Sunday I slept in a bit because this is my last chance to do so for a bit . . . when I arose I bathed, then . . . I ended up writing about Tunji. I had learned of his death the night before. After my little impromptu memorial, I noted that I happened to be wearing black this day. I was dressed for mourning.
I headed out to the Tennessee Grill for brunch, it getting on towards 11:30. The Catholic church a few blocks downhill was ringing their bells: the call to mass. I detoured towards the Church . . . followed a lady in. Mass had just begun, and I followed other late arrivals into an adjoining little altar area.
They had votive candles burning, which had been what I had in mind. I lit one in Tunji’s memory and sat through mass. I enjoyed the community spirit, some of the songs. The liturgy was pretty light–the priest explained that temperance was avoiding excess. During one song I was overtaken by the beauty and the spirit and I cried quietly for my friend: the lives he had touched, the lives he would have touched had not fate taken him young. I lit a second candle for the lives Tunji touched: his family, us, his friends, and the people he would have served had he become a doctor.
A lady sat in front of me with two young sons. One she held in her arms and the older son, maybe four years old, played with her hair, casually trying to braid one side. I like the harmony: she was there for her purposes and he managed to entertain himself in a manner that hopefully felt pleasant to her.
The priest explained that Jesus had passed the bread around, take it. This is my body. By taking the bread you will spread the word. I figured out that people were getting up for Eucharist, and followed. I savored a Jesus Wafer to take communion for Tunji.
I walked down to the Grill, and had some French Toast and coffee. I had really wanted sausage. Yum!
Back home, read about bonobos in the New Yorker. Then scrubbed the shower out and bathed again after the dirty work, to head out to a date in the East Bay. I met the lady I have been dating the past three months, and she dumped me. I could see it coming and we settled things amicably. She paid for dinner. Classy lady, and too bad . . . I walked away feeling alright for having made a good effort and for having participated in some good times these past three months, and thought about how to work my next approach to dating.
Back home, I’m listening to the Avett Brothers. Surprisingly good bluegrass. They are singing now:
And I love you but I can’t remember why
And I’d love to find a reason to deny
I was a one hit wonder in my own home town
And I guess I might have made a few mistakes
But maybe that’s exactly what it takes
To get a little happy in this big sad world
How many have you made?
And which of those have you laid on down to die?
Well didn’t I say I need you?
I try to move on but I can’t
I try to think of bad times
Good memories are all I have
Not the most apropos excerpt for the moment, but a good tune anyway.
And so it goes. To bed soon, and up around 7am tomorrow to head off to the new job. The new company is about the last place I would ever have thought to look for work, but with an open mind and no agenda I went to interview, and I got on well with the team, and they got on well with me. I have good feelings, and I must make a sincere effort. :)
A photo of Tunji around 2004, that I stole from Tim.
Tunji was a friend of mine back at Allen Hall. He came to school from Nigeria when he was sixteen, so he was always younger than everyone else. He never lost his deep accent or dark sense of humor. A one-of-a-kind kid who liked to play chess online and was studying to become a Doctor. I don’t know if he made his MD or not . . .
Tunji was truly a one-of-a-kind man, whose uniqueness was only magnified by his distinctive accent. I never met his family, but I can only imagine how hard it is for your intelligent son and future doctor to die suddenly, and far from home. . . I have great sorrow for his kin.
I will update with additional information or reaction as I learn more . . .
The News-Gazette.com: Autopsy: Tunji Drowned also narrates more about the fatal accident:
“They had been out there all afternoon and were there into the evening. Apparently (Mr. Toogun) had been in the water in the afternoon with a life belt on. At this time, he was on the boat with friends and lost his balance and fell into the water,” Green said.
Contrary to earlier reported information, friends noticed immediately that he fell in.
“We noticed after a few seconds that Tunji did not surface and immediately six or seven of us dived in to attempt to find him. It was not until 15 to 20 minutes later that we did,” said fellow student and friend Lauren Jakubowski in an e-mail to The News-Gazette.
