Are We Having Fun Yet?

We survived the weekend in Rehoboth Beach, DE. Travel to Rehoboth is always a dodgy thing and it's not a place I enjoy, so I'm relieved we're done for another year.

My boss flew into town late last night to work in the data center. We'll be doing some long hours Tuesday, Wednesday & Thursday; he flies back to California Friday morning. I'm going to help on some of the network stuff, but my major tasks are:
- moving four Sun servers from the old cage to the new one;
- configure said servers;
- install 20 new servers (due to arrive any day now);
- install 4.8TB of RAM in the form of 16GB DIMMs. Half are replacements for 8GB DIMMs in 35 machines, the rest are upgrades to existing servers, taking them to 128GB of RAM each. It's overkill for what we need today but will give us serious room to grow for the next couple of years.

Come Thursday, Bill Eyler will be coming to stay chez nous as we shuttle him around to various square dance gigs in the greater DC area. The recent minivan engine trouble was worrisome but we're back on schedule now that the PrincessMobile is fully repaired.

Speaking of square dancing, I've submitted my availability for the Zig Zagger's calling schedule for 2017-18. I've also sent my preferences for slots at the upcoming IAGSDC event in Palm Springs, CA, although I don't expect to hear back on that for another month or so.

We de-winterized our trailer this weekend. Or rather, I did: Kent couldn't spare the time away from work after taking so much vacation time already this month, and Michael is scoping out Belize for possible future tours. Since we had the supplies from the trailer which were needed to de-winterize it, one of my household had to get there in order to allow our co-trailer trash, Jerry & David, to go there later in the spring. So here I am.

I left home about 6am Friday morning and drove like hell to get here with as little delay as possible. Around 11:30am, I pulled into the campground, unloaded our supplies & personal items, hooked up the trailer's electricity and propane, then activated our wifi so I could connect to the office. There was still the plumbing to work on, but that could wait.



In the early evening, after a productive day at the office, I was able to install the anode for the water heater, install the water filter, connect the water, flush the lines, then fill & start the water heater. All worked precisely as it should on the first attempt: no leaks, no line breaks, no issues. And in 15 minutes, I had plenty of hot water.

Friday was cool, especially after dusk, but the furnace was able to warm up the trailer quickly and a small electric heater was all that was needed to keep it comfortable. (The furnace gulps propane rapidly and is quite loud so the nearly silent electric heat is much preferred.)

From Friday night onwards, it has been relaxation. Yes, I logged into the office to tackle some things I either neglected from last week or to prepare for some major tasks this coming week. Still, I napped, I got some sun, I enjoyed the hottub, I went for walks, I listened to some audio books, I had some drinks down at the rec hall, and I napped some more.

The campground itself is sparsely populated this weekend. There's only one other trailer on Rose Hill open currently, and only a few in other areas of the campground; there were no more than six visitors staying in cabins. I think there may have been two dozen guys here all weekend long. Needless to say, there was no booming disco music or brightly lit sites so the sky watching was perfect so long as the clouds stayed away.

We usually try to stay a full week at Roseland for the week of Labour Day, but that's not possible this year: we'll be in England instead. We were also hoping to add the Memorial Day week to the calendar, but we've just learned we're going to be babysitting granddaughter Elodie for ten days immediately after Memorial Day so that's out. There might be another window at some point, but we have too much already on the calendar for the next couple of months.

I am happily relaxed. I need to hang onto that as much as possible in coming weeks.