feren

8:54 AM: Get out of bed, putter around online. Happy surprise as LiinSara is about and I'm able to enjoy her company for a little while, something that always brightens my day.

9:48 AM: Receive a call from one of the Windows engineers, stating that a particular Exchange server was unavailable even though it seemed to be functioning properly. I spent approximately 20 minutes trying to troubleshoot remotely before I declared it a wasted effort and decided to go in to the office so I could see the system in person. This seems like a network problem, but I can't find anything wrong on my cores.

10:05 AM: Shower so that I can leave for the office without feeling utterly disgusting.

10:32 AM: Out the door and on the road. It's snowing -- only small flurries with lots of little flakes, but snow none the less. The traffic on I-290 by Woodfield is absolutely insane, and the Wal-Mart down by my office is not much better. Why do people subject themselves to this?

11:05 AM: Arrive at the data center, scare the hell out of the lone machine operator on duty when I appear.

11:15 AM: Problem is diagnosed -- the GBIC in the fiber gigabit card has failed and has no laser.

11:33 AM: System is rebooted after the installation of a copper 10/100 card for workaround purposes. Strangely enough the gigabit card has started working again -- we figure that the card just wedged for some reason and needed a good powercycling to get all its ducks in a row. I abandon my plan to wire the 10/100 card in and prepare to leave for home.

11:44 AM: Just as I'm leaving the datacenter I'm paged by our network monitoring system. I walk back inside and take a look, and I find just what I expected: the gigabit NIC failed and the system is off the network once more. This is no wedging NIC, the adapter's GBIC is definately at fault. I finish wiring the 10/100 card into the network, set it on the proper VLAN and wait for the Windows engineer to remotely reboot the system so the IP address can bind to the copper NIC.

12:02 PM: Our OpenView system acknowledges that the system is available, and I head for home.

12:40 PM: I return home to find that

yotogi is still crashed out on the bed -- I guess he didn't sleep terribly well last night. The good news is that my Color SideKick has arrived. I made short work of that box, and within a few minutes I had the SIM card installed and the device plugged into the wall for a nice 24-hour charging. I'm already anxious to get this new one up and going because it does indeed look most bad-ass.

The plans for the rest of the day are pretty simple. Yotogi must be subjected to the infinite taste experience that is Culvers Butterburgers and then we'll probably either go shoot pool at Bumpers or pay a visit to those purveyors of fine ice cream and milk products at Oberweis Dairy. Sometime this evening we will make our way up to

datahawk's party. I'm not sure who will be there, but I think it will be a good time and a nice way to round out this week. Much to my surprise my social calendar has once again become rather full, and I'm okay with this.