Last night it was windy all night long. Today, it's crazy windy. I'm thinking gusts of 50-60 MPH right now. And it's a cold wind too. What a sucky day.

So busy, sooo busy. Too many things going on. I still have my VPN server to finish, email server, AC install, then a major programming project for CDC starting this week. Too much.

I'm going to knock out my VPN today, do or die. I really just need to get it done. I think that there are people steeling internet from me now. So it's time to get that started. All I need to do is get the radius server working. I have the actually VPN going, but I don't want to be stuck typing in the usernames and passwords all the time.

Next I need to get the new email server going. It's totally hosed right now. It will accept mail and send it, but I can't connect to it to read email. Courier-IMAP just won't get the username/passwords from the DB server for some reason. So that's not a real pending problem, just one that I would like to get finished.

For my AC, I just have to move a electric wire to go around the hole in the wall that I have cut. I just need to patch it over to another spot. But to do that, I need to take down the net, or get my backup generator running. I have to turn of power to that room to do the work. Fun fun fun.

Anyway..... Back to work on the VPN I go.

Here's a strange one. I have NFS setup to connect to my web servers. I made a backup file of my web sites using tar. Then I tried to copy it to my workstation over the NFS link. It would get to about 8MB and stop. Then I was not able to access the web server at all. I even rebooted the server to figure it out. Nothing I did would solve the problem.

So I pull the server out of the rack, open it up and put it on my test bench. It boots up and works just fine. Hmmm... No problems. I can connect to it and everything. So I take it back to the rack, plug it back in. Same thing, it does not work. Very strange.

So I move the ethernet cable from one port on my switch to another port. It works! Now this is very weird. I try to do the copy again and it stops and I lose all access to the server again. I move it to another port on the switch and it's back up and running.

After rebooting my switch, things went back to normal.

Now something new to try and figure out.

Well, so far so good. Everything is back up and running. Things are working well. Now I'm working on my VPN and eMail servers. I have the email server almost working. Next is to get the VPN server working right.

Ahhh! It's finally here! Took three days to send priority mail from Sacramento to Silver Springs. Gesh. Why pay the extra money and just ship it normal if it's going to take that long. It's too bad that when I said I needed it next day, it wasn't shipped Express mail.

Anyway, Internet is restored three days later.

So, another day and no antenna cable. This just flat out sucks. I tried to get the old cable back together, but it didn't work. I can't hardly see it, let alone solder it.

Plus, on top of all that, Jane's ethernet port shorted and died. I had to switch her to wireless to get it back online, but since I don't have my cable yet, she can't get online either. She also has 6 iTunes caps she needs to redeem before it expires tonight.

ARG!

What a day. Gesh. So we have this total white out wind storm and it knocks out my main tower again. The power is fading in and out, and my servers are crashing. So I decide to run new power cables to the radio on the tower to fix the problem. Sounds easy....

I climb the tower in the wind, almost getting blown off. I unplug the two ethernet cables from the radio. I start to pull them through the hole so I can get rid of them. One of them gets hung up. So I'm thinking "it's just the tab on the ethernet connector," and I'm thinking "I don't need it anyway because I'm tossing the cables." So I give it a quick jerk. Well, what comes out is the ethernet cable and connector with the antenna pigtail. ARG!

So I have a new pigtail on order from NetNimble.com. It should be here tomorrow, because I put a rush on it. In the mean time, everyone on my POP0 is offline until I get the new patch.

I have POP's 2 and 3 online right now with no problems. That's a good thing. I totally reworked my whole setup. I have a new box up there with my Soekris board in it. I have the PVC pipe running all the way up to the box. I have new CAT5 running up to the radio. Everything should be good for another year.

Oh, another thing I found out. My PVC pipe running down and under the house to my server room was full of water. I guess I didn't have it sealed off last time on the electric box. Uhg.

So my day has not been fun... not fun at all.

Welp, Emilie got her iBook running on the net today! I had a iChat video session with her for like an hour. It's really cool. So now Dad, Emilie, Karl, and I can all voice chat to each other. Karl is looking for a new web cam that is compatible with iChat so he can video chat with Emilie and me.

It's really cool that everyone is getting Mac's. I'm so glad. It took a long time...well, only two years. :-)

Ohh, it's been soooo hot here. My servers almost hit 100 degrees today. Gesh.. I guess it's time to get the air conditioner in the wall.

Anyway, I've got to get some more work done before it gets too late.

I spent the whole day today driving my Samurai around the hills. It was really fun. I like wheeling around here in Silver Springs. Ton's of trails to explore, and cool challenges to conquer.

Today we had Randy, Johnny, Craig, and I all driving around. Randy was the only one to make it up the pipeline trail. It's very very steep. He even killed his truck once trying it. Took many tries, but he finally got it. It's a crazy hill.

So now I'm all pooped out, and ready to relax. I like days like today.

Everyone is getting Mac's!

Karl received his eMac yesterday and found out just how much better it really is. Then Emilie bought a new iBook with all the trimmings. Wow... It took awhile, but it looks like Apple's finally catching on.

Billy is turning in his....bed...