No user servicable parts inside.

[crfriend]

Such was the label on one of my infrastructure computers that died today. I asked Sapphire what it meant and she told me that it meant that it was dead. As in, "It's dead, Jim?" I asked. The answer cabe back as a yes. To which I retorted, "I'm a computer engineer, not a doctor!"

Today was a day full of curve-balls, which I abhor. The fun started off roughly at 06:00 EDT with an exercise I was called upon to do that I already knew would likely fail -- and fail in "creative" ways. Then there was "meeting madness" for a good chunk of the day which meant I couldn't get done what needed being done before I take a holiday tomorrow to go sailing and to see all manner of large vessels, some of them sail, that are in Boston's harbour.

When I got home, I noticed that the chickens were all inside their coop, so I asked Sapphire what was up, and was told that a new geometry change in the run made it possible for them to escape -- which I then set about to solve. And then came up two inches short -- literally -- with the netting I was stretching over the new run. Sapphire then informed me that it didn't matter anyway and that they could still get out -- and I lost it. It wasn't pretty at all, and both Sapphire and I did not do well through it.

Then came the complaint that her laptop wasn't working properly: "It can't connect to the Internet" (which can mean any of a thousand things). So I fiddle with her laptop, which is wonky in its own way, and I usually blame Windows first and encourage a reboot (and then another) -- no good. Now bear in mind that I hadn't done anything with any of the computers before the complaint as I'd been outside trying to solve problems.

I found the problem reasonably quickly -- my firewall/DHCP server/DNS server/mail server (you get the picture) was offline -- and hard. No power. I fiddled with it for a few minutes, finally disconnected the mains, reconnected, and it powered up -- with a metric buttload (2.2 times an Imperial buttload) of errors. I fixed the errors and thought that was that.

Wrong. I got upstairs to log into here and found the DNS dead. Pinging the primary DNS server yielded timeouts and "host unreachable" errors. My commentary at that point was solidly unprintable. Wandering back downstairs I see the power light on the machine dark. All I can think of at this point is, "This is going to be bad."

I fished the machine out of its spot and noticed that it was rather hot to the touch. That machines fill up here with fur and dust is no surprise so I took it upstairs to where the vacuum-cleaner was for a bit of a dissection and cleanout -- and found the problem. Dead fans lead to overheating, and modern power supplies shut down when they get too hot lest things lead to fires. This things wasn't seized so badly that it could not be turned by hand, but it was pretty darned close. Then the search was on for a "donor" to get this critical bit back on the air. I found a suitable part after a bit, installed it in the ailing server, and everything seems to be happy at the moment.

I didn't notice the admonition about "user-servicable parts" until I was well into the reassembly process.

The good news is that we're back "on the air" and Sapphire seems to have forgiven me my outburst earlier in the afternoon. The bad news is that the left side of my head is throbbing and is making me positively miserable. I hope it clears up before tomorrow noon -- I'm going sailing then and I need my wits about me for final sextant calibration and another few "dry-runs" before applying it for real come Saturday morning.

At the moment "Syzygy", named for a cat of ours, is still performing admirably after an hour of uptime, and I'm hopeful she'll stay that way. I need to prep an order for some spare fans of that size so I have a couple on hand.

But, right now, all I want to do is crawl into a hole someplace and cry. It's been a bad day. And I hurt.

[r.m.anderson]

Now - Now - take two of these and call me in the morning !

But on the bright side you did have electric power to solve and diagnose the problem.
Further south and you would have had more heat than your fanless laptop could
handle even if operated briefly on battery.

Puzzled by Sapphire's Murphys Law regarding the escaping chickens.
What are they doing imitating David Copperfield ?
How are they getting freed to cross the road to meet the immovable object & the irresitable force ?

Well take two more of these and on second thought "Do Not Call" me in the morning.

Good Luck on charting the bounty main !

rma

[crfriend]

Now - Now - take two of these and call me in the morning !

Oh, my! If I take two of those I suspect I'll oversleep my appointment tomorrow!

But on the bright side you did have electric power to solve and diagnose the problem.
Further south and you would have had more heat than your fanless laptop could
handle even if operated briefly on battery.

If the mains power was out I would have ignored the whole thing as a critical dependency would not have been met. It's all about troubleshooting!

Puzzled by Sapphire's Murphys Law regarding the escaping chickens.
What are they doing imitating David Copperfield ?

Well, Sapphire put a small separate cage inside the 200 square-foot "chicken run" that could have enabled the other chickens to get up on top of the (palatial) coop that's contained therein, and thence possibly to escape vertically. That said, it was pointed up to me that Sapphire had discovered one chicken standing atop the 6' (vertical) segment of fence thereby absolutely nullifying my attempts to put mesh up over the remaining uncovered 100 square feet. Yes, I "snapped", and it wasn't pretty (it seldom is).

How are they getting freed to cross the road to meet the immovable object & the irresitable force ?

