Home Server Part 2

Well, I have become less cheerful - Alfred is fighting me every step of the way. I finally figured out that I had to just let the RAID card do its format and leave it alone - for something like 38 hours! Large disks take a while to stripe, I guess. Hope I never have to replace 1 - it'll take 15 hours just to rebuild, during which time probably nothing else will do anything.

I finally got the RAID right, and started the maintenance tool to add the disk capacity - and Alfred went nuts and refused to talk to me. I have a bad feeling that I am about to get to scrap his motherboard, and demote his function to a single-processor machine that I have laying around doing nothing,which will tick me off as I have a couple more multiprocessor motherboards, but just don't feel like doing one of those agonizing swaps today, although I may change my mind. I really need to get this pup working and stable, so I can get the rest of the house's computers to cooperate and play nice - and start rebuilding my music library.

If anyone wonders, RAID is not what we use to kill software bugs - it is an acronym for Redundant Array of Inexpensive Disks - which means that it takes a bunch of cheap disks and rearranges the way data is stored so that the failure of one disk in the array will not result in complete loss of data. Really clever idea - the net is less space that is useful, but less likelihood of all of it getting to be useless at once. Unfortunately, I had been watching RAID arrays built with relatively tiny disks, and it didn't seem that it took that long to recover when a disk failed. I am using disks 50 times as big as what I used to watch, and forgot that things would take 50 times as long to recover and rebuild. We live and we learn.

So for now I have a server that works, albeit not well, and is useless by virtue of its refusal to talk to anything but itself. Time for a restart, I think. Time to put that old monster out to pasture. Time to put Alfred down.

Time to start building Arnold. I'll keep y'all apprised....

Cheer up, self!

Well, color me a little less displeased with myself, and add a shade of feeling silly. I finally got around to starting the build on the big server in the basement - and realized that I hadn't even remembered its name properly - in my last post I called it Arnold, when in reality its name is Alfred. I think it knows, and hates me for it.

The first Home Server install stalled on me - I didn't have the RAID array properly done, and got an hour into the install and the damn computer stalled and refused to do anything except sit there and grin at me. Well, I couldn't stand for that, so I cleaned it off, got the RAID array properly configured and and restarted the installation cold. It got going, and I walked away from it, secure in the knowledge that it will either go on properly, or I'll go downstairs before I go to bed and have yet another reason to hate MicroSoft and its software.

But I did look at the other 3 machines down there, started up the two that are not run normally and they seem healthy, or at least the hardware does. One of them has a nice DVD writer with LightScribe that I will transfer into the IBM machine I got last year and haven't used yet - may get to that by the weekend.

I'd love it if we got a hard freeze - it would keep me home (I brought my laptop home tonight just against that eventuality,) so I could work tomorrow here if I had to, rather than go out in the old Volvo and play on the ice. I don't mind a couple inches of snow, but ice on the roads gives me the crawls.

By the weekend I should have the server built, the new mail services running on it, the 2 terabyte shared storage array usable throughout the house and be ready to start on phase 2 - starting up the IBM super workstation that I got for me, getting the DVD writer installed and maybe even getting the three older machines shut down, cleaned off and ready for disposal. That'd please my wife a whole lot. She's a real dear about my slowness to do stuff, but she does have a limit, and I really don't want to know where it is.

I started working with the beta version of Clarion 7, which is the development tool I use to do most of my programming, and it is a major change for me, but I like what I see so far. I also have to get going with Clarion# (I bought that for me - 7 is for the office) and within the coming weeks may actually make some progress there, if folks at work don't break a bunch of stuff in the meanwhile. I need to upgrade my high school class database and put it on the new web server as soon as I can get to it, hopefully before the next reunion (which will be the 50th - the thought of which makes me feel old!)

Speaking of which - I am looking forward to the 50th and I have our 41st anniversary coming up - believe it or not, one woman has put up with me for 41 years and is still here! It can be done.

