Diary of a Network Geek

Hey, it's not too late to get this for Christmas!
Last week, I was talking about a little "hair of the dog", so it seems like an appropriate time to mention the coolest stuffed toy I have seen in a long time: The Transforming Werewolf Plush. I mean, a toy that turns inside-out and makes a whole other toy?! They didn't have stuff this cool when I was a kid! This rates right up there with the Cthulhu Plush Slippers and the Cthulhu Claus as my "most lusted after, but totally senseless, gift item". Another new favorite, is the Giant Tube of Plush Polyhedron Dice, but that's not as cool as the werewolf. Ah, now, if only I had someone to buy them for me...
Oh, well, maybe I'll get them for myself next year!

Woo! That's a lot of acronyms!
So, let's break this down... What I've got here for you fine computer geeks who read my sad, little blog is a link to the National Security Agency Central Security Service computer Operating Systems security configuration guides. Clear as mud now, right? Okay, so what this is, in a nutshell, is a listing of guidelines from the NSA about how to configure and run server and desktop operating systems to their security standards. Or, at least, to the standard they release to the public. The latent paranoid conspiracy theorist in me can't shake the feeling that the NSA doesn't generally have an outward flow of information. And, they list four versions of Windows there, as if they can be actually secured. Surely, that must seem suspicious to my readers. Of course, they also have info for Macintosh and Solaris systems, so, you never know.
Anyway, it's fun information from the NSA, so go have fun with it!

It is by Caffeina alone
that I set my mind in motion.
By the Beans of Java,
my thoughts aquire speed.
The hands aquire the shakes,
the shakes become a warning.
It is by Caffeina alone
that I set my mind in motion…
- Javacrucian chant, attributed to Isaac Bonewits

Well, the past three days, this has been my mantra. Between adjusting my life to a new roommate and that freakish bout of insomnia Saturday night, caffeine, especially in the form of caffeinated mints, has been my constant companion. I used to live on three-and-a-half or four hours of sleep a night for months at a time, but that starts to draw me pretty thin after a bit. Maybe my slight irrationality this weekend was, in part, attributable to that lack of sleep. You know, my motto used to be, as Warren Zevon would sing, "there'll be time enough to sleep when I'm dead". I used to really get into this mode of thinking that I have only so many hours of life in this world and a lot to get done so sleep was the first thing to get cut. More waking hours equal more time to accomplish goals. But, I never seemed to get those goals accomplished...
Well, then, when the caffeine shakes wear off tonight, I'll finally get some sleep. Everything else can wait. I have time. Or, if I don't, it won't matter anyway.
Sleep.
But, only after I spend the rest of the day with Gimp editing pictures. Again. If you Photoshop pictures with Photoshop, am I Gimping pictures with Gimp? You can see an example of what I've been doing to the right, there. Have I mentioned how hard this is when you have the caffeine shakes?