Tim Skirvin: Tunji Toogun Album, Tim is compiling of photographs of Tunji.
I read this quote shortly after a significant personal setback. I believe the author is alluding to the Holocaust, which puts things in perspective. For me, the take-away is that if you want to shine, you must be ready to be burned.
I had rushed in to marriage, and consequently took a conservative approach to feeling my own love and expressing it. I figured we should take things slow. I got burnt anyway. Nowadays . . . I’ll give patience its due, but I must shoot for giving light. Keep the senses keen for that flame within, and if it seems right, throw gas on the fire . . .
I just completed a feedback form regarding my AppleCare warranty experience. Question 12a gave me a chance to bitch. Question 12b made me smile at my ridiculous expectations:
12a Is there anything else you would like to tell Apple about your recent in-store repair experience at the Apple Retail Store? (NOTE: 2000 character limit)
Replacing the optical drive on a Mac Mini is a simple procedure that takes fifteen minutes, requiring a screwdriver and a putty knife. That I should have to drive to a God damned mall and explain to a “genius” that he doesn’t actually need my password to log in to OS X, wait for twenty minutes as the “genius” engages in manual data entry, then wait “seven to ten business days” for the part to be replaced is FUCKING SAD.
(Note: Hold down command+s during boot, run to the appropriate init level and type “passwd” to reset the password. Even someone who isn’t a “genius” can pull that off!)
I use the Amazon.com Chase Visa. I get a “point” per dollar spent, and three points per dollar on purchases through Amazon.com. Every 2,500 points, I get a $25 gift certificate. Pretty neat.
Well, they hadn’t sent me gift certificates in a while, so I called and got the matter cleared up. I am currently working my way through $350 in gift certificates.
If you do the math you may surmise that I spend an awful lot of money. I will offer a tip that if you want to maximize your credit card rewards, you should manage IT for a small company that relies upon you to charge equipment to your credit card and then be reimbursed. Especially if you have earned a better credit limit than your boss’ corporate card.
“The coldest Winter I ever knew was a summer in San Francisco.”
It has been overcast, chilly and wet in my neighborhood throughout July. Monday the sun came out for about an hour in the morning, then again at sunset. I ran out of the house when that happened but it was too late in the day to get much sun. The midwesterner in me reminds myself that this is a temporary and “symbolic” Winter, without the snow. It is just weird the way the seasons work when you live adjacent to the Pacific Ocean.
(No, I’m not actually depressed. Well, this gray does make me blue, and that is why I am conscientious about getting out doors any time the clouds break. I am supposed to be starting work next week, so I should be getting more sun during the week.)
(I like what Yelp have done with their down page.)
The short story is that an underground transformer exploded downtown, and the 365 Main data center failed to automatically start their generators, and had to start them manually, cutting power for nearly an hour for some customers, many of which are smaller, trendier web sites like Craigslist, LiveJournal, Yelp and others. (I have interviewed with half of the companies mentioned in Scott’s post.)
You do not want to lose power across a production-class network. This can cause equipment failure, servers to delay boot because they need to run disk consistency checks, servers to stall boot noting a missing keyboard, disk errors, or whatever. Some services may wedge up because when they started they couldn’t talk to the database . . . in some cases you may have had machines running for a few years, which may have last rebooted three SysAdmins ago. The running state may be subtly different from the boot state, with no documentation . . .
A few years ago I had a chance to rebuild a production network from the ground up, with a decent budget to do everything the right way: redundant network switches, serial consoles, remote power management . . . I remember talking to my manager as to whether we might want a UPS in each rack. We figured that the data center is supposed to keep the power running, or else. Also, if the data center loses power then we lose our network access anyway . . . perhaps the whole point of this post is that data centers do lose power, so a UPS can be worthwhile. If nothing else, it may leave your systems up and ready to go as soon as the network is restored.
