Update on Technical projects

It's been a while since I updated everyone (currently some dude in Singapore and a group of zombie PCs in Malaysia) on my going ons.  This is my weak attempt to stay relevant.  Some of what I'm talking about references my post on 07/13/2008.

1.  The T-1 to our Arizona Office has been installed.  Now I've got to figure out if the secretary will send me mail bombs for placing the loud Cisco router next to her desk.  I might have to extend the DMARC elsewhere and mount an actual rack to install it.  The office only has like 5 or 6 nodes on it and I haven't felt the need to devote the money to fixing this situation.
2.  The folding of the new So. California office into our corporate network went without a major hitch.  I dropped a new Dell R200 server with Windows 2003 running as a DC and global catalog into the network.  The server barely fit in the rack that was in place but I managed to cram it in there.  I will need to keep monitoring the temperature via OpenManage.  We also got rid of the SonicWall TZ1...something and installed a Juniper SSG5 for firewall and VPN back to us.  So far no issues.
3.  I also finally got rid of RIP for our routing protocol (don't laugh) and moved us over to OSPF.  That means my backup VPN through our DR site now fires up whenever our corporate line flops (like it's been doing since yesterday).  Damn you ISWest.
4. BackupExec now working except for synthetic backups on my big box (350GB data store).  I've been escalated through 3 levels now at Symantec and am still waiting on an answer 2 weeks later.
5. Endpoint Protection rolled out to about 75% of the company.  Central exceptions not appearing to be working as I'm getting roughly 4.2 million entries (give or take a million or so) in my event log saying SAV couldn't scan "X" files inside d:\data\x.zip.  I'm waiting to fix my BackupExec problems before starting another conversation with Symantec because.....well because I can
6. DS3 installation between corporate and DR site moving forward slowly but might meet sudden death when powers that be see that Cisco 3845 routers for connection will be over $25K.  The data lines are a no brainer and we will not be spending any more money than we are already spending on our 4 DS1 lines.  

That's all I have currently.  Got to get back to work.....alright.....got to get back to watching the DNC right now and forwarding all calls to VM
-PC

Happy SysAdmin Day

I'm just glad I didn't miss it like last year.   I'm waiting at my desk for all the flowers and chocolate to start showing up........still waiting....
-PC

Time for some campaigning

The guys at Jib Jab do it again.  I'm totally friggin loving it.
-PC

Send a JibJab Sendables® eCard Today!

Competing NASA plans

Apparently there is a revolt growing over the new Ares I/V launch vehicles. I caught this article in my local paper after it was picked up by the AP. I personally have to agree with the premise. We already have the hardware designed for the space shuttle. It does seem a waste to redo the whole damn thing. Just throw a CEV onto the top of the external fuel tank and viola.....brand new space vehicle.
-PC

Not Dead...

To my faithful 3 readers, I just wanted to update the blog and let you all know that I'm not dead. Life has been incredibly busy, which should have given me more time to write. Alas, twas not so. So let me give you some bullet points on where I'm at and maybe I'll follow up a couple of them with some more in depth posts.

Technical
1. Aborted T-1 installation at our Phoenix office. We will see if this continues
2. Acquisition of a company in So. California and bringing them online and into the family.
3. Backup Exec and Symantec Antivirus installation made legal with appropriate licenses.
4. Test installation of Symantec Endpoint Protection killed our Underwriting supervisor's PC
5. Above referenced Backup Exec installation upgraded and broken. Waiting on new installation on another machine. No backups in 4 weeks. Getting nervous.
6. Gave up on Cacti install on Gentoo machine. It kicked my butt
7. President of the company got a bug in his ear for T-3s. Looking to upgraded 4 T-1s out to our DR site as well as the Internet connection.
8. One of our bastion hosts was compromised and is currently being looked at by a unnamed government agency.
9. Network will have to be redesigned because it doesn't scale well with new office in So. Cal.
10. Our corporate office lost power and when the utility came back on, a fuse blew and the UPS died. I'm yelling at people to make sure that doesn't happen again
Personal
1. Diet is still going well. I am down about 40 pounds and am feeling great. I told my wife that I will shed the beard when I get down to 240 pounds. We will see if that inspires her to help me out.
2. Spent several days with my middle son at Webelos summer camp in Frazier park. My oldest son is serving on staff (lifeguard) at Camp 3 Falls and I got to make his life a living hell of embarrassment making sure he sang for every piece of mail that was addressed to him.
3. Oldest daughter placed second in her category for "roller" figure skating at the Regional competition. This qualifies her to go to Nebraska of all places for the Nationals. My wife will accompany her. I hope she doesn't qualify for the Worlds. They are in Taiwan.
4. My oldest son and I went camping in Yosemite with some friends. Through blood, sweat and a pride of not letting my son get the best of me, I made it to the top of Half Dome. It killed me and the cables rank as the dumbest thing I've ever done, but I can say I did it.

That's it for now. I will try to pop back in and expand a little on these subjects.
-PC

Crazy Strong

I'll never make a Polish joke again.
-PC

forgive me!

I've done the unthinkable.  I've installed Ubuntu on my secondary laptop.  I never thought I would go the way of the trendy, but the time has come.  Sure....it's probably bloated versus a distro like Gentoo, but man.....the ease of install was like a breath of fresh air after beating the crap out of my last Gentoo install.  The worst part is......I'm liking the complete package.  It's pretty.