Diary of a Network Geek

"Do you really read this stuff or just put it out on the coffee table?"

"Who are you? Are you for real? Really for real?"

One way or another, people are always asking me that about the "me" they see on my blog. Not everyone is quite as lighthearted as the two people I've quoted here, but, sooner or later, everyone who's never met me in person asks.
I started to write a long piece about all the things I am, with links to old posts so readers could track back and find all the other very self-involved things I've said in past posts, but, well, that seemed a little pointless after I got rolling on it. The best way to find out about me is to use that "search" function on the right-hand side of the page. Want to hear my voice? Search for "voice" or "my voice" and you'll find samples. Want to see pictures? Search for "pictures" and you'll see me, my dog, my home, and even my parents. Or, you can click on the category links. They all work and will show an archive of all the things in that category. Want to see my pathetic attempts to get out of my shell and meet datable women? Click on the Bavarian Death Cake of Love archive. Want to see the books I've read recently? Try the Review archive or the Things To Read archive. (That's what the first person was asking about. The crazy things I read.) To see more about my attempts at art, digital or literary, you have to hit my other, almost dead, blog, Fantasist's Scroll. (That's what the second person was asking about. Considering how much of a hard-core geek I am in the corporate world, I guess they had a hard time getting their head around the concept that I might do any kind of art.)

I've had friends who told me that I'm so honest on this blog that it occasionally makes them wince. And, I have tried to be as honest as I possibly can be here, keeping in mind that potential employers and dates will no doubt read it.

The thing is, though, that all you see when you read this blog is one, very limited, point of view: mine. And, if nothing else has been proven out by my personal history it's the fact that I do not see myself either clearly or the way others see me. I am, for instance, my own worst critic. But, this is such a flat medium. As I've mentioned before, you can't hear my voice or see the expression on my face or "feel" my timing on a joke. This blog is just one small window into who I am. A door that's open just a crack. In person, you can walk around me and rattle other windows, or try the latch, or jiggle the handle on the doors to see if they're unlocked. Whatever you think I am based on this blog, you're wrong. You're only getting one, small picture of what my life is like. The picture you get of me in person is very different. At least, I hope it is.

So, yes, I'm real. I'm as real as I know how to be, in person or via print. But, there's more to me than you see here. If you know where to look.

I started cleaning house a little this weekend.

You see, I have this one room that is filled with the residue of a previous life. Old clothes and books and furniture and papers and junk and... Shoes. Lots of shoes.
I stopped gathering bags of junk to throw out when I hit six because I'd more than filled my garbage cans. I have so many more to fill and throw out that it was almost overwhelming. Almost. Most of the clothes will go to someplace like the Salvation Army or to help victims of Katrina or something. (Yes, there are still people from Katrina that need clothes!) I have old school uniforms and jeans and other kids clothes as well as adult clothes. I haven't even started sorting the boxes upon boxes of books. Or decided what to do with all the left over furnature. Frankly, there are some heirlooms I'd like to see go back to my former in-laws, so that, one day, my former step-daughter might have them. I'm not sure if that will happen or not though. If you all could see this one room in my house filled with so many boxes and bags and piles of junk, you could see why it was so hard to get motivated to deal with it. There's a part of me that would like to just heap it up on the front lawn and set fire to it, though I wouldn't indluge in that kind of waste even if it weren't illegal to burn that much that way. Still, it has to be dealt with somehow, sooner or later, so I've started. A little at a time and it will get out faster than I might think.

I joked with my mother not too long ago that I should have a party to get rid of it all. I could go through my house and tag all the things that I want to "dispose" of and then invite single women in to just cart it off, in exchange for contatct information and/or dates. She thought it was hilarious. I even had a plan for different levels of exchange for the stuff.
I could use colored stickers or tags, with each color requiring a different level of personal info. For white stickers, just a name and good phone number, pre-verified. For red stickers, a name, good, preverified phone number and at least two evenings that the lady in question would be available for a date in the next two months. For gold stickers, a name, a good, preverified phone number, at least two evenings in the next month that she'd be available, and one actual, prearranged date. Obviously, the grade of "stuff" goes up with each sticker and the required information to gain access to the stickers. Each level has access to the lower levels of sticker as well.

Like I said, my mother thought it was hilarious. Have I mentioned that my family has a somewhat twisted sense of humor? And, interestingly enough, my father remained rather silent on that whole subject.
Anyone have any thoughts on the merits of such a party?

