"Welcome to the Maw Installation, professor. It's a relief to have a weapons engineer of your distinction on staff.

The chief engineer, Bevel Lemelisk, had hoped to be on hand to greet you, but he suffered an unfortunate near-fatal choking. He's lucky to be alive, really. I've heard the Emperor is even less forgiving than...

Be that as it may, with Lemelisk in long-term disability in a bacta tank, you are now the ranking engineer assigned to this installation. As such the responsibility for the completion of the Empire's ultimate weapon has fallen on you.

The project is officially known as the Expeditionary Battle Planetoid Development Initiative, but those in the Ministry of Propaganda have taken to calling it the "Death Star". Catchy, wouldn't you say? Whatever you want to call it, I will be arriving soon for a full design review, so you will need to redouble your efforts.

Security is tight here at the Maw, especially now that notorious Rebel spy Rianna Saren has been spotted in system. We'll need you to enter your Imperial personnel records into our databank, if you've not already done so."

Casual Jeans Friday! Casual Jeans Friday!
Only actually I'm at home today anyway. So, technically, I don't even have to wear jeans. I've looked it up. It is well within my rights as a home owner.
Something like fifty auctions of Star Wars toys have left the house in the past few days. The upstairs is still pretty littered with six movies worth of fully-articulated 3 3/4" joy.
I need to come up with more descriptions for stuff for new listings. As soon as it got pulled out of the attic the stuff started to loom in again like in the pre-attic days when they were all lined up all over the walls in the office area. Watching me. Judging me.
I know the toys are plotting against me. They always do.

After far too many hours searching for an update to another favorite Sci-Fi franchise, last night I stumbled across it.
In case you haven't heard, Firefly is coming back in 2008.
The catch? No new movie or TV season, Joss Whedon's 'verse will be coming back as a Massively Multiplayer Role-Playing Game .
Damn. I had stuff to do in 2008.

Faith Shaken

Yesterday morning a new directive came down from Management.
This happens a lot in just about any job.
Sometimes, these directives are alright. Geeks need direction. Usually, these come from upper management after the publication of an article in a magazine or on a website that suggests something bizarre and cutting edge. I think reading that type of article should be blocked at the firewall level for anyone in upper management. Sadly, that initiative has never come my way.
Anyway, a co-worker told me he had spoken with our manager and that there were new instructions for the rest of December.
I waited, scrolling through the possibilities in my mind. Would we need to rebuild everything add 500MB of storage on the system drives? Would all our corporate networked files need to be alphabetized? New, untested software to push out?
Then he said, "The new directive is to take it easy and coast for the rest of the year. Just handle issues as they come up and go home in the afternoon to spend time with family."
I was incensed! What the hell was that supposed to mean? Does he think we aren't working? Does he think all I.T. people just use December ("user-free time", as I've come to think of it, since everyone is on vacation) as a time to slack and nap and take extended breaks?
Probably. And since he is wise enough to know that we do, our theory is he wanted to make it an executive order to add officialness.
Again, my tendency to freak out reared its ugly head for no good reason. I'll punish myself next week with a nap. I'm putting myself in "Time Out".
I'm glad December exists. All the users go on vacation and, without their insolent suggestions and interference, the servers generally run without issue.
The lights stay off all day, since I.T. folk are a light-fearing lot. The floor falls silent, with only the hum of the servers adding a gentle backdrop to however we choose to spend our days.
Sing to me servers. Share your happy song. "Hummmmm-mmmmmmm-mmmmmmmmm". My absolute all-time favorite holiday tune.
Christmas, on the other hand, is canceled.
We dug out the new artificial seven-foot tree (our cat having climbed the old one for years until the limbs sagged) and I wrapped it in 700 white lights.
We place it on the upstairs landing every year, in the middle of the house in front of the large front window. Since you can't see the bottom foot or so from outside, every year it looks like we've placed a thirty foot monster tree in the living room. I've suspected for a while that we only put it up to make the neighbors feel inferior. The fact that this year we didn't bother with the details of ornaments you can't see from outside anyway added evidence to this theory.
But even that must end.
I read a study yesterday that said holiday lights can reduce the WiFi signal from my wireless router by as much as 25%. That is it. Santa can email me if he has an issue. We have PING times to consider. I've got media to download, Mr. Kringle. There are games to play. Those n00bs aren't going to frag themselves, you know. Unless, of course, it is one of the lava maps.
Last night I measured and the merrily glowing tree is less than four feet from our wireless router. I can't have that.
I suppose, in the spirit of the holidays, we could use wires to move data back and forth across the network.

I couldn't even type that with a straight face.

