December 2005 Archives

As I look back during the closing hours of 2005, I'm nothing short of amazed at the transformation the last year has brought to my life....

• I got together with D, probably the greatest thing to have ever happened in my life, ever, and suckered her convinced her to marry me.
• I started work at Vassar. Since I'd been wanting for some time to get out of the private sector and into an educational institution, this was a huge change for me. Pay-scale plummetted but my daily "how do I enjoy my job at the end of the day" quotient has gone up considerably.
• Moved out of the apartment and into D's house, where we'll probably live for quite some time

There's stuff I need to take care of 2006, no doubt about it. Part of it is that D and I are committing to eating out less and cooking more. This week's menu is already on the side of the fridge, so we can plan accordingly. Another part is that I'd really, really like to somehow find the time and money for the fencing lessons I've talked about taking since forever ago. Then of course, there's the slew of bad habits that I need to kick, and I need to continue to adjust to the lower salary of higher-ed employment.

In 2006, I'll be switching schools, changing from Marist to Vassar... I get my tuition for free at work, I'd be an ass not to take it, especially given the street-cred that Vassar has as a school.

Oh yeah, in 2006, D and I will also be getting married. Sweet. :-)

So, I hope everyone's 2005 was a great as mine was, and I hope your 2006 goes as well as mine looks like it will be.

Cheers!

Last night, we had my parents over to exchange Giftmas presents, since D and I will be out of town on Christmas Day proper. Among the things I got from my parents was a DVD I'd been waiting for the release of, Godzilla: Final Wars.

With D at a hair appointment this afternoon, I got some quality "male time" in front of the big-screen, watching everyone's favorite nuclear-powered-dinosaur open a can of whoopass on everyone and everything he came across.

Final Wars was made as a "going away party" of sorts, with nearly every monster from the Godzilla flicks putting in an appearance, even if that appearance lasts like 30 seconds with Godzilla one-shotting them into a final, permanent death (for instance, he decapitates Gigan on the first try.. no matter how you spin that in a future movie, it's a hard death to come back from).

Final Wars, planned as the last Toho-made Godzilla movie "for the foreseeable future", sought to give the fans some form of closure to it all. Amusingly, the 1995 "Godzilla vs. Destoroyah" was viewed by Toho as "the end", with the rights then ending up in U.S. hands, with distasterous Roland Emmerich "Godzilla" (see a great review of that). With their beloved monster neutered and turned into a Jurassic Park escapee, Toho decided "that couldn't be the final send-off for the big guy" and went back to their script-writing.

Anyhow, to make a long blog entry short, this movie starts out a little slow, but winds up with some serious nuclear-powered whoopass which any fan of the Big G will be happy to curl up with on Christmas Morning.

Since I've started at Vassar, I've been given two major initiatives to work on.

The first was to completely revamp our backup system into something that is scalable and doesn't require the constant care and loving attention that our homebrew backups required. As of yesterday, the purchase order for Bakbone's NetVault was approved, putting that process firmly into the "deploy it" stage. NetVault is not, at all, a well known application. In fact, we almost blew them off because they're weren't a "big name" (Veritas, EMC Legato, Tivoli Storage Manager, for example), but in the end, after we "humored them" by having them come out (that's how we viewed it), we realized that their product was a 100% match for what I had drawn on my chalkboard on Day One as our "ideal world solution".

The second was to decide upon a new anti-spam regimen for the entire campus. After a couple false starts, we settled on IronPort's appliance at the edge. The purchase order for that was approved this morning. When we come back from break, the failover unit will arrive, and we'll begin deploying it in earnest.

The practical upshot of all of this is that I feel really goddamned good about getting some of these big projects mostly-completed, and am in good position to just take tomorrow and Thursday off as vacation days and finish up some non-work stuff before the holidays. (I have off from Friday through January 3rd already as holiday-time)

This is going to feel so good to relax for this long!

So this morning, in case you hadn't heard, the Transit Workers Union has gone on strike in New York City, an act which pretty much paralyzes a city dependent upon its subways and busses.

The overwhelming response from both the city and the MTA, though, is to point out how the Taylor Law makes it illegal for public servants to strike, which means the TWU's strike is illegal.

In essence, the Taylor Law turns public workers into indentured servants. They are forced to -- even when the contract which says they must show up each day has expired -- continue to come to work every day.

City officials have said a transit strike could cost the city as much as $400 million a day.

Ya know what? If the transit workers are directly responsible for 146 billion dollars in annual revenue, maybe that means they deserve a larger slice of the pie than you're giving them? Offering up 3% annual cost-of-living raises is a slap in the face when cost-of-living increases usually at around 4-5% annually.

It is disingenuous to, on one hand, talk about the sheer volume of revenue that the city makes on the backs of these people, and then try to stiff them because you don't make enough money.

