Well while I could say all the bad things that have happened this week, my budget being ultra ultra tight right now, and such (okay I guess I just did) life has been fair, maybe even borderline great. This week just had a lot of stresses, a lot of challenges, and a lot of times where I wanted to slap some people.
I am sitting here at the office just wrapping up, waiting for a 8pm project to start, followed by a 10pm project, followed by moving some core services from old server -> new server - just really tired, more mentally than physically, but that’s just how I tend to go, things tend to pile up, and the way my brain works, it grinds away at them and really just wears me down a bit, just want to curl up, enjoy a stupid movie, maybe even something cute and heartwarming, you know, just shutdown the brain, and not be the server guy, the art guy, or the tech guy for a few hours.
Today was a fun day, got to help out a friend, really I supose I didn’t HAVE to - I decided to, snagged her cheap internet at her house to help her out, give her a place to unwind when she gets home - which is important, plus for work stuff, may come in handy too as things go along, be able to do QB from home if she needs to, I dunno, just seemed like it’d be a help to her.
Had a nice chit chat with that same friend, for reference we shall call her Courtney 
went to drop by a video for Mr. William and ended up staying and chatting probably longer than I should, but the two of us get talking, we have 20+ years of knowing each other, we can talk for hours upon hours - but some good talks, funny, silly, serious, and just a hint of venting.
What else has been up, let’s see, servers really have taken up a lot of my time - but just a lot of things, trying to figure out where I am going lately, some job opportunities are hanging around, heck got a guy who gave me a number to call, but its one of those things, just in the middle of busy, so haven’t gotten a chance to call - kept trying to explain that to the guy, but he said “Call tomorrow” - tomorrow is nearly done, I just haven’t gotten to it - but if the job with my bro comes through, I think I am going to also try to wing this year being W2′d as well from the kMan, as I hate 1099’s they screw up my taxes all over the place - just irritating, I realize I am not a corp. of any kind, but taxes shouldn’t be overly complicated.
Last thing, getting away, while I would love to sneak away to the land down under and take Mr. Dunning up on his offer - I still need in the mean time to get out of town, away from some work stuff, never can get away from all, but at least a nice break, something to allow my brain to cool down - probably won’t get away this weekend, and if schedule goes as planned, probably not next weekend either, but soon - just need a disconnect for even a few days.
Anywhoo - 6:30 is coming up, and the building is quiet now as I am the only one left, so I am going to call it a night (for here at the office) and head home I guess. Thanks for stopping by, and thanks for reading my crazy thoughts.
Well what a week, heck what a crazy 2 weeks, today though things got better on the server front, hardware was in, software was installed, cPanel lic.’s were purchased - and I doubt I’ll sleep tonight - re-imaging Homestar right now (aka this server) base is down, so now is the “waiting” process for cPanel install, hours, of fun.
Prolonged stress is not good for the ol body, I was dead today, found a server which has 15 errors now, so the timing for migration is perfect, sadly there won’t be much warning for customers per-say, but I am going to push one server ASAP so things are safe, secure, and on new hardware, it run’s backups tomorrow too, so should give me a day tops, but I do want to migrate things over the next 2 days, but I know several folks who that may not work for instantly, but I think I can make it happen, plus new DNS system in place, some changes should happen a LOT quicker.
Pray for Sam M. and his family, there as an explosion today and his Dad was one of the injured, I haven’t gotten any updates, last I knew was that he left the office, and headed for the hospital where his dad was going into surgery, I have txt. messages out, but hospital areas sometimes require cell phones off, so hopefully things are going okay - but your prayers are appreciated.
Pray for Me too - I am frazzled and fried, long nights, high-stress, no sleep, etc. and it’s not over yet, but hopefully get a few winks here tonight briefly and start early in the AM getting things migrated, going to move my own stuff ASAP, that way I am on a fresh IP addy and emails alerting folks to changes go out, but moves are always a pain, but in this case, must be done.
But there’s something a nice dump of my brain going into this Fake Friday, should be a fun one (i hope) Night Folks.
Well @ the office Courtney scheduled fake Friday in for me yesterday after a long Monday with dad’s trip to ER, it was much needed, but sadly I did work some and get things done - however being now officially mid-week, it is the real-deal, my fake Friday, which really is just a mindset, but I think may also include a movie-night.