My favorite Thai restaurant is closing.
At least, according to rumors I've heard from a reliable source, the family that has run Paddy Thai since before I came to Houston is retiring and going back to Thailand. Sadly, though understandably, they have chosen not to sell the business to someone they neither know nor trust and are just shutting down. At the end of the year! Yikes! So, you have roughly two-and-a-half weeks to get to Paddy Thai and get the best Thai food this side of the International Dateline.
Now, please, understand, I am not exaggerating at all when I write that this is the best Thai food ever. I've had Thai all over this city and the entire US, but nothing compares to this. The restaurant itself is small and rather unassuming. A quaint, candle-lit Thai-style house, shrouded by palm trees and tucked in-between two larger buildings, this little gem is one of the best-kept culinary secrets in Houston. Sadly, there won't be enough good weather to eat outside on the front porch, enjoying the cool breezes of an early Houston Spring, but, if that were the only place to sit and get their Mus-Man Beef, it would be worth it. All their beef dishes melt in your mouth and if super-spicy Mus-Man isn't your thing, then they have several curries that are worthy of a last meal.
I usually start with their chicken satay, which is so tender that it glides off the skewers, and peanut sauce. Often, I order spring rolls, too, just so I can soak up the rest of the unique peanut sauce left over from the satay. Then, if I'm feeling brave, I'll order the white-hot "Tiger Cries", which is a beef dish that, would indeed, make a tiger cry. If I'm not able to drink copious amounts of Singha to drown that burn, I'll get their Chicken in Peanut Sauce (just for that sauce!) or their Beef Ginger. If I'm feeling like seafood, I might get the sweeter Garlic Shrimp or the more interesting Shrimp Basil, which I can't remember seeing on anyone else's menu. I've also enjoyed their unique "Steamed Mussels in Clay Pot", which is actually served in a fired clay pot. Then, dessert....
Oh, dessert at Paddy Thai is worth the trip all by itself. In season, the mangoes with sweet rice are just the thing to end a perfect meal. The ladies always laugh when I ask them to tell me how they cut those mangoes so well and evenly! I've almost lost fingers at home trying to duplicate their best dessert! And, no matter how many places I have sweet rice and Thai egg custard, it's never been better than here. Add a Thai coffee to that, so you can stay up into the wee hours talking with whomever you thought was special enough to share this hidden treasure and you have my idea of a near perfect evening.

I've never had a bad meal at Paddy Thai and I've never heard anyone ever complain, either. When I lived inside the 610 Loop, I found any excuse I could to jet over there for dinner. For the longest time, the sisters who ran the restaurant knew me on sight and could probably predict what I would order, too! These two tiny women are so full of life and energy that you can't help but smile at them as they make recommendations. They're never wrong, though, sometimes, they underestimate just how much a Westerner can pack away at one sitting. Thankfully, their entrees are better after they've sat in the fridge for a day or two. Oh, and then, you get to relive the culinary ecstasy!
Yes, I definitely need to get back there before the end of the month.
But, now, I think I need a cigarette.

"I may have to blow up the building."
Why does my life have to look so much like Office Space? Why?
So, I'm talking to the boss today about the new Linux server that we desperately need, trying to confirm that we will, in fact, order this essential piece of equipment before the end of the year, when the quotes expire, and I get...
"Well, if not by then, shortly after."
"Ah, you do realize that those quotes expire at the end of the year, right?"
"Yeah."
"And then the prices will change..."
"Well, tell them that any deep discounts would be appreciated."
"Uh, those were already in those quotes. After the first of the year, the prices go up."
"How much?"
"Um, not sure, but a lot."
"Oh, well, find out. Maybe it will make the MoneyGuy go faster."

To quote Charlie Brown, and mix my metaphors, "AAAARRRRRGGGHH!!"
And, all this without Chotchkie's or Jennifer Aniston. Life is not fair.
All I can say is, no one better try to take my Red Swingline Stapler.

