Plus some New Year’s resolutions…
Technology
When I bought my primary Mac a while back, I decided that I was going to treat it as a sort of “home production server,” meaning I wouldn’t use it to try beta software, I wouldn’t repartition the disk, I wouldn’t do things to mess it up and, thus, I wouldn’t need to reinstall the OS after some unnecessary technological debacle (I have other computers that I use for testing, experimenting and messing things up). But over time this computer started to degrade as some applications came and went and various parts saw incremental upgrades, and one not-so-incremental upgrade; for the sake of convenience I did an in-place upgrade to 10.5 instead of doing a clean install. Sure, all my stuff was intact, but performance and overall reliability went down, of course.
Last night I decided to bite the bullet and do a clean install. I run backups every night, so I made sure the backup data was valid, then started formatting. Everything went great and the machine was running perfectly after installing the OS and various universal binaries of the applications I use. Then I realized that I didn’t have any of the iLife apps that came preinstalled originally (iPhoto being the only one that is particularly important to me). I did some searching around and found that I could install the older iLife apps from the OS disc that originally came with the machine. I fired up that installation and everything was fine until it crashed unexpectedly. And brought the whole system down with it. The internal hard drive was totally corrupted! I booted from the CD and ran Disk Utility. It took three tries and then it claimed the massive amounts of corruption had been fixed. I went to start up the machine and, well, it’s not coming up at all. Here we go again.
The positive things: my backups are solid (as expected, using a shell script created before Time Machine was an option), it was pretty painless to import my database backups back into MySQL and it was a snap to configure apache2 for the webapps I use locally. I get to run through this whole routine again, which is good practice. And once I get this rig done up again, I expect performance and reliability to be back on track.
Update: I did another full rebuild, reinstalled all my apps and copied all of my data back, only to have the machine freeze up and refuse to boot again. Time to try TechTool and then go to a diagnostics appointment; the machine is still under AppleCare.
On another note, my boss bought me one of the new thin aluminum Apple Keyboards to use at work (I thought he was just being nice; turns out I was typing really loud on the old clackety keyboard); I liked it so much I bought one for myself to use at home. Excellent keyboard.
Travel
I did a small amount of travel over the holidays, both by train and by plane. I like train trips since I don’t have to deal with the airport, I can move around freely while en route and, most importantly, I can bring a laptop and write. Life has been so busy lately that having a day riding the rails meant I had a day to write and reflect. I wrote over 5,000 words on the train, examining my year and my accomplishments, looking at patterns I have been repeating and working out the things I’d like to keep doing and the things I need to change or stop doing. There are some hard decisions there, but that’s what taking an objective look at myself is all about. I was also able to see some amazing scenery and see how the train winds its way down a particularly tall mountain pass.
The plane ride was pleasant; I chatted the entire time with an interesting couple sitting next to me. We had a remarkably broad conversation for three people who had just met.
The silly moment was before the flight, at the security check, when they pulled my bags for a secondary search. I hadn’t even thought that my tube of toothpaste would be a problem, but it was more than the three ounce limit. I think that limit is ridiculous (as is removing our shoes), but I also know that it’s just not worth arguing about. I just quietly said, “okay, you can keep the toothpaste.” The security woman looked at me with compassion and asked if I’d like her to squeeze some of the toothpaste into a plastic ziplock bag so I could have a little with me to brush my teeth later. I thought that was nice of her, though it occurred to me later that since she believed it was actually toothpaste, and was willing to give some back, then why not let me keep all of it? I figure we were both doing our parts to act sane, within the confines of the insanity imposed around us.
Transit
I got a chance last week to ride the double decker bus that Muni is testing out. It’s nice and clean, and the view from upstairs is interesting. The ceiling on the top level is pretty low, so heads will be bumped. The bus itself felt responsive and didn’t seem to strain under the load. I did notice that it has double axles at the back; I’m assuming that is to carry what must be much more weight than a regular bus carries. I’m curious how these buses compare, weight-wise and fuel efficiency-wise, to the long articulated buses that are used on many of the routes.
I think that an electric trolley-bus version of the double decker would be needed here in SF; we should be lessening the amount of diesel burned here, not increasing it.
Weather
Someone recently said, snarkily, that I “just write about the weather” here. I disagree. The weather is a handy way to mark changes, and the changes in the weather often remind me of the passage of time and prompt me to write a little something here. But the weather is in the background, helping me set a tone for the limited writing I do in this space. I’d like to think that someone who thinks I just write about the weather is someone who is not really paying much attention to what I’m saying. That being said, it’s 45 degrees Fahrenheit right now. To me that is really cold! I am so grateful for the double-paned windows, the radiator and the new boiler down in the basement, firing with half the gas consumption of the old one.
Work
I have some interesting projects underway at work. The big ongoing project has been rebuilding the core network, moving everything to new equipment, renumbering the network with new subnets and moving machines around. All without the folks using those systems noticing. It’s sort of like the way Caltrans is rebuilding the bay bridge and approaches; they build around the old and then move the traffic back and forth, all without shutting down the roads. Caltrans has closed the bridge a couple times, but I’ve avoided any prolonged outages. We’ve migrated from one firewall to another and moved the core switching to a new “layer 3 switch” (layer 3 switching is still so cool). There was about 30 seconds of downtime when we switched traffic over to the new firewall. I’ve been joking that we scheduled it for when the CEO was in his car for the ten-minute drive between the office and his house. It did take some time to migrate some IPSec tunnels to the new firewall, but those tunnels are for specific traffic, not general access.
Design
I’m rooting through my list of art and design projects, looking to pick out a couple small projects I can fit in here and there, scoping some medium projects to make them more manageable and doing some preliminary planning for a larger remodel-type project that may get underway later in the year.
Social
I already have plans into the first couple weeks of the new year. Community, seeing friends, helping folks when I can, enjoying people and being enjoyed; that’s what it’s all about.
I’ve been posting short status updates fairly regularly on Facebook; if you know me in person, please add me to your friends list there.
I’ll be attending the usual events and look forward to seeing folks and catching up.
New Year’s resolutions
I actually have New Year’s resolutions to exercise more, eat more vegetables, lower my fat intake, rest more and pay more attention to healthy choices, physically and emotionally. Delightfully outrageous, indeed.
