Korn and Scotch...

[RedShred]

Hmmmmm.

interesting day I had today... You know the ones... "But Ric... How comes Word doesnt see the .pdf I put in My Documents?... YOU said to put all documents there." Ummmmmm... word doesnt open .pdf, please minimize word and open....

"My computer wont stop beeping at me..." Ummm pull you friggen keyboard tray out alittle so its not hitting flipping desk.

"Damnit Ric... this guy says this is the quote and all it is like his buisness card... and my outlook keeps opening when I double click on it..." Ummmmm tell him to send an XL or doc or pdf...

"Ric... my UPS keeps beeping" Ummmmmm get your damn foot off the receptacle... as I plug it back in.



Oh yeah... real easy stuff. But my whole day is filled with this on this day. complaining... complaining...and usually over dumb shit. I've been building a file server for 2 friggen days 'cause I cant stop long enough to concentrate on the Baseline my Higher has laid out.





I stop at the store and pick up a nice bottle of Clan MacGregor... my favorite cheap Scotch in the whole world. Yummmmmmmmmm... dont worry... there is a bottle of Glenfiddich special reserve right beside it, I do have some taste after all.

I pour a tall one... 6oz of the near-scotch and fill the glass with ice... show the glass to the water pitcher in the fridge and retire to my office. I fire up the boston Media set... Korn this time. Its loud really loud. CD's are vibrating off of the Sub on my desk... I'm escaping the day. enjoying the music... I dont even here the fans except between songs.

do some email... do some AIM with a deal I made on some fans for the big AMD machine... glass is empty...

go back to the Kitchen... Sister-in-law and her cowboy husband are there talking with my wife as she makes supper. When did they get here? Hmmm cowboys dont like this music... that explains the no visit from either. I mumble at him... pour another 6oz into the glass... fill it with ice... this time I turn the faucet on and stand there. I put the glass on the faucet and then turn the water off... he just looks at me.

Starts to talk about some guy that fell off a horse 'cause he was talking on a cell phone... blah blah blah... I stare at him just catching every 3rd word or so. I pull a few gulps from the glass and top it off from the bottle and return the office.

Damn this office is hot. I check the digital thermometer on the bench. 33.3*C.

I make a quick run the KVM to make sure everything is running like it should.

"Seed" comes on. I like the bass line in that song.

"Cowboy" comes in and wants to know what I'm doing...

I just rebooted the AMD ( I just increased the FSB...)

Hit the forums now. Nothing happening. Ever wonder what our peers do when their not folding ? Ever wonder what their doing when their not being witty ?

 

[Carnival Forces]

wow, sounds like day sucked for you...sucked for me too, a test and three quizzes and oh shit man...school sucks ...

 

[pageian]

Excellent read Red, apparently you and I do the same job in parallel universes. Today I had to explain that you don't have to type a url into a search engine in order to find a web page if you already know the url. Since I don't listen to much Korn I'll add this, don't know why but it seems appropriate:

"It's lonely at the bottom, man it's dizzy at the top, but when you're standing in the middle ain't no way your gonna stop" -- Robert Plant, Led Zeppelin

Fold on bro...

 

[Leadman584]

Passed out in my chair at 3AM, had some Dream Theater going.. Woke up at 6AM went to bed. got up at 12:15PM. God I gotta go to work, Blind Guardian Live, wakes my ass up. 9 different people want me to look at their computers, printer don't work. "I put that SP2 in, just like MS said". Grab the bottle of Canadian Mist, and take a long gulp. Arrive at work, to meet another 5 folks with SP2 issues (too bad the bottle of Mist is at home). By 3:15PM another 11 folks wanna see me this weekend, about crappy computers (damn sheep, turn off Auto Updates for god's sake). Boss gives me shit, I'm definitely in no mood to deal with his stupidity today. 4 Hours into the shift, and many headaches later, I give. Escape to the comfort of my hovel, and my trusty bottle of Mist.
Metallica's, Masters of Puppets serenades me to another state of enhanced inebreation. Probly should go kill something in DiabloII. Good thing I charge 50 bucks a pop for CS, looks like a profitable weekend ahead. I may just get that G5 yet. Crap, 2 more E-mails for CS, I could actually get rich off of the stupidity of others. Bed time, gotta few hundred bucks to make tomorrow.