Well, I have to go downstairs and check on Alfred - see if he's still being built or if he's choked again. Tomorrow is Wednesday - choir rehearsal if the weather cooperates, or a day working at home if the weather decides to be horrid. Of course, I won't know which it is until after I am awake and walking around tomorrow with no chance just to go back to bed. There's just no justice....

Have a great day, y'all!

Aging

I am getting old. Actually, I think I already got old, and somehow managed not to take note of the fact as it was happening. I have another birthday in a few weeks, number 67. In another three years I will be 70. My grandfather was old at 70 - I am not ready to be old, but I'm almost 70.

Phyllis and I had dinner with our youngest child, her husband, and their 6-month old - and we had a great time. It was a relaxed pleasant evening, with lots of laughs, some supplied by a cheerful curious baby and some by silly adults. There is something about spending time with our daughter and her husband that makes gloom go away. I'm depressive by nature, and after some time with Liz, James and Sammy my whole day seems brighter. For one thing it is impossible to be anything but happy and silly with a happy baby. For another, our youngest child is so great with us, her wonderful husband and the rest of the world.

I guess one thing that helps is that with her in command of her quarter of the world, we can relax secure in the knowledge that the world is a better place with her and her husband in it - and the child is just a bonus.

For myself, I should open a chapter of the Procrastinator's Society just for me - I am so far behind in just about everything that it is really not good for depression. I have a bunch of computer hardware cluttering up my house, some of which arrived a year ago that I have not yet assembled and put to work, and it needs done. My part of the basement is a disaster area, needs stuff cleaned up, thrown out, upgraded, overhauled and generally sterilized, cauterized and replaced. I need to do it and do you think I can get my arse in gear to get started? I dome home at night, and end up in front of our (admittedly lovely large LCD HD) TeeVee, read mail, write things once in a while and generally become immobile, eventually going to bed, and get up tired in the morning to go to work. I can't retire, and really don't want to yet, but my energy lever is subterranean these days, and it is pissing me off!

Maybe tomorrow I can at least get that RAID array into Arnold (all my PC's have names, and Arnold is the big server downstairs that does the mail and such....) and get Home Server loaded and get the network restarted in a functional manner.

But I did get some neat stuff for when I get It together - some good wireless toys, a print server or two (USB) that will make some of our remote printing and scanning awhile lot more flexible - and a few things that are just neat toys that I'll have fun with.

The weather is supposed to turn to absolute crap - I should have gone out on the motorcycle last week on the one warm day, because between snow and frigidity the weather is conspiring to keep me off the bike. Doesn't help that my knees are at least 30 years older than the rest of me, either....

Maybe I'll take off a few hours Wednesday and go over to see Liz & Sammy - and let the baby make me laugh some more. I forgot or maybe never noticed just hos delightful babies can be - when we had them around here that were ours, we were too busy trying to make sure we did things right and that everything was in order - with Sammy, that's Liz and James' problem - we can just enjoy Sammy, make faces at him and laugh with him.

I guess I'm not so depressed any more - at least until the weather report comes along in a few minutes.

G'night, y'all.

WE had an inauguration!

This has been an interesting week to work in an interesting place. I work in a police department, and this week we had holidays, new almost-presidents making speeches, crowds downtown to look at the new almost president and (perhaps) listen to what he had to say, and then to wave at him as he got back on the train to Washington, DC.

The next day, Washington, DC turned into a crowd scene worthy of Cecil B. DeMille - and some of our cops were there, including the motorcycle guys. Even with electric suits, I imagine they were plenty cold....

I have been through a number of inaugurations in my life, and I don't recall one so well attended, so well secured, or so flashy. Lots of people, secure in their jobs now for a time had a lot of things to say. Included in those things were glittering generalities, promises that will not be kept, expectations that will never be met, and lots of feel-good stuff, positive-sounding, but somehow giving me at least the feeling that the folks there were determined to look out for me and mine regardless of my wishes, and convinced that they already knew what was best for me and mine regardless what we might happen to think about what they think they know.

