Rain Free

Well, no rain yesterday...It was hot and humid, but it did not rain in my neck of the woods.

The work day was slow as normal. A few calls came in, none of which really belonged to us, but we assisted anyway. We both were bored.

After my TL left and 1/2 hour before I was to leave, I got a call that a server was down. I had the IP and name, but neither one was in the database we used and an nslookup failed to return a valid response. I called the customer back and left a message for him to call the help desk since I would be leaving soon. I did not get a call before I left, so I sent an e-mail to several people that couple possibly be involved to inform them just in case the case really needed escalated (it was looking like an R&D Mon-Fri support issue, but you never know...). After handing over the on call to my TL/colleague, I packed up and went home.

Once home, I took care of the dogs and checked the mail. There was not much left in the way of leftovers, so I just ate a sandwich before I changed into some old shorts, hat, t-shirt, and shoes to go mow grass. In eight days the grass had gotten pretty high (just the right combo of heat, rain, and humidity will do that) and since rain was very possible this weekend, I wanted to make sure it got done. I am on call next week and I will not be able to cut it then.

I was able to finish in just about 2 hours, give or take. The heat did not get to me until 2/3 of the way into the task. My wife got home just before I finished.

After I water break, I grabbed little man and walked him. I was very dirty and itchy and was ready to get a shower, but the dog needed a walk. I guess I could be uncomfortable a little while longer.

On the way back I stopped when I saw two of our dog owning neighbors in front of our house, talking. We chatted and one of the ladies, (the one I cut grass for) asked me to get rid of some plants she has growing beside her patio. It seems the sunflowers are attracting bees and they bother her when she is outside. Oh well, I can do that. It will not take long. She expects me to charge her, but I will only do that if I run into problems.

Once I got in, I grabbed a shower and experimented with a Simply MEPIS 32 install. I have used it in a couple of laptops and it worked well, so I thought I would give it a shot as server by installing it on Maximus, the massive Compaq computer I was given. The install went well, but there were a few not so user friendly problems (SSS, SAMBA, and networking) that cropped up. I was able to fix them but it took until almost midnight...something I normally would not have had problems with using Ubuntu. I will use it for a while and see what other Linux distro looks appealing when I am bored with it. Heck, Debian 4 (Etch) managed to stay on it for 4+ months. That is a record for my sandbox!