Now, you may have noticed that this post is surrounded by pictures of shoes. Lots of shoes. On the top left, a single pair of rather sensible shoes, women's size seven and a-half. The rest, though, are seven pairs of, well, not so sensible shoes. One is a size eight, but the rest are also size seven and a-half. I should note that these are not my shoes, but shoes I am going to be getting rid of, one way or another, shortly. You may also notice that they have a theme, of sorts, besides being mostly black. Notice the extremely high heels, the amazing platforms. Also, if you click on the thumbnails, you'll see that most of them are hardly worn, or, in some cases, not worn at all. I should note also, that while I paid for most, if not all of these shoes, I did not really pick them out. I retained veto rights over them, so they all had my tacit approval, but I did not go seeking them. They were not my "thing", as it were, though I had little argument with them as I bought them. In many ways, they represent the worst kind of residue of that old life. They are not what I'm looking for at all anymore. They weren't even what I was looking for back then, but they were what I found.
I hope that what these shoes represent don't frighten or disturb anyone who reads this blog, either employers or potential dates. As I mentioned, they represent a life I did my best to walk away from and leave behind. But, I do hope they explain, a little, that when I say I have a sordid past, or that there are things about me that people don't know or understand, I'm not joking. I'm not kidding around, or exagerating, or embelishing for effect, or even trying to impress anyone, when I say that I do have an unusual past, a slightly different history, than people might think from this blog and my current life. Or, as I like to remind people, even a priest has a past.

So, finally, here's a little Advice from your Uncle Jim, kids, everyone has a past and that sometimes effects their future. We can change, even though it may be hard and may have a price, but, who we have been will still effect who we become. You can't always tell who a person was by who they are today.

I spent the majority of my day with the pre-sales engineer from Novell today.
And, that was a good thing. I learned a number of things today. (If you're a non-geek or don't feel like asking me to translate this into English for you, feel free to skip down to the paragraph break.) First, the bug I reported yesterday was totally false. The problem with Novell's Open Enterprise Server running on SuSE Linux was that I'm so old school and security conscious. "How's that?" you ask? Simple, I had a password that started with a dollar sign character. How's that a problem? Well, it's like this. The GUI installer takes the information to install eDirectory, Novell's premier claim to fame, and throws it all at a command-line installer at a hidden console window. Sadly, in bash, the standard Linux shell, when you throw an unescaped "$" at the prompt programatically, it thinks you're trying to define a string variable. That little misunderstanding throws the command-line eDirectory installer for a loop and it sits there, at its hidden console, prompting for a password and patiently waiting for you to supply it. Then, it misinterprets that and fails. Once the eDirectory install fails, everything afterward, that relies on eDirectory, also fails.
In other words, because I have more admin experience than Novell's guys in the field and I'm committed to using secure passwords, I found a bug that no one thought to look for EVER BEFORE.

The other thing I learned today is that I know a hell of a lot about all kinds of strange, esoteric, varied and otherwise unrelated computer stuff. And, that is very, very cool.
Now, I'm going to go do something. No, I don't know what and neither will you. Tomorrow, I'll post something else. Good night.

Were you a little lonely on St. Valentine's Day? Then, my geeky readers, I've got just the thing for you: The top eleven Geek Pickup lines, third edition, as stolen from BBSpot, for your Friday afternoon funny:

Geek Pick-Up Lines: Part 3
11. I'm attracted to you so much that scientists will begin to doubt the Theory of Relativity.
10. What's a nice girl like you doing in a chatroom like this?
9. Resistance is futile.
8. No matter how I sort things, you'll always be first.
7. No, that's not a Logitech MX-100 in my pants, but thanks for noticing.
6. I think you could be an integral part of my project life cycle.
5. I'd switch to emacs for you.
4. You put the SPARC in my workstation.
3. If you have an empty slot, I have the card to fill it.
2. We're like SLI. We're great alone, but we'd be so much better together.
1. You got me stuck on Caps Lock, if you know what I mean.

Hey, they just keep on getting better, don't they? Well, there are more coming, but, I like doling them out over time. You know, to build the anticipation!
Happy Friday!