I have been distressed about all the time given to a black man who is our next president. I saw a man who was properly elected and frankly, to me, he looks more Arabic than black, and anyhow I had truly hoped that we were beyond the point that simple appearance qualified or disqualified one for higher office.

Now, I am not wholly convinced he was the right choice - but he's there now, and it is part of my job to help him all I can, in whatever way I can to excel - because if he does things well, my life goes well. Nothing like a little enlightened self-interest here. Frankly, I was and remain impressed by Mr. Obama - he is obviously bright, speaks well, does his homework or has good people to do it for him and he listens well to them, and either is sincere or one hell of an actor - and I prefer to believe that he is real.

I don't have a clue what the future holds for the nation as a whole. I'd like to think that it will go on and that we as a people will grow to be better than what we are. In many respects, even though he wasn't my choice, I'm pleased that he was elected - his very election proves that most of us are beyond a particularly ugly point in our history (although I have to tell you, Colin Powell would have had my vote in a New York minute) and that we as a people are growing in understanding and in tolerance (or at least most of us are and that's the best I can hope for.)

So we are once again embarking on an adventure in this great nation. We do this each four years, and I would wager that nobody gets exactly what they want or expect out of the four years that follow - but it will be interesting, educational and occasionally scary and at the end of four years we'll either throw him out or put him back for another four years - and hopes and expectations will be dashed no matter which way it goes because there's no way for one man to deliver on all the promises, particularly once he starts interfacing with legislators who have pork with which to woo votes.

Meanwhile, the nation will muddle through and things will change - sometimes for the better, sometimes not. It has been written that a nation gets the government it deserves and I'd like to think that we're headed for a good patch.

I'm not fond of socialist programs - and in Europe, which apparently some think is the source of all that is good, the folks are finding that socialism costs too much and delivers too little.

I get upset at treating illegals like citizens, particularly when they become thereby entitled to breaks and programs that citizens don't get offered. Maybe I'm old and cynical, but free lunch draws parasites - and Europe has been busily proving it for decades.

I don't believe that we can do anything good about terrorists by appearing weak - and yet that is exactly the posture that many would have us take in its face. That way lies madness. Predators will take a weak victim if available, and terrorists are nothing if not predators - preying only on the helpless, shrinking from anything resembling a fight.

But I have faith that somehow we'll be all right. We live in the best place in the world to be, and it will only get better. And no, I'm not whistling in the dark - if I were, I'd be headed either for Germany or New Zealand.

My misgivings notwithstanding, I think I'll watch a while - I could always get a nice surprise; it wouldn't be the first time, and surely won't be the last. It's what keeps life interesting.

The one thing that is certain is that things will change. Have a nice day, y'all.

11 days

I can't believe it has been that long and I could find nothing to say! I'm losing my touch.

Actually, it's been pretty quiet - the boss was away for a time, work was pretty quiet, no crises at home, and no recalcitrant vehicles with which to deal. I was off last Friday and today, so I have not worked that many days, and generally nothing new has been started since so many people are not around.

This past weekend was a music weekend for my wife and myself - we spent a day at a church in Hanover, Pennsylvania previewing choral music. For thos unfamiliar with the activity, a bunch of people get together in a good-sized venue with a prepared stack of music (200+ anthems in our case) that will be directed by a clinician and sung by a choir composed of the attendees - in this case, over 600. Now unless you are a chorister, you probably can't appreciate the trill that accompanies one of these sessions - not because the music is done so well; often it is difficult and not done perfectly, but all the folks there try, and the result can be quite beautiful.

These sessions are normally available to choir directors, but many mere singers go, also - some as friends of the director (I go as the director's driver) and often these extras help the director to choose new things for the choir to do. It's a thankless task, sometimes, bit it is a great way to pass a day for a singer - and some of the newer writers are doing some really neat stuff that can only be heard in these clinics. An additional bebefit is that the clinitians are often the writers of the music being previewed, and they tend to be really interesting people.

