rufusbeggar

05:15 pm: Long week
For my friends who aren't on facebook, this will be a bit rambling:

Last Thursday my mother died. The funeral was Sunday (jews don't dawdle). Pat, Rachel, Terry, and I got back to Nashua around midnight last night.

Mom was 88 when she died. She led a full life, the last 8 plus as a widow. She had a lot of acquaintances from her retirement community, but her fast friends, from elementary school, etc. had all died out, the last one just this year. So we all felt that she'd decided it was time to rest and catch up to her husband, who she really missed (they were married for over 55 years).

She'd been out to Nashua for Passover less than a month ago and got to see all 3 of her great-grandchildren as well as her 3 grandchildren from my side of the family (we used Skype for Abby to say hi from Amsterdam). When she got back to Chicago she only spent 1 night in her apartment before going to the hospital, then rehab, then back to the hospital. All 3 of her remaining children were with her when she died peacefully.

I won't wax too poetic about my mom - I'll simply say that she was a scientist when females weren't in the sciences, she worked on the Manhattan project and at Argonne National Labs, and of her 3 sons, 2 were Phd's in Mathematics and I'm doing pretty well as a computer geek, so she taught us well. (Sorry Dad, you made me Rufus, but Mom made me smart).

Love you Mom. Say hi to Dad, and Granny and Grandpa if they're nearby...

03:09 pm: One down four to go
The first performance of Harvey was last night. Some sound problems, a few minor prop issues, but all-in-all not bad. The special effects (doors "magically opening and closing) went well - none of my actors tripped over the fishing lines. I've resolved everything, so tonight should run smoother.

Not bad, considering I have a director with a totally unrealistic attitude toward community theatre. Things probably would have run better if we'd had more than a single rehearsal during tech week. We didn't have lights until Wednesday, and I was introduced to the sound cues (which I've been forced to run) on Tuesday because that was the sound designer's last night. Sunday I'll be down to a crew of 3 - not enough. But the director just says, "Don't worry, I'll find someone." Hah! At least one tech meeting might have been nice, too.

The first scene change was a tad slow, but part of that was because the director changed the layout and "forgot" to tell me - he mentioned it to one of my crew instead, who naturally assumed he'd told me first. The lighting at the end of scene 1 was different, leaving Elwood on stage wondering when he was supposed to clear the stage. Again, the director told the lighting guy - just forgot to tell me or Elwood. Amazing.

10:41 pm: Serendipity
When I was a kid and I told people my name was Mayer, I'd hear, "Oh, are you mayor of the city?"  (Wow!  That's a new one!)

When we told adults that my brother's name was Harvey, we'd sometimes hear, "Oh, is he 6 feet tall with ears pressed flat?"  For a few years we had no clue where this came from.  Adults are weird.  Then we saw the Jimmy Stewart movie, "Harvey" and it finally made sense.

For those who don't know, the movie was based on a successful Broadway play.  This December the Nashua Theatre Guild will be performing it, and it looks like I'm going to be the stage manager.  I think it's a fitting tribute.

12:55 am: Crazy, but Happy-Happy

I'm in the middle of the Production upgrade.  The 3 machines I was assigned in the 11-to-1 timeslot cooperated, and I actually have a few minutes to breathe, get more coffee, and maybe grab a snack.

This afternoon's festival was a lot of fun.  There were 5 community theatre groups competing.  We were in the 3rd timeslot.  The final results?

Yup, almost a clean sweep!  Bounce!  Bounce!

OK, back to work...

12:08 pm: Riding the Rollercoaster

This will be a long post - a week late.  I'm sorry, but my work PC has decided not to allow cuts behind the post (or I'm just not that competent).  In summary: Last week was a very sad time followed by a very happy time.  This week is simply a very crazy time.  There, enough to intrigue some of you…

So, let's get the sad news out of the way.  My brother Harvey died on Sunday the 30th.  He'd been battling a strange form of cancer for over 4 years - doctors still don't know where it started, only that it was first detected in his liver.  A clinical trial had gone as far as it could go, so we were expecting the doctors to say something like, "Well, you've got a few months left."  Instead, he was admitted to the hospital on Friday with an infection, moved to ICU on Saturday, and by Sunday morning I got the call from my other brother Marc that they were giving him 24 hours or less.  We both took the earliest flights to Atlanta we could, but he was gone before either of us got there.  Our mother had been down to visit him just the week before, a very good thing.  I won't go into more personal details, but I will say that Harvey was the most introverted of the Lipman kids, and would be amused that he's "going on the road" so to speak.  After the family memorial, there's going to be a second one for friends, and a third, big one at the CDC where he worked and was highly respected.

