Archive for October, 2006
This morning started off rough, few misc. moments of fear, a few points there where I thought “Oh Geeze!” and things just seemed to sort of pile up, a client complaint, a client who didn’t understand “re-occuring billing” - just a few things I really let get to me, and the one joy with sharing a house with a pastor (aka my dad) is that he peeks in now and again and knows when things are crazy.
Once things cooled down we got to talking, and one thing that came up as we talked out what was going on in our lives was a typical thing I hear from folks, both Christian & Non-Christian - “How could you!? I thought you were a CHRISTIAN!!!!” a classic line, I have heard it from the non-believer a lot in business dealings “So that’s how your going to play it? *insert line here*” and it was on something simple like a business choice, a call I made, standing my ground and not just letting a bill ($100+) slide under the table, because that’s what Jesus would do.
But getting it from other Christians is just plain sad. As Christians we should be compassionate, caring, friendly, and great talkers at parties - but it never said we had to be a coward and give to every whim someone has to somehow PROOVE we are a good christian - all were doing is letting someone other than Christ control our actions/life.
I admit, there are times God’s just nudged “Just do that, walk away” and I have followed, heck there have been times I have known and done the oppisite (my Jonah Complex), only to pay the price, but Christian isn’t some greek work that translates into “Floor Mat” - I have let it though in my time, working for CMCentral.com I think sometimes I said “Yes” a lot to go above and beyond, be a blessing, and stand in the gap if something was lacking, and to Mike Janke, I would like to publically say “Sorry for stepping on your toes” - Mike was a new senior editor, trying to work the forums, and I sort of stepped in, and pushed a bit, may not of seemed like it to Mike, but I do feel bad about it - but I look back at my time @ CMC and really see where I could of, and should of, said NO - and if meant I wasn’t good enough to work for the site, walked away and never looked back - not that CMC ever DEMANDED it of me, but rather never stopped me from doing it as it benefited them, but in the end - twas my choice.
But there in lies what some say is a “awesome spirit of giving” and others say is my “greatest weakness” - I tend to give myself to something fully, 192.4% (I know that’s not a real precentage) - and just really give all I could, like my time at JesusShack here in town, went, and went, and went, and it took me unplugging overheated PC’s and placing them in the middle of a room to cool off for the night to have a “talk” with the head hancho, and decide it was time to go, was it a pretty phone call to get when they found the PC’s in the morning unplugged? No - but it really pushed me to move on.
What am I saying? Well if your a believer, your a Child of the King, your royalty, and you can use the blessing the Lord gives you (time, talents, treasures) to better things, but beware of those who would abuse those 3T’s (copyright Ron Brown 1998-2006) for their own uses, and until your exhausted, because in my experience, 9/10 after you put your foot down and say no, or your too tired to be useful, you are thrown away, and that’s a sad way to be treated as a human in general.
So take off that “I’m a Floormat” sign from your forehead, and use your time wisely, and learn to say “No”, it may be hard and you may think your letting someone down, but it can lead you to what God would truly have for you in your life, and if that person can’t understand the boundry of Ministry vs Business, Friendship vs Slave Labor, then maybe it’s time to re-evaluate that relationship anyway.
One of the few side effects to long nights, early mornings, is getting worn out, and “SUPRISE!” it happened, yesterday I was dead, couldn’t think, couldn’t operate, couldn’t do much - had some mid-day glitches/scares as at first I thought someone got into one of my accounts, only to look at logs and note that my mac was made screwy by .Mac’s backup system, somehow the timing screwed up the password stored for my email, and in turn delayed the usual check, looked through all logs, all systems, server was clean, .Mac backup revealed it backed up “MORE” files than usual, which made it time out things, and hold up Mac Mail - this Mac has been a touch on the buggy side lately.
But life goes on, slept from 12 to 3 from 5 to 12, and have been awake for 3 playing with new options for billing systems, and so far, no go 
even though I enjoy this billing system since ALL the scripts are encoded with IONCUBE (yes, even the import script) I am stuck at the mercy of the developer, I understand the desire to keep one’s work secure, and not picked apart by competitors, but if I could just see how he worked this, I could probably drop in some tweaks - might just need to write my own I suppose.
Other things I suppose I could say, but the ol brain is getting tired, which is a good sign, granted I am craving food (Chicken Noodle or Breakfast Biscuts from Jack-In-The-Box) - I think I am going to give the bed another wack and see how it goes. Night folks, prayers appriciated, hopefully with them today I can at least be mildly human.
So much to do, so little time, so little sleep, and yet, the pile grows vs. goes down. For 3 days a server software glitch held me at bay, another on a SINGLE SERVER holds up stats for a large group of clients - I am awake at nearly 5am - trying to amp-down some, did for dinner, then things perk’d up, and now its all winding down again, servers are all updated minus 1, but even that will get patched up this weekend.
Sometimes I wish I had a 9-5 job, granted I love the freedoms I get now and again with my own business, but at the same time, its 4:35am, and there’s no one to talk to - apparently the rest of the world sleeps now and again 
- but all in all, so far this week has been promising, I am not going to let myself get down on it, I am calling AGAIN on my car today, as the engine light persists, evaluating a new billing system which could save me some a month, offer some fair features, and intergrates with cPanel in the realm of suspending accounts on lack of payment, upgrades, downgrades, etc. Just need some more real-live time with it, but it seems good.
But I just wish some of this was going faster, that in the hours I work, I got a TON done, vs. SOME done, but such is life, such is the downside to working on little sleep, great ideas, but the energy to get them implimented. So I guess its time to crash out for a while, hopefully a few hours of sleep will do me good, some server work with Kman tomorrow, some discussion on the office with Ron, and who knows, maybe I’ll get my sleep schedule back on track (hey, it could happen!) - prayers are appriciated, folks, definately could use em.
