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Looking For Quacks In The Pavement

  • Can I get some “yay” action from ya?

    So let’s see…

    • I got the Cybex thing fixed, I think. Replacing one of the Receiver cards in Chassis 2 did the trick. Yay!
    • The streaming audio machines are installed in the rack and mostly hooked up. (I say “mostly” because there’s some audio and serial wiring that isn’t my responsibility.) Yay!
    • The email server hasn’t crashed yet. Yay!
    • I got to eat lunch out of the building and on the company dime. Yay!
    • I spent half of the day in meetings. Okay, so this one’s not really a “yay” but meetings are a good excuse not to have to do any real work.
    • I was gifted with a set of Logitech Z3 computer speakers for my office machine. Very, very Yay! (First thing I did was crank up some VAST to test ‘em out. Sweet.)

    The speakers sound a helluva lot better than the old Altec Lansing 2.1 set I’d been using, and are moderately stylish to boot. (Of course, I’m sure I can find a good use for the Altec set.)

    All this and I don’t have to work tomorrow (barring emergencies). Mega-Yay!

    On the “not-so-yay” side, I’ll probably be without my favorite gaming addiction for a week or so while I housesit for Mari and Doug. Ah well. There’s a megaton of anime I haven’t gotten around to watching ever since, well, the advent of the gaming addiction. So fear not, friends, for I’m sure I’ll be able to keep myself amused. Somehow. Heh.

    Geeky Side Note: This, folks, is entry number 1111. Bwahahaha.

  • Progress with Cybex

    We have almost 20 Cybex “chassis,” rack-mounted enclosures that can contain a variety of cards that do things like connect to a computer, provide a user station, or network to another chassis. Since yesterday morning, almost none of the interconnectivity has been working. That’s what I’ve been working on nigh-exclusively since I arrived, then.

    I just made some progress. I’ve isolated the problem.

    It’s not Chassis 5, and it’s not Chassis 7/16 (a split chassis, thus with two identification numbers). It’s either Chassis 2 or Chassis 1 (which only connects to the rest of the network via #2).

    Here’s how I got this far: I discovered that I could make a particular combination of inserted cards come up “green” on Chassis 5 (our main “routing hub” chassis), and that the trick to doing so was to leave out any card that connected in even a roundabout way to Chassis 7/16 (a secondary “routing hub” chassis). “Great, it must be in 7/16,” I thought.

    In trying to reproduce this success on 7/16, I discovered that the only way to get reliable results was to leave out the card that connects the 7-side of that 4080 to Chassis 2. So I pulled the two cards in #2 that talk to the rest of the system, and reinserted all of the non-Enco cards in both 7/16 and 5. Voila! I can reliably pull up machines across all of the Server-room side of the Cybex network, and my XPRB (basically my “console unit” card) can display inventory for any connected chassis. At this point we have a mostly-usable system for the first time in a couple of days.

    So now it’s just Chassis 1 and 2 that are isolated, and I need to figure out how to proceed from here… since isolating the problem doesn’t explain the problem itself.

    Hoo boy. At least I can say I did something valuable with my time today, eh?

  • You Know It’s A Bad Workday When…

    You know it’s a bad workday when your entire day consists of one mysterious, pervasive problem that even the product’s tech support gurus find baffling.

    Our Cybex system seems to have gone to lunch in a remarkable and confounding fashion. Users on a chassis can’t see any other chassis. Mouse and keyboard response are sluggish on some user stations. User stations blank out randomly, for minutes at a time. (This is a Very Bad Thing when the user station in question is, let’s say, the digital audio workstation for a given broadcast studio. Argh.) The diagnostic tools return random results. I’ve sent diagrams and spreadsheets to Avocent, and the reply I got back amounts to, “Damn, we’re stumped, but we’re working on it. We’ll call when we have something.”

    Meanwhile I’m tinkering and poking and fiddling, sending notes along to Avocent as I go, and basically hoping for that 4-o’clock miracle to save me from having to do this all again tomorrow.

    I love my job. I love my job. I love my job…

  • Not exactly a cheery holiday thought…

    I’ve always had a minor talent at turning a pithy phrase, and here’s what I came up with this morning:

    Most of the pain in our lives is built upon a foundation of “should haves.”

    I probably don’t need to illustrate this, but I’m feeling particularly emotionally grim today so I’m going to do it nonetheless. Let’s see… I should have realized right away that I have no business being married, let alone in a strictly monogamous relationship. I should have been a lot more patient and understanding with those noisy, demanding little creatures I helped to create. I should have done my homework back in school. I should have told the truth, about a lot of things. I should have stayed out of some disputes that I had no business arbitrating. I should have learned not to make promises too quickly. I should have trusted my ability to manage finances. I should have tried harder. I should have cared more.

    And so on, and so on. The “should haves” outnumber the “shouldn’t haves” by a considerable margin, actually. Maybe that’s a symptom of what kind of man I am. If so, then I can’t imagine what attraction or value I have, because apparently what I’m best at is not doing things. Feh.

    Gloomy thoughts for what’s supposed to be a romantic holiday, but that’s what I’ve got for you. May you and your loved ones be happier today than mine and I are this time around. Perhaps next year won’t be quite so damned grim.

  • You remember Led Zep, right?

    According to a little quiz I found at J-mo’s:

    You Are

    Tangerine

    You are a beautiful person, in a wistful kind of way. If you could, you would spend all your time daydreaming and writing poetry. You are a tragic beauty.

    You are sensitive and caring, and you don’t take insults well. You don’t smile much, but when you do, you really mean it.

    People like to be around you because you are a calming influence. You have an appreciation for all things beautiful, and you probably have some potted plants. You also most likely own a cat.

    You like Sundays and hot tea. You will spend your entire life yearning for quiet beauty, which is a rarity in this world, so you read a lot.

    Everyone you know thinks you’re “nice.”

    Take the Which Led Zeppelin Song Are You? Quiz

    It figures that I’d get one of the songs I’m not all that excited about, huh? Jen at least got When The Levee Breaks…

  • Alex, the Game Maker

    First, he made 3D animations. Then, he made AMVs. Now he’s taking on computer gaming itself.

    That’s right, my son Alexander has a copy of Game Maker. With it he can create platformers, shooters, driving games and probably any number of other game types besides. If he’s anywhere near as good at that as he has been at mastering Blender and video editing, we should have some interesting little games to show off here in a while.

    No, I’m not living vicariously through my son. I’m saving that for when he becomes rich and/or famous…

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