Data centers have UPSes too. Huge ones that you may get to walk through on a tour. The purpose of the UPS is to provide battery power between the time utility power fails and on-site generators begin to provide energy. I don’t know enough to comment on this particular case, but I do recall touring a data center in Emeryville, and the guy explained that batteries become less effective over time, and a lot of data centers fail to test their batteries regularly. When wired in series, one bad battery brings down the entire UPS, and so even though you have a generator on-site, the UPS can fail before you manage to transfer to generator power. While this stuff is beyond my expertise, I’m inclined to believe that this is what happened at 365 Main yesterday: a data center should not only test its failover-to-generator procedure on a regular basis, they need to ensure sufficient battery capacity to keep systems running during the time it would reasonably take to switch to generator power.
On the weekend of July 22 and 23, I and about 400 other folks attended WordCamp 2007 in San Francisco. This is a conference about WordPress blogging software, and blogging itself. I am usually a bit wary of killing my weekend by spending the bulk of it with a bunch of nerds. Especially bloggers. But then, I am a nerd, and this is, I admit, a blog . . . that and registration was merely $25 and covered my food for the weekend. That’s a pretty compelling deal for the unemployed! Added value was found at the open bar on Saturday night at one of my favorite bars: Lucky 13.
Here are notes I compiled during the Saturday presentations. (more…)
I have worked as a waiter and I am regularly featured these days in the role of patron. My ex-wife is from Japan, and in Japan there is no tipping. She liked the simplicity and fairness of this model, and I can respect that. But I like — no, I love tipping. Why? It is that subversive little corner of our capitalist system that runs as a “gift economy.”
The act of giving, and the act of depending on the generosity of another person-these are both important activities required to build healthy people. In our society we have successfully taken the “guesswork” out of a lot of the giving-receiving relationships: you work for a specific wage, you pay a specific rent, a specific tax rate, you pay for food at a certain price determined by supply and demand, matters of government, and personal style. You subject yourself to the rule of law which is in turn mediated by your participation in Democracy.
We don’t live with the uncertainty of Kings, we don’t farm with the uncertainty of the weather. For those of us in the comfortable end of the middle class, the stressful uncertainties that mean more to people of lesser means mean a lot less to us: the price of milk, the price of gas, whether we are at war in Iraq . . .
It doesn’t take a lot of faith in the goodness of human nature to successfully live a life like mine. I’m insulated from a lot of the vagaries of the human condition. I’m not alone in this. And some of us, well, we forget about all that hassle: we are free to press our energies in to work, family, community, creative pursuits. I like this freedom, but . . . sometimes I open my eyes and see that the things that are stressing me out and challenging me are pointless, petty, or mundane. Especially in technology, victory becomes software shipped and larger numbers in the bank and retirement accounts.
We never go to bed hungry.
We will not wear body armor, carry M-16s and ride in Humvees through the garbage-filled streets of Baghdad, scared that we may not make it home from the cradle of civilization quite right.
We will eat until we are content, push the plate away half full. We will leave our lights on and run our dishwashers and our washing machines and stare into computer screens, trying to increase the zeros in those bank accounts. We will be constantly on the go, from climate controlled office to comfortable car to ski vacation to flights across the planet where we may dine on new foods, until we are content, and push the plate away again.
There have been a few times when I have been at the supermarket with not enough money. That kind of stress is memorable.
That kind of stress will be a part of anyone’s life. Your parents and grandparents will age and become infirm. Their hospital bills will eat up your savings accounts. You may in time return the favor of those diapers that were changed before you were too young to remember. You will be walking to your home one day and you will fall down and the doctor will explain that you have MS. Your wife will come home one day and tell you she needs to take a break, to go live with her new boyfriend.
The things that you take for granted today could change in an instant.
When I go out to eat, when I take a cab home, I have to make room in my capitalist business transaction for the tip. There are “rules” but the only enforcement is in your own character. When you give service, if you are honest with yourself, you accept that you are in an act of giving. Yeah, its your day job, and yes, chances are that the quality of your diet is a reflection of the quality of the tips you receive.