Pat flew down on Tuesday, and we flew home together on Thursday.  Then on Friday afternoon we flew back out to Washington, DC, to see Jon and Aarati's first house and celebrate Asha's first birthday.  What chaos, and what fun!  The condo is only 500 sq. ft. or so in size, so imagine it filled to the brim with kids, babies, friends, tacos, and cake.  Abby's Au Pair job had ended the week before, so she was there (actually, she joined us in Atlanta too).  Rachel and 11-month-old Annabel were there as well.  Every night I'd drive from the condo to my cousin's house in Virginia where we were staying.  I suppose I could get tired of seeing the Capitol lit up like it was, but not for another 5 years or so.  Asha is gorgeous (I could be slightly biased) with a beautiful smile.  Annabel is completely different, but still gorgeous with a beautiful smile.  Pat and I have no clue what we did to deserve all this, but we won't dwell on it - we're afraid to jinx something.

Now on to this week.  I'd already promised a director to help her backstage with a theater festival production she was doing - it's a 30-minute play with 13 scenes.

Meanwhile, at work, this weekend is a major upgrade (major to us, minor to all our users) - patch and reboot all Windows servers, upgrade firmware on all UNIX machines, and upgrade Caché from V2008.1.2 to V2008.1.5.  To keep the production platform's downtime to under 2 hours, there's a lot of juggling going on.

Here's a summary of my week:

Monday: Flew home from Washington.
Tuesday: Rehearsal from 6:30PM to 7:30 (left early).  Upgrade OC6T2 from 8:30 until 10
Wednesday: Rehearsal from 6:30PM until 9.  Test upgrade procedures on a Windows machine from 9:30 until 10:30
Thursday: More testing on the Windows machine from 1PM until 3 or so.  Then upgrade UNIX instances OC8A2 and OC8B2.
Friday: Dress Rehearsal with audience from 6:30PM until 9.
Saturday: Load-in at theater and tech rehearsal from 11:15AM until 1PM or so.
Sunday: At the theater by 1:15PM.  Productions start at 1:30.  We're in the 3rd time slot and will probably perform around 3:30.  I'm going to have to skip the adjudication and awards ceremony to get some rest, because…
Sunday night:

9PM: Drive to work.  Tuesday night's upgrade pointed out some potential bottlenecks with doing this all remotely.
10PM-11: Prep my desktop PCs.
11PM-1AM: Upgrade 2 Windows machines and 1 UNIX machine.  There will be 3 of us doing a total of 8 machines.
1AM-2: More prep.
2AM-4AM: Bring Production down, upgrade 2 Windows machines.  This time there will be 4 of us updating the database servers and 6 other machines total.  When production is brought back up all the 10PM and 2AM upgrades will be brought online.
4AM-6AM: Upgrade 1 Windows machine and 2 UNIX machines - 3 of us doing 7 machines - and then add them to the pool.
6AM-whenever: Fight fires (hopefully none), send out notices, etc.

By Tuesday, I'll really be looking forward to a relatively normal week...

08:15 pm: The car that wouldn't die

On the drive home tonight, my Prius passed 250,000 miles.  The onboard computer says it's making 47.5 MPG over the last 700 miles or so (I reset it after the last oil change).  I was hoping for an excuse to get the new 2010 model, but I guess I'll have to wait a little longer...

