Journal of a Sysadmin

Another week and more updates

So, this past week was busy and flew past in a gust of activity like a small tornado on its way to a trailer park.

Lot of work, lot of OT, busy around home; and I’m still trying to slow everything down. No such luck so far.

I’ve been meaning to do daily updates but most days there isn’t really enough to say. Maybe weekly updates will be good enough? I don’t know… At any rate it’s now holiday time (except for about 3 days of work I still have to do) and I’m looking forward to sleeping in past 7am, a little shopping, some traveling, camping, fishing, and of course computer stuff. I likely still won’t do daily updates

The weather has been a little off this past week so not a lot has gotten done outside, but this coming week is supposed to be in the high 20’s (low 80’s for those who are metric impaired) and it should be good for gardening and lounging in the sun with a book.

Oh, I’ve also put up new pictures of the backyard which shows how things are coming along very nicely. We have baby strawberries (jhb’s favorite) and lots of flowers. The stick sticking out of the ground btw is actually a grape and it does have leaves starting, so we know it’s not dead yet!.

Home again

Here we are, back at home again. In so many ways I wish we were still on the island, but at the same time the familiarity of home is something I desperately need. I love home, and yesterday I couldn’t wait to be here but today of course I’m thinking it would still be nice to be on the beach…

BTW we were really really really super busy and I couldn’t write anymore then I did. Which, after reading some of it I thought that wasn’t a bad thing anyway. Maybe I’ll get better at it, and in the mean time sorry jhb… You know you did say for better or for worse.

One of our bags decided it needed to see Vancouver more then we did, so it dropped off the face of the earth for a few hours while Air Canada appologized and shipped it right out to us. Too bad we couldn’t be available for the first delivery run, and missed the call for the second one (by only 13 minutes) then deleted the number the person left before either one of us had memorized it…

I blame it on vacation induced brain seizures. Sometimes your brain just can’t handle the depressurization from vacation to reality…

The bag arrived this morning, and we now have all of our clothes and gifts we intended on returning with.

Otherwise it was a normal sunday. We cleaned the house a little, cleaned the car a little, picked up kids, you know. Just normal.

Last night in a fit of jet lag I decided I was tired of watching Moveable Type rebuild for the umpteenth time so I installed WP (see link to the right). Nice bit of work this is, and it look less time to install then MT does to rebuild so I could actually spend time writing. And imagine that, it dynamically builds the web pages out of the data in the database… Boggeling, i’nit? And yes, the colours are ugly, that’s the default so that people are forced into changing it or remain one of those who are completely and utterly unco-ordinated in their clothing, furniture, and web site.

So, it will have to remain ugly for a few more days I think… No time to fix right now.

Oh ya, and I posted the pics I took too.

Today was work, which as the name implies was very much work. It’s good to be back in most ways but of course, yours truly was still thinking of sandy beaches, sun, ocean, and large, green, lush mountains surrounding us. Installs, fix problems, and think about racking machines that have come in.

Tonight is post blog entries and try to get used to a better piece of blogging software =)

Thank you for staying tuned during that brief station vacation, we now return you to your regularly scheduled life.

Sand and Surf

The sand and ocean is beautiful here. Today we visited a public beach which isn’t on the tourist maps, there were very few people there and the beach stretches on for what seems like miles.

We sat on the sand and soaked up sun, ocean, and trees. Too bad we can’t live inside a moment forever… Just make time stop.

So after that we went to jhb’s brothers graduation ceremony. It was outside on a football field, and when we arrived it was still really hot as the bleachers actually face south and the sun at yet to go down behind a mountain. It was hot, and thanks to a borrowed unbrella, and a bottle of water we managed to make it to the ceremony. I guess that is one thing I regret about going to a small school; the graduation ceremony here was really well done and was really interesting… I guess it’s hard to get interest out of a smaller group of people. At any rate, jhb’s brother was showered with lei afterwards, and at least didn’t have to hold his head up on his own. BTW, way to go Keem!

After the ceremony, we find we’re hungry so I get to have my first visit to a Hawaiian fast food restaurant, Zippy’s! mmm.

We came back to the hotel, around 11:30. Tired, a little sun burnt, and incredibly happy. I only wish that one thing… That somehow we could stop time and make some of these moments, the ones that touch so deeply, last forever.