It's been a long week.
And, frankly, next week doesn't look like it's going to get any easier. For starters, I've been wrestling with this server at work. I mean this has been real Jacob wrestling with the Angel kind of epic battle stuff here. In fact, it was so bad that just today I was looking at returning Novell's Open Enterprise Server and SuSE Linux in favor of Windows Server 2003. For those of you who know me and know my Novell zealotry, you know how much I would have hated to do that. Thankfully, the guy Novell sent over to help out got me squared away. I think I've actually been Novell certified longer than he's been in the business, but, still, he knew his stuff, so it's all good.
I've been trying to get the server installed for the past two weeks and kept running into strange errors. Well, it turns out to have a really, tiny, picaune thing. Remember some time back I was talking about naming conventions? Turns out it was more important than you could imagine. In the old days, we all used the underscore character in our tree names, as in "CompanyName_Tree". Now, apparently, no one uses that convention and, as a result, a bug slipped through that kills the install. So, do I get a prize for finding it? Doubtful.
In any case, we managed to convince the boss that we should stick with Linux and OES and that we'd go over the migration tools tomorrow, which is when most of you will be reading this post anyway. So, I'm still going to get those career goals in after all. Woot!

On other fronts, I've got at least one, dear, sweet lady crawling all over my site to try and find out all about me. No matter what she finds here, and, yes, I am directing her to put the best possible spin on who I am, it still won't be me. Not all of me. Not the part of me that people really love. The blog gives information, but, I'm more than the sum of my stories. And, in fact, many stories simply won't ever see print, here or anywhere else. I have collections of odd, little facts and strange, obtuse skills that simply don't fit well into a blog. And my humor doesn't really play well in print, either. It's all timing with me, and you can't do timing very well in print. Still, I worry that we'll be all out of things to talk about by the time we actually connect for coffee. I hope she's ready to talk about herself!
And, several people have come to me for advice in the past week. Or, I've seen a couple of situations that I'd like to advise people about. Thankfully, I've shown restraint. Mostly. No one really wants me to give them advice. My advice is rarely well recieved, even if it is dead on. It may be my communication style, but, whatever it is, people sure don't like hearing my advice. i do try and temper it by starting off with "Well, if I were in your position, I'd..." Doesn't always work that well. Of course, I never said I made the best choices for myself, either! Still, sometimes it's just like watching a slow-motion train wreck. You can see it all happening, but what can you do? These folks wouldn't believe me if I told them the pattern I see in their lives. They'd just get pissed off at me. Of course, it wouldn't change that I was right or that they knew I was right, but, still...

Well, there's more, but my brain is all a-whirl with thoughts of my upcoming day, weekend and week that I can't summon them up. Besides, I have a feeling I'd really irritate someone if I did! Always seems to work that way. So, it's off to a lonely bed with my faithful companion. G'night.

I think it's going to be a long day...
So, about the fourth time I was falling back asleep this morning, my mind started to wander. Now, keep in mind this is a PG-13 blog and I try to keep it clean, okay? Well, I'd had an e-mail exchange with someone who was sick, who was wishing for somebody to make her soup and snuggle with her under the covers and keep her warm. Yeah, guess where my half-waking mind went this morning in my cold house. Right. And, yes, that would have been a pleasant way to spend Valentine's Day, frankly. Feeding someone soup and keeping her warm is better than the way I've spent that day in the last several years at any rate. Now, you dirty minded people, I told you to keep it clean. I wouldn't have taken advantage of the sick lady. Just snuggled in and helped her break that fever. Honest. You can trust me on this. I would not lie to you about something so important.
So, does that sound sad and lonely and desperate? Or just warm and fuzzy and cute?
Well, I don't care, either way. I wasn't quite awake and my mind was just going somewhere warm. And snuggly.

As a fourth-generation Chicagoan, I celebrate this day a little differently.
You see, not only is this a day that greeting card companies crafted into a reason to waste money on cards, flowers and candy for someone who should love you without all that junk, but it was also a very important day in Chicago history. Today is the day when, in 1929, Al "Scarface" Capone gathered together seven of his closest friends and gunned them down. Yep, the St. Valentine's Day Massacre. Old Al was clever, too. Not only did he get seven of his arch rival's men together, but he dressed his hired guns up as police officers so that if they were spotted any witnesses would assume everything was under control because the police were already there! Yes, sir, that Al sure was an innovator.
So, as you shell out your hard-earned cash for disposable junk that will most likely go to waste, remember how they used to celebrate St. Valentine's Day on the South Side. Feels about the same, doesn't it?
Something else to keep in mind this year, the saint for whom this day is named was a martyr. What does that mean to you and me? That means that Saint Valentine was beaten almost to death and then beheaded on this day. Later he went on to perform miracles and all that to become a saint, but, today is the day we celebrate the fact that a hired mob worked him over pretty well with clubs and then chopped his head right off. Sort of sounds like how love feels for some of us about this time of year, doesn't it?