Got my check for the server work I did end of last year, was happy to get it, goes towards the server clean-up here, so waiting for it to clear, but should be 100% in by Friday, but other payments still coming in so possibly sooner! It’s very awesome to think of what is possible, this server configuration has me excited to re-do all of the servers, a lot of work, and probably a few nights without too much sleep, but what it brings to the table:
- Fully Sync’d and Redundant DNS
- Multi-Noded Spam Filtering Service
- New Mail Format which loads email faster in Webmail, IMAP, and POP3
- New Auto-Install Script System (farewell Fantastico)
- Powerful new reseller options
- New Webmail system added to replace Neomail -> Roundcube
- New Ecommerce Packages for both FH and TN
- YourServer product offering - fully customized server that grows with you.
- Etc. etc. etc. etc.
So yes, very excited! And now that my dad is back home and doing well (Thanks for the prayers) one less worry on my brain, thankfully his heart is perfect, he was just majorly dehydrated from the new meds - so adjusted medication and he was doing good.
So it looks like Feb. is a good month, I get older, means a special deal on FH as usual, new servers, new billing, new support, new new new - so its all good! Just wish I had time to finish every little thing here on my to-do list, but it’s getting there, going to grind away on it a bit, hoping to get to the office and find a pile of checks, going to check the other office too and see if anyone addressed wrong, but hopefully a few hundred in checks, and I can push forward on a few things
Anywhoo - have a great Fake Friday all!
Well this week so far has been… well kinda odd. Not necessarily bad, not necessarily good - but sort of that middle ground that well leaves you say “Wha?” - I haven’t been sleeping too much, not that I am busy late night, but I just have stuff griding away in my mind, work, personal, faith, etc. just all there - so I figured write a bit down tonight here in a blog - not EVERYTHING, but at least a little helping of each to simply put down on the virtual paper so to speak, vs. keep in my head.
So let’s start with the thing I have been doing lately: Work. The servers have been performing well enough, but I really want to re-do everything, heck I have done everyone else’s, but for mine, most are pretty older in the sftw. department, and with the new FH on the horizon, I kind of want to go into 2007 with new things like fresh servers, same with TN, just clean slate, stuff migrated, and online - and I am looking at a solution that could do the following:
- Increase Performance
- Add Value To All Accounts
- Simplify Hardware
- Cut Costs
- Did I mention Cut Costs?
This is what happens when your mind grinds 
Every possiblity is considered, and I do mean every - I have been in talks with other companies, I have been researching hardware/software that I have tested over the last 2 years as I have considered new solutions, but tonight I am sitting here about to hit purchase, max out a credit card or two, and simply get it rolling - I just think at some level I need to do something, and get things moving.
Which leads to the next bit, Faith. A lot lately I have gotten the “Good Christian” bit, not saying it’s a bad thing, but apparently I live my life different than a lot of folks, and I get this confused look from people when I am polite, tip a foodservice person, open a door for someone, and do things like Not Drink. Most of my friends drink, and honestly, the nice thing about that (yes I found a positive in someone drinking) - I get to be the driver, I get to cruise around in a Cadillac CTS now and again, now thats some fun raw power but Church is one thing on my mind lately, I see a door that maybe is the one I have been waiting for, its a local church, and there is some spots I could serve, and I think the same for my Dad, I dunno, maybe why my brain is going a bit crazy.
But I have had some nice talks about God lately, and folks are always curious if I don’t drink for a “Spiritual” reason, but honestly, I have no desire to try it, I am crazy enough on my own, as I have seen this last couple weeks socially, I do well @ parties without drinks, I dunno - apparently I’m fun lol. but I had some nice talks with folks about my faith, about some churches lately, I dunno - lot of things on that, I really want to start a Men’s bible study, we talked about it, but never did it, Jake how’s Tuesdays?
Personal. The one thing I tend to avoid real depth on my blog about, but really it comes down to this - my personal life is odd, when it comes to a love of my life, I just have a ton of good friends - I spent the other afternoon hanging out with William playing Lego Star Wars for Xbox at the office, which was fun, and I got a nice break for my brain, but I laugh because I have been told I am dating like 3 different girls, heck people thought Courtney and I were married, but we have just known each other since what, kindergarden? Oh yeah, were nerds, and we know each other’s secrets, and were taking them to the grave.
