Silliness So what are you doing RIGHT NOW? - Page 2402

HomeInMyShoes · 05-01-2013, 12:27 AM

Our thoughts are with you Dylrob.

Right now I'm contemplating buying something.

Rumpelteazer · 05-01-2013, 03:29 AM

Getting ready to go downstairs early. After yesterday's celebrations I need to power wash our bit of side walk. The café next door is allowed on Queen's Day to put tables and chairs in front of our store. The agreement is that they clean up after them. But the last couple of years the only sweep the side walk and with all the spilled beer, drinks and food that just isn't enough. So, to prevent customers and passers-by from getting stuck

and prevent our store to reek of old beer I give it a good clean (which was needed anyway).

After that I don't expect it to be a busy day despite it being a school vacation week.

Bilbo1967 · 05-02-2013, 05:47 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by HomeInMyShoes

Our thoughts are with you Dylrob.

Right now I'm contemplating buying something.

Anything in particular?

I'm just compiling a list of the things we need to take with us for a weekend camping trip (starting tomorrow) and wondering how the hell I'll get it all in the car

Bilbo1967 · 05-04-2013, 05:07 PM

On our camping trip now and sat by a campfire typing this. Very nice.

poohbear_nc · 05-04-2013, 07:24 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Bilbo1967

On our camping trip now and sat by a campfire typing this. Very nice.

How far we've come! Sure beats smoke signals!

Greg Anos · 05-04-2013, 07:27 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by poohbear_nc

How far we've come! Sure beats smoke signals!

I wonder what's roasting over the fire...

poohbear_nc · 05-04-2013, 08:27 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ralph Sir Edward

I wonder what's roasting over the fire...

Now you stop that! We're having a civilized (=non-chicken dinner) conversation!

dreams · 05-04-2013, 11:23 PM

I hope everyone is having a great time Bilbo. Is the weather nice?

Do you make s'mores around the campfire?

discopig · 05-04-2013, 11:25 PM

Reading a book and reading this forum

Rumpelteazer · 05-06-2013, 09:19 AM

Prepare for a long story.

About a year and a half ago I got a long email from a man claiming to be my half brother. I showed the email to my mother and she confirmed it. When she was a teenager she got pregnant. My grandparents shipped her off to a convent to give birth and the boy was put up for adoption.

Fast forward a couple of decades and he has managed, through his job as a psychiatrist, to unseal sealed record to find out who his mother is. He contacts my mother and for a while they have contact, mostly through email until my mother let it be known that she doesn't want to have any contact with him any more.

She doesn't do this because she doesn't care but because it is causing a lot of bad memories about her family to come to the surface again and she can't cope with it. I can remember this period very well, although I didn't know what was going on, because the stress was often taken out on me (not physically or in any other way abusive but it just wasn't a fun period).

Fast forward another 8 years and I get the email. Which caused me a lot of stress. With what happened in my past (bullying) I find it very hard to trust people and this hasn't helped my trust issues. I never reacted to the email because of the way it was written. He didn't ask anything about me, or my sister, he just wrote about him and, basically, how he wants to have contact with our mother again.

My mother still doesn't want any contact with him, for her that chapter of her life is now closed; she has answered his questions, she has gone to a therapist to deal with her problems and she wants to leave it at that. Because of the tone of the email I never responded, I didn't want to get caught between him and mother and I don't want to be used by him to force my mother to do something she doesn't want to do. He never emailed me or tried to contact me in any way.

Until about half an hour ago. When he rang to doorbell. My mother is outside talking with him and I'm sitting here with clammy hands,my racing heart and trying to slow my breath. I'm hoping he doesn't want to see me because I don't think I'm ready for that, I'm not sure if and when that will be, mostly because of the first impression he gave me through the email. It might be mean and selfish of me but one and a half year ago it caused me a lot of anxiety. Maybe if he would have gone about it more carefully about it it would have been easier but not now and not so sudden.

bjones6416 · 05-06-2013, 12:58 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Rumpelteazer

Prepare for a long story.

... Maybe if he would have gone about it more carefully about it it would have been easier but not now and not so sudden.

Oh, dear. That is so unfair of him to just show up at the door. I'm so sorry for the stress this must be causing your family.

orlok · 05-06-2013, 12:59 PM

Wow. Let us know how it went Bianca.

Bilbo1967 · 05-06-2013, 01:18 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by poohbear_nc

How far we've come! Sure beats smoke signals!

Free wi-fi covering the whole campsite would you believe!

Quote:

Originally Posted by dreams

I hope everyone is having a great time Bilbo. Is the weather nice?

Do you make s'mores around the campfire?