But, unlike the wage-earner, you are reminded every day that there is no guarantee, no law, nothing that says that your giving must be rewarded with anything beyond the minimum wage. So what do you do? There are no guarantees in life, you will do your best, and you will likely find that, despite some bad tipping and the occasional stiff, depending on the voluntary generosity of others actually works out okay.
You earn your income not merely with your Diligence, but with Trust and with Faith.
In my life, I have found that there are times when you have to depend on the voluntary generosity of other folks. I like that tipping remains a part of our capitalist economy. It is a reminder to those of us who are “comfortable” that we too, are subjects of fate. It is a reminder that our modern enterprise still relies a great deal in faith that the great majority of people can be relied upon to give. Voluntarily.
So, I am pretty good at keeping on top of my Inbox. Every so often I plow through, and I “delete, delegate, defer, do” which means that mostly I delete or archive messages that require no action, or I’ll make entries in my calendar, then delete or archive, or I’ll write a reply, perhaps a lengthier reply. Or, I’ll transcribe the notes somewhere to work into an article, or whatever. When I’m done plowing, I sometimes have an empty Inbox. E-mail is triage and when that plate has cleared you can close it and go on to other things.
Delete, Delegate, and Do, are all really easy. They even map to the e-mail buttons fairly well:
Delete
“Delete” or “Archive” buttons.
Delegate
“Forward” or make an entry in a bug / ticket system.
Do
“Reply” with an answer or note that things got done..
Defer
??? . . . make an entry in your calendar? Tagging?
Some casual poking reveals that this may be doable in Outlook, which really isn’t my style. Have any of my geeky readers thoughts or recommendations along these lines?
[Some notes jotted down in the Sidekick long ago. Good stuff, I think. Maybe I should tack it on the wall somewhere, study, perhaps revise . . .]
Work
The joy of understanding problems and developing the most gratifying solutions.
The joy of learning new technologies with which to solve problems.
The satisfaction of getting things done, and being a reliable and respected resource for my coworkers.
The rewarding nature of setting expectations and goals and meeting or exceeding them.
Life
The satisfaction of walking on the Earth at different time, places, and seasons throughout my life, understanding what is consistent in myself and the world and that what is variable and “in play”.
Making connections with people, from fleeting moments of acknowledging eye-contact, to soul-sharing relationships that stretch across years and decades.
To be sufficiently self-aware about my relationship with the greater world so that I don’t take more than I need to achieve happiness.
To experience with honest fidelity the joy and the pain, the happiness and the sorrow, and all the rest of feelings and experiences that are inevitably felt in life.
Love
To practice being open and vulnerable and accepting, to allow for the possibility of love and growth in the relationships in which I engage.
To be present and attentive, to listen with good heart and a sharp mind when people speak to me.
To notice and confront dishonesty.
When “in love” to explore my partner to learn what makes them feel loved, and practice “true giving” towards them.
One habit that I have is that if I have gear I’m not using, I tend to give it away or lend it out to friends and acquaintances who might better use it. Especially with technology, this seems like a good idea: the utility of high-tech equipment degrades rapidly, and if a piece of equipment is going to become obsolete in the coming decade, someone ought to get the value from it.
Of course, right now I am stumbling around the apartment, looking for that DVD writer I bought a few years back. Where is it? Maybe I gave it away to someone. I guess the virtue is proper, but the accounting could be better. All the same, the reason this even comes up is because I am assembling a new workstation, mostly from retired equipment donated by friends. The DVD writer is not even mission-critical: I just wish I knew if it was in the house or not. If not, I can install a CD writer, which was donated to me some years back.
By the way, if you’re reading this: thank you Brian, Andrew, Michael, Lorah, Dennis, and everyone else!