It seems that I am the imovable object and the chickens are the irresitable force. How did I get into this again?

Good Luck on charting the bounty main !

Many thanks!

[sapphire]

Yeah. I'm the wicked witch of West Boylston.

The walls of the "Araucana yard" are 6ft high. Much to my surprise yesterday, I found Kylie, a pullet on the verge of henhood, Sitting atop the 6ft fence panel. Today, I moved a cat pen ito the enclosure for two reasons: give Spangles, the pullet with th ear infection some private space and to also allow her to get accustomed to the other Araucana in the pen as she will be joining them when she heals.

When I ordered the pre-fab panels for the Araucana yard, I ordered two canopy/roof panels. One has come in. That leaves a 10ft x 10ft area where the birds can escape, or for an industrious predator to climb into. Add the isolation pen for Spangles and there is a nice escape rout out of the yard: hop on Spangles enclosure, hop on the coop roof, hop on the uncovered area and away we go.

Carl offered to tie down some netting that we had and it turned out that there wasn't enough to cover the whole area. OK. I figured that I'd just keep the birds in the coop until I bought more netting so the area could be secure.

Carl threw a tantrum worthy of any hysterical four year old and ripped out the netting that he had just installed, thereby destroying it. My response to the tantrum was not pretty.

My day wasn't exactly wonderful either. Drive an hour to the vet to get a diagnosis for Spangles. Spend two hours at the vet. Releive myself of $300USD for culture, cytology and meds. Got embarrassed at the vet because the check I had deposited hadn't cleared and there weren't enough funds to cover the bill. Drive an hour back home. No a/c in the truck. Set up Spangles pen in the heat, with the thing collapsing on me and fighting to get it reassembled. No a/c in the house. Too much heat, too much body pain and not feeling gracious towards tantrums.

Grumpy after the tantrum and then couldn't access the internet. I will confess that I called my computer a f*ckwit when I asked Carl to troubleshoot the connectivity issue.

Not our best day.

[sapphire]

To keep the off topic closer to on topic. I had been planning/imagining several skirted garments, most for me but a potential for Carl, and was frustrated that the whole thing with Spangles was taking up so much time that I couldn't do anything about any part of that.

One idea was for a reversible/wraparound skirt, the deisng of which could work for either of us.

Another idea was for a simple wrap dress that might work for either of us. Kind of a terry cloth summer robe alternative.

Then, I've been imagining a steampunk inspired butcher's apron for myself. What was that about leather aprons? How about an over apron for knives? Maybe held by a chain? Funky. Well, I do have to relieve a chicken of its head or it will just heatstroke and be useless.

Brief thought regarding a farm-punk kilt with bib and tool loops, cargo pocket suff, hardware fastenings....

Some thought of a Pakistani/Indian inspired costume

Finally some thought about making a dress for myself out of tshirts/tank tops similar to the "little white dress" that Carl likes to hang out in. Was thinking of adding beaded lace sleeves and neckline detail

And no time or money to even get started.......

[r.m.anderson]

My - My - I am the fool that has gone where no fool has gone before ! LOL

Anyway this cat has had his curiosity satisfied until the next event at the Hatfield-McCoy chicken farm !

Full of it - aren't I - Stay cool God Bless and wish cr the best tomorrow !

rma

[straightfairy]

Such was the label on one of my infrastructure computers that died today.

I think that label is simply put there to put off users that aren't comfortable messing arond with the insides of computers and other items similarly labelled.
Those that do have some expertise in the relevant area would no doubt find a great many user serviceable parts inside that can be removed/replaced/upgraded.

[BobM]

My day wasn't exactly wonderful either. Drive an hour to the vet to get a diagnosis for Spangles. Spend two hours at the vet. Releive myself of $300USD for culture, cytology and meds.

We keep chickens too. Right now we have 2 Rhode Island Reds, 2 Barred Rocks, 2 Americanas (blue eggs!), 1 Buff Orpington hen and a huge Buffy Rooster named Cornflake because he looks like the Kellogs rooster. They share the great outdoors with the goats, but have a rather nice henhouse where their nest boxes, feeder and mineral dispenser are. The whole area, about 25,000 square feet, only has a 4' fence. The area is broken up into 4 sub areas with gates. The goats could go under the fence if they wanted to, but they are little sissy home bodies who panic if they accidentally get out. Mainly what the goats do is follow me around and tug on the hem of my skirt for attention. The chickens, on the other hand, come and go as they please between the four areas. Gates mean nothing to them, but they seem to have no interest in getting out. Except for the Reds. They like to cruise my vegetable garden, which is right next to their yard. They do a fair job of keeping it bug free. But seriously, $300 to doctor a chicken? Around here biddies are $1 each, and any bird with a problem gets to join us for dinner. I might give up a twenty for Cornflake. Or I might not. Besides, the dogs (3) and cats (6), keep the vets mortgage up to date without even thinking about the chickens. But birds make pretty good pets too and I can see getting attached to them.