Weather not brilliant, but was at its best today so we had a great time at Lake Bala on the way home. Weirdly, I hadn't heard of s'mores till last night. The owner of the campsite moved over here from California about a year ago and told us about them. So we toasted our marshmallows and sandwiched them between two white chocolate chip cookies - possibly not classic s'mores, but good all the same.

dreams · 05-06-2013, 03:46 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Rumpelteazer

<snip> Until about half an hour ago. When he rang to doorbell. My mother is outside talking with him and I'm sitting here with clammy hands,my racing heart and trying to slow my breath. I'm hoping he doesn't want to see me because I don't think I'm ready for that, I'm not sure if and when that will be, mostly because of the first impression he gave me through the email. It might be mean and selfish of me but one and a half year ago it caused me a lot of anxiety. Maybe if he would have gone about it more carefully about it it would have been easier but not now and not so sudden.

Oh wow. I am so sorry for the major upheaval and stress for everyone.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Bilbo1967

Free wi-fi covering the whole campsite would you believe!

Weather not brilliant, but was at its best today so we had a great time at Lake Bala on the way home. Weirdly, I hadn't heard of s'mores till last night. The owner of the campsite moved over here from California about a year ago and told us about them. So we toasted our marshmallows and sandwiched them between two white chocolate chip cookies - possibly not classic s'mores, but good all the same.

It's even better with graham crackers and Hershey bars.

I'm paying bills and getting ready to go into work.

poohbear_nc · 05-07-2013, 06:20 PM

So -

1. Our company uses thin clients at employee workstations.
2. All are plugged into surge protectors. The server is plugged into a UPS - the server is running Fedora Linux.
3. We had a really bad thunderstorm yesterday - with very close cloud to ground lightning strikes.
4. After a close strike, the power went out for about 20 seconds, then came back on.
5. The server was unaffected.
6. All of the thin clients lost connection to the server - this is normal when we have a total power outage. Normally we just power them off & on - and everything is fine.
7. Half the thin clients remained unable to boot up - even after repeated power cycling.
8. Thinking that we had a power surge when the electricity returned, we theorized that some of the thin clients had blown an internal fuse.
9. We opened them up - there were no fuses. No visible damage. Fans & connections tested normal.
10. So we cleaned them out (since they were open) and kept trying to figure out why some of the thin clients were seemingly dead.
11. My assistant pointed out that they may have over-heated since the fans weren't running during the outage. This sounded a bit extreme for such a small outage, but I said OK - let's hook one of the "dead" ones back up to the server.

PRESTO - the thin client booted up and acted as if nothing had happened.

12. Thinking it was a heat issue, we allowed the remaining "dead" thin clients to cool down. But after 20 minutes, they were still "dead" - unable to boot up.
13. Opening the "dead" units was the only way to restore them to a bootable condition. Weird?

14. Our current theory is that some of the units (who knows why) built up an internal electrical charge during the power surge - and only opening the metal cases and touching the internal components drained the charge and allowed the unit to boot up again.

We almost boxed all them up to ship off for service!

A. Anyone in IT every experience a situation like this?
B. If so, any explanation for how/why opening the case restored the units to functioning?

Or should I start making regular sacrifices to the deities of IT mystery?

We're still scratching our heads over this one!

05-01-2013, 03:29 AM	#36017
Rumpelteazer Grand Sorcerer Posts: 5,099 Karma: 24047426 Join Date: Sep 2009 Location: Utrecht, the Netherlands Device: Kindle Paperwhite Signature Edition	Getting ready to go downstairs early. After yesterday's celebrations I need to power wash our bit of side walk. The café next door is allowed on Queen's Day to put tables and chairs in front of our store. The agreement is that they clean up after them. But the last couple of years the only sweep the side walk and with all the spilled beer, drinks and food that just isn't enough. So, to prevent customers and passers-by from getting stuck and prevent our store to reek of old beer I give it a good clean (which was needed anyway). After that I don't expect it to be a busy day despite it being a school vacation week. Last edited by Rumpelteazer; 05-01-2013 at 03:33 AM.

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05-01-2013, 12:27 AM	#36016
HomeInMyShoes Grand Sorcerer Posts: 19,226 Karma: 67780237 Join Date: Jul 2011 Device: none	Our thoughts are with you Dylrob. Right now I'm contemplating buying something.

05-04-2013, 05:07 PM	#36019
Bilbo1967 Not scared! Posts: 13,424 Karma: 81011643 Join Date: Mar 2009 Location: Midlands, UK Device: Kindle Paperwhite 10, Huawei M5 10	On our camping trip now and sat by a campfire typing this. Very nice.

05-04-2013, 11:23 PM	#36023
dreams It's about the umbrella Posts: 25,112 Karma: 56250158 Join Date: Jan 2009 Device: Sony 505\| K Fire \| KK 3G+Wi-Fi \| iPhone 3Gs \|Vista 32-bit Hm Prem w/FF	I hope everyone is having a great time Bilbo. Is the weather nice? Do you make s'mores around the campfire?