 

[RagingSamster]

If I'm doing a "blended" then it's Old Smuggler ($27.95 1/2gal) but if it's single malt I'm buying craggenmore, that stuff is like butter.

Folding and scotch are a most excellent combination.

 

[gnewbury]

I could actually get rich off of the stupidity of others.

Seems like y'all are new to the workforce.
As posted elsewhere:

This thread is pretty far from foldin'
BUTT
1) does the job pay or provide experience to get a job that pays ?
2) darn proud that all of you know the latest in technology, however you need to realize that there are (in the WORKING world) a lot of people trying to do REAL JOBS to SOLVE REAL PROBLEMS. It may be banking, farming, or whatever. As a NERD (new equipment relief doctor) we should help the DUFOS (Dudes Unaware of the Freaking Operating System).
I just got done with a pis-a$$ arguement of someone who wanted to read his e-mail via a web interface, over a modem, without an ISP. "You just plug it in" then go to google he thought, no dialing involved..
If you want to provide support you need to accept that the IT people need to make the computer as simple as a pencil.
Then, with permission, BORG THEIR PENCIL!!

and FOLD ON!!!

 

[BillR]

So, somthing new has been added. The [H]ard blog section?

Luck

BillR

 

[RedShred]

So, somthing new has been added. The [H]ard blog section?

Luck

BillR

OMG... sorta looks like it. I was venting.

 

[relic]

A day in the life of a folding team?

Thursday, two servers stopped serving...and a third was spitting "out of memory" errors

Apparently SP2 doesn't play nice with the antivirus server. Got that resolved.
Blown capacitors on the backup server mean a weekend bonzai build. (ahhhh...a simple hardware failure..this acually makes me happy)
the SCO application server with the memory errors recently had an update applied to the application and a 3rd party reporting tool added...<sigh>....In my seach for modern professionally written software even the SCO boys are failing now. At least the Netware 5 system has been up for 400 days...but it's scheduled to be upgraded net week.

Scotch....Ice.....whisper 'water'......repeat.

 

[Ch1m3r4]

so I finally didn't work much last night...I figure it's Friday night in a college town. As much as people want their computers fixed, they aren't gonna stay in friday night.

I was handcuffed to a girl at around midnight and stayed handcuffed to her until about 11 this morning?

lol, I don't really know...but it was good times. Now if only she didn't have a really old and crappy laptop, I could've gotten a drunken b0rg in...

 

[AtomicMoose]

A day in the life of a folding team?

Thursday, two servers stopped serving...and a third was spitting "out of memory" errors

Apparently SP2 doesn't play nice with the antivirus server.

Let me guess, Network Associates McAfee Virus scan??

 

[AtomicMoose]

So, are we all IT professionals bitching at the end of a hard week???

 

[Ch1m3r4]

Let me guess, Network Associates McAfee Virus scan??

mmm...virus scan enterprise.
I almost think it breaks more times than it helps...

 

[CBR]

Lets see. Yesterday I casually woke up at around 10am, checked email and the like. Then hopped in the shower for a bit. Leisurely got ready for school over a 2 hour time period. Cooked up some lunch. All the while slowly wearing in my new sub to the sounds of Muse. Looked at the clock and it was time to go. Started my walk to the bus, about a mile in 100+ temps. Got to the bus, sweaty as always and got on. Not having a car really sucks, but it gives me some time to catch up on my reading. Got to school at around 1. Saw an old friend who went back to the high school to see people and tell them of his adventures after graduation. Go in and begun my school work. I'm in an independent study type thing so no one really fucks with me about deadlines. I look at my physics book and think, its easy shit and what the hell its friday. So I spend the next four hours making it look like I'm working, though I'm really off in my own little world. Get out of school at 5 and hop on the bus again. Its been a good day so far and I can't wait to get back home to check the process of the video encoding I had set up. I get home and I realise I didn't lock my computer. My mom had been on and done a few things that really got my blood going. First thing I noticed was that she stopped the encoding I was doing as well as the download I had going. Look over and see the remote for my brand new sound system is on. I think, ok perhaps I forgot to turn it off. I go to turn it off but notice its all the way up, bass is maxed as well. I've only got a 80 watt 2.1 system and she was playing Metallica on my tiny little speakers with the volume all the way up! I haven't had the time to break them in yet. She goes off and I turn some music on. Sound quality now is shit. Brand new system and she fucks it up!

