Date:	2007-06-01 14:05
Subject:	Moving my journal
Security:	Public
Mood:	aggravated

Fuck you SixApart. You can't be trusted, so I'm moving my journal off of LiveJournal.

http://weblog.jtn.us/

Local registration or OpenID allowed.

Date:	2007-03-18 22:28
Subject:	Home again
Security:	Public
Mood:	exhausted

I am back home, in Bloomington. Safe and sound, with male offspring. Sigh.

Notice to anyone who uses hindenburg for hosting (web/email):

The main drive is apparently unwell and possibly on the verge of failure. Please backup your data as soon as humanly possible to avoid data loss! I'll be replacing the drives as soon as possible, I'll use my LJ to keep everyone updated. Leave comments with questions if you have any.

Okay, hindenburg is back up and running again, this time in the Springfield Underground, specifically in SpringNet's colocation facility. Safe and sound and should be in no way harmed ever again by fire or whatever. It's currently sitting on a 50 Mb/s connection out to the Internet so it should be faster than the past by quite a bit. I'm still waiting for my CX registrar to update their NS records to point at the new IP addresses, so until then, the primary IP address for hindenburg is 64.22.253.158. Most webhosts are under 64.22.253.188, so if you host your website or whatever on hindenburg and also handle your own DNS, you will need to adjust your A records accordingly. Mail reception/delivery occurs at securemail.jtn.cx as usual, now 64.22.253.185. Most likely I will be changing IP addresses again sometime in the next two months when the new company I work for gets new portable IP space from ARIN. In the mean time, if your site is hosted with me and isn't working, and still shows up under the old 69.95.59.* subnet, please let me know.

Date:	2007-01-19 05:18
Subject:	Job related post blah blah blah
Security:	Public
Mood:	numb

I am suffering from some kind of insomnia, so I decided to write a journal entry. This post is about job-related stuff, mostly.

I finally switched jobs. RNet is in a death spiral, even if its owner is in a severe case of denial about it. I haven't heard from him since I last asked about my final paycheck which he refused to provide. Now I've had to engage the assistance of a lawyer to pursue this. I have a massive gap in pay now which has screwed me so badly that I have not the words to describe now upset I am. I alternate between pissed off and terrified now fairly often now. RNet has treated me very shabbily now for quite a while, but this recent twist is different. The owner has decided to put my children in jeopardy which brings it to a new level. I will bring a world of fucking hurt on his head if necessary. NEVER cross that line with me.

The new job is basically the same thing I've done in the ISP world; manage servers and services, design, develop, blah blah, same old thing; new environment, new boss, new co-workers. It's another startup, which I know I promised myself I would never do again, but.. what the hey. What's the worst that could happen? My life is already such a wondrous pile of crap, it really can't get much worse. The job site physically exists in Springfield Missouri, which is about 470 miles from Bloomington Indiana. I will not be required to BE there often, thankfully. I have already made the trip twice, each time for a week. The second trip was much longer than I anticipated due to complications brought on by an ice storm of epic (nay, biblical as the natives would say) proportions, the sight of which even long-time residents of the area could not compare any other winter storm to. Every surface was coated in a thick layer of ice. At some point, nearly the entire city was without power as thousands of power lines were snapped under the weight of the ice and ice-coated tree limbs.

My last trip was highly productive, as I got the new environment setup and accessible remotely. The only bits left are small administrative details and finalizing the network monitoring setup. However, both times, my string of bad luck did not fail me! First trip, my camera (bag, SD cards, card reader, etc) was stolen. I have determined this now as there is no way I could have LOST my camera, regardless of what some people think. Would I be so careless with something so expensive? Especially with a memory card FULL of pictures of my children dating back to Thanksgiving of 2006, including Christmas? I can often be scatterbrained, but to be so careless to lose that, I don't think so.

I am still grieving inside about this particular loss... I continue to remember things on the card that I never copied off thinking "I will do it later", never thinking that somebody would STEAL it! However, since I tend to internalize things of this nature and don't always externally express my grief as others do, it does not mean it means nothing to me. Yes, you know who you are. I'm tired, my brain is shot, I haven't slept well in months now, and I can't fall asleep tonight. Not everyone expresses there feelings the same way you do, and not everyone responds the same way you do to things.

