A good week all in all - got a lot of things done, some new orders, some side work, bandwidth shaping up, etc. things are going well - but just been a hard week in the regard of trying to help those I care about, and not feeling like I can - a few of my friends are in situations with life, that I can’t even imagine, can’t comprehend at some level - and all that seems like a good idea at this point is giving them space to sort it out.
So I go into this weekend wondering the status of one friend, worried for another - and finding all I can do is pray - life is one of those things you know up’s and down’s - and while I know one friend will see his way through this rough spot in his life, others to me just seem to be going in deeper and deeper from the life they were trying to get away from, and my advice seems to go on deaf ears - but tis their life to live.
Friday holds the possibilities of doing some shooting out and about, thinking I’ll check my tires, fill up the tank, and venture up the mountain, get a hotel for the evening, and shoot at a higher elevation, just have to do one little thing before I go, if I do, but if not, then its the usual work around the house bit, maybe help dad install the new washer/dryer him and mom got, and finish organizing my bedroom with the latest furniture positioning. Time will tell - but too everyone reading, have a good Friday and a Great Easter Weekend. Take Care!
Sadly that seems to be the end result as of late, help offered, is not accepted. I dunno, I suppose as some folks noted, I care too much, and maybe I should not be feeling odd that folks don’t want help, but in some cases, as of late, I feel like I am offending people by offering.
I dunno, it’s just one of those things anymore I think people wonder what “he gets out of it!?” but in the end, I am not asking for anything, sure sure, I’d love for one day maybe a hand down the road, but that goes on the whole “do unto others, as you’d have them do unto you” - but even then, I am not making any contracts here saying “I will offer you the following assistance - IN EXCHANGE - you will be my friend, be at my beck and call whenever I need you. I own you.”
I mean most times its something simple, a meal, a tank of gas, help on a project, but lately I feel like maybe I am being too nice? I dunno - I realize a lot of folks I interact with day-in-day-out are a tad stressed right now, but its like a wide range of folks, I still have the takers who no matter what/when/how/why - they’ll take help, and pull and pull to get every ounce of freebie they can - and to those folks I am learning to say “Sorry, I can only wing part 1 of your 37 part project” and that’s hard, but I just keep finding folks who are pushing the limits of my helpfulness.
But to each their own I suppose, if someone doesn’t WANT help, no way to give it, makes me tired. So - I am going to take a nap.
Well I can’t say it was all bad, it was a rough patch or three, but I appear today to be alive and things are working good - but sadly this weekend left me exhausted (not just because of the server stuff) - but there were some positives after all things were said and done.
Got to goto the movies, which was nice, relaxed a bit, enjoyed a good flick, heck even had some nancho’s I mean that in itself should be a good day (they were tasty), but then it was bashed away by servers on Saturday night - but things got ironed out, and life was happy again in the early AM of Sunday so I crashed out, and slept fair.
Sunday I woke up was playing a bit when my sister called me to tell me about the Target Ad which had the Nintendo Wii on sale for CONSOLE ONLY (which is what I had wanted) for $250, I called my local target and they had “plenty” so I rushed over (only a 10m drive tops) and got there and picked up the Wii, and Wii Play - so I have 2 Wii motes! But its super fun, and was just sitting down to a game of pool with my dad when the phone got txt’d like crazy - all servers down. The previous night’s issue from upstream found its way to ALL the servers
So Sunday evening I got it ironed out, got to talk with the right dept. and got tons of apologies for them not taking proper actions to inform me that a client was running a spoof’d banking site aka a Phishing site - so with the servers brought back up, and the bad site taken down, life was once again happy, I hit the Wii to take out some of the extra adrenaline in my system then crashed out - but none the less, I am exhausted - might be from the Wii, but I am leaning more towards it being from the frustration from the servers - that really tends to take a lot of out me.
Anywhoo - here we are in a new week, I am emailing the management team of my upstream, with recent changes, I want to be sure the upper-ups know what is going on, and see about getting some credits on my account - but time will tell, but I am already looking for another provider for backup, I want to be sure to keep folks clear/running smooth - and not have to have entire servers of folks suffer because one site’s scripts were out of date.
Prayers are appriciated, I am just ready to fall over and fall asleep here at this desk - but there are things to do! So I am off to do them. Have a Good Day Folks!
Okay - I got a irk when I got home (actually had a few today - but thats another blog all-together) - but I got home and there’s this very important envelope from my credit card company, it’s padded, its big, its scary. So I open it, and what is it? A invite to get their BUSINESS CARD! Oi!
So to ALL credit card commpanies out there, save some bubble wrap, a tree, and your breath, look if someone is an exsisting customer, save money on mass mailing out exsisting customer pointless offers marked as IMPORTANT INFORMATION which has NOTHING to do with the one card they have with you - honestly I am considering canceling cards if they keep doing this, and only keep the 1 line of credit which DOES NOT send odd notices like that.
As my always effort to offer a suggestion to a company I am nocking on a practice they have, try this: Make the Offer via Your Web Banking. I login, make it a popup when I get in, or even better yet take REAL demographics on me, and I a business owner? am I looking for a line of credit? am I a home owner? do I have 8 toes on my right foot? You know the important stuff.
Anywhoo - day ended differently than I planned, might blog on it later, always on IM if your curious and I haven’t posted yet, but I think I need to draw more lines - again, vauge, and a long story. But I did have a nice lunch.
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.
Well as much as I would love to slap down nearly $2,000 for a MacBook Pro and replace my HP Laptop - I think I am going to prioritize the money to go towards the friends server. The great thing about the friends server is allows me to clean off Business Servers of Friend stuff, but also allows me to give friends more space, more access, more.. well everything.
That is the one thing I miss having servers off-site, is the “hands on” aspect, really getting to play with the system, upgrade hardware as needed without having to pay a 3rd party to add ram, drives, do diagnostics, which at some level is a lot more entertaining than just remoting in, and poking around - but instead if I need to do some in-depth checking, I can go down, have a direct terminal, and make some magic happen.
So while I would love to be completely Mac in the realm of laptop/desktop (as the primary OS anyway) sadly that isn’t the plan it seems, moving forward to the friend server will be helpful, and some good folks have put in some good donations that’ll help cover a bit of the cPanel licensing, but I am going to make up the rest, thus putting the MacBook on hold, till probably after the new year, unless someone drops a project/cash in my lap, I don’t see that changing anytime soon.
Anywhoo - been 3 hours since I started writing this, and just now found it’s tab still open in firefox, so must mean it’s time to get going.
Tonight I lost a LCD, it died, gave up the ghost, and is no more. Strange thing is the LCD that’s 6 months older, still alive and kickin. It was odd, I went to sit down at the PC, and nothing happened, twas dead, light was glowing yellow/green looked half on, half asleep - going to hook up my old CRT to the box for now, see if the video card is working.
So I am torn as to what to do, new LCD and get online again, install XP hook it up to the new TV - aka Media Rig, or wipe it, drop CentOS on it, and start Friend Server - so many options, so little time - but its just sad it died, big investment LCD’s - so I may hold off on replacing, and just see how it all plays out, I sort of want to swap Linux boxes, take the old one, make it a server (it can be beefy) and then take the big AMD box and make it a media rig, maybe buy a copy of Media Center or similar app to go on-top of XP.
But a thought for another night, another day, a bigger pocket book (send money) But thats it for me, wrapping up, going to bed, take care all.
