20050826

LIFE - Don't talk to me about life....

Long time, no blog...So just what have I been up to over the past little while. Lets start with the bad and finish on a high.

Work has been fun over the past week. Now it's not been the usual bitching and moaning, so don't worry. Last week we were hit by the Zotob computer worm. The impact was huge. Basically our whole WAN was down. Now being part of a multi-national with a global network, we don't really have boarders here in NZ, so if anyone else gets something, we get it as well to some extent. However, obviously if you're a good sys admin/engineer, you've got something in place to keep yourself relatively up to date, and we do have Microsoft SUS (Software Update Services) in place to roll out updates to PCs. Servers I do manually to provide some level of control.

So the worm gets in, and things are looking bad. Our remote branches can't access any of our core systems housed at head office or in Oz. We get head office patched in 6 hours and create an automated system for patching the branches to roll on Monday. We're dependant on users in the branch to use the logon to clean their machines. So by the end of Monday we should be all good. But it's made no difference. So it's Tuesday. And it turns out that Windows 2000 machines need SP4 for the patch to work. Now some machines don't have SP4, cause trying to push 100+ MB through a 128 Kbps link to 12 machines doesn't work too well. So we ship CDs to get them patched to SP4, and try again. No change. So it's Wednesday arvo and I've given up. We've done all the right things to sort this out and it's made no diff.

Time for drastic measures. All PCs are turned off across 23 branches and we turn one on at a time at each branch to find what’s causing the problem. Turn a machine on. WAN link stays up. All good. Goes down. Yank the PC and leave it to the side. We went through about 400 PCs across the country. Here we are on Friday morning, expecting to be done. However the first people in the branch start to use their e-mail, and the links die!!! The e-mail servers are in Auckland. I've had enough of this crap a long time ago. All PCs off. Copy a single 1 MB file to Christchurch. The file takes 5 minutes with no other traffic on the link!

So we call Telecom again, and say "Dude. We asked you last week to look at your config. Look again". And they do. And it turns out there was an issue with the traffic shaping config on our frame connections, and has been since last Thursday afternoon! We did it right a week ago, and have continued to suffer through merry hell because of a network configuration problem that seems to have been caused when the router crashed last week (Which we learned about vicariously)...

So things are returning to normal during the day, and I get all call from our Monitoring department (For whom I'm a customer) saying "Your alarm is going off. The living room sensor has triggered four times", and I'm like, all my paintball kit is sitting in the living room having been cleaned since practice last weekend. There's about $3000 worth of paintball stuff alone, let alone the TV, Xbox, entertainment PC, and whatever else if they go through the rest of the house. Megz can normally rush home quickest since she's closer and has the car. However the car was getting WOF today. So I'm running for a taxi to get home (As the security company won't necessarily have a patrol there any time soon). But Megz says she managed to borrow a car from a colleague. So it's half an hour of torment waiting for her to get home (Traffic was bad apparently). Images of some thug ripping through the house, and taking my Ego. However she arrived home and said all was well. I came crashing to the ground...

The work's sorted, our house hasn't been broken in to...Today is Trevor's birthday at work, so I gladly sip my drink and enjoy some peace while we have a few quiets at the pub after work.

So Hybrid is playing the last round of the AXL in Sydney in October. Rock on! Gonna spank some Aussie ass. Get ready to squeal Skippy. Airfares are booked and the rest is coming together. Got some good guys going across, and Megz is gonna pit crew for us. Must get her some pit-bitch training from Mistress Kate.

Last weekend was fun. After the start of the Friday mentioned above and a 12 hour day at work, I'd had a 12 hour nite on the town with da boyz scheduled for a couple of months. Indian for tea, and then the pub crawl began. A few familiar places, and a few new ones. And as boy'z nites out do, we ended up in some of Auckland's...Ummmm...Female dancing establishments...Yeah. That's it! Went to the Whitehouse for the first time. It was okay. Nice venue, and the costumes were cool. Music was average, as were the ladies (Megz blows 'em away without even trying ;-). Then bowled down to Showgirls. That's better. I like my dance music! So the lads are starting to peel away. Something about being old and needing sleep. And finally in the end it's just me at about 0430. Now taxis are expensive to get home. So I head back to work, sleep on the floor for about an hour and try to catch the first morning bus home. However I just missed that, so I ended up catching another bus which gets me about an hours walk from home. But I managed to catch a cab after about half an hour walking.

So I get a couple hours kip, and then it's time to team up with Simon for the eight hour drive to Wellington for practice on Sunday. Looooooong drive. We get there. BS with the team at the Muppet Mansion again which was cool. And they have kitties now!!! Little Spike and Thomas. So I elect to sleep in the living room with the kittens. And I have a night of having my face pounced on, purring balls of fur cuddling, and Thomas sucking on my ear lobe as he kneeds my hair. It was great! :-)

Had practice. I felt like crap. No surprise. The guys in Wellington have pulled a coup. We had a little practice field near Kaiwhara in Wellers which was an awesome little spot. Had the air field from Thunderball (Marty's old field), and 12 shooters and Ants running things. Was a really cool practice. I'll say that the indoor Reball practices that the guys are getting is helping their game. Hopefully I can tuck in to some in the near future.

And then there’s the pending election. I’m voting Green. So there…

And my father can text now. Coolness!

So busy weekend planned. But at home now. So just time to chill out...

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