Just once

Just once, for a day, or perhaps two, I’d like to sit people down in our seats and have them try to do the job we do. That includes the hundred little things a day behind the scenes that keeps intact their ability to get the latest forwarded LOLOMGBBQ!!!111!1 emails as well as keeps up the servers and the network. I’m well aware that the Internet now affords people an even easier ability and a larger stage to comment on things about which they know nothing – and make it appear that something rather complicated can be reduced to something that appears to be very simple. It’s still vastly irritating to respond to snarky comments masquerading as questions.

Keep ’em in the dark and feed ’em crap

That’s what you do with geeks who are low on the totem pole. Those of us who worked back in the day for a very, very large, and very, very well known  ISP but managed to escape know this well.

Know what else you keep in the dark and feed (pasteurized, inoculated) crap? That’s right.

Mushrooms!

One of my gifts for the holiday. The instructions there say not to open the kit prior to the date on the box. That was the 25th, as is happened, the very day it was given to me. Handy.

Opening the box

Not much to look at, is it? I’d always thought it would be cool to grow our own mushrooms. We probably go through more of them than the average family, and being able to harvest them when we want or as we need always seemed rather nifty.

Dirt

This is the base, which was moist and looked a bit like what you’d find in the bottom of a rabbit cage. But my friends, it smelled rich and loamy, the way I dream the soil outside for my gardening areas would smell were it something other than what mostly resembles beach sand.

Dry peat

On top of the base, in a separate package, was a bag of dry peat. The instructions said to pour a specific amount of water into this, mix it, and let it sit. So I did, for once, follow the instructions.

Mix

After allowing it to sit, then mixing it up well by hand, I had another batch of moist, rich material. Finally, the instructions said to spread this new  moist material on the base, and then give it a little raking with a fork.

Finally

The raking roughs up the surface so the mushrooms can take hold – akin to the way a patch of ground needs to be prepared for grass seed, really.

After doing all this, the box, as is, goes into a cool, dark place. After a week or so, the mushrooms are supposed to begin germinating, and after a few weeks, they should be large mature enough to harvest. Do we have any germinating mushrooms in my closet, ready to burst out and consume the populations of small towns?

Maybe.

The bacon chronicles

For a long time now, I’ve wanted to cure my own bacon. A lot of that desire came well before I lost the ability to consume bacon in amounts approaching a regular person’s consumption of it, but I can still gnaw on a small piece or two while everyone is chowing down like there is no tomorrow on a plate of fried porky goodness.

Finally, in the spirit of the new year and getting things done, here we go. The first thing we need is a decent sized piece of pork belly, skin on.

Check.

Pork bellies. I knew it. I knew it.

Next, the cure – and not the Robert Smith kind. Basic: salt, pink salt, brown sugar, and maple syrup.

The cure.

Is this not going to make some kickass bacon? Just look at it. You can tell its potential by a single glance, where this belly longs to be made into something even more glorious it is right now.

Potential

Rub your belly well with the cure.

Slathery

Bundle it up, and into the fridge it goes, turning every other day.

Ready to chill

In about a week, it should be ready to go on the smoker.

When I ordered the belly, I also ordered some back fat.

Back fat

Why, you ask, would anyone willingly order pork fat like this?

Destiny

One word: sausage.

Packed

Evening commute

Another trip to the NOC today. Unfortunately, during rush hour. But someone has to go and get the new cage prepped to move gear in, and since we keep tripping one of the big breakers to a circuit feeding multiple racks, the sooner that’s complete, the better. Yours truly gets to move 27 servers, a switch, and four PDUs from our overflow area. Yeeha.

Time for the drive home: the way west.

Heading home

I love this time of day, even if I don’t love the traffic.

Truck

Through the construction zone near the Road to Nowhere (more about that another time).

Crane

I love this. Amazing what you can get from an accidental shot.

Art

So you want to be a geek

Generally, being a geek is not a bad job, even with the snotty people or those who are intentionally obtuse (for instance, those who ignore, three times, the very direct statement “You do not have to make any changes.”). For the most part, people are happy that you’re there, and glad that you know how to repair whatever has gone horribly awry in their technical lives. They are pleasant, civil, and just regular human beings.

Some days, though, can be trying. If you’re thinking of a life in geekdom, let me give you one of those days.

