After a day on the road and 1000 miles in one day I arrived in Manassas, VA. to meet my wife. She flew out on Sunday morning to teach classes in the VA / DC area. She is an educator for a manicure/pedicure line, and she teaches nail techs how to use them correctly. So Tuesday morning about 5:00 AM I hit I-4 out of Tampa Bay and over to I-95 north bound. Arrived Manassas about 8:00 PM. I was really glad to be out of the car by then. She then took me out to what I must say was the best BBQ I have had in a while in a place called "Red, Hot and Blue". Great sauces. If you can, you must try the vinegar and the Sweet sauce together.

Wednesday morning we both were officially off work. Sim had already scouted the area for things I might like to see. While Washington DC was only across the river, it was just too much for me to deal with the traffic and she knew it. So just about a 1/4 mile from the hotel was the Manassas battle field. What is it? This is where the first battle of the civil war was fought in a place called Bull Run. There's a flash back from history class.

After that we headed for Brick, NJ to see some old friends. Having a great time with them. However Terri's cat had to make an emergency trip to the vet's office and we are waiting not so patiently for test results. Tomorrow we are off for north NJ to see my nephew and his parents. The little guy is about 5 and smart as they come. I haven't ever had more then an hour or two with him since he was less then 1, so I am really looking forward to spending a few weeks with him. I also understand there are bears in the area so I brought along all the camera equipment. I will post pics later on my website. That's all for now. Nothing like a vacation to brighten things up. And too my surprise... no phone calls from the office yet, so that is the greatest gift yet.

l8rs all...

Meeting with the Boss?
after yesterday I am trying to get a meeting with the boss. I need to talk to him about yesterday and just what it is that he is expecting me to do. I am the IT manager with the boss/owners entire family working here in manager positions. I am the only IT person in the office and therefore technically a manager myself. But now he is calling and asking me about the other managers who are family as if I know what their projects are and the status of each one. Am I now their manager? Did I some how become responsible for the whole office? This and much more needs to be addressed with him. 2 year ago, when I got my last raise, the network was 12 compares and a server running Microsoft Small Business server. Today it is 7 RAID servers for a total storage of 9 there abouts, exchange server, web servers, terminal servers, Cisco routers, 2 T-1 lines, Ftp servers, etc... All this in just 2 years, and all with out training, other then me reading up on things as I grow. Yet no raise, and no "thank you"s. I have become the dark office at the end of the hallway. Something that you pass by on the way to the breakroom. An article that I read the other day stated that tech's are the forgotten if all is running well. But if we are needed to troulbeshoot, then we are the hated as we often have to tell the user that the trouble is them and not the computer, and just how could that be... Users never make mistakes. Just more of the morning ranting. Hopefully I will get in to see him today and throw some of the stress off my shoulders. I may be unemployed by day's end. Who knows, who cares... Either way the stress will be relieved some...

It's Wednesday and guess what?
A bird or squirrel gave up its life to screw mw over again. the new phone system is dead. Something fried itself on the power pole outside and caused a short. this lead to a induced static stike on the building to building line link. The biggest problem turned out to be a break in the building grounding cable. this means that all the surge protectors had no where to bleed off the over voltage. this means that the power spike entered the office via the phone lines and killed the PBX again. Thankfully our phone tech happened to think to check this while the power comapny was doing repairs. So all is well there. However a phone call from my booss during this time, in which I was berated has made me think seriously about leaving the company very soon. I mean I was ready this morning to leave. And if it wasn't for the need of a paycheck they would have been looking for a new network admin. I have 20 years in at the company and I get treated like the newbie whenever there is a crisis, yet some how I end up being the responsible one. How I get this over the boss's son or son-in-law is a mystery to me. maybe you can't blame family...

But enough of that for now. T-Minus 6 days and counting till vacation. its looking good too. the high was 68 there today witha low of 38. I am ready for that....

and welcome to Monday.
I arrived to a dead phone system. the PBX appearantly didn't survive the power outage. so the solution... call our phone service company and...
1) un-wire the lines out of the PBX and have people get cordless phones form home and bring in. This leads to my room not only being loud from the fans blowing in cool air, the servers drives spinning, but now I also have the ringing of the base units.
2) get a new PBX and have installed... this arrives about 12:30 PM and installation beginning
to give teh guy access I have to dismantle the comm corner so that he can get to the wall.
3) installation complete, now the programming of the system begins... 3:00 PM
4) testing of the programming and the signing of the agreement to pay...
5) go home to a few rum and cokes.

Mondays and good times....

Sunday is for sleeping... and I am learning to do it well... my wife is the greatest of teachers in this....

what can I say.. I'm not at work and all is well. Wife out getting her hair done and running errants. I'm in doors and cleaning house. not the perfect day , but not bad either.

did I mention that the now infamous Airborne package arrived with my Windows Mobile 2003 software... only 8 days late.. fo Airborne and 2nd day delivery...

