yesterday Jay and I had to deal with a domain controller crash. it is never good when a box crash’s, but it is even worse when it doesn’t come back after a crash. A rather important domain controller (they all are important I guess) totally died yesterday. We ended up spending 3 hours at our lovely (and very cold) data center bringing online a replacement. The good news is we sort of know what we are doing, so we had alternate DC’s online, but we still acted quick to get a replacement server up. I never like running with less DC’s (Windows Domain Controller) than normally. If you loose all of them, no one can log into the servers.

Due to that yesterday was kind of stressful. To users, nothing really was down, but we were busy. Along with the DC being gone we have to re-setup 2 applications that will take a while to get exactly like we had setup before. I just love having more work.

Today was taken up by meetings. I maybe had 1 1/2 hours of no meetings today. Have I mentioned I don’t like meetings? These meetings were actually productive, but I still don’t like meetings.

I should have gone home right away after I heard the Subway flooded. It rained allot last night. I waited while at least 3 subway trains went by totally full. I was dripping with sweat from the heat in the station. By the 4th or so train I just pushed into one, like everyone else. I got luck and room opened up further into the train and I was not too bad off. that is why people do push into trains people. Because it is crowded by the door and opens up a bit further inside the train. Lesson is move into the middle of the train. I ended up even getting a seat halfway through my trip. The down side was it took me almost 3 times as long to get to work as it normally does. That should have been the sign to go home and get back into bed! Speaking of bed. It is time for me to turn in. I got little sleep last night, and I have a poker game tomorrow night that may go late. Sleep is a premium recently!

Taking The Day Off

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I am taking the day off tomorrow. I have no plans, other than taking the day off. I may just lie around. I may go and do something productive. What I won’t be doing is going to work, or answering my cell phone for work.

I wonder how long this plan will stay in effect?

The Picnic

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I had a good time at the company picnic on Sunday. We had it in upstate NY. The company rented a bus and brought the NYC people up there. We had a good time. The place was very nice. They had a lake, a pool and lots of open land.

Our NYC softball team played the Kingston people in a game. It was fun. I got really sore from running. I didn’t even run that much, but I am out of shape. I didn’t realize how out of shape until I ran that little and could barely walk afterward.

It was a nice day. it was not too hot out. I got to jump in the bouncy gym by myself. I didn’t get egg on me from the egg toss. And I ate allot of BBQ hamburgers and hot dogs.

I got a lift home with Glenn instead of taking the bus back to the office. Got dropped off a block from my place. Not bad.

The Fish

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A few weeks ago Jayson showed up to work with a small fish tank. He proceeded to buy a yellow clown fish and put it in the tank. he said it was to liven the office up. Fast forward 2-3 weeks and we now have a 10 gallon tank sitting on the dresser behind my desk. We have a shrimp we call Ralph. We have Krusty the clown fish. our never named green fish didn’t make it, but we don’t speak of him.

We are trying to get a lobster, but Petco keeps being out of stock on them. Jay is calling Gretchen’s cousin who can ship us a purple lobster. We are still learning the perils of a salt water tank. It is the talk of the office. People keep coming over to look at the fish. it is really funny. Gus wants to get a tray of butter and put it next to the tank to show the shrimp his fate if he doesn’t behave.

AC Issues

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Air conditioning issues seem to follow me. My AC in my bedroom has been flaking for several weeks. It works, but barely. Then it makes loud noises, and just run’s loud. That was until last week. I called for the second time to have it serviced. Now it seems to keep the room nice and cold. I am happy.

Now all I need to do is get my living room unit to get the place a bit cooler. That may be asking too much.

At least work is cool, and comfy now. It hasn’t been really hot recently but the AC is at least working. 3 years of hardship may actually be over, but I am not an optimist most of the time!!!

Went To Kingston Again Today

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Gus, Dan, and I took a road trip to kingston today to see a demo of some call monitoring software. it was really cool software. It can record calls our reps are on (we can do that with this package already), view screen shots of what the rep does on the call, and QA how they do and give them a rating. Nifty stuff.

I learned that Gus drives crazier than Dan. I also learned that when the NYC AC is working it is more comfortable in NYC than in Kingston. I survived the drive so I am happy. I am back home now. I was on the way out the door to meet up with people from work for a drink but I got a call stating that our dam reports website was not updating. I don’t know if anyone will be around by the time I get downtown.

Last Day Before The Forth

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Today is my last day in the office before the 4th weekend. I am in kingston tomorrow and friday for some network work. I have to get allot done today since jayson is still not back. He should have left New Orleans today for his trip back.

Once I return, full time packing for me!

Late Night Postponed

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The late night I had scheduled tonight has been delayed. I am not sorry about it. I hate staying up till 1am only to start working. Our DB staff needed more time to ensure that our swap of servers we were planning went off without any problems.

With this late night on hold, I can possibly move up my other late night I had scheduled for Thursday/Friday. I am checking with Kai to make sure he can do the work early. We need to upgrade a switch in Kingston and also we want to do some rewiring. that requires us to work at night.

Also by doing the work tomorrow night, I can be in the office friday. Gus is going on vacation Friday so he would rather me be around. Schedule juggling is abound today…