Tag Archives: work

I don’t have it bad, at all

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I went to work for my first full day in a week and a half today. Mark all Read was my email buddy, and the voice mails also had emails covering the same topic1.

I also found out that one coworker’s mother had passed away while I was out; another has a 4-year daughter with a congenital heart defect. The little one had some kind of heart-related distress, and she’s now in Children’s Hospital. Both her parents have recently relocated to NoVA, which has to add additional stress.

So, I can’t complain about a thing; MLB is getting better by the day. The adjustments I’ve made to my personal little daily routines to help her out are piddling indeed.

-k-

1 Why do people both call and send email for the same thing?

Knowledge is Good

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It looks as though plans are coming together for me to spend some time at the Red Hat Mothership in Raleigh NC next month.

A couple of days’ worth of technology refresh presentations will be followed up with a week of book learnin’ in RH423 Red Hat Enterprise Directory Services and Authentication.

Use what you know, learn what you don’t; that’s my motto.

I also hope the Harris-Teeter behind the 5 story LaQuinta is well stocked with Shiner that week.

-k-

Just Missed Seeing Him

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I’ve been going to work late every day this week; I’m tired, my chest aches, I alternate between chills and feeling overly warm, and I just can’t answer the bell at 5:15 AM this week. I don’t like going in late; finding parking can be a challenge. Hence, for three days, I’ve tried to get in between 11:30 and noon, hoping to get a spot occupied by some hapless soul who was driving somewhere for lunch. That’s worked well, so far.

I worked 5.5 hours Monday, 6,5 on Tuesday, and 7.5 today. I’d like to say that’s because I’m feeling so much better; the truth is that I’m trying to rid my plate of some dreary crap tasks, so I can get on to interesting stuff. That part has not gone so well; the Solaris 10, 10-08 rendition of SMF has bowled me over for several days now; something has subtly changed in the way manifests are imported and services made active, and my old way of doing things just doesn’t work like it did. So, I’ve been tweaking, generating new flash archives, googling like there’s no tomorrow, and coming up empty. I still believe my stubborn Unix wankerishness will prevail.

But, I digress. Today, I left earlier, planning to get to work about 11:30, give or take. I was getting close to Cubesville, when I saw a boatload of black SUVs, blue lights flashing. Then, 8 or so motorcycle-with-sidecar riders from the Fairfax County police pulled out, with their blue lights flashing. I saw another half dozen or so cycles as I passed the intersection. Having ruled out my worst fear, that there had been an accident that would leave me thumb up for a good long time, I then wondered which potentate warranted such a display by Fairfax County’s finest.

A quick search revealed that Number 44, BH Obama his ownself, had made an appearance with Virginia Governor Tim Kaine at a road construction site, wherein they both expressed their certaintude that the Stimulus Spending Porkulus Bill was gonna keep people at work, and Northern Virginia traffic flowing.

I may have had second thoughts about the traffic flowing part, had I been a few minutes earlier or later coming through there.

Still, I about got to see him. The limo, anyhow.

-k-

Yet another Short Week

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I could most assuredly get used to a 4-day work week. I have tomorrow off, having booked that before the start of the Search for America Tour.

Another day of R&R, tending to some tasks around the homestead. Sounds good, even if the tasks involve sleeping in, followed by a nap.

Great! And with 102+ hours still left in the time off pool. Enough for Bundy FunDays, coming in April. And a still-to-be-planned Search for America Tour.

A very nice thing about longevity on a job, is that days off accumulate like old magazines. Sweet!

-k-

It wasn’t that much of a Pisser

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I had an at-work meeting scheduled for tomorrow. For whatever reason, they rolled the date back to 12/5. The email announcing the schedule change contained the following line:

Sorry for any incontinence.

While I realize that the phrase was doubtless an inadvertent Bushism, really, I’m not that upset. Really.

-k-

Four Day Weekends

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Loving me some November. Veteran’s Day is on Tuesday this year, so I’m taking off tomorrow. Bing! A four day weekend.

And, the Friday after Thanksgiving has been a traditional day off since the early 80′s, when my job involved 100% travel. The post Turkey Day holiday was then spent, ahem, Doing paperwork. In all honesty, the “paperwork” in those days consisted of peeling off labels from Rhinelander long necks. After the first year of that, I dropped the pretense, and just said “I’m off”. And I’ve taken Black Friday off since then.

Ahh, November, the month of two four-day weekends.

-k-

Amongst Greatness

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Being a geek for hire has its rewards. Sometimes. these rewards include meeting luminaries in the Open Source Community. Last week, I had the distinct pleasure of meeting two such folk.

