Rough week. I haven't slept a solid, or even semi-solid night since the
weekend. Patching prod Tuesday generated 2 overnight calls, and a similar
issue got me called on Wednesday/Thursday night. Last night I didn't get
called, however I woke up anyway at 3am. Tried to go back to sleep and
failed. Got up around 5am, futzed around, then got a little more sleep.
Then I got up, got ready for work, got to work...found out I'd left my badge
at home. Without my badge it's kind of difficult to get around Carcosa Corp,
so after I drove home to get it, I said screw it and worked from home.
Last night was rough. Finishing up the non-customer facing production
servers. And I had more problems with the last 4 servers than the almost
100 other servers. I ended up arguing with Nagios because the new version
added weird example templates, creating phantom hosts that obviously were
offline. Our cacti install just broke utterly, new version will not work
with the old database. And since I didn't want to spend half the night
fixing mysql issues, I rolled back to the snapshot I made before patching.
(I had a bad feeling, and oh I am so glad I listened to it). *shakes
head*
I'm really exhausted right now. I took a nap after I logged out of work,
well mostly I just lay there and listening to the white noise generator (beach
sounds). Got up again, listening to The Black Stone right now, but I'll be going
back to bed soon. This weekend is a social get together tomorrow, and
Sunday is probably going to see 'Murder on the Orient Express'. Plus the
chores and stuff. Oh, in book news, I picked up something special. Many
years ago, my uterine sibling was given a copy of 'The Collected works of
Edgar Allan Poe' by a teacher. It was this epic gothic looking book, printed
in the mid 20's. It really does look like something you'd read aloud from
to summon 'something'. I 'borrowed' it for years, was how I got into Poe,
right before I discovered Lovecraft. I eventually gave it back but I always
remembered how cool it was. A few weeks ago, I decided to go hunting.
All I remembered was the cover, and the approximate time it was published.
After a few google searches I had the publisher, and looking on Amazon I
found a copy for $20. Needless to say, I bought it. It came in today.
And it's in amazing shape for a 90 year old book. Spine is pretty tight,
no loose pages, a little browning, but all in all it's just about perfect.
So it's sitting with some other treasured books of mine on my desk, next
to my epic fancy editions of HPL, and other weirdness.
So that's this week in Vulpineland. Now, I'm going to fiddle around with
some things, and probably make it an early night. Ciao.
Oh by Dagon's scaly scrotum, tonight's last few server patches were more trouble than all the other servers I've done this round. Nagios upgrade broke our nagios setup, adding hosts in templates and other goofy crap. I was able to fix that without issues, but still some minor stuff is goofy, will be working on that tomorrow. Cacti updated to some rather big change, which the database setup for it could not handle. Rolled that one back (yay listening to the voice in my head saying 'this one is trouble'), or I'd be up half the night teaching myself mysql magic to fix it. I'm calling it done. Going to eat a snack, read a book, and go to bed.
And if I get called again tonight...well, I won't scream at anyone, but I'll be a tad pointed to the people involved.
Cthulhu grant me more dreams of fencing, and/or squidgirls, or even the epic dream bookstore I can't seem to find in real life.
And since we covered the downs a minute ago, here's what's up in
Château Innsmouth. Work is going good, busy but good. I'm actually
working tonight, prepatch work on our Windows servers before the Corporate
Windows group does the actual updates. Unlike last time, I'm probably not
staying up to 3am just in case. It's just easier for me to get up early
tomorrow and check things. I've also gotten most of my usual chores done.
I'm reading a bunch of good books, 'Bond: Unknown' probably the purest form
of Spies vs Shoggoths. A history of Pyrrhus of Epirus (where we get the
term Pyrrhic victory, among other books. I've been bouncing between
subjects, a small lack of focus. So many books, so little time.
(Time passes...)
Chores are done, well done for today. Need to go to the store tomorrow,
and I need to put up the dishes once they dry out. Went to pick up some
dinner, came home, snagged a quick shower and going for classic Vincent
Price movie, since my other picks today were less than spectacular.
But I can always count on Vincent Price, especially in period horror flicks.