After the music, I had hoped for a brief visit with an old friend, but it was not to be - so Phyllis and I wandered over to visit our younest and her baby and generally whiled away the afternoon playing with an infant - and it was good!

Tomorrow I have to go back to work. The server didn't get built that I had intended to build over this 4-day weekend. Some computer trouble at church did get fixed, but some more is still waiting. I never got the motorcycle out to get the fork lock installed, but then again as cold as it was, I wasn't looking for an excuse to start it up.

Right this minute I am watching Necessary Roughness, a football movie that I have seen more times than I can count, and I still enjoy it - something that makes no sense whatever as I do not follow sports at all and never have. Odd that another favorite is The Natural, a baseball movie. Some days I make no sense to myself.

I had a traffic rant ready last week after a particularly crappy trip in, but realized that there was nothing new in it, so I pulled it beforeI published it. I maintain that most traffic accidents could have been avoided either by not raising the last two glasses, or by exercising a little courtesy - but casual observation shows nobody to be listening. Maybe someone will piss me off next week and I'll let it go then.

We had yet another organizational change last week, but as best I can determine, it will not mean much of anything to much of anyone in the long run - we'll still have the same meaningless numbers collected and displayed as if they have some deeper meaning. I somethings think that we in Information Technology have done ourselves a disservice by collecting all the data we do - it gives folks the urge to compare disparate numbers and think that they may relate to other numbers (that make them look good, of course) when in actuality they are more like apples and mongooses. This can be hard to explain to folks in a position of authority over you, especially when it is not anything like what they wanted to hear.

It snowed today. My grandson thought he'd died and gone to heaven, but it looks as if it will not last - at least not enough to keep him home from school tomorrow. Disappointment reigns.

I have a kitchen to clean up, and a server to build - enjoy the balance of the day, y'all.

Back to work

I was off from the day before Christmas through Monday.  By off, I mean not obligated to go to work - some folks will tell you I'm off all the time, but they're just being unkind.  At least that's what I think.  Anyhow, I made it in Monday, and forgot that the boss was still off, so there wasn't much on Monday to elevate my blood pressure, and it wasn't a bad day as days go except, of course, for the weather that was so bad it could not even be said to suck. 

I finally had a good day last week, and got the motorcycle out to get the last little bit of fixing done.  At least that's what I told myself - the truth is I really wanted a reason to ride, and I really did enjoy getting out to ride.  After I got back in the evening I dropped an email on one of my riding pals, and was more than a but chagrined to learn that he had spent part of his holidays having a pacemaker/defibrillator implanted in his chest.  He's at least 6 years younger than I am, and has already had cardiac surgery many years back.  Getting old sucks.  But by the spring I'll bet he's ready to ride again.  Meanwhile, maybe I can talk him into an afternoon of music making....

I need to get some more weight off - at least another 100 pounds, although another 20 would take care of the 18 I have gained back and then some, and make me feel good.  I'm really pretty grumpy right now, and people at work are starting to avoid me.  I'm antisocial enough that this is good to a point, but when folks tremble and walk sideways against a wall to get past me I begin to wonder if I'm not just a little bit more incendiary than I need to be.  

Maybe I just need to spend a day with my daughter and let her baby drool all over me and giggle at me a while.  That'd be cheaper than a weekend away at a gambling resort or somewhere like that.   Of course I could always take a train to Chicago for a day - the overnight trip there is really great, a day wandering wouldn't be bad, and the overnight train back is wonderful - and nobody would do anything to disturb me at all during the whole trip.  Now all I need is a business reason for it....

I've been finding classmates and other friends on FaceBook.  Everyone should get a FaceBook page! Some of what's there, like what's on YouTube, is reprehensible - but some of it is pretty good, and even the ads can be useful.  I probably spend more time at this than I should, but sooner or later it'll get old and then I'll be more productive until the next thing comes along.

I found a ShoutCast station that plays nothing but The Blues Brothers.  They did some stuff I never heard and it's pretty good.  There are a couple that specialize in solo piano, and it really is nice.  I have to introduce my wife to this - maybe for some good music she'll touch a computer - particularly if I buy one for her, maybe....