You won't respond to this entry anyways, and I don't know if you even read this journal anymore, so I'm just venting and dumping now I suppose, in public. Exposing a little bit of my inner self to the world. Go me. There are those who have told me it is therapeutic, So earlier, I went back through some of my old email and things, just to see if I've invented some things I thought I knew, in my head. I went waaaaay back, relatively speaking. Depressing, there is no other word for it.

What's the word that means having two conflicting feelings at the same time? That would sum up how I'm feeling right now, other than tired, hurt, and wishing my brain would shut off so I could enjoy some sleep. I won't dream anything good or relaxing, but at least it would be sleep.

Date:	2006-12-11 22:41
Subject:	Apologies
Security:	Public
Mood:	depressed

I apologize to anyone wondering what's going on for my lack of socialness lately. I'm dealing with some stressful and honestly depressing events lately and I am not sure of how well I can keep up my traditional persona of optimism and general civility.

Date:	2006-11-17 19:00
Subject:	Dinner for the evening of 17 November 2006
Security:	Public
Mood:	blank

My feast:

• Fish sticks
  
• Corn (I hope there is some left in the freezer)
  
• Apple cider
  
• Perhaps apple pie for dessert
  

Date:	2006-11-16 14:03
Subject:	Rolling downhill
Security:	Public
Mood:	aggravated

Things just get better and better at work. Every few days now, the owner takes out of his "busy" day to give me little pep talks, mostly involving how things are going GREAT but really offering no explanation as to what IS so great. He will often also tell me about how much he appreciates all my hard work, blah blah.. all while I'm thinking "you often make a sport of throwing me under the bus to cover your own questionable decisions". Grrr.

I'm attending Thanksgiving with my family up in northern Indiana with my children. Work was gracious enough to let us have the Friday after Thanksgiving off, like the rest of the country, so I'm staying up there for all four days. The kids never get to see my side of the family due to.. whatever. There was always an excuse for not visiting, whatever. They have several cousins up there, older than them, but still... I hope to take a trip back east with them as well to visit my parents and so they can see their new first cousin in something other than pictures, probably sometime early next year. We'll see how that goes.

End of the week, trip to Indianapolis possibly for tasty beverages, then a relaxing (I hope) weekend. Still haven't decided where I'm going to take the kids, I have been looking online a bit today between doing bits of work.

Stupid place we went to for lunch at work today sucked. The food was good, when it finally arrived, almost an HOUR after we ordered! Grr. Scratch them off my list of places to eat in Martinsville, which is frustrating because there aren't that many places to eat to begin with. Before anyone even asks, no, I did not imbibe at lunch. I'm a good boy :)

Date:	2006-10-29 23:16
Subject:	My house smells of pumpkin guts
Security:	Public
Mood:	lethargic

Yesterday, I took the kids on an outting to the Freeman Family Farm just south of Bloomington. We visited the farm animals, took a ride on a tractor cart to a corn maze, then picked out one big and two little pumpkins. What follows is the link to the photographic evidence.

Pickin' Pumpkins

The last few pictures are of the results of gutting and slicing, filling my house with the stench of pumpkin bits and pieces. Eww slimey. At least we got some tasty roasted pumpkin seeds out of the deal too!

Date:	2006-10-27 18:02
Subject:	Disassembling POPs
Security:	Public
Mood:	pissed off

In the pouring rain, me and a field tech went down to our Spencer Indiana POP to shut it down, a week ahead of schedule. We put out a notice last week detailing instructions for dialing into the new service number for that area, stating that service would terminate on the 2nd of November.

This morning, I get an email from the owner telling me to go down there and take everything out of the office. Grrrr... so now we'll have hundreds of angry customers, along with the support people angry at me for taking down the POP early, whee! So we took everything out, except the plywood panel that AT&T installed their demarc equipment on (large Westel 8-slot smartjack chassis) because it's LEC demarc equipment, I don't want to touch it. We get back to Martinsville with all the other equipment, and the owner says to go back and get the plywood, just unscrew it from the wall and take the AT&T equipment with us, they can come get it from our office! GAH! Everything is so stupid.

