Miscellaneous, Scattered Crap

I'm going against the cardinal blog rule and will be Talking About Several Things. (Gasp! Hide the children!) Also, unfortunately for you, this is the last posting for about a week. I know. Stop crying. It sucks to be you, and I apologize.

Work Sucks
So last night we had a disk crash out from under us on a production server at work. Web-accessed system, oracle binaries gone. Crap-ola. Physical standby not prepared to switch over immediately. We gathered at work starting at 9:00 (I didn't get in until after 10:00) while the network admins worked with Sun to get the disk back up. We had the binaries installed and Oracle back up by 1:00. Record recovery (for us). Few errors. Few failed processes. Awesome.

Not like I was actually doing the work, mind you. My role was limited to trying to think of land mines (I found a few) and running around to get status. It was fun in the "this had better not happen often" way. We rolled home at 2:00 a.m. and rolled back in for a 10:00 meeting. Ros and Avery were nice enough to let me sleep in.

Tears and Smears
Today is my co-worker and friend Y's (American name J) last day. We are all very sad. She provides much comic relief and camaraderie to our group. We will miss her. I have worked with Y for many years, and know I will work with her again. It'll happen. Until our paths cross again; good luck, my friend.

To lighten the unbearable mood today we pulled a prank on one of our most beloved team members. The floor Admin was snapping photos for a book for Y and caught this team member in a... Compromising position? He turned to smile for her and his hand happened to be sitting on his crotch. Awesome. She edited that one for the book (smart), but brought us a copy of the uncut (ahem) picture (even smarter). We mock-framed it and added hilarious captions:

• "They pay me to do this all day! Woo hoo!"
• "The company hasn't taken them yet!"
• "I work hard for the money!"
• "Rollin' with my homies!"

And last...

• "Just checking out the cluster and the index, if you know what I mean..." (Geeky database joke.)

We presented it to him at a group lunch with Y's going away stuff. Too funny. We were all rolling. Naturally I was careful not to offend anyone and make sure everyone knew it was just in good fun. We love this guy and he could stand a good ribbing.

The Reason You're Sad
I'm going on vacation next week. Your life just got much, much worse. Sorry people, but it's time for the annual trek southward to Savannah for the Fourth. I can't not go - it's biological. So while I'm burning and sweating in the sun you can re-read all my old posts and laugh and cry and feel lonely without my dark wit and poignant recollections.

Now go look up the word poignant.