And, if I ever gave you a 5.25″ Sony DVD writer, please remind me! =D
I recall Tom Limoncelli giving a presentation called “Time Management for System Administrators” and he explained how, as part of his routine, he would walk over by his customers–his users within the company he worked at–and check in at a regular time. Some days, they might ask questions that would reveal to him potential improvements in the systems architecture, and other times they might ask simple technical support questions. Either way, by dropping in at regular intervals, the users came to feel good about their Systems staff. This can be damned handy when, as they occasionally do, the systems go down hard, staff scramble to fight fires, and users are left out in the cold with little more to work with than their innate feelings about the Systems staff. If they like you, they will feel sympathetic in your hours of stress. If they don’t like you, they hope the present outage may be a nail in the coffin of your tenure.
I was put in mind of this by the story presented in today’s Daily WTF . . . the user, who could be described as “dim” had been following a really complicated, error-prone process. She had no idea that a trivial change to the system could be made to make her life easier. The hero of the story happened to be walking by, hear her frustration, politely inquire, and five minutes later, make betterness happen:
Still, there’s a good lesson here that’s often missed; pay attention to what users are doing with the provided system and by unblocking minor bottlenecks you can become the hero.
As I noted on Flickr: I just received my first "payment" for carrying Amazon.com advertising on my web site. Neat! This is hardly “f_ck you” money, but it is greater than zero.
For the record, I have been with Google AdSense for over a year now. That service brings in enough to cover the costs of my home DSL and then a wee bit more. Thanks to the generosity of friends, the hosting costs of my web site are nil, but I could probably cover that with revenue.
Of course, I am operationally “cash flow positive” but no financial incentive for content, just yet. No incentive beyond rhetorical diarrhea. :)
Pie-in-the-sky, my web site receives around 10,000 unique visits per month. I could probably “monetize” that better, but as I like to say, if I had 200 times more traffic, I could cover all of my living expenses.
Back in 2003, I remember being a house guest to a gracious host. He had some other guests over and one asked “is the water safe to drink?” This was a local yuppie asking about the tap water in Oakland, CA. The Bay Area has some of the best tap water in the nation. Even so, I had to resist the urge to point out that when I was in France I had treated a bout of homesickness by skimming the “Lonely Planet USA” guidebook, which explained that, in fact, tap water in the United States is safe to drink in 99.9% of localities, and that anywhere that the water isn’t safe to drink there will be plenty of warning signs: it is reasonable to assume that any American tap water is “safe”.
A few years later, my then-wife and I were guests at my Boss’ house, and dinner was served. Bottled water was made available at each place setting–nothing fancy, just standard, probably-from-Costco bottled water. In Washington, DC. I rationalized that the Boss’ wife is from India, where serving a meal with bottled water could merely be customary. No need to make an ass of myself by offering my own cultural critique of the Boss’ family’s hospitality.
I read that San Francisco recently enacted a ban on spending any further money for bottled water by city departments–currently the city spends $500,000/year on bottled water. This figure seems excessive and wasteful, but then, I read that Muni was a big spender, and I figured those guys out in the street or running vehicles don’t have easy access to tap water. It needn’t be trucked in from somewhere else–just, you know, water-in-a-bottle can be convenient, when you’re not near a tap . . .
I don’t know that you can buy municipal tap water in San Francisco or if you’ll have to bottle your own. I have a feeling that the ban will result in an increase in purchases of bottled soda and other beverages, for those cases where it isn’t a question of bottled versus tap water, but beverage-in-a-bottle versus access-to-a-tap.
For me, the most valuable aspect of bottled water is the water bottles, which can be refilled and reused to deliver fresh, delicious tap water whenever you like. These bottles are rugged and last for years of normal use.
My favorite is the “New Zealand Eternal”–I snagged this during a job interview. On the one hand, bottling water in New Zealand and transporting it to North America is–frankly–immoral. On the other hand, since it is so flamboyantly wrong, they supply the nicest bottle!
The “Tropicana” bottle is pretty rugged and has a nice, wide mouth. There is also no ambiguity–if you see me drinking water from a Tropicana bottle then its pretty clear this is some home-refill job, and I’m not some asshole who has to maintain the purity of his bodily fluids by importing water from New Zealand!