Hey, all joking and dark humor aside, I hope everyone has a nice day today, whether they have someone to share it with or not.

Like you have to ask what that means?
So, Saturday, I joined my church. I stood in front of the congregation with a group of others and agreed to the questions, to the commitments, and said my name into the microphone as it was passed to me. I filled out my form, explaining the transfer of membership from a church I have not attended in more than fifteen years, at least, not regularly. I let them take my picture, though it was against my better judgement. Then, amid surprise and questions, I fled as quickly as I could willing people to not see me, not know me. Still, it's done and another resolution is complete. This was Resolution Eight. Resolution Two is still holding firm and Resolution Nine is progressing slowly, but steadily, as I have lost three pounds so far.

I'm not looking forward to tomorrow. It's never been a particularly good day for me. Usually, I find myself freshly single, but with everything purchased, or reserved, and in hand, but no longer with a purpose. The emptiest of empty gestures. Too little, too late. The sentiment of a one way street with oncoming traffic. Perhaps tomorrow would have been better this year if I could dance further away from Resolution One. How does that line go? The first one is always the hardest? Well, I have always thought of them as guidelines more than actual, concrete, achievable goals. Honest. Really.
And, I try not to think too hard about how I have books that are older than most of the women I'm interested in at all. Generally, not a good place for me to head, mentally. And, to be honest, I'm not sure it helps that some of them, one of them, returns the interest. Life was so much easier when I pined silently, alone, unknown and unknowable from the shadows. Life is simple, but I complicate it so. Too much thought in too many directions all to avoid the most obvious.

Resolutions Thirteen and Fourteen have proven far more challenging than I'd anticipated. Thirteen being more difficult to internalize than I'd ever thought possible. Fourteen providing such odd and unexpected results. Enigmatic responses sent wirelessly, like a digital fortune cookie: "Change is coming... In due time"
Where are my lucky numbers?

I roll over and find myself looking into eager, soft, brown eyes surrounded by red-blonde hair. Oh, God, what a night...

But, that's getting ahead of myself. It was a long, frustrating week of server wrestling that ended in a stalemate. The endless cycle of tweak, test, repeat broken by the pulsing tone of a text message arriving on my phone. No, more than that. "A picture share!", my Inbox winked at me. "I'm so tired!" said the message. And then I scrolled down. As I recall, my reaction was "Daaaaammmmmnnnnn!" Followed by, "I wonder what her lips taste like?" And, more, of course, but not anything I'd share in a PG-13 blog. What I did respond with was how cute and adorable I thought she was. Apparently, she was looking for more. More I could have given her, but, well, I do try not be too aggressive with the married ones, even if they are unhappy and headed toward divorce. And, since she'll be reading this, I loved her little, lopsided smile and her wild blonde hair pulled back into a simple pony tail. Adorable. The kind of adorable you want to wake up with for the next sixty years or so.
Somewhere between the camera phone surprise and throwing in the towel on my server config, a guy invites me to his "Thank God Almighty, I am free at last" party. Normally, I'm not really thrilled with a guy carrying on a conversation with me at the urinal, but, hey, free food and drink is worth a little dance outside my men's room comfort zone. So, last one out the door into the rain, I zip over to meet his Filipina girlfriend, eat her wonderful shrimp wrapped in bacon, and knock back two quick beers. While I'm there, my hot, little picture-taker calls, then excuses herself when she hears where I'm at. On my way home, I call her.
"Yeah, I'm headed home already. Look, I work with those [deleted plural expletive] five days a week. They always want something from me and can never wait. I don't really want to hang out with them any longer than I have to after I get my free food."
"So, you still going to the bookstore?"
"Yeah, might as well. Hey, I know it's not going to go well, but abject failure makes a funnier blog post than outrageous success anyway."
"HaHa! Well, good luck on your cooter hunt!" Have I mentioned I really dig that country twang in her voice? Shame she's married. That's me, always the friend of the hot, married girl.