I think I've had all the fun I should have on any one day, and it is pushing 6 PM pretty hard, so I will clean up here (or at least hide most of the crap in desk drawers) and head for home.  Y'all be good, y'hear?

Sunday, January 4

Getting up this morning was really not easy.  Getting up almost two hours earlier than I would have on most Sundays was even harder.  Somewhere along the line I agreed in a weak moment to be music at our 9:30 church service.  Normally I am a choir member for the 11:00 service and,  while I have been known to be a soloist it is not usual for me to get up early just to do that.  The particular piece for this morning is one in which I had a solo over part of it, but there was a choir part where I would normally have sung the tenor part, and I had to read the melody line instead, so I had something to learn quickly before the service started.  Phyllis had played it for me the previous day and then we went off to see the bull riders.

In any event, the music went well, everyone was complimentary (although I don't think anyone would be otherwise, just because) and after the second service I went home and died, sleeping through what ought to have been dinner.  It seems two nights downtown watching bull riders extracts a big toll on old fat guys - and my old arse was just worn out.  

Then this evening we had a reception at church for two members who are leaving the area, and I have to say that they will be missed.  Employment does strange things to people - this couple had come to us before and after a while was sent to Australia for a year on business, after which they came back and went to California for a while and returned to this area.  Now, business acquisitions and the need for employment have them moving to Birmingham, Alabama in order to be employed.  Frankly, I don't recall having had someone leave before that had such an effect on me - already I miss both of them.  I must be getting maudlin in my old age.

Tomorrow I have to go back to work.  Pardon me for lacking enthusiasm - the past ten days have been welcome down time - and, unfortunately, the few things I did intend to do did not get done. I need another week....

Be well, y'all -I gotta get some sleep.

PBR Redux....

Well, we went back into town this evening for the second round of Professional Bull Riders, and for the championship round for this event.  It was worth the trip.

I hate the arena that is used - it was built 40 years ago, and apparently people were a lot smaller then.  The seats grab me hard enough to leave me with numbutt after an hour, and the rows are so close together my legs get jammed against the seatback in front of me.  In spite of this, I will subject myself to this venue because the PBR puts on a really good show.  

The attendance was much better this evening than last evening - even the nosebleed sections were pretty full. The crowd was noisy, and they were obviously enjoying the event.  This is a good event for Baltimore - and for the PBR as the season opener it was a bit of a Big Deal that it was to be done in Baltimore - in past years, Madison Square Garden in New York City got the nod for this - this year, they get the second event of the year.  Maybe one year before we die Phyllis and I go to New York City, and stay at the old Loewe's Summit or something for a couple of days and take in the bulls at MSG and maybe a broadway show.

Maybe next year even.

For anyone out there, if the PBR gets close to you, or even if there's something less big, go see some bull riding.  Everyone I know has enjoyed it, even those that were plenty skeptical. Check your preconceived notions at the door, head inside, and enjoy the spectacle - and marvel at just how fast, strong and athletic both the cowboys and the bulls are.

PBR

January 2, 2009 - the first event in the Professional Bull Riders 2009 tour was held right here in Baltimore.  It is quite a spectacle - and I realized after the show that Phyllis and I have been following Bull Riding for at least 5 years, although it took a couple of years before we actually went to see it anywhere but on the TeeVee in our living room.

It may seem a bit incongruous that this would fascinate us, but it does.  The bull riders themselves are an interesting lot - cowboys, but not the stereotypical cowboy that we tend to believe we see.  Many of the riders are from other nations (Australia and Brazil being big contributors) but they are just about without exception interesting, and smarter than you might expect someone who voluntarily gets on top of 2000 pounds of beef expecting to stay there for 8 seconds.  There are some really abrupt moves involved, and some fairly specific rules about what may be done in the process of the ride.