On Tuesday, I shook the hand of Paul Frields , current chairman of the Fedora Project Board. In just the few short minutes I spent talking with Paul, his passion for Open Source and the communities it has fostered became clear. Talking with him crystallized the notion that Fedora, far from being an I installed it on my old 386 in the basement, d00dz! And it roxx0rs! project, is actually a proving ground for new ideas, new applications, many of which wind up appearing in a Red Hat release near you. I wouldn’t stand up a full datacenter’s worth of Fedora servers; at home, I run nothing but Fedora. I like seeing what’s ahead, and I want to get as much of a leg up as I can. And much of what I learn from Fedora gets plowed back into my RHEL-centric workday life. Paul also told me how to pass the proper kernel option to see Fedora’s magnificent Plymouth graphical boot screen in all its glory.

On the next day starting with “T”, Thursday, I met with and attended a presentation by Dan Walsh, SELinux guru. Dan’s almost two-hour presentation, done without slides, overhead projectors and other such mainstream trappings, consisted of him standing in front of a whiteboard, explaining the workings of SELinux, its history, what went right, what went wrong, and where it’s headed. His knowledge was encyclopedic, his passion obvious. I remembered my college days, wherein I hung on every word of a revered professor. I especially enjoyed his including us in his comment, “We’re all a bunch of Unix graybeards here”. Truth hurts, sometimes.

If there’s a common thread here, both Paul and Dan exuded passion for their work, for wanting people to know about their work, and for soliciting input. That passion extends to “If there’s something you want to discuss, e-mail me. Ping me on IRC.”

Thanks to you both. For all my years as a sysadmin, I feel like a total neophyte sometimes. In a run what you brung world, I hope I brung enough.
-k-

‘Twas Ever Thus

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Via mail-o-gram from a coworker, this timeless classic, which I’d seen and forgotten. Another good use of a blog in as a repository for such things. So, here we go:

The Plan

In the beginning there was a plan. Then came the assumptions. The plan
was without substance. The assumptions were without form. Darkness was
upon the face of the workers.

And they spoke amongst themselves saying: “It is a crock of shit and
it stinketh!”

And the workers went unto their Supervisors and said: “It is a pail
of dung and none may abide the odour thereof!”

And the Supervisors went unto their Managers saying: “It is a
container of excrement and it is very strong, Such that none may
abide by it!”

And the Managers went unto the Management Committee saying: “It is a
vessel of fertilizer and none may abide its strength!”

And the Management Committee spoke amongst itself saying unto one
another: “It contains that which aids plant growth and it is very strong!”

And the Management Committee gave counsel unto the Vice Presidents
saying unto them: “It promotes growth and it is very powerful!”

And the Vice Presidents went unto the President saying unto him: “This new plan will activily promote the growth and vigour of the company with powerful effects!”

And the President looked upon the plan and saw that it was good. And
so the plan became policy.

And that’s how shit happens.

This is so true, it’s frightening. I see it play out daily. The King James Version cited above almost makes it poetic though, eh?

-k-

Same Gig, New Digs

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My company’s promises to me after we decided to remain in Northern Virginia came true today, as I relocated to another building immediately adjacent to the fire trap facility where I’ve spent the last 5+ years.

I’m still doing pretty much the same work, which is cool. We’re not particularly title conscious where I work; you can either get it done, or not. That’s how you are evaluated. I arbitrarily changed my e-mail sig from:

Sr. Unix Systems Administrator

to

Sr. Linux Systems Engineer

I’ll still kickstart a few systems, occasionally plumb up an ethernet interface or two, and do the “Other duties as required” that inevitably accompany any endeavor. And that’s all right too. But my primary responsibilities are, at this juncture, to script, package, and craft deployment and maintenance methodologies that impact a bunch of boxen. I call it, not to blow my horn too loudly, Being an admin to admins. I’ve engaged in many hand-to-server combat battles over the years, so I know some pitfalls first-hand. As the sheer number of servers, whether bare metal or virtual, increase, better methods are needed.

And I’ll work my ass off to help that effort. Reminds me of a Jerry Jeff Walker song, one line of which is

Don’t know why it is I do it
Guess there must be something to it
Gettin’ paid for doin’ something I’d be doin’ anyway.

And I still want to play that Honky Tonk Music.

-k-

Not Even a Classroom Day….

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Will deter tbbs-land from upgrading to the latest WordPress. We now are proudly powered by WP 2.6.2 after the upgrade.

A day in class is tiring; the course material voluminous and thorough, the instructor knowledgeable and enthusiastic, the class nearly full of people from various backgrounds and interests, the eats plentiful and good.

Today covered a lot of ground; some things I was sure I knew were reinforced, and others about which I didn’t know squat hit me between the eyes. I know now, for guesswork purposes, that every VMWare product is called V<verb> or V<noun>. That’s OK; marketers need their time in the spotlight as well.

This is the first time I’ve taken a class provided by a third party supplier; the only downside to this is the total lack of vendor schwag that one usually receives at training sessions such as this. I already have an ample supply of coffee mugs and mouse pads, so I guess that’s even all right.

This is my first exposure to VMWare in any in-depth fashion; so far, so good. I’m looking forward to the balance of the week.

-k-