Power failures
I'm glad I got the UPS talking to the server again, just had our second power-outage in twelve hours. Looks like the big gusts of wind are wrecking havoc with the power-grid. Last night's lightning probably didn't help either.

Everything is working just as it should. The server continues running for five minutes in case things get better, and my workstation falls flat on its face but recovers quickly due to ext3. It also recovers quickly because all the important stuff (such as /home) is mounted on the server. Hurrah hurrah.

Camels
The Age newspaper had scottp and myself out at the Vic Market with camels on Sunday, taking photos. They're running a small article on melb.pm. It seems that camels really like Scott. I'm hoping they'll publish a photo of the camel giving Scotty a big sloppy kiss.

Work
AIIIIEEEEE!!!! Just when you thought it couldn't get any busier, it does! There's a good chance that myself and a client's ISP representative will be placed into the ring to fight it out regarding certain networking problems that they've been experiencing.

I'm looking forward to December so much. Everyone goes on holiday in December, right?

Trees
Some good friends dropped around a Hazelnut tree the other day, claimed it was an engagement present. I love trees, and I love hazelnuts, so I'm very happy.

Wireless
Have the antenna, have the card on-way. Getting cables sorted out. The card and antenna nicely works out to be just under the legal limits on power-output, handy that.

Chickens are also cool...
Because they catch and eat mice. Who needs a cat to keep your property free of rodents, when you can have a chicken?

Big file-systems
So, you've got almost a quarter of a terabyte of space sitting around on that RAID-5. You know, if the machine ever crashes, that fsck is going to take forever. Wouldn't it be great to drop in a journaling filesystem? Ext3 sits over the top of ext2, it's easy to setup and configure. Why not use that?

Probably because I didn't compile it into the kernel.

UPS
The UPS wasn't talking nicely to the computer for a while there. I tried to look-up information on my UPS and the cable it uses, and what settings I should use under genpower. What was google's top and most useful source for this information? My diary entry from last year. Great!

As it happens it looks like the cable just wasn't seated properly, or some other stupidity. It all works fine now.

Wireless
Now the proud owner of a 18dBi connifer antenna. Many thanks to Ian and Jacinta for their assistance in its de-installation from a neighbouring rooftop. The previous owner had signed up for a one-month free trial of Galaxy-TV and then cancelled. He thought it was great that he was being paid for an antenna that cost him nothing to start with.

I thought it was great that I didn't have to shell out lots of cash for a new antenna. Big smiles all around.

Work
AIIIIEEE!! I'm everyone's favourite sysadmin, developer, technical writer, technical liason, trainer and advisor. Even more than I was before. Busy busy busy!

Rabbit-proofing
The new office is mostly rabbit-proofed, with the exception of the phone-cable. That'll need to be done soon, since Shadow has a fondness for telecommunications equipment.

Tip of the day
Don't say "good luck" to the nurse who's about to stick an inch long needle into your vein, as she might just break into laughter and miss.

I really should donate blood more often. I always end up having a great time whenever I go. Today I discovered that I both lost weight and hit an all-time-high with my haemoglobin levels. In addition I discovered that lots of nurses really admire long hair, and that if you turn white and feel dizzy after refreshments you'll get the free wheelchair ride, even if you don't have a workmate around to broadcast your onsetting faintness.

Geek pets
Chickens make good geek pets. They don't need their owners to play with them, they don't mess up the house, they put themselves to bed at night and wake themselves up in the morning. They're cheap to feed, and will happily eat two-week old pizza and turn it into eggs. Eggs are great. You can put one into boiling water and when you remember that it exists it's probably done. Chickens are good.

House rabbits make bad geek pets. Rabbits like to chew things, especially long thin things like grass, twigs, branches, network cabling and power adaptors. Currently, our awfully cute rabbit has chewed through the following since he first arrived:

• 3-4 x phone cords
• 3-4 x mobile phone chargers (repairable)
• Endless meters of UTP cabling
• Numerous vegetables and small trees (including half a sapling orange tree)
• Speaker cord (into multiple small pieces).
• Power cord
• Ariel cables

Rabbits get on surprisingly poorly with modern electronic equipment. While our bunny has suffered no ill effects from his adventures, there's only so many times you want to shorten your patch-leads or re-solder your mobile phone charger.

On the up-side, rabbits are very friendly and quiet pets. They toilet train nicely, and once you get a grasp of rabbit body-language they're a pleasure to deal with.