Redwolf's Journal (continued)

I grok. Well, I'm closer to grokking anyway. My self-given vacation 'homework' was to read "Stranger in a Strange Land." I had somehow managed to get through this much of my life without doing so. I read "Starship Troopers" when the movie came out and was duly impressed, but now I think I have to put Heinlein on my mental list of favorite authors. Now I just need to get a few other people to read it. It left me, however, with two questions I would ask of my friends... not for the 'right' answer or something from any book, but because I wonder how they (you) view such things: What is love? and Why is jealousy?

Wonderful. I don't know how long it'll last, but I truly can't sing enough praises about how good the trip has left me feeling now. Seeing friends was great, even if I saw less of one than I would have liked - it was still more than expected, so that's okay. Basking in friendliness and furriness... though there are still extremes that are a bit scary to me in both cases. ;) As good as the convention itself was, though, the change in pespective was more important. Strange little things like watching someone call for directions on a cell phone without ever picking it up made me feel like I live in another world - and it felt good. I like technology, but in a lot of ways I don't feel like it *should* be that easy. But more than the 'big city' issues, there was the people. I met several new ones (and by meet, I mean spend more than two minutes of "hi, bye" with them). There were many personality types I'm not accustomed to dealing with and some o

Work: Well, I'm impressed by how much the cheap foam matting that's been nailed to the walls helps keep the server noise down. It's not perfect, but it helps. Unfortunately, it also blocks off nearly all ventilation in the room. Currently, it's warmer than normal in there. I'm still afraid that after a few days of having everything running, it'll be an over and something will fry. Guess I'll cross my fingers and play things by ear. We'll see if anything has blown up by the middle of next week. Vacation: Yep, got one coming. Off work Wednesday to get things together. Catching a flight Thursday morning and heading off to the Bay Area for Further Confusion again. I know better what goes on (lots of stuff), what to expect (missing most of that), and what I really want to see (Uncle Kage!). I've diagnosed myself as direly in need of a break, and hopefully this will fit the bill. Life, Real: Bleh. See entry for 'work.' Okay, it's not re

The upgrade has begun. Slowly, granted, but it's begun. Yesterday we received 55 workstations, three rack-mounted servers, and various hardware to go with it all. I finished off the day having placed a new UPS in the bottom (given the size, I don't recommend soloing that). When I came in, my co-tech had just about everything else in place. Of course, then we had to take it all out to attach some cable-management arms to the server rails. Ick. Much of the day was spent positioning, fastening, and assembling. Then we turned it all on. Damn. Those servers have 6+ fans each in them, none of which are quiet. Normal conversation in the room became barely audible over the noise of fans. And this is right next to a couple (cheaply-made) offices people work in. No one involved liked the volume, but what can be done about it remains to be seen. Our general manager got the idea to pad the walls with cheap foam in an effort to cut down on noise that gets out. Tomorrow we'll find out

Plenty of snow to start off the weekend. Ick. I actually had to put on my tire chains Friday for the first time I can recall. And that was just to get out of the parking lot at home. Once on the streets, it was slick but not that bad. Yesterday, my truck wouldn't start. Cold plus a drained battery, I guess. So, I called in and stayed home. Kinda nice to have an extra day off like that, though I wish the circumstances were different. Got it jump-started later and spent the following forty-five minutes or so letting it warm up and charge the battery some while I worked at digging it out. Ugh. I wish I had a real snow shovel, but that wouldn't have helped. Maybe an ice pick, considering how solid some of those snow/ice masses were. I finally did get it out, get gas, and come back. Fun, fun. Today, I ended up slipping while scraping windows. My rump was fine, but I bent my hand back on landing and hurt my wrist. I haven't noticed any swelling, so it doesn't seem to be s