I open the F@H window and take comfort in the fact that I've completed my first WU for [H]. I spend the rest of the night puzzling over my internet connection which is giving me hell. Not only does my mom break my speakers, she limits me to one of the worst ISPs out there, Netzero! I spend some time on the forums and IRC, and casually drift off to bed.

Wake up today and F@H wants to get a new WU. I connect to the internet and let it do its business. It finishes and I go to check my stats. Fuck, in my haste of setting folding up I screwed something up. The WUs I completed went to default. I quickly diagnose the problem. I accidently opened the config shortcut I made to folding and changed some values. Fuck! So now I've got a new WU and this should be going to [H], that is if I dont fuck up again.

I could use a glass of scotch. Too bad I'm not 21 yet, not like thatll stop me if I do want some liquor.

 

[RedShred]

So, are we all IT professionals bitching at the end of a hard week???

Appears so... with a few geeks in training.

Finally finished the file server today if anybody cares. There's another 3.4ghz we cannot use.

 

[relic]

Let me guess, Network Associates McAfee Virus scan??

??
Do you take me for an idiot?
I'd rather grind off my nuts with a belt sander than install a McAffee product.

 

[Ch1m3r4]

??
Do you take me for an idiot?
I'd rather grind off my nuts with a belt sander than install a McAffee product.

hahaha
we don't have a choice
although we at least have a new installer now for it that breaks much less often. Last year it had random issues with residents HP computers, etc. Fantastic

 

[CBR]

I'd rather grind off my nuts with a belt sander than install a McAffee product.

That can be arranged.

 

[relic]

That can be arranged.

Perhaps, but the last attempts didn't fair well.

 

[Papa-Ming]

It would seem that ; to paraphrase a line from my brother's Rugby team;

"The drinking team has a Folding problem"

Well I'm off to get three fingers of brandy, folding or no.

 

[Leadman584]

I was amazed to learn just how many inkjet printers, require .NET framework. Some updated drivers were available, some weren't. Had some successes, and some failures. Reverting to pre-SP2 configurations, just until drivers are available, was not acceptable. At least you folks have to be trusted, it's you're jobs. I'm just a guy that likes playing with computers, and word of mouth has gotten me a good rep in my factory.

The folks at Best Buy, gotta be loving me, right about now. I was threatened with "taking my computer to someone who knows what they're doing" a half dozen times today. My reply in every case, after evaluating the situations, recommending course of action, and being refused, was "Perhaps you should take this to a professional".

Did get a really good laugh though. Gotta share.

Lady tells me her computer keeps locking up. Gives me her address and phone # at work. Arrive at her house, frazzled from previous housecalls, and ready for a strong drink, to calm the frustration. Her WinME rig with 128MB of RAM is indeed locking up. Running almost entirely on VM. Shut down the 53 extra running processes, Install and configure Cacheman (very effective tool for low memory systems, especially ME's). Installed couple other Optimizer programs I like. System Defragged for first time since purchase. Got this baby running "better than the day I bought it".
Here's where the story takes an ugly turn. She insists I install SP2 on her machine. Very insistant about it, " I want the security, you have to put it in here". Man!, am I needing that drink right about now. I, as calmly as possible explain that this isn't possible with her current OS. She shuts the system down, and starts unplugging it. I'm feeling like I'm about to get stiffed on the service fee. She quite angrily proclaims "Since you're to stupid to do what I want, I'm taking my computer to Best Buy, and get a professional to fix it".



As a side note, just so we understand the joke here. I'm sure that there are many skilled techs working at BestBuys across this land of ours. I have talked to all of the service techs at both BestBuy stores here in town, and I'd rather castrate myself with a rusty butter knife, than allow any of these individuals, in the same building as my rigs. When I walk into their stores, the computer salesmen either run, or grab notepads.