I’m on my way

Just my luck! I hear in the weather forcast on the way to the airport that the tempature in calgary is going to be in the mid to high 20C over the weekend. Well, that’s ok, I’m sure Hawaii is going to be at least that nice =)

I arrive at the airport, get my boarding passes and get to US immigration and customs. Immigration takes about an hour (they want to ensure that even though I’m on my way to meet my wife for our honeymoon, I am *not* going to decided to homestead in Hawaii), and then I’m on my way to the gate. I stop and get a Tim Hortons coffee and 2 muffins for the flight (like a good Canadian Citizen) and arrive at the gate, drink my coffee and eat a muffin. And yes, at this point I also try to see if there are any active APs in the area… Nada.

20 minutes later we board and are all ready to start off when the captain comes on the speaker to say we’re delayed half an hour. Fog in San Francisco. In that half and hour they announce that we are going to be delayed about two hours because of the fog and I start to worry about my connecting flight… Will I still make it? What if I don’t? I mean, I can think of worse places to be stranded than San Francisco but that’s *not* at all my intended desination.

We finally leave the land of no wifi (Calgary) and I make it to San Fran. in time (15 minutes to spare) to catch my connection. Of course, the last phone call I made to anyone was from Calgary (umm, I’m delayed and might not catch my connector so if I call, I’ve missed it) so I get to Hawaii and no one is there. Makes me think they thought I wasn’t going to make my connector and won’t be around to get me till about 6.

At any rate, I finally talk to jhb’s mom, tell her I’m here and jhb shows up with the rental car shortly thereafter. So I’m here!

We find the hotel, unpack some stuff and then walk around a bit. Now it’s time, I have to meet jhb’s parents, brother, and other family members.

They are wonderful, all of them. They made me feel so at home and so comfortable that by the end of dinner (A very large, tasty, and fun Chinese dinner) I’m smiling like complete fool. I worry of course, what eveyone (esp. Dad and Uncle B.) thought of me. jhb called her mom from the starbucks we stopped at to get coffee and everyone says they liked me.

After coffee we go back to the hotel. It’s been a wonderful, fast, paused day and now we are alone together.

I’m with her, her family is here. Me? I’m feel like I’m home.

Hours

In just over 12 hours I’ll be boarding the plane to take me to San Francisco then a short layover and I’ll be on my way to Hawaii, and jhb. It’s hard to believe how fast the week has gone, and I’m really glad of that but now we will have to slow time, maybe stop it even. Allow ourselves time to be with each other exclusively.

Not that I don’t want to visit people there, because i do. I want to drink in the life that is her own. I also want to spend time with only jhb, like we did when we were semi-stuck in Seattle. Visit places, have good food, laugh more, and feel each others presence. I love her presence and miss it so much.

Tomorrow.

Other things. Work today was good, better then good, it was great. The last day of work before a vacation is always the best. It feels good because you clean some projects up, start to relax, and make the motions of leaving for more then just a couple of days.

I finished the latest William Gibson book, Pattern Recognition. Good book, really really good book. I hope he comes out with another one soon. I’ve started a new-old book by Douglas Coupland called Girlfriend in a Coma. It’s so gripping I’ll be finished today sometime (less then a week to finish, that’s good for me). I still have to read a lot of his work, as I’ve only read two or three of them. Used books are a wonderful thing aren’t they?

I watered the lawn today, and the flower beds and raspberry bushes. They needed it. The weather has been so beautiful the last few days that I believe it may actually be summer soon. Just the right tempature too, mid 70’s with a slight breeze. Nice.

I have other things I need to be doing (projects, house cleaning (oh crap, laundry!)) but that’s ok as they, like everything else, will eventually get done. I need this time, I need it to spend with jhb.

And spend it we will.

I can’t wait.

3 more sleeps

Only 3 more sleeps and I get to see jhb in her old stomping ground.

The lilacs in our neighbors yard have started to bloom and our own flowers are growing like mad. I feel sad that she’s not here right now to smell the flowers and enjoy the first real green that the spring has given over to its inhabitants.

Soon though, she will be home and she will then get to enjoy her first Alberta spring. We talked today, both by phone and IM and it feels so good when I talk to her. I can’t wait till I her her voice again, and even more when I get to Hawaii and hold her in my arms.

Today is a beautiful spring day. The sun is out, even though there are clouds in the sky, birds are singing, and the air is full of fresh green smells. I thought of the Maile Lei I had on our wedding day, jhb said it smelled like Hawaii.

But soon, I will have a chance to experience that for myself. I can’t wait and am so excited at the thought of sharing her history, her life there, the way I have shared mine here. We are going to squeeze every second out of every day so we don’t waste any of the precious time we have there.