Hello world

I learned something yesterday so, as is my custom, I'll share with the group.
It takes fifteen Dell 2950 server boxes to construct an arch over the entry way to a standard US cubicle for which the occupant of average height (for being of European descent) will not need to stoop at all to pass through.
It takes several fewer to annoy the floor fire warden into asking that they be moved somewhere else.
I feel I need to welcome new visitors to the site. Can I offer you a beverage?
You see, I tie my total sense of self-worth to the number of page hits I get everyday.
Sad, I know, but one must establish standards.
Anyway, if you wandered over from the nominations page to find out why my name and URL keep coming up . . . Yeah, this is it.
There are enough posts in the archive section to keep a person from accomplishing real work for a few days if you pace yourself, and I know you can.
Also, I update just about every weekday.
I read over some of the archived stuff myself yesterday, trying to graph the descent into madness over the first few months of posts at my last job until I quickly realized over several drafts that the line would only fit "portrait style" -- the drop off is too severe for "landscape".
But I'm feeling much better now. And everyone tells me I'm remarkably well adjusted, considering. I can't find anyone willing to leave off the "considering".
So, what initially began as a report on what it is like on the inside of an insanely crappy I.T. job has changed in the past few months.
My "escape from reality" posts about role-playing games (pencil and paper, old-school) and comic books and "Speculative Fiction" have become just something to talk about. No escape necessary, I guess.
Either way, I hope it continues to amuse. I had a pretty nasty fear that without a staggeringly crappy job rife with inane user requests, impossible but intangible standards, punishment but no reward, and an unending supply of broken and " vomited in" computer stories, this blog would fade away like so many of my favorites have in the past. Like that one that sells discount "V1agra" and that blog all about how I was paying too much for my mortgage.
I miss those guys. If they did a podcast, I'd load it onto my MP3 player and scroll past it every morning.
If, by chance, you did not come by way of the nominations page, please consider joining in the movement yourself. I think it is neat to be one of the few names on the list without either a TV show or breasts.
Not that there is anything wrong with having either of those things.
I'm not a h8r.

Fort Geek

I've taken on a side project at work.
As I've written before, it is my responsibility to build out all forty-something servers for our Business Continuity plan.
They are being configured here to be boxed back up and shipped to our out-of-state hot site. There, they will be unboxed, placed gingerly in racks, and powered on as a fully functional replica of our server environment. Sounds pretty doesn't it?
Anyway, I've run into an interesting side effect of the whole "matter is neither created or destroyed" nonsense.
You see, as I move the servers one by one out of the space we are borrowing from the Help Desk, I diminish the massive pile of server boxes.
Each server is a substantial reduction in the size of the pile. These are large servers packed in larger foam-filled boxes. Each box is about half the height and size of the front end of a 1987 Toyota Supra.
Side note - - A guy I went to high school with had a 1987 Toyota Supra. I hated that guy.
I can't ditch the boxes, because we need them to ship the servers to their new home in our super-secret bunker-style Disaster Recovery Hot Site.
I also can't return the boxes to the borrowed space on our floor. First, it seems rude. I free up space only to fill it back up again? Not nice. More importantly, there is no way to put the empty boxes in the back so I'd have to move them all to get at the unopened, server-filled boxes.
My solution was to set the empty boxes outside my cubicle. Right outside.
At the moment there are several, stacked like Lego almost to the tile ceiling, closing off about a foot of the entrance to my cubicle.
There are a few side-effects to this practice.
A person can't wander through the hall and see me, for one. I've created my own closet-like cardboard tomb that people naturally avert their gaze from. This is probably why the floor Fire Wardens haven't carted me off to be flogged. It just isn't something a reasonable person wants to think about. Also, it is a neat stack, so it looks intentional. If it looked haphazard I'm sure I'd have been called on it.
Further, it shields me from the paper balls and rubber bands of outrageous fortune.
Six more boxes and I can completely seal off my cubicle, allowing me to launch offensives against my co-workers with impunity. I can get in and out by climbing the handy Dell-provided hand holds cut into the crates, or, in the event of a fire, I can crash through them, Hulk-like, to build momentum for my mad dash to the stair well.
I mean "Calm and orderly evacuation".
My co-workers hate Fort Geek. It obstructs the hallway and the smaller mortar boxes tend to fall out at inopportune times. But I'm an I.T. person, not an architect.