02:58 pm: &^%$ Programmers
A month ago I sent out an email to all developers: "Machine x is going to be turned off, and machine y is going to be turned on.  All programs that run on x will automatically move to y.  Please check your code to make sure this isn't a problem."  I wait a few days to confirm that *nobody* is going to reply (as expected), and then send out a second email, to about 2 dozen programmers saying: "By my best guess, this is the group that should check to make sure their programmers can move from x to y."  I also include a few examples of why their programs may not work.  I get 2 replies.  The next week, I send a third email to the remaining programmers, "This is your last chance to let me know if you're going to have any problems."  Along the way, I (1) give a talk at the monthly Developers' Meeting about how all our different background programming works, what's appropriate and what isn't, suggested modifications, etc.; (2) analyze all replies and modify our background jobs so that my "best guess" becomes less that and more "if there's problems, page this group"; (3) modify the automatic startup procedures to document group responsibilities.

I'm feeling pretty good about things: 90% of the programmers (or their bosses - I included them) have confirmed that "yes that's my program" so the next time we do this (probably in September), I'll know exactly who to email.

Of course, I still can't get anyone to actually look at their program and confirm that it won't have a problem, no matter how often I reply to that effect.  In one case, I spent 2 minutes (maybe less) and then called the programmer: "Do you know that your program *specifically* wants to run on machine z?"  His reply, "Oh, that's why it hasn't started right since January."  TWO MINUTES, and I'd never seen his program before and knew nothing about his application!

So, jumping forward to last weekend.  First, Pat gave me a wonderful anniversary present: a 2-day course in handspinning, at Halcyon Yarn, in Bath Maine.  So, Friday and Saturday I spent there.  Sunday was spent in Southern Connecticut at the Midsummer Magick Faire (shameless plug), playing Rufus gratis, hoping to get The Great Unwashed in there next year.  Traffic home was abysmal - CT and MA had nightly construction at 3 different spots (time to change our home route for next weekend) - so we didn't get home until 11PM.  I spent 11 until midnight checking emails for last-minute changes and confirmations from the Server Group that all Windows computers had the latest patches installed.  Midnight to 1AM: Prepping the Development, Q/A, and misc. production servers.  1AM to 2AM: rebooting same, checking logs, etc.  2AM to 3AM: Rebooting all Production Windows Applications servers (only 9 now, thank-the-gods), halting production on (UNIX) machine x, starting production on machine y, and checking that all background processing is running smoothly.  3AM to 4AM: Updating documentation, sending out an email to my group with all the details, etc.  4am: bedtime.

I'm supposed to get Monday off, since I ran the monthly shutdown, but being slightly paranoid, I check in anyways.  At 11:30, a programmer emails me: "My program isn't running - please fix it."  My reply (phrased better than this): "It's your program, not mine.  That's why I gave you a month to look at the code."  Her reply: "This is a PCC (Patient Critical Care) issue and I need your help."  By 1PM, things are back to normal, I'm still thinking "breakfast would be nice," and wondering is the &^%$ programmer will *now* look at the code or we're going to go through the same panic in September when the code moves back.

End of geek moment.  I am now in the middle of a 2-hour conference call (I'm still in my pajamas - I'm glad Larry didn't ask for video as well as audio).  My eyes are gummy, I think I'm still a few hours short on sleep, etc. etc.

01:28 pm: help?
A few years ago (OK, maybe more), I watched 10-year-old Anna Paquin raise a family of Canadian geese and then help them fly south for the winter.

Last night, I watched totally-naked Anna Paquin having great sex with a vampire.

Now I need to wash my brain.

12:44 am: Long night
Got back from Silver Kingdom Ren Faire by 9:15 or so.  Since I drove to SKRF from work, Pat and I both had to drive home. (Would have got home sooner, but Mass. was playing musical lane closures again, and closed 2/3 lanes on 495, so traffic was a bear).

It's now 12:45 and I'm just sitting here in front of the computer with a mild headache waiting for the clock to strike 1AM.  Then I:
1) Reboot 2 Development Windows machines
2) Reboot 2 Q/A Windows machines
3) Reboot 48 additional, misc. Windows servers
4) Tweak OC6T2 (UNIX Master) configuration
5) Twiddle my thumbs until 2AM: Hospital production machines can't be touched before then.
6) Reboot 9 Production Windows machines (done in 2 shifts)
7) Tweak the OC7 and OC8 UNIX servers to shift background job processing
8) Fill out paperwork, send emails
9) Go to bed, probably around 4AM

I'm getting (almost) too old for this...

12:48 pm: Food?

So, I was chatting with Abby last week (or was it the week before), and she said the following: