Tag Archives: Stupid

Too Many LogoRhythms to Count

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You may have noticed that my site has been offline for a few days. Or you may have noticed and thought I was simply being quiet. I’m known to some to be that way now and again. Not the case this time, though. I was offline good and proper. Now, after lots and lots of LogoRhythms, I’m back on line…

What happened was this: the utter corruption of my RAID1 setup, resulting in the loss of nearly all the data in the mirrored HD partition in which my web server data was stored. My /home directory was mounted on the same drive, but it wasn’t affected for some reason. My /www directory, home to my web server and all the data it served, was nearly completely lost, with plenty of data unrecoverable. At least I have my initial configurations, and somehow, the daily MySQL backups of all my databases.

No, I didn’t have the data backed up elsewhere. I relied on RAID, figuring that HD failure was my biggest concern, not driver/controller/software failure and the loss of superblocks and disk labels.

Yes, I’m an idiot. I should have known. Lesson learned.

So, over the weekend, with the blessings of my lovely and incredibly understanding wife, I exercised my hardware research muscles, and put together the specs for two identical systems to serve as production (Britannia) and development (Sosaria). Then I went out and bought it all (see lovely and incredibly understanding statement above). Here’s the thing… I spent about a third on both of those systems as I spent on my gaming rig 6 years ago, and they’re both arguably nearly three times as fast (by certain measures and points of view… they screamed through the initial SSH host key generation routines so fast I didn’t even realize it was done until I was sitting at a logon prompt). The hardware is anything but crazy fancy, but it is working.

As an aside, it was interesting to watch the two machines run package installs and updates in tandem through two simultaneous PuTTY instances. Nanoscopic differences in the hardware always had one machine or the other running ahead.

It’s nice to know I still got what it takes to piece together a working computer from separate components, and have it boot the first time I give it the juice. Granted, they were all new parts, so there wasn’t any real hacking involved, but it still feels nice.

I kept costs down by sticking with on-board graphics (who needs a distinct graphics card to push console text?), and already having monitors sitting around. I’m saving space by using a KVM switch, instead of multiple monitors & keyboards. It’s a mechanical switch, so until I get a battery backup in place (not cheap), I may run into issues if a brownout causes unplanned reboots. I’m keeping it set to my prod box in that case, to at least simulate some consistent uptime. I haven’t had a brownout in a few years, either, so I’m due…

The two servers are identical in every way, from the hardware up through the OS and (at least at this time) the software packages installed. That way, I can be sure what I develop on dev will work without issue on prod. In fact, once it’s all set up the way I want, I won’t even need to log in to prod to publish new work. I’ll just check in the changes via Subversion and sip my beverage of choice as it all “just works.”

To help avoid future data loss issues (rare is the perfect solution), my dev box will serve as backup to my prod box by default, and I’ll have some large external drives hanging off my dev slow box for yet more backups (via relatively slow USB 2.0 connections – but backups just have to work, not be fast – I’m still looking into a NAS solution, b/c that would just be cool). I’m thinking about looking into off-site solutions too (cloud?), but haven’t started that yet. I’ve no doubt some of you will have opinions on this set up, which I’m more than willing to entertain, assuming they don’t involve too much more money. :)

I’m excited to finally have a semi-proper development environment again. And develop I will… not only to recreate what I lost over the last 6 months (which wasn’t that much to be honest), but also to create whatever it is I’ll create from here out.

But first, I’ll fix all the broken images, and then I’ll get to creating a new theme for this site…

Hills Not So Bad. Also, I Have to Get on the Sidewalk Now

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Before going to see Resident Evil, my flat-inducing buddy and I went out for a quick ride last night. I excised a substantial chunk from our previous route in the hopes of saving some time, but underestimated the mileage. I figured it would be ~17 miles, but ended up being over 27. Well. There you have it. Don’t hire me to guess the mileage of meandering routes. I’m apparently not very good at it.

What I’m getting better at (again) is hills. While my average pace last night wasn’t much to speak of in terms of improvement, my energy level throughout the ride, and afterwards, was. I’d ridden all the same hills, at a comparable rate, and had more than enough energy for a quarter mile all-out sprint at the end of the ride to my house. If we didn’t have to rush to make the movie (due to my aforementioned apparent inability to gauge distances), I would have stayed out, though the darkness threatened to envelope us in it’s sweet, but not terribly sticky, embrace. Alas, time was short, and it was time to call it a ride.

Oh, and no flats!

I’m still very obviously lacking the leg strength to maintain a decent pace up the 12-15% grades on this route, but if energy levels are any judge, then improvement is already showing.

I was inspired to push harder by two incidents last night. I will tell you about them now. Here they are, then.

The first, more inspiring and less humorous, occurred on the 2nd of the two sisters on Johnson drive (I’ve mentioned them before, they’re between Mid America Sports Complex and Renner Drive). As I was nearing the middle of the 2nd sister heading east, I saw the lengthened shadow of someone behind me, as cast by the setting sun, and soon thereafter heard a remarkably polite and casual “On your left.” The rider passed me easily, and we exchanged pleasantries.

As he sped off, up the steep incline, in the same manner that I would speed off down and equally steep decline, I noted that his speed was obviously aided by the thick bands of rippling muscle in his calves. “Eee Gads, I thought. Look at those ripping muscles in his calves!” Now, lest you think that sounds rather… uh… gay, allow me to remind you that I am an artist at heart, if not in practice, and appreciate beauty in many forms, male and female. It was pretty hot, though. Not as hot as my wife, mind you, but hot in it’s own way, nonetheless. So… *ahem* how ’bout them Bears? Wanna beer?

Suffice to say, his clear lack of struggle and the ease with which he made that climb was inspiring.

The second incident was inspiring not for it’s athleticism, but because it was hysterical. I was somewhere on Midland Drive between I-435 and Shawnee Mission Pkwy when I was passed by a small, rusting, late-model white sedan of some sort. I have no idea who was driving it, but the passenger, an upstanding young man of about 16-17 years of age leaned out the window and yelled “Get on the f*cking sidwalk, a**hole!” I immediately started laughing. Loudly. I couldn’t help it! Perhaps not the smartest thing do to if one wants to avoid confrontation, but I couldn’t help it! It just struck me as incredibly funny. And laugh is what one does when struck by Teh Funny.

Then, to throw fuel to my little fire, he flipped me off! A true sign of intelligence and even wisdom, it was. That, my friends, really set me off. I nearly had to pull over to the side of the road. To add yet another bit of funny to the incident: there is no sidewalk anywhere near that stretch of road. Nowhere. Now, I’m sure the kind young sir meant a sidewalk on another road, somewhere very far away from where the car, which he wasn’t even driving, was located, but still, at the time, the irony struck me, and out popped loud laughter.

I started to worry that maybe my laughing at him, for truth be told, I was laughing AT HIM, would inspire some sort of retribution, and that I would come to find him waiting for me up ahead somewhere. That sobered me a little, but not much, and he clearly had more important things to do than hassle some defenseless cyclist, as I saw him none the more.

To be young and enlightened.

All in all, a fantastic and inspiring, if shorter, ride.

As for the movie. Meh.