Yesterday ended for me around 2 AM this morning, because my todo list is always rather ambitious and far exceeds the number of hours available in any given day. I signed off, went to bed, and tried to sleep, only to be awakened at around 4:30 AM by our remote server monitor, telling me that there was a vast and wideranging problem and that the servers were not accessible. Crawled out of bed, contacted the NOC, to find that my suspicions were correct: one of the master breakers had tripped, and taken down one of the buss lines, including the circuit where our router was located – for those of you who don’t entirely understand that, it means that although not all of our equipment had lost power, it was in fact entirely inaccessible since our gateway was affected by the abrupt loss of power.

The standby electrician was notified, and in the meantime I had the NOC guys reset the breaker to get things back up. This was done pretty quickly, and things came right back up with very little fuss. With the exception of three servers that suddenly decided their drives needed to be checked. And the exception of one server whose primary drive killed itself due to a power surge.

While we were awaiting the arrival of the electrician to replace the breaker with a spare, I headed to the NOC to address the three recalcitrant machines and the dying server. When I got there, the electrician was there, and unfortunately, they were not able to do the swap without taking out our circuit, so down it went again, for a minute or two for the swap. When things came back up, I took care of the three servers that needed disk checks, started on the one whose primary drive had failed due to the uncontrolled reboot, and discovered that another server’s primary drive didn’t like the bounces and decided to keel over, too. So, I took care of that one as well. Four and a half hours later, I left the NOC, to return to the HQ to finish the restores on the two servers that had their drives replaced – including the one where the primary drive was a mammoth 500G SATA2 drive that will certainly be going back to the manufacturer for a warranty replace as the server is only about two months old and the drive should be within the year they give.

Back at the HQ, I checked in with the staff and began the restores. By 5:30 PM, all the restores had been completed and all the little miscellaneous (non service impacting) issues had been addressed. While those restores were going on, I started on the next batch of kernel updates on about 120 machines, answered helpdesk tickets, had some coffee, and took a break just now to type up this post. My day will probably end once again around 2 AM tomorrow morning.

Most days are not like this, thankfully. But almost every geek will have one (or more) just like it. Keep that in mind when you’re pining away for a career change, and pick something simpler. Lion taming. Stunt work. Eating fire. Something like that.

It’s the thyyyymme…of the season…

Bad jokes. That’s why people come here, I know it.

The mini garden made it through the hard freezes without too much trouble (and some 4 mil plastic sheeting helped, too). I covered the garlic, the strawberries, and the snow peas, and left everything else to fend for itself.

The thyme, of course, made it through with nary a peep.

Thyme

I pulled one of the English pea pods, tried to feed a piece of it to the dogs, but neither of them were going for it. The peas themselves are not thriving, which is a little curious, but since several of them didn’t even germinate at all, not altogether surprising. The Italian replacements I dropped into the place of the duds not only germinated but made it through the serious freeze with no cover at all. If both sets come in, then we’ll have some tasty peas to shell.

Peas

I pulled the covers from the plants yesterday and they were a little limp, but perked up nicely after about 40 minutes of watering. It continues to bluff rain here, but we’ve not seen a drop. As we climb back into the 70s, maybe we’ll get a little luck in that area.

The next plan is to get the greenhouse up, or rig a test bed area with some hoops and plastic to try some hothouse items: sungold tomatoes – something you hardly find in the stores, as they are fragile and don’t ship well, but taste fantastic – peppers, and basil. This is Florida! It’s always the season to be growing.

Gears

I had big, big plans for the two acorn squash I had picked up at the store: Baked, stuffed with a wild rice mix, and served as a side to a couple of seared balsamic-glazed, bone-in pork chops.

Sometimes things just don’t work out that way. The menu I’m saving for another day. The squash, though, had to be dealt with before they melted into goo on the countertop. That would have taken awhile, but better to address that sooner (when the squash would still be tasty) rather than later (when there would be a rather icky cleanup duty involved).

First things first: gather the ingredients. I decided a honey-soy glaze would work.

Starting out

Cut into rings and remove the seeds. Since we are the composting types, the innards were saved for that.

Rings of gold

Off they go to a baking sheet, awaiting their fate. Since they look like gears, it was amusing to play with the rings on the sheet, interlocking them.

Lined up and ready to go

Sprinkle with salt and pepper.

Light seasoning

Into the oven they go. Every so often, I brushed them with a mixture of honey, soy, ginger, salt, pepper, and lime juice. I also stepped outside to watch the approach of the first cold front that was to bring the deeper cold front a day or so later.

Storm approaching

What a good dog, staying in the doorway as he was told! He’s a handsome devil, too.

Handsome devil

The squash is tender and ready for anyone who wants it. I did. Delicious.

Delicious