 

[Strikemaster]

So, are we all IT professionals bitching at the end of a hard week???

IT pro: Sort of. ISP Hell Desk, Level 2 technician, cable modem and Alvarion wireless installer. Far fall from USAF MSgt / in-flight refueling operator/evaluator, but the retirement check eases the pain. A little.

Venting: Not here. I like my friends, they don't need my screaming rants about Wal-Mart $299 HP "toaster" users and inability to understand what a URL is...

Drinking: Had to quit. When I found myself at the right house number (but on the wrong street), wondering who those strange people were and where'd my furniture go, I decided ethanol and I must part ways. It's been a long 20 years since then, wonder if they ever got rid of that horrible orange Naugahyde sectional...

 

[RedShred]

...She quite angrily proclaims "Since you're to stupid to do what I want, I'm taking my computer to Best Buy, and get a professional to fix it".

I would have said, calmly, that she needed about 300 dollars more to make it that way. Clearly she was too stupid to realize she wanted you to make fruit salad out of waffles and a fried chicken leg.

 

[Leadman584]

OK, so it's a lot funnier, sitting here with a full glass of Mist, than it was a few hours ago. I was quite honestly dumbfounded, dissappointed, and really pissed. Back in my little sanctuary, sitting between my 2 rigs, I fully expect a bunch of apologies, once these folks get their computers back in 10-14 days.................lol.

 

[mwarps]

So yesterday I was spending the day working on a client's machine. Lovely peice of hardware, which I had of course built. In the heyday. NF2, 333FSB, 2600+. Start off the day by going to home depot - the second most visited store by this scary mofo. after newegg, of course. Finally got tired of spending money on air in a can, so i bought a compressor, a tank and a cleaning nozzle. best $60 ever. No more of that retarded air in a can.

Come home, blast out this fuggers case.. and of course, I'm not gentle, so i broke a fan blade. damnit. Not happy, since I don't have a replacement, and it's a panaflo.
start in on the beer. Sammy Oktoberfest. Lovely stuff. Get the machine cleaned out.. it was pretty fricken dusty.
Take it into the "shop" (aka my living room) and start running spybot and adware... an hour and a half, and
3 beers later, 375 combined hits. lovely. run the virus scan...only one.. not bad. Get another beer to celebrate.
Cats are coming to try and see what this computer is about.. the client has two alaskan malamutes, lovely dogs.. the cats are sniffing the case, etc.. so I pour them a bowl of beer. lick.. lick... sneeze... run.. they get the hint to go the hell away.
Back to the crap. 3dMark to see just what the baseline is. slow ass crap he's got. blah.
Get a call from my boys. they want hoddogs, beer and games. I can't argue. clean up the living room, take a liter of water, and drive to the store for some dogs and another case of oktoberfest.
come back, and of course the cat is sitting in the computer. bring in the tank from the compressor, and blast her out. more fun than I care to admit.
The boys come over, we grill up the dogs, go thru the entire case in about 45 minutes (three guys) , sit down for an entire fifth of Balvenie Doublewood.. Best goddamn scotch I've ever had. By this point we are ... sixteen sheets to the wind, and someone in their infinite wisdom decides it's starcraft time.

You know you're drunk when three guys can't beat a single computer on a resource rich map, and every time you hear the the SCV say "I can't build there." you scream out "build it anyway, fugger!"

 

[BillR]

??
Do you take me for an idiot?
I'd rather grind off my nuts with a belt sander than install a McAffee product.

Installing a McAffee product is about as productive (and satisfying) as a vote for John Kerry.

