my life, as far as i know.

so today at work we found resolution to a strange network problem that’s persisted for days. we heard about it three days ago and it meant print jobs had been held up for almost a week. the issue was reaching critical mass. there were an increasing number of meetings. we were sniffing networks. bring interfaces up and down. rebooting servers. capturing packets for analysis. we were in conference calls coordinating our efforts. our problem server being down meant employees couldn’t trade stock! still, we could not reach the printers. we were getting so deep into debugging we decided to take ten steps back. concentrate on one server. simplify its configuration. i took a break from lunch.

i’m walking back to desk to find my supervisor laughing out loud. what’s up? “we rebooted the printers. now it’s all working again.”

doh.

a friend send me a link to this article, which i’ve made a copy of. it’s funny. and there’s a lot of truth to it.

we tried to think, which of our friends are introverts? we couldn’t name too many. most were in the middle or extroverted. is that by design?

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breathe deep the gathering gloom,
watch lights fade from every room.
bedsitter people look back and lament,
another day’s useless energy spent.
impassioned lovers wrestle as one,
lonely man cries for love and has none.
new mother picks up and suckles her son,
senior citizens wish they were young.
cold hearted orb that rules the night,
removes the colours from our sight.
red is grey and yellow white,
but we decide which is right.
and which is an illusion???.

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dotster has a special now, you transfer a domain to them for $9 and they’ll tack on an extra year of registration. i decided to move off nsi/verisign and consolidate the domains i own. so now all nine are on dotster. yay!

these are the highlights from my three day weekend:

in santa clara, there’s this stretch of road that’s immense. and marked only for one lane this way and one lane that way. my friend was in the car and i was telling him about how streets like these amuse me. how i can drive all around and still be in the same lane. and now for a demonstration. i can drive over here (drives to the far right side of the lane) and also over here (drives to the far left — this lane is like 4 or 5 car-widths wide). oops, here’s my friend’s place. turning left. there’s a cop on his street. oh shit, not there’s one behind me with the lights flashing.

stop i stop my car. the cop has me turn off the engine. says i’m driving kinda crazy and that my registration has expired. i explained what i was doing in all my honesly as i searched for my registration. (i’d renewed it, just not put on the new sticker) a few moments pass. he says forget it, just drive on the right side of the lane, swerving around can cause an accident if you dont see anybody. yessir. i’m sorry, office. and he leaves.

no more roadway amusements for me.

jose told me something to take to heart:

love may be unconditional but relationships are not.

“in every heart there is a room
a santuary safe and strong
to heal the wounds from lovers past
until a new one comes along.”

things i saw in san francisco yesterday:

more voicemail. people never stop calling.

you know, most of my time in the voicemail system is spent “rewinding” multiple times so i can discern the phone number the person is telling me to call them back on. if he would stay at his desk, i could simply ‘reply’ to his voicemail.. or better, he could email me, which i check even when i am not at my desk.

this morning i got an evite, inviting me to a send off party for a talented artist i know. apparently he’s moving to new york.

i was in the shower this morning, thinking about the invitation with mixed emotions. it made me think, he’s entering a new chapter in his life. my pessimism had me thinking, what was my part in his life? i should show up in appreciation for being a part of his life and see him off.

there are 33 people on the evite, excluding myself. i know 11 of them, and have met another 3. what would this party be like?

then later this morning i remembered, last night i dreamt one of my issues at work resolved itself.

was futzing around with google and found the oldest appearance of my name in usenet, along with one of my first posts. my, how time flies.

jschlachet75: its kinda funny, my taste in music comes from both my parents
jschlachet75: from my mom.. james taylor, joni mitchell, etc.. the more liberal, 60s, folk music..
jschlachet75: from my dad.. new age and progressive rock.. yes, rush, pink floyd, enya, chick corea
jschlachet75: and r+b from the guys i’ve dated over the past 6 years
jschlachet75: hehe
jschlachet75: i’ve dated only 94.9 listeners
jschlachet75: well, i went out for a while with an easy rock guy
jschlachet75: i never realized that
jschlachet75: its kinda funny

“sometimes you want to go
where everybody knows your name,
and they’re always glad you came;
you want ot be where you can see,
out troubles are all the same;
you want to be where everybody knows your name.”

self perpetuating filler

just thought of that. it’s the whole of irc.

/quit

blah blah blah

frank weened off irc. why is he still on irc?

blah blah blah

my website broke. fixed. how you do that?

blah blah blah

wasted four hours being ignored online

blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah

maureen says they’re banning instant messaging at work :(
chiccoy’s computer is done.

internet chats.. for me, these days:

its like im an emcee for a show. before the show starts, the audience is loud and animated. spot goes on, i introduce myself. no reaction. the audience then quiets down, like they heard me. i say a few words. no reaction. some conversation drums up here and there.. the silence was only a coincidence. the volume of conversation rises again. it’s like the microphone was never turned on. or i’m speaking some language nobody understands. or simply, nobody cares.

why do i keep returning to internet chats? it’s kinda scary, ive been on chats for more than a decade now.

i guess i just miss the days when i was pulled into a social scene.

i know the scene and the chats are all a popularity contest anyways. maybe too many people know me.

…

today i pissed someone off on the road.

i was slowing down to make a right turn. at the intersection, i noticed a guy on a bicycle was approaching and would want to cross my path. i came to a stop at the turn-off and let him pass, since pedestrians have the right of way. as i made my right turn, the car behind me sped up and pulled up next to me. the driver looked right at me and shook his head noticeably.

sorry to put such a burden on someone.

there are lots of legal codes about roads and traffic. section 21451, part a of the california vehicle code, says “any driver, including one turning, shall yield the right-of-way to aother traffic and to pedestrians lawfully within the intersection or an adjacent crosswalk.” the road and traffic code is comprised a list of legal obligations, each followed by a list of exceptions.

my general practice is to yield to pedestrians. i would rather err on the side of safety. the pedestrian waved to me as he passed. i waved back. even if someone’s time was worth $100/hr, the 15-20 second incident merits only fifty-four cents at most.

………………………..

last weekend i was thinking about how i like control. it’s a deep rooted facet of my being i think. here are some quirks in which my control is manifested:

i’ve noticed that a linux of hobbyist unix geeks are hell-bent on monitoring. they like knowing about every own connection to their machine. i used to be that way. i always used to have a window open to ‘tail -f’ the logs i wanted. ive slowly been doing that less and less.

i guess everybody seeks their own control. i know i dont like the idea of destiny. there are obviously forces out of my control.. but i do like some feeling that i have a general say over where my life is heading.