Windows snapshots are being taken. Not sure what I'm going to do when it's
done, and 'Tomb of Ligera' is done. Maybe another classic horror flick, or
hide in one of my books. I don't know. Probably go for the movie. Well
a movie.
Not much in the way of plans for upcoming stuff. Friend's spawning day
party next weekend, but that's about it. Next year I'm hoping to make
some changes. A trip or two, probably moving out of Château Innsmouth 1.0
to a bit bigger (and better laid out) apartment. Been snagging pictures
of ideas, floorplans and study/library shots. Of course, to be honest, I
just need a place for a bed, a closet for clothes, kitchen, bathroom, etc
and a desk for the shoggoth wrangling, the rest will probably be bookshelves.
That's my style, Late Biblomaniac.
And on that note, I'm running out of words. So I'll catch you next time.
*waves a tentacle*
Well this week was a lot more ups and downs. Lets get the downs out of
the way. It's official, I'm not doing the magnetic treatment, seems that
'we figured out the insurance problem' actually meant 'oh what the hell,
lets try again.' How am I doing about that? Resigned. I intentionally
kept my hope to a minimum. Pshrink visit went ok, all things considered
I'm handling things alright, so same meds, come back after the holiday
season, unless stuff changes. Which given the silly season is their
busiest time. I also had a case of unexpected sadness earlier this week.
Got a wild hair to look up where my uncle's name was from, and I found
his obituary from 2011. I knew he'd passed, I thought I'd mourned when it
happened. But seeing his face and hearing about the good he did in his
community, well I started crying. And the next day I wrote something
about it on Facebook, and the tears started up again. Guess between losing
my friend's dad, and seeing my uncle well, opened up the waterworks.
Otherwise it's been anxiety and feeling down a good chunk of the time.
I'm rather down right now. News, worries about people I care about, and
my anxiety spiking up randomly. I was going to try to work on cleaning
up some of the clutter in the the areas that are out of sight...but I
don't have the tentacles for it, so I'll do it another weekend.
Not been a good fortnight and change. We lost a friend of mine's father
last week, and it's been hard. Not just seeing someone I care about hurting,
but I had my own relationship with him. And I really haven't had much
time to sit and process. I also have a feeling the TMS treatment is back
off the table, as all I've heard from my insurance was 'denial, review,
silence' and from the provider 'silence'. I have another pshrink visit
on Wednesday, which means it's been a month since this got put back on the
table. At least I'm not also trying to go off seroquel as well at the
same time. Allergies still suck. Not much to say about that though, Texas
is hell, and we're coming up on cedar fever season.
There are positives in life. Work has been busy, between database issues,
patching, and schedules with my fellow admins. Averaging about 10 hour
days, but that's ok. I've worked harder for people I like less. My boss
is talking about sending me off for database training (probably virtually),
in part due to the issues we had. Which, given my general lack of knowledge
about databases would be good. Books are still my friends, even if my
ability to focus is all over the place. I've started a bunch of books,
but only finished a few, mostly those of favorite authors. On the movie
front, I did go see the latest 'Thor' this last weekend. It's a very
funny movie, the kind I wish more comic book movies would be like.
(that being said, 'Black Panther' doesn't look to have a bunch of comedy,
but boy does it look awesome).
No big plans coming up. Mostly I just want to take care of myself and my
friend, and see what comes up after the New Year. And on that note, I'm
going to call this a post. Catch you all later.
Well, when last I posted, I'd had a stressful week. The weekend before
my spawning day was alright, had Egyptian food with Amythest and Nymaz,
then stayed up massively late for work. Worked from home on my spawning
day, still did stuff done. First year since 2000 that I didn't make a
blog post on my Spawning Day. Felt weird. Work is keeping me busy,
occasionally stressful but not bad.
This weekend was vegging at home on Friday night, Saturday being social
with two sets of friends and a Half Price book raid. Today is...less
perky. Sunday blahs + anniversary of Dad's passing = a day I really
didn't want to do much. And I really haven't, store run this morning,
repairing the Wordpress install today. I'll probably get the dishes
done, and the bed made. But my nemesis, the laundry pile will stay probably.