It is, frankly, unamerican, for there to be a law that says "you have to go to work, even though the contract that says you will has expired, and if you don't, we're going to actually make you pay double for it, docking you two days pay for each day you stay home." If the strike lasts ten days, then the TWU employees really will be slaves for the following ten days, working for the MTA for free just because they had the gall to stand up and show in no uncertain terms how dependent upon them the city is.

Now, that's not to say that if people stay home that they should be guaranteed a job when they return. Lest something think I'm the pinnacle of union solidarity or shit like that, if the MTA can hire and train a bunch of replacements, I think it should work just like it does in any other job. If you don't show up to work anywhere else in the world, you might find yourself not needing to show up any more. The same should hold true here. Nothing should stop the MTA from hiring a crapload of workers, toot-sweet, and replacing workers who stay home. If there are people who are willing to do it for less, that's economic darwinism showing its place in the world.

TWU members need to know to weigh the "I know my value to the city in terms of revenue that is dependent on me" factor against the "how likely would someone else be to take this job for the same money or possibly even less if they fire my striking ass?" factor and make their decision based on those things.

All I can say, though, is that I'm really really glad I don't work in New York City this morning.

OK, with a proper amount of time given for the John Spencer news to kick in, now it's time to speculate a little on "where West Wing will go" since Leo McGarry was pretty central to current plotlines.

There's a couple different "general" directions it can go, depending on how things were already being written...

• If Vinnick was going to be the Presidential winner.

  If Vinnick was always going to be the Presidential winner, then the impact on the show is really minimal, aside from tying up any loose ends in Leo's storylines (which, right now, there don't appear to be any, but I can't speak for episodes in the can already). If Vinnick wins, there's no need for a recurring "used to be chief-of-staff, used to be VP candidate" character, and McGarry goes gentle into that good night.

  Also, potentially, a Vinnick win ends the series entirely, wrapping up neatly a "democrat's term in office".
  

• If Santos was going to win...

  Well, if Santos was going to win, there's a lot of problems... first of which is how do you write out Leo, and do you do it before or after the election? Probably the way which makes the most sense, given both the character's history (he had a heart attack in the show several years ago) and as a tip of the hat to the real life actor, is to have Leo suffer a fatal heart attack.

  Now the interesting part of this is what do you do after that? Who do you fill the VP role with? You need a Democrat who can be taken seriously in the context of the show. Sure, you could fill it with "random actor" who goes off into recurring-character mode (just as Tim Matheson and Gary Cole did), or you can do something interesting... something that will breathe new life and interest into the show. What character can you put into the VP slot who is both credible as well as potentially show-worthy?

  Sam Seaborn (Rob Lowe's character). He's got the political clout, especially after he gave it a good showing in the California 47th. The current presidential team -- headed by Josh and Donna -- certainly trust him and would be willing to extol his merits to Santos. It could be both a believable move, as well as the fact that Rob Lowe returning would give a ratings boost to a show that's slipped a little this season in the ratings, if the contractual issues could all be quickly and sensibly resolved.

  But, assume for the moment that they don't... Bob Russell wouldn't necessarily make a bad VP candidate again, so long as he's willing to continue to play second-fiddle, and Gary Cole is almost always great television as well.

  Crazy idea mentioned by someone else (not by me) : Vinnick as VP. Would never happen, though.
  

John Spencer died of a heart attack at age 58.

I've always loved him as an actor, since I first saw him on L.A. Law (although, as it turns out, I'd seen him years prior as a missile silo airman in WarGames, but didn't realize it until much later). He was a classic character actor, who was able to bring a certain charm to even some of the worst characters.

Not that this is at all important in the grand scheme of things, but it certainly does leave me wondering where the hell West Wing is going to be heading in the next six months. Given that he's supposed to be the VP Candidate (and, given that the last president's VP had to resign in disgrace, how believable is it that a second VP would get elected and then vanish), that's a pretty huge hole to fill.

I guess it depends on "what's in the can" already, and what may already be in the can that they want to scrap so as to make his plot-exit easier. Right now, it seems like the easiest solution would be for Vinnick to win the election. Then Leo can simply vanish into obscurity. But without the ability to write him out gracefully, I'm not sure what else they can do, especially after last week's "We want Leo to replace Josh as the campaign manager" plot twist (which, luckily for the writers, Leo did not accept or it'd just be harder to weasel out of).

But all that aside.... rest in peace, sir.

Yesterday, our new dishwasher arrived. While we wait for a plumber who can hardwire it in (it's a portable), I decided to use it "as designed" and just hook it up to the faucet and clear out some dishes. I removed the aerator from the faucet, and went to thread the adapter up inside the faucet's spigot.

