Happy Hour Surprise

Happy hour Friday night was kinda fun... Peter & Carlos couldn't make it and Kent was in West Virginia, but Jerry, Andy, Jimmy, Jeff and Steve were all in attendance. Small, but intimate. Shortly after 8 PM, we collectively headed out for dinner across the street and they sprang a surprise on me after the entrees.

Our happy hour crowd has coordinated activities via e-mail from a majordomo mailing list of about 50 addresses housed on my Linux box for the past 7-8 years now. It's a simple little function which requires practically no maintenance on my part but we use it to discuss issues of the day, as well as which bar and/or restaurant to terrorize on a Friday evening.

In gratitude for the years of service, the boys presented me with a thank you card, a gift card for Borders book store for $50 and a handful of Coffee Crisp chocolate bars!

Thanks guys!

Happy Hour Surprise

Happy hour Friday night was kinda fun... Peter & Carlos couldn't make it and Kent was in West Virginia, but Jerry, Andy, Jimmy, Jeff and Steve were all in attendance. Small, but intimate. Shortly after 8 PM, we collectively headed out for dinner across the street and they sprang a surprise on me after the entrees.

Our happy hour crowd has coordinated activities via e-mail from a majordomo mailing list of about 50 addresses housed on my Linux box for the past 7-8 years now. It's a simple little function which requires practically no maintenance on my part but we use it to discuss issues of the day, as well as which bar and/or restaurant to terrorize on a Friday evening.

In gratitude for the years of service, the boys presented me with a thank you card, a gift card for Borders book store for $50 and a handful of Coffee Crisp chocolate bars!

Thanks guys!

At Work

Our disaster recovery exercise continues.

Since 1 PM, I've been in the Urbana, MD, data center, in my usual cube. As expected, the dual-side production architecture of my business group dealt with the "disaster" at the Reston data center seamlessly. At the appointed time, we flipped the switches and the network load balancers redirected all traffic appropriately.

Not all business groups within the corporation are so resilient, however. Some applications which are cared for by other teams of UNIX admins have experienced issues ranging from trivial to complete collapse. I get the vicarious thrill of listening to these problems and the quest for solutions by sitting in on conference calls, looking for opportunities to provide assistance. It's unfortunate some folks had such difficulties, but I guess this is ultimately why we do these annual exercises. I've been keeping myself busy by writing up further standards & policies which are due by the end of the year. Whee.

At 5 PM EST, we declared the "disaster" in Reston to be complete and are now restoring full dual-site functionality. Again, my business group did the fail-back within minutes and have spent the balance of the hour merely conducting tests to confirm all is well.

Did I mention the office is feeding us? I have a large plate of broccoli and chicken in my cube now, accompanied by an even larger plate of cookies, brownies and lemon squares, all washed down with Coke Classic. It ain't great food but the price is right.

I wish I was at various Halloween parties than at the office though.

At Work

Our disaster recovery exercise continues.

Since 1 PM, I've been in the Urbana, MD, data center, in my usual cube. As expected, the dual-side production architecture of my business group dealt with the "disaster" at the Reston data center seamlessly. At the appointed time, we flipped the switches and the network load balancers redirected all traffic appropriately.

Not all business groups within the corporation are so resilient, however. Some applications which are cared for by other teams of UNIX admins have experienced issues ranging from trivial to complete collapse. I get the vicarious thrill of listening to these problems and the quest for solutions by sitting in on conference calls, looking for opportunities to provide assistance. It's unfortunate some folks had such difficulties, but I guess this is ultimately why we do these annual exercises. I've been keeping myself busy by writing up further standards & policies which are due by the end of the year. Whee.

At 5 PM EST, we declared the "disaster" in Reston to be complete and are now restoring full dual-site functionality. Again, my business group did the fail-back within minutes and have spent the balance of the hour merely conducting tests to confirm all is well.

Did I mention the office is feeding us? I have a large plate of broccoli and chicken in my cube now, accompanied by an even larger plate of cookies, brownies and lemon squares, all washed down with Coke Classic. It ain't great food but the price is right.

I wish I was at various Halloween parties than at the office though.