Night.
Well what was once lost, has now been found:
It was under my chair at the office - or possibly inside the chair, not sure, but I was feeling inside the chair today when I ran out to reboot a server, and when I was walking back towards the desk to check on the box, I saw it! So YAY!
Today’s been a lazy day, which is nice, had some work, and a pending issue on hand, but such is the business sometimes I guess 
Though very excited about moving around servers, it would solve some issues on-hand currently, speed up some folks, give me a clean start, fresh OS on some of the older servers (1-2yrs old) as well as a range of upgrade options long term.
I am thinking of using my home workstation for a server at the office, and getting cPanel and such for it, and moving friends, freebies, and “deals” to, outlay for the project would mainly be software and a few friends (thanks guys) have already kicked down some funds, and a few promised after checks cleared etc. to chip in and help me cover costs - which is much appriciated.
I have been toying with the idea of finding a business frontman. What I mean is someone who is the figurehead for my company, the person who deals with customers directly, updates the website, pushes sales, etc. while I focus on the server end, making sure things line up, update, get rebooted, etc. - something I can really do from just about anywhere with my Treo + Laptop - which would allow me to travel some, and not bind me to a desk - the job would also include handling books, which need some serious love, they are not as bad as they were, but still, need to review about 100 accounts now to be fully completed in that audit.
Just been busy, busy, busy lately - as sad as it is, it was fun to setup a server and have kman attempt to stump me with an issue or two, a fun game but the game will soon spread to my servers, my thought is 2 massive FlockHosting Servers to be born (titus and faith) which will handle a majority of the serving, with a smaller celeron/duron (of which I have one of both currently) re-imaged and fresh to handle primary DNS & mainly just FH/TN/ItsMyBill/MyTroubleTicket - so its not a very ROBUST server, but leave the rest to the big boys to handle the 400+ domains.
But aside from the joys of work, I have been good, the usual joy of some personal issues (usual, bills, sleep, health, etc.) - I have been considering my road trip a bit more, I have to call and scream at a general manager at Chevy on Monday, no one is returning my calls for needing service on the car, engine light is back on again … it’s a good little car, but if its going to require me to have service every 2 weeks, thats no good - but if I can get it sorted, I may make a journey up to northern cali for starters, hit sanfran, maybe hit shasta for a day or so - but just escape the norm for a while.
I am still looking for my knife, been cleaning the room more (yes its a multi-day process) going through paperwork piles to see if it ended up in there, laundry is next on the list, but so far no knife, sadly I may just need to give up the search and pick up a new one - which isn’t a HUGE deal, but I just know it’s going to show up after I hit BUY.
Anywhoo - going to go sort some more piles, hoping one of these boxes contains the knife.. what movie to put on as background noise… hrm.. if only my sister brought back the lake house.
Well somewhere between Tuesday and now, I lost my knife. It was a handy knife, great for opening mail, boxes full of stuff, poking hobos (okay only once, but he was asking for it!) and for tasks as needed. Just not sure where it went, so for one, cleaning the ol pig-stye, aka my bedroom, instead of my usual “friday off” of relaxing, watching movies, taking a drive, I am going to sit here and go through piles of paperwork, shred stuff, throw away stuff, do laundry.
But what a week, mixed in some parts, found out I may be loosing my office - long story, but it’s one of those ones that goes back and forth - but that means I gain a mini-fridge here at home, a 3rd desk, and maybe a couch but it’s one of those “time will tell” deals, but I am hoping, it stays, because without it, my master plan for a friends server here in bako is kind of shot.
What else here at 2am, not really sure - with some recent events there is one thing I want to talk about, but not sure if it’s truly time yet, it’s work related, but to some of you might be a interesting read based upon the current events at the site I used to work for - but I suppose all in due time - anywhoo, rambling, tired, exhausted a bit phsyically, mentally, and probably emotionally, so I should probably goto bed, but I figure I’ll just toss in another DVD, and keep sorting papers.
So I shall say night, and sleep well, or in the case you read this in the AM hours (seeing that it already is 2am) have a good friday, don’t work to hard!
Well tonight started the journey on a new server, enter UNICRON! This is one for my buddy kman and his wife’s design studio, we are retiring their old server ION soon, and are slowly moving a batch of things over, I worked at his office till around roughly 2am, and enjoyed the steady snoring from him at which time he woke up and he went home, so I migrated here to continue the process.
Nice thing is we also deployed Scalix at his office, for you tech nerds, think OpenSource Exchange-ish - for you non-tech, think, really cool shared email/calendars - the install went pretty smooth, and for it being spare hardware lying around minus a new 80GB drive, it was a good setup! Going to swing in this afternoon and re-locate it in the office (off the tech-bench) and follow up on server moves, but so far it all looks good, some domains are already rolling, which is WONDERFUL, OpenDNS is very quick to pick up the changes, so I am seeing things running good.
But back to working on keeping DNS all sync’d up - I am doing good, not really too tired, a pretty full day, and evening, but so far energy is good, concentrating isn’t a issue yet, and I have some iTunes playing here on the Mac - so can’t complain too much - nice to have SSH and other tools be native in this enviroment, so lovely.
Possibly a new office, after a year or so now at 19th street, kman showed me a place that could work too, LOTS more room, good parking, cool location still downtown-ish, but another option might be at kman’s office (where I used to be) but not sure, that’s all up in the air, so if you could keep that in prayer with me, that could be good stuff.
Anywhoo…. Night All, if you see me online when you wake up, say hi! I’m on AIM.