The bottom line is when it comes to a Mrs. or even a “Chuck’s Girlfriend” - it’ll happen, not sure when, not sure who, but as my MySpace profile says, I hope she’s patient with my craziness, not sleeping, wearing shorts in 20F weather, and odd batch of business / non-business friends - but with that said, its not like I DONT want it to happen, just I need to get some areas in my life in order, but at the same time, that’s never going to all be perfect, but where does a odd Computer Nerd look for girls? Last setup I had, apparently the gal was scared to high-heaven… maybe I should shave, I don’t think a beardish look makes me scary? but maybe it does.
Anywhoo my therapy is done, I am going to go pray over this new server/software configuration, and maybe hit buy and get things rolling, it’d be awesome to get things rolling tonight, clean slate of FH/TN online (clear out a TON of old junk) and put the new FH online - or I’ll put my camera on to charge (Baby Photos Tomorrow!!! New Foster Child!) and hit the hay, but no matter what, I need to clean this room, I just am rarely here anymore, where to put it all…. I need a house of my own - or a dump truck. One of the two.
Night All.
Morning! (which is rare for me)
A possibly exciting week ahead, deployment of 3 new servers (tee-hee) - wanting to work towards moving folks around from older servers to the newer configurations I am doing, new resources, newer methodology to housing folks on servers, in additional new security methods, as well as new software options (Considering adding Plesk options soon).
All in all, should be fun, just some final tid-bits, and waiting on 1-2 BIG checks to come in, have about 1-2k in floating spare money which will be nice, so hopefully, prayerfully, it all comes about, this revamp should increase server performance across the board, and cut total monthly costs as hardware & bandwidth have gotten cheaper since these old servers were put into service, so canceling them and migrating folks to new servers actually saves money and increases performance.
I am sure there is a slew of personal type things I could post, but if I don’t get in the shower, and goto the office soon, I’ll end up back in bed, asleep (woke up at 3am) - so I am going to push through the day - be on AIM/ICQ/YIM/GTalk - feel free to bug - writing day, so distractions are welcome.
The last 2 weeks there has been an increasing number of blocks on servers I work on, AOL, Yahoo, Hotmail are all on some kick to simply block domains, IP’s, whoever the feel like.
In a email trouble ticket I had open with Hotmail, I asked to see an example of the Spam I was apparently sending out, but they could not produce anything, and as I bounced around their techs I even had one say “Your not blocked!” and then suddenly 5 test mails I had sent from Hotmail showed up in my inbox on my server, and I could magically send to Hotmail again.
It’s getting old, because MY customers are getting angry at me for something I have no control over, granted when it comes down to the IP owner, and the server administrator who needs to contact AOL/Yahoo/Hotmail - that is me, folks are getting very frustrated with me and other companies admins who I work with on their systems. Some would say “Well it’s your problem!” well as much as I wish it was, it’s not. If it was my issue, trust me, I’d be awake for a week working on things to get it ironed out, but in these cases I have no control which sucks - and it’s not a automated process for removal, it’s not “Fill out this form with the domain/IP and we’ll send a confirmation” - it’s a human process, and while I am not saying that that their staff are jerks, its just pulling teeth to get information, but thankfully some folks have been very helpful in helping us comply with new “requirements” for SPF/SenderID/DomainKeys from the various providers, but that kindness is not across the board.
So I guess for now until some of the spam volume comes down, it will continue to be my fault, but I wish it wasn’t, as I’d really like mail to once again just work.
This does not feel like the weekend, I feel like I am just coming off a LONG Monday, and it’s about time to goto bed - but all in all a productive week, the spam testing has gone well, it’s first full day 3000 messages processed for 5 domains, and 2800 mails tagged as spam, 60 as viruses, twas crazy nuts, but a promising start - once this filter goes production, it’s going to be awesome!
Got the friend server installed tonight, and it’s looking good - came out of my building to find a fight just breaking up, and the police coming in to find out what happened - kinda crazy/scary - but thats the joys of downtown - but all in all things got done, even setup some of the basic firewall rules for the server, so pretty awesome!
I am exhausted in every sense of the word, physically, mentally, emotionally, you name it, I am it. Just been some crazy highs and lows with all of this server stuff, I have some ideas for the current servers I want to put into place, and with a small boost to the budget, I am going to probably move forward and do it here soon, but its all good - dad is doing better (thanks for the prayers) and since I am really scatter brained, I am going to end on that note, maybe more tomorrow… who knows - night folks, have a good weekend.