The owner of the building we were in changed the locks, and started yelling at me because the RNet owner hasn't returned any of her calls and she's left a dozen or more voicemail on at least two seperate numbers. He didn't sign a new lease and possibly owes her several months of rent. I love getting in the middle of stupid disputes like that, just because the owner here refuses to deal with issues of his own creation.

Date:	2006-10-10 01:51
Subject:	Zoo trip
Security:	Public
Mood:	lethargic

Took the kids to the Indianapolis Zoo last Saturday. Here's the photographic evidence.

link to album

Date:	2006-10-06 23:58
Subject:	The end
Security:	Public
Mood:	crushed

Stacey, my wife, has asked for a divorce. I have no real details to relate other than that right now. Now comes the painful task of deciding how to deal with the million details that comes with the ending of a relationship of over seven years, one which created two children.

Date:	2006-09-26 19:46
Subject:	Return
Security:	Public
Mood:	irritated

I am back, and already I've almost exhausted all the relaxation I enjoyed last week. Work is being as frustrating as ever; I have to get the hell out of there. I just heard from one of my possible "parachutes" a little while ago who is going to move forward on his plan, just with a few slightly changed details. I have to give it some thought, as it involves a fairly important change in my life.

Date:	2006-09-17 17:44
Subject:	Arrival (late posting)
Security:	Public
Mood:	tired

I arrived around noon yesterday (Saturday) in the Manchester Airport after a rather annoying trip.

The plane leaving Indianapolis Airport was nearly empty, so I got my pick of good seats, and that's always nice on a cramped plane like a 737. I stretched out and relaxed and took a quick nap to augment my 3 hours of sleep the night before. When we landed in Baltimore, I found that the gate with my transfer flight to Manchester was at the other end of the terminal, so I started walking. I sat down for only a moment before armed TSA agents and state police started shouting at us to leave the terminal IMMEDIATELY, saying things like "this is not a drill" and "get out NOW, walk briskly, do not stop". So we all get shoved outside in the cold drizzle away from the building while we watch the TSA folk inside run around and talk on radios. After about 40 minutes, they have the terminal employees come back in, then 10 minutes later, the rest of us get to return to our gates. By now, my plane would be ready to leave, so I sprint back to my gate and get back in the line for entry. The plane waits about 15 minutes past initial departure time, then leaves, so I'm glad I sprinted down the sliding sidewalks. After an uneventful and bouncy 90 minute ride up the coast, we land at Manchester only 20 minutes late.

So I spent most of yesterday WORKING, my parents pressing me into service helping my sister and her husband move the last bits of their stuff out of my parents' house and storage locker into their new house with my dad's box truck. Heavy stuff, grr. My back is now hurting again, just when it was starting to feel better. Oh well. I'm bored now today waiting for my mother to return with dinner goods so we can have supper soon.

BTW, anyone who wants to hang out and do stuff while I'm here (other than on Thursday night), please let me know ASAP via cellphone (812-679-7215).

Edit: note, phone number has changed above.

Date:	2006-09-02 00:20
Subject:	The Hindenburg rises again, part 2
Security:	Public
Mood:	tired

Server is back up and in its new facility, safe and sound in Bloomington Indiana. The primary IP address is now 69.95.59.55 in case your local DNS server still has a bogus/old entry.

I've modified everyone's zone files on hindenburg itself, but anyone who has their own zones pointing at it will have to make some changes. Please <a href="mailto:jtn@jtn.cx>email me</a> if this applies to you, and I will give you your new IP address.

Date:	2006-08-31 18:01
Subject:	The Hindenburg rises again
Security:	Public
Mood:	relieved

I have just tested the SATA drives pulled from the deformed and scorched wreck of hindenburg, in a temporary replacement server, and after a quick fsck with NO errors, they MOUNTED and even appeared to have no crazy large blobs of missing files!

A miracle, or something. Probably because they were better protected than the other servers at my datacenter which did not fare so well, but this much alone is a huge weight lifted off my mind.

The drives will be mounted in a temporary server (AMD Sempron 2800+ with 512MB of RAM) until such time we put together a new server. I'm going to be putting the server in our Bloomington datacenter which is infinitely better protected than the old Martinsville building, as it houses a rather heavily populated Lucent 5ESS phone switch. However, depending on just how well RNet fares the next week or so, it might have to find a new home pretty quick.. we shall see.