One thing becomes obvious in a hurry - they guys are tough.  A ride typically ends with the rider launched from the bull onto the arena floor - sometimes in a high looping arc, sometimes like a lawn dart into the ground.  Broken bones are not as common as in normal people.  Bull riders occasionally get stepped on and sat on by the bulls, which typically weigh from 1300 to 2400 pounds.  I have to believe that when a bull steps on your foot, it hurts - for about a year - but the riders get up and walk away -and come back in an hour and ride another bull.

The bulls themselves, well, they buck.  You have to see it to understand it, and then see that they are not predictable.  The job of the bull is to shed the rider - the job of the rider is to frustrate the bull in that effort for 8 seconds.  Some of the "professional" bulls stop stock still as soon as the rider is gone - their job is at that point finished.  Others continue to dance about the arena.  Some others will chase the unseated rider as if to do him harm - and some manage that.

There are support players, but one of the most important for the PBR is a guy named Flint Rasmussen - he's a clown, a cheerleader, a crowd-pleaser, an acrobat, and lots of other things - and by the look of it, all unscripted.  His comedic timing is amazing, his strength and stamina something to behold, and without his intermission playing, throwing things at the crowd, and interrupting the commentators it might even get a little dull.

The truth of the matter is that on TeeVee you see the ride better - because the video folks have all the cameras, angles, and recorded bits - but on the TeeVee you miss out on Flint and other things that make the live show.

So as unintellectual as it might seem, I remain a fan - and encourage everyone to go once and see bull riding take place live and in real time.  You too could end up being a fan.

Happy New Year

It looks like we survived yet another year.  Today is the first day of the rest of your life and the first day of 2009 - which you and I will both get wrong on checks and other documents for at least a week or so.

Looking back on 2008, it has been an interesting year -  

• Our baby had a baby. 
• Our son went back to Australasia. 
• I managed not to drop a motorcycle on myself, although I did get to pick mine up a couple of times, no damage accrued to anything besides my ego.
• New school for our other grandson with a relatively trauma-free change.
• Second year of new employment completed and they still put up with me.
• No health aberrations like the GI bleed from 2007.
• HD TeeVee arrived and it is great!
• New boss at the office; mixed returns on this one.
• New working quarters - definitely not thrilled about this one.
• Really great reunion of old cold warriors in Texas - folks I had not seen in many years were there, and it was good to meet (and to re-meet) some of them.
• Added to the library several books written by folks that were in Security Service with me, and learned a lot more about intelligence operations of that era.

On the whole, interesting but relatively devoid of significant aberrations.  May there be more like this past year.

No really interesting New Year's Resolutions, save for one not to make them any more since it feels so bad to fail to meet the expectation.  I do have plenty of tasks for the coming year, but right now it is too soon to start enumerating them - and they'd probably shortly become a truly frightening heap.  

The coming year will bring network upgrades and changes here at home - the advent of the HD TeeVee gives a monitor good enough to actually use a computer attached to it, and the media center PC will be doing that duty upstairs.  The gaggle of machines downstairs will be replaced by a Microsoft Home Server (something Gates&Co managed to get right), and the flaky mail server will be replaced by different software running in the home server.  My new desktop will be fast enough to be useful, finally - and to the rest of the hardware may be added a laptop or netbook for Phyllis - that part is still pending.  We'll bring her into the electronicized fold yet!

We are using Skype and Facebook to keep up with our wandering son, and Picasa forphoto resources.  It is all working together nicely and as long as he doesn't get too busy to do maintenance we always have new pictures and storis to tell folkswho ask. As yet we have no idea how long he will be staying there, but I'm sure he'll let us know when the time is right, whatever that means.  Maybe some Australian girl will manage to tie him down.

I've been finding high school classmates on FaceBook and MySpace, much to my surprise. Most folks my age don't want to be bothered but apparently many of us are still with it enough to take on the challenge.  Reconnecting with some of these folks after so many years has been a real eye-opener in many ways - helps keep me sharp, I guess.  It is always interesting to reconnect and see if I still recognize anyone.

Well, everyone have a Happy New Year.