I couldn't figure out why it wouldn't catch the thread. While I had them sitting on the table next to each other (the old aerator and the new adapter) I realized that the diameter of the two was radically different (well, not that radical, but at least a 1/8", maybe). The adapter simply wouldn't fit in the faucet.

So, I called Kohler to ask them "what to do". After all, there's a standard diameter for faucet spigots. That's how this whole thing works, and their faucet's diameter is non-standard, so surely they must know how to proceed.

Their official response: "We don't support you hooking up other devices to the faucet, and so we do not offer any adapter to convert that to a standard size."

Are you fucking kidding me? I explain to them that I love their faucet and all, but if I have to choose between my $500 standards-compliant dishwasher and their $150 wacky-off-standard faucet, their faucet was destined to lose. She completely didn't care.

So now I'm off in search of an adapter at a local plumbing supply store. This should be fun. Not.

Update: As an FYI for any who come behind me, here are two adapters I purchased, one of which was the right one, the other wasn't. But they were like $3.00 each. The p/n's are the ACE Hardware part numbers on the packaging.

Yesterday, a Federal Air Marshal shot and killed a passenger who was acting irrationally, refusing to follow the instructions of the law enforcement official pointing a gun at him, and - oh yes - had indicated that he had a bomb and intended to blow the airplane up.

There is now a hue and cry over the fact that the wife of this individual had been crying and screaming and pleading for the Air Marshal not to shoot him, saying he was "mentally ill" and "off his medication".

Excuse me? What the fuck? If he's mentally ill and gone off the reservation, that's more of a reason to shoot him, not less. Off their meds is when a person who is normally quite sane and composed may in fact do something completely crazy like, say, try to blow up a plane. There are two types of people who do that sort of thing ... cold and calculating people (Al-Qaeda style), and mentally-fucked-up people (Hinckley style).

We shouldn't let ourselves get caught up emotionally in the whole "his neighbors thought he was quiet and loving" type of nonsense. His neighbors probably very very rarely saw him go off his medication, too.

I'm the first one to gripe about the "jack-booted thugs" these days, but I have to say that given what the media has released -- which I should point out seems to be heavily biased in favor of the dead guy -- I have to call it a clean shoot.

So once upon a time, there was an organization called USENIX. Then, along the way, they formed a sort of "sub-group" called SAGE, the "System Administrators' Guild".

Over the years, there's been a lot of... discontent... among some undefined percentage of SAGE members, feeling sort of like the red-headed stepchildren of USENIX. USENIX, as a 501(c)(3) organization is not capable of offering a lot of the professional-services types of things they believe the organization should be providing. Doing so would make them into more of a "trade union" type of non-profit, which is something that would jeopardize the particular tax-free status USENIX presently enjoys (one which makes donations to it tax-deductible).

There was a lot of talk about USENIX spinning SAGE off into its own entity, to live on its own two feet. That seems to have gone nowhere in particular. In the end, the SAGE Interim Board, who had been put in charge of leading the direction for SAGE to go, and in working with USENIX to do that, were told that this was not going to happen.

And so, LOPSA - the League Of Professional System Administrators was born.

As a couple USENIX members pointed out, in tonight's public forum at LISA, there is room for both USENIX (which may borg SAGE completely into nothingness within the USENIX entity) and LOPSA, as they both excel at completely different things, some of which are things that one of them at least cannot even legally attempt to offer.

USENIX excels at putting on technical conferences and establishing a community around them. I get one-hundred times more value out of a week at LISA than I would at any three O'Reilly conferences combined, and I include in that the MySQL Users Conference where I generally see a crapload of our book get sold bringing direct revenue my way.

At the same time, though, LOPSA -- while its ability to perform these tasks is yet untested -- is much better positioned, legally, to do things like advocacy, or represent sysadmins in general to a larger audience as a trade organization (like the AMA or ABA does for doctors and lawyers). USENIX can't even get into those areas without risking IRS trouble, and there's a lot of demand in the sysadmin community for that type of representation. An organization that can attempt to generate some sort of "standards" for sysadmins "do", establish a code of ethics, and represent to some extent a stamp of legitimacy, can be an invaluable organization to have.

So, I see the SAGE "membership" going away within USENIX, with USENIX continuing to do what it does good, and LOPSA doing what it can do well. I don't see a lot of potential for conflict, especially now that LOPSA is just deciding to "start out fresh" and not necessarily depend on USENIX's good graces for its start. It's off to a great start already, and I can only believe that the membership drive they are on this week at LISA will give them a firm footing going forward.

I was looking at my "student records" with Vassar's online system, now that I am accepted as a Spring '06 student, and all that. I found something a little odd:

Apparently I'm on the meal-plan and getting a dorm-room assigned for Spring '06. I called them up and asked if they had married housing available that would support me, my fiancee, four cats and a dog, and if not, then maybe I might have to reconsider their housing plan. *grin*

They boggled at why I'd gotten added to the housing list for a moment, and then cleaned it all up. "Oops!"