I haven't gamed in forever.
Between NaNoWriMo last month and this month's Ebay frenzy of action figure mayhem, I just haven't had a chance.
That means my EverQuest character has been standing around the Blightfire Moors for about a month, I imagine tapping her clawed foot impatiently and wanting to get back to smashing killer wasps.
I also haven't fired up the PlayStation 2 I drank gallons and gallons of Diet Coke to earn.
Last night Gwynyth asked when we would get to play that fighting game again. I know she just wants another chance to beat me down mercilessly and talk trash.
This is her right, and I regret not letting her exercise that. And her developing geeky thumbs.
She asked last night if she could have one of the action figures not yet on the sale block.
She had her eye on an autographed Mara Jade action figure.
And she asked who Mara Jade is.
I explained that after the Return of the Jedi was released, books and comic books picked up the slack to fill the void in Star Wars stories.
Mara Jade was an assassin who worked for the Emperor before he died. Her final mission was to kill Luke Skywalker.
Of course, she doesn't succeed in this goal. Instead, she embraced the Light side, redeemed herself, and married Luke. I'd have posted a spoiler warning, but the books are decades old now.
Anyway, as she was never in a movie, the logical next question from Gwynyth was, "Who signed the action figure?"
Okay. There was a collectible card game for Star Wars a while after the books where all this happened. And in the collectible card game, stills from the movies were used as art.
Except for Mara Jade's card. Since she wasn't in the movie, they hired a model to stand in as her in front of a generic sci-fi kind of background.
That model signed the card.
Don't feel bad. I think she drifted off in the middle somewhere, too.
Then she changed direction. She wanted a signed Princess Leia action figure.
I explained that Carrie Fisher, who played Princess Leia, doesn't sign action figures. She doesn't sign much of anything, but she is especially bitter about not doing much acting after Star Wars and hates to be reminded. A quick search of Ebay proved my point. No signed Princess Leia figures are listed. Gwynyth understood.
After she went to bed, I pulled more crates of figures out of the attic to assemble more lots for sale. I dug out a few spaceships and uncovered a box full of 12" figures.
I pulled out a few and, upon seeing one, flashed back to the time I acquired it.
I had sat up until midnight, refreshing a web browser and trying desperately to get it into the shopping cart. Extremely limited quantities. Those words are like catnip for nerds.
12:05am, it was in the cart and by 12:07 I was done.
A short time later, the figure arrived and was placed almost directly into storage, forgotten until last night.
There, on the front of a boxed Princess Leia in Hoth gear, scrawled in florescent green paint pen, was the signature "Carrie Fisher".
A lucky alignment of stars had timed a vendor uncovering a box of these 12" figures (and figures of female characters are historically hard to find in the best circumstances) at the same time (I guess) that Carrie Fisher's drug habit had gotten expensive and I had camped out and scored one.
Of course, Gwynyth can't open it. Ever. She can't undo the intricate braids or fire the little projectile launching gun. But she will have her signed Princess Leia in Ugg boots.
Yes. Gwynyth is geeking up nicely. All according to my master plan.

This morning I added "WTF" as a valid spelling in my Microsoft Outlook dictionary. The process was seamless and intuitive. I know that the change will speed future pre-email spell checks.
That is the kind of productive I am. Scary productive.
I needed to add "WTF" to my spell check dictionary because there were some fairly nasty operating system related issues last night on the servers I manage.
Today will be all about sleuthing the errors down and preventing their return. In that way, I'm feeling a lot like Batman.
These "Stop Errors" think they can come into my Gotham and upset the citizens? Actually, they can, I think. In this metaphor, the citizens would be like system users, right? In that case, I look on the users as Bruce Wayne looks on the regular people in Gotham. That is, distantly and from a position of distinct and detached superiority.
But anyway, maybe these errors get on my nerves. Pestering my subconscious mind the way hordes of bats plague Mr. Wayne's.
So I'll follow them around, pretending to innocently read the event log the way Batman follows a criminal (maybe The Riddler) from rooftop to rooftop, until he sees what he needs to justify a smackdown.
Once I find a clue, I'll track it through Google and online forums. I'll report it among my network of like-minded problem solvers. Batman would chase a shipping label to Morocco and send an urgent message to the Justice League.
Much like me, Batman would tell the other heroes about the problem just to be informative. Since neither of us would ever ask for help. Instead, the message closes with a warning, "I'm going to handle this. Stay out of my way."
"Batman," They'd cry, "You can't do this all by yourself! We are here to help you!"
That's nice, but Mr. Wayne has a job to do, and it is the kind of work that those Boy Scouts in the Justice League don't have the stomach for.
While Batman swings on a Bat cable and then repeatedly punches the bad guy before flinging the unconscious form over the razor wire fence of Arkham Asylum, I'm patching the servers, registering the Dynamic Link Libraries and verifying file permissions before sending an email to Management: "All is well, but I'll keep the server here for a while, under observation."
Later on, Bruce Wayne will brood in his Bat Cave. Maybe he has added an artifact from the crime to his personal museum underground. I'll return to my cube, adding an empty Starbucks cup (holiday patterned) to my own.
We know, Batman and I, that in order to defeat the Darkness, a person must become one with it. Sometimes the job isn't pretty. That is why we have to be.