If there are typing mistakes in this entry it is because I am typing it with my fingers crossed :-)

It is looking like we will be having a second night in a row without media errors. This is a major improvement as we have been having multiple media errors every night. It is very possible that we might have finally solved our media problem (hence the finger crossing and wood knocking as well [just to be safe]).

I went to a Gospel choir rehearsal tonight. The church's music director had asked my younger daughter and I to come and try it out; so we did. I guess the jury is still out as to whether I liked it or not. I would guess that a good part of it is because I have never been in a choir where no sheet music and/or words are handed out. Everything needs to be memorized. I have never really memorized any of the music since I always had the sheet music to fall back on. I was telling my daughter (whomever would listen actually) that I probably will go back just to see how much of it I remember. I also wonder how much the fact that I was learning the baritone part to all the songs in one night might have to do with me not having loads of fun.

So this did not leave a lot of time at home, but we did manage to have dinner together after we came back from the practice. Nothing planned for tomorrow night except for a quiet night at home.

Good night!

Why is it that we see/hear something really good we go "I wish I could do that..."? The reason I mention this is that I was reading the blog of Wil Wheaton today. His blog entry today was basically about burning a grilled cheese sandwich. But he made it sound so interesting. He is obviously a talented writer. So when I read that and compared my blog to his I thought the saying above.

I really have to stop myself from trying to do the work of two people. My co-worker is on vacation and I am trying to cover her job as well as mine so I have found myself staying at the office late the last couple of days. And I do not like that. It should not be my problem that my department is under staffed and that someone going away cannot be covered by those that remain behind. I guess the "problem" is that I take pride in our group offering a great service and I cannot stand it when things don't get done. But I guess there is a point to be made. I just hate that it is our customers that suffer.

Another quiet night at home. Or maybe I should say that it finally is a quiet night at home. I haven't had enough of those lately. It is nice to be able to relax.

Good night!

I had to get up at 5:30am so that I could send an email confirming the successful completion of a backup so that work on a server could go ahead. Not my idea of fun. At least I made it worth my while. Since I was going to be up that early, I had also arranged to make the changes to the network connections of one of our master servers. We want to have a direct connection to one of our customer's network - therefore bypassing their firewall - so that we can see if the backup throughput will increase. The investigating that has been done so far would seem to indicate that we should see an increase as the firewall was being overwhelmed.

Since I was working on powerpoint presentations until 2am last night, you can surmise that I did not get much sleep: 2:30-5:30, and then 7:00-9:00. Definitely not anywhere near as much sleep as I should get; ideally I should be sleeping about 8 hours a night. I think I am averaging about 6.5 since I have gone back to work.

I did get a chance to spend some quality time with the other members of the family here in town (um, kind of a Duh! statement there). We don't usually spend a lot of time together so it was great to be together for a longer than usual time period. Hopefully we can do this some more on a regular basis.

Good night!

There is nothing like taking the elevator up with a co-worker on the way to my desk this morning and have her tell me that there was a problem with one of the backup servers. I would have hoped that I would be the one in the know since after all those are the servers I am looking after. But no, I had to hear it from her first.

Which of course reminded me that I had received an email last night on my Blackberry about core file problems on that very server. But since I received the email during a meeting I was attending, by the time I got home I had forgotten all about it.

Turns out that the external disk storage that master server uses, a Sun SE3310, decided to reboot itself and therefore the server lost connectivity with the disk. Murphy was certainly fully involved with this problem as it happened mere minutes after the last of the staff had left for the day and remained unnoticed until I came in 13.5 hours later. Needless to say (but again I will say it anyway) none of the backups ran last night.

Yet another night where there was little at home time as tonight was choir practice. I do not remember the last time where I have had a week with 3 evenings filled with meetings. Here's hoping for a quieter week next week!

Good night!

This is somewhat of a conundrum: how to do my work, keep up with my co-worker's stuff, all without spending all of my time at work. So far I have not been able to do it. And since I am not going to spend all my time at work, I am unable to keep up. I will have to see how much stuff I can delegate to the other members of the team.

Not much else has happened as I spent a good part of the evening in a meeting. That does not leave much time for just relaxing. Oh well, there's always tomorrow.

Good night!

Okay so I really have been back at work for over a week now. But last week did not really count as I was on course in Vancouver for part of the week. This week is therefore the first week where I am back at the office in about 5 weeks. Needless to say, there is quite a bit of catching up to do. I do think, however, that I am slowly but surely getting a grip on things and I can start making sense of them.

We have been having trouble with media errors on the drives of one of our tape robots. We have been trying to solve that problem for at least a couple of months now. I was disappointed to find out that the problem still existed when I came back from vacation, but we will see if we can make some progress while my co-worker is on vacation herself.

I have been playing with yet another web calendar: 30 Boxes. It is a calendar that allows you to, as they say on their web site, organize, track and share you appointments/events. It would appear to work best if you share with others that belong to 30 Boxes, but it is possible to share a list of appointments to people that are not members. I have not yet tried it however.

Good night!

Since last I wrote, I have traveled to Naramata to visit my older daughter and I have also traveled to Vancouver to attend a course for work. So it has been a hectic time for the last week and a half. But I think mostly it was adjusting to going back to work that caused the lapse in posting.

I was trying to do as many things at home as I was doing while I was on vacation, but now with working full days. Needless to say, not everything fit. And it would appear that blogging is one of the things that got dropped. Hopefully this is the start of a consistent updating of my blog.

Good night!

As I mentioned earlier, I am on vacation which means that I am doing as little as possible. I must say I have been pretty successful at it. I did go to a meeting at church last night, so I guess I am doing something.

We will be having lunch/dinner with friends the next couple of days so I guess the days of doing nothing are pretty much over. Of course sitting at a table or sitting in front of the computer - it is still just sitting. So how bad can it be...

We are also slowly but surely getting ready to go visit our older daughter in the interior of BC. The long drive there and back should be a flashback to the great trek; but the fact that this time we will be able to spell each other driving will make it much easier on each of us.

Good night!

I have been on vacation ever since we completed the great trek - and will be until the end of next week. While I am on vacation, I have done very little but sleep a lot more than usual and take my daughter to her work (at 5:35am every morning). The one thing we have done is send the money Transport Canada required for the minivan we brought back into the country. My wife inherited the minivan her parents were using. There is a $209 fee ($224 in Quebec) to import a vehicle - go figure.

Not a whole lot else happened. I have been looking around for headphones as I lost the ones that came with my Nano during the great trek. I am thinking right now that I will just use the ones I have from my old MP3 player. One benefit of that is that it is no longer as obvious that I have an iPod - as it is usually the case when you have those easily recognizable white headphones.

Good night!

My new birth certificate has arrived! It took over 5 weeks to get here, and the main reason why I ordered it has come and gone (I needed to renew my passport as I was going to need it to go to the States for my mother-in-law's funeral). The fact that my passport has expired is still true, so I do need to get a new one anyway - it's just that the urgency has gone.

Today was another rest day. Went to bed at 1am and did not get out of bed until noon (with a 35 minutes jaunt out of bed at 5:25am to take my daughter to work). The only real work I have done today is getting extra keys made for the front door. We had to replace the lock as I had broken my key in the old lock - made it impossible for anyone but me to lock/unlock the door - kind of inconvenient for everyone.

For the rest of the time I pretty much vegetated in front of the computer. And that is where I am still right now. And I really should be in bed as I still have to get up a 5:25am (reason explained above) so I better sign off.

Good night!