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]]>I've been very busy at work for the last month plus bringing up a cluster of two large Opteron-based servers running VI3 Enterprise. It's my first experience with the high-availability features of the VMware ESX platform. It's very nice! I've implemented a clustered iSCSI target implementation using NetApp FAS3020's to serve as the shared storage. Now that everything's up and integrated, it's working quite well. Pretty soon I'll be ready to start moving real workload to the cluster. I would work on VMware solutions full-time if I could; that's how good that software is.
I made the playoffs in the BDFL for the first time this year, but I didn't get past the first round. Now that I've had a taste of the postseason, I want more!
Thinking about doing something different with the blog in the new year. We'll see!
]]>More of my audio stuff (Mackie 1202VLZ, Alesis QSR, Yamaha MIDI controller) has made it back into the basement as a result. I haven't played the synth much since getting the bass thing going full-time again, but we'll see.
I've been extremely busy at work, probably one of my busiest times there. I've been waist-deep in blade servers and VMware for the last few weeks and it's all finally coming online. This is probably going to end up being the most significant infrastructure I've helped design and build to date, and I think it's going to showcase how we can best manage our Windows Server infrastructure in the future. It's also fun to have extra hardware to test out Ubuntu on. :)
Melissa is doing great. We can't wait for her next ultrasound so that we can find out the baby's gender. We're both looking forward to having another little one around here.
]]>Just as the winter weather starts kicking in here in Harrisburg, the wheels of change have started turning as it pertains to our furniture. We're expecting our second child in early May, so to get his/her new room ready we have to move some stuff around.
]]>To make our office an even better guest room, we've decided to move the computer desk and quite a bit of the multimedia hardware to the basement. In its place will be a very functional armoire-style desk that will be narrower and easy to close up when guests are using the room. I have to move quite a few things around to make that happen, but we will be modernizing some of our equipment to soften the blow. My venerable Samsung Syncmaster 17GLsi monitor will go downstairs and it its place will most likely be a new Dell 20" LCD.Ryan's room will say bye-bye to the dresser that can host a baby-changing mat, in favor of a larger chest of drawers and a computer desk. He plays games on my old "Maestro" computer, which will get its own keyboard, mouse, and small LCD monitor.
We will most likely hold on to Melissa's childhood furniture which is now in the new baby's room for later use, but some of it will have to go in the already crowded basement. I think we're going to have to finally junk some of the stuff we have in storage to make room. And of course, the crib will be rebuilt in the baby's room in the spring, after we've had a chance to paint it and decorate.
We've had the benefit of a lot of storage space for years now. The new little one is making us re-evaluate some of this stuff we hold on to for no other reason than to not get rid of it.
]]>Update: Steve Gillmor likes Heroes, too.
]]>]]>I've got a decent FB2K/Continuator/Oddcast chain going, with 44.1kHz Stereo Ogg Vorbis streams of Q0 and Q8 (in-home only) and a 32kHz Stereo 64kbps CBR MP3 stream. I've confirmed that FB2K 0.9.4 now supports FLAC streams; however, in my limited testing so far I've found that Icecast develops CPU usage problems when dealing out a FLAC stream. I'm eager to see if I can serve one out within the house stably, but for listening purposes the Q8 Vorbis stream is just fine.
I've got an instance of Winamp and Eric Milles' Remote Speakers Output plugin that I've got going 24/7 listening to that Q8 stream and pumping it to the Airport Express attached to our stereo. Hi-def ICYG in the living room is a nice thing to have! And Ryan likes it when he hears the station IDs he recorded over 2 years ago come on...
]]>Traffic in the area of Ralph Wilson Stadium was backed up, but no worse than I thought it'd be. We were in the thick of it for about 20-30 minutes and then parked in one of the outer lots off Abbott Road. I wasn't thrilled by the idea of buying a window sticker for $7 or any of the other memorabilia I saw, so we headed into the Stadium about an hour before kickoff. That gave us time to get some food, find our seats, and settle in. We were pretty worried about both the tempature and the chance for rain; neither turned out to be a factor. Temps were in the low 60s, there was no rain, and the wind swirled around a bit. Great football weather.
Our seats turned out to be great. They were in the front row of section 200, nearly lined up with the goalposts. We had a great view of everything but the Jumbotron -- it was behind us. I brought some binoculars with me, and they were a great help when play was at the other end of the field. The guys were plenty close when on our side. I didn't mind seeing the game from that perspective; I liked seeing the formations head-on.
And the game? Great. Willis McGahee's first TD of the season came in the end zone closest to us. We knew it would be a low-scoring game, but I didn't think the Bills would let the Vikings come back late in the game. They kept it together and got a little bit of luck as well. One thing I was proud of was that the stadium got very noisy (I helped) every time the Vikings offense had the ball; I have to think that had an effect. Seeing the game in person reminded me that these guys are still human, and that media coverage of NFL games tends to over-amplify both the game and the players. But it's all in good fun.
Thanks again to Melissa (I love you!) for treating me to a great early birthday present!
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