Date:	2006-08-29 08:55
Subject:	Fire, act 2
Security:	Public
Mood:	tired

We were finally allowed into the building late yesterday afternoon. A few of the field techs worked to pull out all the servers in the building, along with some of the critical PC's as well from various offices. The drives in hindenburg look almost entirely unscathed except for a whiff of smoke that doesn't seem to want to go away. The rest of the system is pretty much a lost cause, too much crap fell into the case via the rear and the rest is caked in wet plaster, ceiling tile and other such nastiness.

I have the drives at home now, but I have no computers at home with SATA connections so later today, I am heading to Fry's to get a new SATA card and check the drives viability tonight.

Everyone cross their fingers...

Date:	2006-08-28 14:03
Subject:	Arson
Security:	Public
Mood:	enraged

It's official, it was arson.

Link to the local paper

Unfortunately, this could mean it will be a while before we are allowed into the wreckage to recover stuff. Fuck.

Date:	2006-08-27 16:43
Subject:	Fire
Security:	Public
Mood:	depressed

I got a call this morning from the owner of the company I work for saying that our office building was on fire. I said, are you joking? He said no, that the building is in flames and is out of control. There was a dilapidated building next to ours that has been vacant for years and hasn't even had electrical service in probably three years or more. It has been in a state of severe disrepair for as long as I've worked there, practically on the verge of falling over. The fire department said the fire started in there and spread to our building between the roof and attic floor. Why a fire would start there is beyond me. There was a bad storm in this area last night, but co-workers who live in Martinsville (where our office WAS) said there was no lightning except cloud-to-cloud stuff or strikes way off in the distance in the hills.

We still aren't allowed in the building, as per both the fire chief and the insurance adjuster, so assessing the damage is not easy. At first glance, it is a TOTAL loss. The fire burned hot and violently enough to blow open the large front window panes in our storefront and collapse the entire roof into the building. At least there is no basement for things to fall into.. some small consolation. My office is unrecognizable, and so are all the other spaces in the building including the server room. We can make out the white cabinets that some of the servers are housed in, and they look okay, so I'm hoping the hard drives are salvageable even if the rest of the hardware was not. The fire department was nice enough to cut the building power as soon as they saw that the fire was inside the walls, so hopefully nothing got screwed up too badly except perhaps water and smoke damage.

Unfortunately this also means hindenburg, the server myself and several other friends use for email, web and other storage, was involved in the conflagration. If the hard drives in hindenburg were damaged, I've lost a decade of a large part of my life; emails, web pages, documents, scribblings/ramblings, and my entire photo gallery including hundreds and hundreds of pictures going back to Simon's birth, Molly's birth, and everything between then and now. So much for thinking that storing such a server at my office would be safer than at my house... I would also like to apologize to everyone else who uses hindenburg and may have lost data as well. Should the drive be salavaged, an immediate image will be made of the disk onto an identical disk and stored off-site, most likely to be used as a form of online backup in a seperate datacenter, just like what should be done with my work stuff.

Based on what the fireman that went in on my request said, the equipment stored in the racks and cabinets looks to be okay, except for those stored within two feet of the floor as they would have been sitting in standing water for several hours. When I left today at 4pm EDT, the building was still smoking and they were moving the ladder pump truck around to the front to hose down some more hot spots (thankfully opposite corner from the server room).

Of course we had backups, but unfortunately, all the online backups were stored in the same facility. I am completely unaware of the state of the financial and billing information, as that is beyond the boundries of my employment. I setup backups to be made to tape which used to be removed every morning and taken off-site to the owner's house, but I have no idea if anyone stuck to this. Requests have been made in the past to establish fast enough links and a seperate dedicated online backup server in a remote datacenter but were still not done and of course, is now too late. It is on my list of requirements as we rebuild. I told them that NO critical services would be allowed to be housed in Martinsville ever again unless the facility was built to modern datacenter standards.

Tomorrow is going to suck. The majority of our hi-cap customers won't really notice much, as they typically don't use us for email or web storage, and the majority of them are not hosted out of the Martinsville datacenter; however, our dialup customers and those who DO host their virtual web and email with us are going to be in for a very unpleasant surprise tomorrow morning. For now, I have to get back to moving our technical support lines to forward to our office in Springfield MO to handle the tier 2 calls until our new office can be established.