05-04-2013, 11:25 PM	#36024
discopig Book Addict Posts: 132 Karma: 1040318 Join Date: Apr 2013 Location: USA Device: Kindle Paperwhite	Reading a book and reading this forum

05-06-2013, 09:19 AM	#36025
Rumpelteazer Grand Sorcerer Posts: 5,099 Karma: 24047426 Join Date: Sep 2009 Location: Utrecht, the Netherlands Device: Kindle Paperwhite Signature Edition	Prepare for a long story. About a year and a half ago I got a long email from a man claiming to be my half brother. I showed the email to my mother and she confirmed it. When she was a teenager she got pregnant. My grandparents shipped her off to a convent to give birth and the boy was put up for adoption. Fast forward a couple of decades and he has managed, through his job as a psychiatrist, to unseal sealed record to find out who his mother is. He contacts my mother and for a while they have contact, mostly through email until my mother let it be known that she doesn't want to have any contact with him any more. She doesn't do this because she doesn't care but because it is causing a lot of bad memories about her family to come to the surface again and she can't cope with it. I can remember this period very well, although I didn't know what was going on, because the stress was often taken out on me (not physically or in any other way abusive but it just wasn't a fun period). Fast forward another 8 years and I get the email. Which caused me a lot of stress. With what happened in my past (bullying) I find it very hard to trust people and this hasn't helped my trust issues. I never reacted to the email because of the way it was written. He didn't ask anything about me, or my sister, he just wrote about him and, basically, how he wants to have contact with our mother again. My mother still doesn't want any contact with him, for her that chapter of her life is now closed; she has answered his questions, she has gone to a therapist to deal with her problems and she wants to leave it at that. Because of the tone of the email I never responded, I didn't want to get caught between him and mother and I don't want to be used by him to force my mother to do something she doesn't want to do. He never emailed me or tried to contact me in any way. Until about half an hour ago. When he rang to doorbell. My mother is outside talking with him and I'm sitting here with clammy hands,my racing heart and trying to slow my breath. I'm hoping he doesn't want to see me because I don't think I'm ready for that, I'm not sure if and when that will be, mostly because of the first impression he gave me through the email. It might be mean and selfish of me but one and a half year ago it caused me a lot of anxiety. Maybe if he would have gone about it more carefully about it it would have been easier but not now and not so sudden.

05-06-2013, 12:59 PM	#36027
orlok Close to the Edit! Posts: 9,797 Karma: 267994408 Join Date: Jan 2011 Location: UK Device: Kindle Oasis, Amazon Fire 8", Kindle 6"	Wow. Let us know how it went Bianca.

05-07-2013, 06:20 PM	#36030
poohbear_nc Now what? Posts: 58,791 Karma: 135181808 Join Date: Feb 2009 Location: Durham, NC Device: Every Kindle Ever Made & To Be Made!	So - 1. Our company uses thin clients at employee workstations. 2. All are plugged into surge protectors. The server is plugged into a UPS - the server is running Fedora Linux. 3. We had a really bad thunderstorm yesterday - with very close cloud to ground lightning strikes. 4. After a close strike, the power went out for about 20 seconds, then came back on. 5. The server was unaffected. 6. All of the thin clients lost connection to the server - this is normal when we have a total power outage. Normally we just power them off & on - and everything is fine. 7. Half the thin clients remained unable to boot up - even after repeated power cycling. 8. Thinking that we had a power surge when the electricity returned, we theorized that some of the thin clients had blown an internal fuse. 9. We opened them up - there were no fuses. No visible damage. Fans & connections tested normal. 10. So we cleaned them out (since they were open) and kept trying to figure out why some of the thin clients were seemingly dead. 11. My assistant pointed out that they may have over-heated since the fans weren't running during the outage. This sounded a bit extreme for such a small outage, but I said OK - let's hook one of the "dead" ones back up to the server. PRESTO - the thin client booted up and acted as if nothing had happened. 12. Thinking it was a heat issue, we allowed the remaining "dead" thin clients to cool down. But after 20 minutes, they were still "dead" - unable to boot up. 13. Opening the "dead" units was the only way to restore them to a bootable condition. Weird? 14. Our current theory is that some of the units (who knows why) built up an internal electrical charge during the power surge - and only opening the metal cases and touching the internal components drained the charge and allowed the unit to boot up again. We almost boxed all them up to ship off for service! A. Anyone in IT every experience a situation like this? B. If so, any explanation for how/why opening the case restored the units to functioning? Or should I start making regular sacrifices to the deities of IT mystery? We're still scratching our heads over this one!