I have neither the patience nor the time to download this from Usenet, nor can I find a set of torrent files that actually continue to work. What is it I'm looking for?

A complete set of MAME ROMs and such, specifically that would work with MacMame 0.97u1.

If you are a collector, and have got your personal repository, or you've got an ISO of a DVD with the ROMs and those hard-drive images, and all that jazz, please let me know. Your anonymity is assured.

I had a set a long time ago, but it is many many many versions out of date, and when I tried to audit my ROMs, like ... 4 ... passed muster with the new version. I used to love MacMAME as perfect "airplane flight fodder", passing the time playing games.

Any assistance you can provide, dear Interweb, will be appreciated.

OK, here is my golden advice for anyone who ever attends LISA again. Are you ready? Seriously? OK, click below for the inside scoop....

Got in some poker playing up at Pechanga today? Check.

Remembered to bring my swim trunks for the hot tub? Errrrrrr..... shit.

Made my "Mandatory Required By Law" pilgrimage to In-N-Out Burger? You bet your ass I did.

Remembered to get in touch with Chris so I could possibly hook up with him while I was in his neck of the woods in Orange County? Oops.

Set up my Earthlink dial-up account again so that I could dial in from the rooms which don't have in-room high speed internet? Check.

Found out on arrival that despite what the people told me on the phone, the hotel is no longer in the Dark Ages and my room has hotel-provided (not the conference-provided) WiFi available... Sweet.

Made friends with the conference staff by bringing them what appeared to be much-needed food and drink while they were stuck at the registration booth? Check.

Now to get some late dinner and watch some TV, and get to bed (somewhat) early. Anyone who thinks "going to a conference" means "doing nothing" has never been through six days of LISA, believe me.

I've had the Jeep listed on autotrader for a while now. I've yet to get a single lead on selling it until today.

Except, of course, that I couldn't be more suspicious of today's "lead" than I ever have been:

BUYER INFO
Name: james hart
E-Mail Address: [REDACTED]@yahoo.co.uk
Comments: My interest to offer $9,400 for your car, We're located at 288 Royal palm Street, Gillinham SE16 1HW London. if offer good and car still avaliable, get me the location and the present condition of the vehicle, ASAP
thanks
JAMES

The ears perk up at this at first... OO! someone is interested... waaaaaiit a minute, London? That doesn't seem right.

So, clearly, this is 99.9% likely to be a scam of some kind, but I think the amusing part of this, as always, is figuring out how to lead them on and waste their time, and maybe even catch a criminal when they come to "pick up" the vehicle. So I replied to him telling him where it was (in general terms, not like a street address or anything), and that the condition was great, asking him how he wants to proceed.

Of course, maybe I'm wrong... maybe there's some latent interest in 2WD SUVs in England that I wasn't privy to in the past. But I'm not exactly counting on it.

Tonight was a busy night. Tomorrow I leave for San Diego, to attend LISA '05. The last time I was in San Diego for LISA, the entire surrounding area was on fire.

But tonight, before I can go to bed, I had to run to Sears and buy some new luggage (during the move, one of my cats decided to piss all over my really nice extra-large Eddie Bauer duffel, rendering it pretty much useless for clothes-carrying from that point forward (because, let's face it, the smell never really comes out, and that's the last thing you want to cram clothes into afterwards).

Combine that with my growing dislike of my briefcase as a "carry-on" bag, and I was off to get some luggage. For the laptop, et al, carryon, I got myself this rolling tote, and then to replace the main bag, I bought the matching pullman.

I had considered spending the same amount of money for one of the 5-piece sets instead, but every one of them I could find, the carry-tote was either too-small, or it was hard-sided, and I really like soft-sided totes, because they are easier to cram under your seat on the plane (thus preventing you from having to get up out of your seat to get stuff out of the overhead compartment).

Once I got all that home, I had to do (and am in the middle of doing) a metric ass-load of laundry. If I don't, my new pullman will be empty when I go to California, because what I wore to work today was the last of the clean clothes. Heh.

Combine that with all the usual pre-flight stuff (where's my passport, where's my headphones, what DVDs do I want to pack, where the hell did I put the airline-power adapter for my laptop, etc., etc.) and it makes for a busy evening.

Tomorrow, before the LISA festivities begin, it is my plan to go to Pechanga for a 10AM Texas Hold'em tournament. My last experience at a poker tourney had me right on the cusp of being in the money, so I think I have a pretty decent shot at it on Saturday if I don't panic like I did last time around.

If you're going to be at LISA, give me a shout. Maybe I'll see you at the Casino, or we can hook up at some point during the week and swap war-stories.