Archives for January 2006

Well, this past weekend we had some fun at the datacenter.  We drove down to US Internet, the datacenter where we house all of our servers.  The purpose of the visit was to install 4 new servers, and migrate all of our servers into a new rack.

Up until now, we had been leasing a 1/4 rack (or 10U of rackspace) and we upgraded to a full (42U) rack by ourselves.

When we got to the datacenter around 8:30pm, they knew we were coming, but there was a miscommunication between my account rep and the support staff, so our new rack had not been set up.  So they called in one of their lead network engineers from home, who came and set up our new rack for us.  While we waited, we went to Bakers Square to grab a bite to eat.

10:30pm, we were finally able to start moving servers.  We first installed the rackmount shelf that we brought down, as well as the 4 new servers we brought.  Then we started migrating our servers one by one from the old rack into the new rack.  This was a fun and tedous process.  A couple of times, we installed the rack rails upside down and had to fix it before we could mount the servers properly in the new rack.

We finished moving servers around 2:30am and started working on cable management.  Re-organizing the network cables and power cables in the rack to make everything neat and organized.  I worked on the cable management while Tim (my system administrator) started installing FreeBSD on one of our new servers.  We hit a snag with the installation, since the installer didn’t want to see the network to download the packages.  So we decided to let it be and come back with the full 6-CD set to install via CD, and configure the network after FreeBSD is installed.

We didn’t get out of the datacenter until after 4am.  By that time, both Tim and myself were pretty brain dead, as well as tired from moving the servers around inside the racks.

We took some pictures of the process, and they’re in my photo album.

ETA on getting FreeBSD installed on the trouble server is Thursday… at least it’s a new server, and there isn’t as much of a rush to get it online. Better to make sure everything gets installed/configured properly the first time, than living with a rush job/mistakes later on.

Well, I’ve known this for a while, but it hit me as odd/good for some reason a minute or so ago, so I thought I’d post it.

I like cheese.

I’m sitting here eating stick after stick of string cheese, and drinking iced tea.  And it is very satisfying.  I don’t know what it is about cheese, but it must have some addictive properties.  I’ve also been known to make a meal out of half a block of colby-jack (marble-jack) cheese.

Very well, move along…

Well, since I’m currently looking for a new car, I thought it would be a good idea to get pre-approved for a small auto-loan.  Unfortunately the bank came back and said they couldn’t pre-approve me.

So I hopped onto www.freecreditreport.com to see what my credit rating was.  I was shocked to find out that I have a 469 credit rating.  I guess in the craziness this fall (selling my house and renting a room with a couple other guys), and with how busy I’ve been with my business, I forgot to pay a couple of my credit cards.

Now I’m on a small quest to repair my bad credit.  Luckily business is doing well enough, and is cashflow positive I’ve had no need for credit.  But I want to fix my credit for use in the future should the need arise.  So I’m taking an inventory of things that I own that I don’t make use of very often, or any more. I’m going to sell these on Ebay to generate some cash to completely pay off my credit cards. (I only have about $2500 in credit card debt).

Next, I’m going to look at what I can do to lower my monthly expenses, and get all of my accounts in order.  I guess some places didn’t receive my forwarding address, so I haven’t been receiving all my mail since I moved this fall.  I’m going to set up online bill pay, and try to get all my bills to occur on or around the same time each month, so they are easier to keep track of.

It’s going to take me a few months, but I hope that by next summer, I’ll have a good credit score once again.

Well, Since I totalled my car over new years (took out a road sign when I went into the ditch during a snowstorm), I am now on the hunt for a new car. Right now, I have my sights set on a Saab. I’m currently deciding between 3 cars, but I think I’ve made my choice. I just need to call the person and schedule a visit. (And have the shop do a quick one-over on it).

Here are the cars I’m looking at:

1997 Saab 900SE Turbo (Black) (Manual) – 136,000 miles – $5000
1999 Saab 9-3t (Cayenne Red) (Auto) – 104,000 miles – $6995
2000 Saab 9-3t (Silver) (Auto) – 89,000 miles – $6995

The 2000 9-3 has 3 minor accidents listed in its carfax report, so I’m a little warry of that one, otherwise it looks like a spectacular car for a great price.

The 1999 9-3 is the only one of the 3 that is not fully loaded (Leather heated seats, sunroof etc). And now that I’ve been looking at Saabs, seeing so many that are loaded, it would be a shame to get one thats not.

So I’m leaning towards the ‘97 900SE. It’s a little bit older, but from what I’ve been reading on some Saab Forums, the 900SE is a nice little car. Average lifetime for a Saab is also 250,000+ miles. It’s fully loaded, and looks a little bit better to my wallet than the others.