I slid into Borders with a plan, or, at least, a theme: music. Music magazines and CDs. Hey, it's buy three, get the fourth free! So, I decided that it would be four that I don't normally listen to now. As I roll through the door, I can see that pickings will be slim. Couples everywhere. Well, I figure I'm already there, I have my laptop and I can use the coffee. So, I grab a couple music rags that have free CDs: Mojo and Classic Rock. Then, it was a quick lap around the store, feigning interest in books I knew I wouldn't buy. Worse than a snipe hunt. So, upstairs to skulk around the writing books, trying to look literate. Rumor has it, chicks did literate guys, or so I've been told. As I pass by the VD display, though, a book catches my eye: Cooking to Hook Up : The Bachelor's Date-Night Cookbook. My music theme has met its first upset, but, I think, eventually, it'll be worth it. If chicks dig literate guys, literate guys who can cook have got to be even better. Right?
So, since the pickings aren't any better in the knitting section, I ease over to the music section. Right to the Pop/Rock racks, with a slight detour past the "Local Scene" display. From there, I snag A Little Gun Shy by Brian Douglas. It's a risk, but, hey, he's local talent. Then it was off to a new favorite, discovered through obsessive-compulsive searching through the blogosphere, Bowling for Soup, this time I grab Drunk Enough to Dance, because, that's about what it takes for this whiter than white-guy to get out and shake it. Then, two new ones from old favorites: The Delivery Man by Elvis Costello and the Imposters, along with Wildflower by Sheryl Crow. Like I said, whiter than white. It's who I am, learn to embrace my lack of diversity.
My music theme complete, I hobble into the coffee shop, still hoping that single women will have nothing better to do on a Friday night besides buy books and chat me up. Hey, hope springs eternal, you know? No Bavarian death cake, but a surrogate from Belgium and an espresso shooter in a paper cup. It's either that or a long, chest needle like Pulp Fiction. I eat my Bavarian death cake substitute like a guy in a prison movie, always looking at the other tables and with one foot in the aisle in case I need to move in a hurry. The caffeine shooter chases the cake, but it's not enough, so I go back and get regular medium cup of steaming, hot, Italian Fascism to keep me going through the tragedy that has become my wasted evening. In a sad attempt to salvage my trip, I crank up my ancient laptop, which runs RedHat, and do a little writing exercise to keep me limber. I describe the people I see:
People seen at Borders
The guy with the faux three day growth beard... The tall girl with him wearing yoga pants...
The two couples on a date. The fair-skinned girl with dark eyes who was more interested in the other men than her date. The sad smile she gave me as she walked just out of his reach said "help me, for God's sake find a way to help me out her, buddy" Her date was the recycled frat boy with the baby face and the crewcut that had grown out sideways and in uneven patches...
...All lonely, all hungry, all hunting the same thing. All failing miserably. All except the two gay guys who found each other. Happy as clams, they make cow eyes at each other and giggle like school-girls.
A little girl, half Asian, with a thoughtful gleam in her eye and a tongue stuck out the corner of her mouth in concentration as she crept to the leather couch and stealthily slipped into the seat next to the couple on a date, never taking her eyes off them. The man with his back turned, his steel gray eyes behind open-rimmed glasses intent on his date, a girl with a ruddy complexion and streaked red hair who was years older than he and unhappy. He had to work to make her smile, harder than he should have.
My best prospect was one of the gay guys and I'm not that lonely. Not yet, anyway. So, I scooped up my magazines and CDs and shoved my antique laptop into my bag. God noticed and sent out the signal to the troops. As soon as I was in line to checkout, two single girls walked in together, moving with purpose toward the far end of the store. Just my luck.
The guy from last week, who recognized me, checks me out and asks about the coupon. Coupon? I tell him I think he used it last week, cheating for me so I can save a buck. He does it again and makes a point of handing me the second coupon. For next time. Damn pusher. At least I got a discount. Being a regular has its perks, I guess.
On the way out, I hold the door for a group of five young women. Yep, that God sure has a sick sense of humor and my timing is still dead on.
Damn, I could really use a cigarette.

And, this morning? This morning I wake to a flirty strawberry blonde batting her big, brown eyes at me. My dog reminding me that it's laundry day. But, that opening sure had you hooked, didn't it?
Good dog.

And, yes, it's free.
Really, there's this new, on-line magazine that is totally dedicated to the Open Source movement called O3.
Now, this is fun for me. It might not be your thing, but, hey, look at the title of the blog. This is what I do. I love Linux and the other OpenSource projects that are running around out there. I use GIMP more than any other graphics tool, even ones that I paid for myself. Most of my favorite security tools are Open Source. And, nine times out of ten, all this great software is free.
So, if you don't know about OpenSource software, go check out the magazine. I mean, c'mon, it's not like you're doing anything else on a Friday afternoon at work, right?
Next week, more Geek Pickup Lines!