Installed the new mobile 2003 on the Axim and then begin installing programs again as the mobile 2003 like any OS install on a Pocket PC erases the ROM and replaces it with the new. there does seem to be an increase in speed. soft reboots are much faster. I did have a glitch with Omega One, Journal Bar's interent access. I quick look at the default settings and I find an option unchecked... "do not disconnect after syncronizing". seems the Activesync disconnects the PPC after syncing with outlook, and this is the time that Journal Bar starts getting data. So now all is well.

what did I very do with out an Axim....

BTW: don;t even start playing Jawbreaker... you just can't quit playing....

TGIF my butt. Okay I had made it through the day and was out to dinner with my lovely wife when... My cell phone rings...
7:30 PM EST...
Security company calling, you have a power outage at your office... CRAP!!! I am third in line on the call list. This means that the owner and his son have been called at home and on cell phones and could not be reached. If they got me on the cell then they have called me at the condo already. My server will be toast before I get there. And as I hang up the cell the the food arrives... The Owner's son-in-law is put on the task of sorting out the power problem as he was an electrician before getting married and working for us... He calls the power company to check things out.. Hours pass... I call to see what is happening...
9:00 PM EST..
nothing from the power company...
10:00 PM EST
nothing from the power company...
11:00 PM
he calls back the power company and they say they where out at 9:30 but forgot to call him back. Everything to up to the power meter checks out, so the trouble must be inside...
11:30 PM...
in the car on the way to the office... My room is full of UPS units bleeping the tones of death. most of the servers had already crashed before the first phone got to me. I start shutting down the UPSs.
12:00
The son-in-law arrives.. We start checking out all the obvious causes... Nothing. Flip the main breaker off and on.. Nothing. Some outlets have full power, some no power, and worse, some have half power. The light glow an eerie low orange. Finally outside to the meter... Its digital and does not have a reading... Call the power company.. No this is not normal, the driver we sent out should have checked all the way to the meter, we'll send out another truck.
1:15 AM EST - Saturday morning....
the truck arrives the guy looks at the meter and then fires up the bucket truck and starts inspecting the transformer on the power.. Then the fuse links on serveral powers, then drives down the road using a spotlight to trace the wires... And finds the problem.. A palm tree two blocks away shorted one of the phases coming into the building., we are getting only two of three phases, hence the strange power in the building. He replaces the fuses and the power fully comes back on...
2:00 AM...
spin all the servers back up one by one. DC first and the the RAID servers, all 7 of them. Next the exchange server... And it will not boot. It has a config error and can only be fixed by going into the BIOS... But is will not see the KVM. Pull it from tea rack and fix. This time is boots and we have email again...
2:30 AM...
go home and die...

and that's how we have an IT night on the town...

TGIF to all reading this. Thankfully this week is drawing quickly to an end. Upside... The new RAID hardware design works nicely. Doing a RAID 5 build as I am writing this. Downside... Airborne still has not arrived with my package containing Mobile 2003 for my Axim... It now shipped 8 days ago via 2nd day air... Go Airborne...
So tonight a little rum, a little hypnotiq and a good meal with the wife. I've been married now for almost 8 years and still can't get enough of her. She's a very special girl to put up with a geek like me.

Build just finished so I must get onto the next phase. In two hours of formatting 2 terabyes will be added to the network. That should hold me for another 6 weeks...

Did I tell you that my Mom works where I do... She was hired here about 3 months ago. While she had been out of work for about 6 months, when asked if it was okay, I said "sure". Thinking that it would be this or her moving onto my couch in the near future, that this was the lesser of two evils. That was then, this is now. She arrived in my office as I was spinning up the network status scans. More of the in-office gossip..., more of the family gossip..., more of who passed her condo window..., she's been single far to long. To quote an 70/80s band Styx "Too much time on her hands". She's been single since the divorce back in 1973. Not that she would let her "control freak" personality down long enough to let a man get near her. Just another day in paradise... Florida = pay in sunshine not money. So in short, its going to be 90 again today and I may earn enough to afford a Big Mac... ;->

And lastly this morning,

For those of you that are wondering about the name "the MoleHole". My senior year I had one half a credit needed to Graduate. And that was the year they decided not one could graduate early... so I took my first not extra credit elective... Graphic Arts. I was already in love with photography, and this just made it worse. spent all my time in teh darkroom skipping any class that I did not need to graduate. after serveral hours in teh dark I would come out with squinted eyes and earned the nickname "MoleMan" and the darkroom became the "The MoleHole". and it has stuck to this day... though photography has taken a back seat to computers. more on where to see some of my photos on the web later. Right now the site is full of family shots and not "real" pics.

Have a good day all. We've made it pass the hump and are on teh slide down to the weekend.
besides it T-minus 14 days till vacation... the office is already sweating it, as I am the only IT person in teh building...

l8rs,

Moleman