I think I have clothes enough for work...
In geek news, I moved my various domains' email to Google. Been having issues
with mail getting blocked, and I'm tired of arguing with mail providers.
So yeah, paying Google to manage most of it for me. Yeah, I know, I lose
major geek points, but geeking has lost some of it's sparkle lately, since
I do it all day long at work. Oh well. I still run mostly my own DNS and
website foo still.
Still don't have details on how the TMS is going to work, need to give them
a call tomorrow. Have a number of other things I need to deal with, but
nothing that's an OMG emergency. Lots of books, finding new history foo
to dive into, plus lots of Lovecraftian fiction, with a bunch more coming
out in November. So many books...yay for me. Ok, calling this a post and
going to go make some early dinner. Laters everyone.
Well it took a bit of crazed database and XML hackery, but I've got the blog back up and running. Still have to finish up the bits and bobs, and work out a better backup solution. I'll have a real post in a while, but for now, yay me.
This week has been crazy amounts of stress for me. Between the news,
sleep and dream issues, worrying about friends, and my usual anxiety,
I've been what the cool kids call 'a hot mess'. I think it peaked on
Thursday where I got so frustrated with a website/javascript that I
actually made a loud snarling noise that coworkers thought was me about
to murder a desktop tech. (Scared the tech too) Either than, or I invented
a swear word in Enochian. (Damn angels don't curse all that much).
Today started off better, but it didn't last. Of course now I'm home and
safe. Watching 'Friday the 13th' movies as in traditional. Starting with
the remake, then I'm not sure. We'll play it by hockey mask.
In brainmeats news, it seems my insurance is now willing to pay for most
of the TMS treatment. That's part of the anxiety, trying not to get my hopes
up in case A. insurance changes it's mind and B. It doesn't do any good.
Like most mental health treatments it's a dice roll. But it would be
effective, and who knows, it may also act like a Tillinghast Resonator from
'From Beyond'. Oh, that might end up having me eaten by a transdimensional
monster. I'll let you know if anyone at the treatment looks like Barbara
Crampton. *wink*
My spawning day is Tuesday. So, the quasi plan is to celebrate tomorrow
with Amythest and Nymaz. (I also have to work Sat night/Sunday morning,
so no really wild partying) I have to wort on the actual Spawning day, but
I'm going to try to work from home that day. Next weekend I'll be hanging
out with other friends. No big shindigs for me, trying to limit the social
anxiety issues. So here's to getting older. I'd say like a fine wine, but
I'm all cheese, baby.
So that's about it for this week. Wish me luck on a nice, fun weekend.
So the home film Fest continues. Been watching mostly shorts, either
the shorts from this years Fest, or shorts from the last three Fests. Which
is the opposite of what I did last year, where it was all feature films
for me. But the shorts are fun too, lots of ideas that couldn't be made
into feature films. Makes sense, since a story that's 4 pages long
requires quite a bit of padding to make into a 90 min film. Today was the
last set of shorts from this year's fest, which had some of my favorites.
I'm now watching 'In The Mouth of Madness' Maybe I'll watch another movie
afterwards.
Besides tentacles, I've been eating pretty good. Various snacks, sushi
last night for dinner (and breakfast), and chicken for lunch. Can't
keep up the chanting on an empty stomach. Yay for food.
I also went on a book hunt today. Since I couldn't go to Powell's in
Portland, I went to Recycled Books in Denton. Got a first edition of
Colin Wilson's 'Space Vampires', and a couple of other things. Yeah, I know,
my spawning day is coming up...but what's Lovecraftian Horror without looking
for forbidden tomes in a strange bookstore ?
SO that's about it for this eldritch week of films and fun. Back to the
mundane world tomorrow, with work and allergy shots and stuff. Oh well,
such is life. Catch you all later.
Ok. Chores done. Variety of snacks in the fridge. Frosty beverages are chilling. Cool Lovecraftian shirt from the wilds of Poland. Arcane ward on door set to Do Not Disturb. Skippy the Plush Cthulhu has a good view of the big screen. The rites have been howled. The first block of shorts is queued on the big screen. Lets get this party started !