No, this is not one of my infamous religious posts.
Actually, this is a technical post. Thursday this past week started like any other. "Jim, do this, " and "Jim, I need that" and "Hey, Jim, should this computer be smoking this way?" A standard day in the life of a stand-alone IT department. Then, things turned ugly. Every call became "Hey, Jim, is there something wrong with this network share?" And, I finally put two and two together to get five and, sadly, discovered that the Linksys EFG-120 Network Attached Storage device had curled up its toes and died.
Luckily, the important stuff is all backed up, but not everything on that drive is "important" enough to hit the limited backup we have. So, it was time for the Network Geek to go into action. I started, as always, with a reboot. Nada. Well, I thought the NAS was Windoze based, since it was a mapped drive on the crusty, old Windows NT server I've been limping along here, so I reboot it again. Still nothing. So, thinking at a moderate pace, I decided to try and reseat the drive in the device. One small problem: the NAS is locked and no one has a key. Luckily, a little thing like a locked door has never been more than a temporary impediment to me, so I start banging away at the lock with my LEATHERMAN Pocket Survival Tool. After a few minutes, I managed to bust the drivetray out of its slot without damaging the case and reseat the drive. Crank it up and... Still nada. Damn, I thought to myself. Gonna' be one of those days.
So, I tell the Boss about it. Boss says, do what you can and let me know. Great. I try getting the drive into an external drive case and hooking it up to his firewire hub on his Mac. Can you guess what we got? Yeah, nada. Right, well, I'm not ready to give up because, well, I'm a tad obsessive about this kind of thing. Sure, that makes me a little hard to deal with in the World, but in my job, obsession is definately a trait to be desired.
Next, I try hooking it up to my machine and seeing if Windows 2000 can see the partition and fix what's wrong. What'd I get? Nunca nada. Not done, yet, though. I dig out a copy of PartitionMagic. I make the disks and boot into that freaky, specialized operating environment to see if I could fix the broken disk partition. See, I'm figuring that it's just the File Allocation Table that's decided to take a vacation. PartitionMagic is totally scoop at restoring those kinds of things, which is why I gave it a whirl. Sadly, nada. Well, not quite nada, since I was at least able to see that the damaged partition seemed to be a Linux partition of some kind. AhHa!
So, now, I install the drive into a Linux machine I keep under my desk, just in case of emergencies. I duck in and tell the Boss what I have in mind. He gives me a funny look and says,"Well, that's a bit of a Hail Mary, isn't it?" Well, yeah, it was, but isn't that what I get paid for? To come up with and implement "Hail Marys"? And, if it works, who cares what crazy thing I have to do? Anyway, after the update to the Boss, it was off to the Linux machine to attempt a partition recovery, the hard way. Whoops! I had forgotten I canablized the drive in that machine to fix another problem weeks ago! Damn. So, I install Ubuntu on it, mainly because I have the ISO downloaded and can quickly burn an install CD. Well, Ubuntu goes to the Internet to find an archive server to download the install files, so that takes all night. Still, I figured, I'd come in early and bang this out in no time. Well, my head-shrink says I live in fantasy too much, so, it shouldn't surprise my readers to know that it was far from easy. For an hour Friday morning, I ran every disk repair or recovery program I could find that came with a standard install of Linux. Guess what I got? Yeah, bubkes. (That's Yiddish for nada.)
So, after all that, I still ended up formatting the drive and letting the restore run. Oh, did I mention that it was a Maxtor? For you non-geeks reading this, Maxtor 80 Gig drives have the highest fail-rate I've ever seen in the field. Everyone has problems with them. Well, this was a Maxtor 120 Gig drive, but I'm afraid that the same luck holds true to them, too.
Hmm, sounds like it's time to order that new server I've been asking for, doesn't it?

For making an ass of myself, apparently.
You know, I don't mind doing this when I do it on purpose, but, when I do it accidentally, well, that's irritating. You might not see this via the blog, but I'm actually a ver polite person. I think courtesy and manners are the social "glue" that keeps communities together and functioning. So, when I'm unintentionally rude or insulting or hurtful, it bothers me. On those occasions that I purposely slight someone, something else is at work and I rarely feel any shame a precious little guilt at having done so.

However in the past several days, I've been an Internet boor. Quite unintentionally, of course, but, still... The incident that got my attention and "woke me up", so to speak, was a response to a post on another blog. Someone commented about said post and I penned a comment expressing a difference of opinion. Apparently, I worded my position in such a way that the previous commentor took offence or felt attacked, because he responded with, well, a bit of aggression. I read his responding comment and thought Yeah, whatver, pal. Look if you have to act that way to make yourself feel like your schwantz is longer than mine, knock yourself out. I hope it satisfies your reptillian hind-brain you unevolved primative. And, since he'd used the word "Tough" in his reply, I also thought Tough? Look, you panty-waist, I've had moral dilemmas tougher than you.
It was then that a little voice, not unlike the Whos singing in Whoville, said to me Hey, slick, this is that opportunity for change your smarmy butt is always waxing poetic about. Remember that, bright boy? NOW is the time! NOW is your chance! And, so, instead of getting uglier, I responded with an apologetic comment. I hope he read it and all is well.

I also ran my great, big mouth about some things about which I knew precious little this past week and weekend and found out later how deeply I'd stepped in it. Again, unintentionally, but still, to me, that's worse than being very deliberate about it. The fact that I was a big buttinski, even though I was trying to make someone feel better, was just plain rude and I'm sorry about it. (Okay, there's actually more than one person who falls under this particular umbrella apology thanks to my rectocranial inversion issue this weekend, so, please, everybody who feels even slightly miffed, just assume I'm talking about you, okay?)

And, finally, I've been a little passive-aggressive with Doc, my new roommate. Sorry, about that, Doc. We'll talk.
I won't go into details on the blog, but, suffice it to say that my ex-wife taught me some tricks that I'd just as soon unlearn. I mean, I hope to be married again, one day, or at least live in sin with someone other than Doc, so it'd be best to weed out these annoying little personal habits now, before I meet that Special Someone. Passive-aggressive behavior is never pretty, so I'd really like to nip this bad habit in the bud before it blossoms into really annoying habits. In other words, ladies, I'd like to change the most annoying things about myself before some poor, well-meaning girl feels compelled to try and "fix me". Sounds like a plan, neh? Any suggestions that y'all have observed, in me or others, are welcome. (Think my ex-wife will comment?) Hmm, maybe a new poll....

So, some Advice from your Uncle Jim, think twice before saying whatever's on your mind, then keep your yap shut anyway. Mostly, people already know and don't need to hear it. Mostly.

Oh, an a quick clarification... I've had some folks ask about my "sordid past" and no, it did NOT involve drugs, or even alchohol, though, I might remind you that I don't drink like a girl. And, I have never taken illegal drugs. I'm freaky enough without them!

I've survived one more lap around the sun.
How many more before the race is done?
I'm 37 today.
Yes, in spite of foolish mistakes and silly risks and all sorts of dark thoughts this year, I made it through another one. I used to think of my birthday as, well, just another day, but I'm trying to be more aware of celebratory events, so, I'll celebrate this one, somehow. At the very least, I will enjoy a glass of Cask Strength Macallan, something I've been wanting to investigate for some time. Now that I've lost my greatest critic and dream-smasher, I feel free enough to do that.
Lots of things have happened, in history, on this day. For instance, I share a birthday with such varied luminaries as Frank "Chairman of the Board" Sinatra, Bob Barker, Gustave Flaubert, author of Madame Bovary, Edvard Munch, and Wells Fargo founder, Henry Wells. Not to mention, Mike Pinder of the Moody Blues, Tim Hauser of Manhattan Transfer, Dickey Betts of the Allman Bros, jazz musician Grover Washington Jr, and former mayor of New York City, Ed Koch.
Also, it was on this day, in 1901, that Italian physicist and radio pioneer Guglielmo Marconi succeeds in sending the first radio transmission across the Atlantic Ocean. But, that's not all! My birthday is also when, in 1925, Arthur Heinman coins term "motel", and opened Motel Inn in San Luis Obispo, California. On this day, in 1964, shooting started for the "Star Trek" pilot, The Cage (which was later reused in Menagerie).
A year before I was born, in 1967, the US launched Pioneer 8 into solar orbit. And, on the actual day of my birth, in 1968, the US performed its first nuclear test at the Nevada Test Site. So, obviously, my birthday was, indeed, earth-shattering.

As I hoped for last year, it was, in fact, an interesting trip. I'm still not sure what the next year will bring, but I'm looking forward to finding out! Hopefully, I won't have as many close scrapes this time around the sun. Remember what your Uncle Jim says, kids, after twenty-one, every year you survive is a victory, no matter how small it may seem at the time.

I'm actually not so blue.
The other day when I was at my head-shrink, he asked how things were going and how I felt. I told him that I felt better than I have in a long time, which is very true. He was a little dissapointed because he's doing something on TV about holiday depression and, well, I just wasn't going to be giving him any material to work with this year. Actually, we had a laugh about that.
Oh, sure, at times I get a little down because it would be nice to have someone "special" during the holidays, but, mainly, I feel pretty good being single. As I told him, at least I'm not married to someone who consistantly makes my life miserable at the holidays anymore! Though, I have to admit, in the past, before I suffered through that, I always hoped to have someone with whom to share my joy of this season. Girls get to say things like "Always a bridesmaid and never a bride" and give a sad, little laugh, but men don't have any cute quips to toss out about that. When we're single, though all our friends seem to be in relationships, we're just, well, single.
In any case, even though I won't be decorating this year at all, the holidays just aren't depressing to me. I think everyone around me expects me to be all doom and gloom, because of how my ex-wife left me last year about this time. Actually, she took the only working car, grabbed her daughter and ran while I was in the shower. No note, no phone message, no nothing. Just cut and ran. That was a little hard to deal with, last year. And, yes, last year was terrible for me. I contemplated suicide more than one, but, in the end, I didn't "play solitare with a pearl-handled deck", as Mr. Zevon would say, because that would have meant she won. I couldn't have that, now could I? And, maybe that's why this year seems so effortless in comparison. What could be worse than that? Losing all my hopes and dreams in one afternoon, right before two family oriented events. Everything is up from there.
And, to me, that's what this season is all about. Change. Rebirth. All Fall the days have been getting shorter, the nights and darkness lasting longer, and it is this season, at the Winter Solstice, that the hours of light start to overtake the hours of darkness again. Literally a rebirth of light in the world. (This year, the solstice falls on December 21, by the way.) In fact, it's no accident that the early Christians chose that time of year to celebrate the birth of Christ. After all, the pagans they were trying to convert were already celebrating the rebirth of light, so, why not capitalize on that? Regardless of why or how it happened that way, this season has been about rebirth and renewal for me more than any other.
Every year, I get a new chance. A fresh start. Every year, I get a little hope that things can change. That I can change for the better.

I know this year has been tough on some of my readers. There's been loss and heart-ache and pain of all flavors. That can happen at any time of year, of course, but it seems to sting worse during this season, for whatever reason. With that, and two very special readers in mind, I whipped together a fun, little PERL-based web-app that I'd like to share with you all. It's the New Year's Resolution Generator. And, if mention of tequila and kissing strangers comes up more frequently that you might expect, all I can say is, I'm single and an eternal optimist!

Or, why can't Uncle Jim sleep?
Honestly, I wish I knew why I was up before the Sun, making coffee and eating oatmeal. I haven't had insomnia like this since the week before my ex-wife left, when things had become so unbearable that I was just waiting, begging, for that other shoe to drop. Just so that it would be over and done and the next thing could start. But, that's not why I can't sleep.
Is it my new roommate, Doc, throwing me off my stride? Maybe. Is it that my "faithful" dog is upstairs in the hallway outside Doc's room, instead of on the bed with me? Probably. I've gotten quite used to that little, brown dog sleeping with me.
Honestly, I don't know why I can't sleep. I slept fine on the couch before Doc got back from cleaning his old place. Not long enough, but, I guess, today we'll see how Uncle Jim can manage on two hours sleep. Well enough, I'd imagine. I've done it before and, though I'm not getting any younger, I'm still not so old that a couple of restless nights will kill me. In fact, I've pulled many a long night with little sleep in my IT career, often outlasting kids younger than I.
So, the coffee's done and I'm going to have a cup and a rare, early-morning smoke. (Hey, it's better than an "eye-opener"!)
In 24 hours, I'll be 37 years old.