P. T. Barnum said it best….

 

[RagingSamster]

Friday night at Joe's place (A bucolic 10 acre parcel full of hills - perfect for four by four action and Friday night drinking) Joe is adding on to his 2 bedroom 1930's rambler, putting an additional room in for the kids. We're demo'ing of the wall, I get a phone call.
"Computing support, this is Sam" I answer, luckily I've only just finished my first beer.
"Hey Sam, you were over at my desk looking at my wireless router today at work? well it's not working here at home."
All the gang at Joe's house know that I am officially off-line for the construction job now, so I head into the house to grab another beer.
"OK, lets check to see if you are seeing the router, open you cisco client utility and at the bottom it should say "associated to mac address..""
"Yes, it says it's connected."
"OK, remember from earlier today, we set up your Netscape browser to bypass the proxy server? so let's use it to get to the router's configuration page. In the browser's address bar type 192.168.1.1. Are you seeing the password window?"
"No, it just hangs there, wait... it say's "Page cannot be displayed""
One of Joe's girfriend's kids comes into the house screaming about a sibling that has taken some bobble from her and her life is now in ruins. I head outside grabbing my 3rd beer of the night.
"Sorry about that, lets bring up a command prompt, type in the window "ipconfig /release"
"OK"
"Now type in "ipconfig /renew""
"OK"
We wait 15 to 30 seconds and still the command prompt blinks mockingly in the little black window.
"OK, hit CTRL+C and lets reboot the laptop"
"OK, are you sure you have the time for this?"
I crack open the 3rd beer, listening to the sawsall around the other side of the house "Sure, lets get you up and running"
"OK it's rebooted"
"Let's bring up netscape and try to get to the router's configuration page"
"OK, It's there!"
"Now lets try getting to the web, type "www.google.com"
"OK, nope, it say's page cannot be displayed"
"OK let's take a look at the router's configuration page again, Click on the status tab and below the first IP address section there should be a section with more addresses in it, what does it say?"
"All of those say 0.0.0.0"
"OK, there are two buttons below that on says IP release the other says IP renew, click the IP renew"
"OK, nothing changed"
From his previous conversation earlier in the day I remembered he has a home network, and the Linksys routers we use like to be at the head of the line, luckily the user has a rudimentary grasp of home networking and can follow simple instructions
"Sir, I think we will have to rearrange your network a bit, we need to put the wireless router in front of your home router."
"OK, this could take me a couple of minutes do you want me to call you back?" I listen to the sounds of industry coming from the other side of the house - nails being puuled from wood, "No that's OK I'll hang on, it shouldn't take that long" I head into the house for beer number 4. The kids are done screaming so I grab a bar stool and open the beer.
"O.K. the cable modem is plugged into the wireless router and my home router is plugged into the wireless"
"DId you disconnect/reconnect power to your cable modem after you made the change you'll need to do that or the network won't attach to the cable modem"
"O.K. doing that now"
"And while we are waitng for the cable modem to boot up, it would be a good idea to reboot your laptop once again"
"OK"
We wait while the laptop reboots, my 4th beer is gone.. head back in to grab another. starting to feel the "glow". Crack open number 5 yee-haw
"O.K. everything is back up."
"Great, now try getting to your router's configuration page, and go to the status section again"
"Now it has an address in the lower section!"
"Good, let's try to get out on the web, try to go to www.google.com"
"YES! it opened the page"
"Great, it sounds like you are up and running,"
"Thank you for the assistance! I hope you have a great evening!"
"I'm already there, you have a good weekend too."

Ending the call I head back outside to the other side of the house and find a resin stack-chair calling to me. taking the seat I find that most of the demolition is done, and my fifth beer is too. time for the sixth...

Minutes later, my blackberry goes off. This guy sent a thankyou email to me raving about my customer service skills and cc's the director of IS.

Sometimes beer is the lubricant of technology,

 

[Carnival Forces]

wow...maybe there's a promotion in store for you!

 

[AtomicMoose]

??
Do you take me for an idiot?
I'd rather grind off my nuts with a belt sander than install a McAffee product.

LOL, Nice! Yeah, I wish that I couldn't use it...

 

[RedShred]

So we now have a baseline...

-Beer is a good lubricant for diagnosing boxen...
-Scotch is good for anything IT and seems to be the common denominator here.
-Nnobody seems to like McAfee... luckily for me, My boss isnt interested in SP2 at this time and believes in Corporate Norton for protection.

 

[AtomicMoose]

So we now have a baseline...

-Beer is a good lubricant for diagnosing boxen...
-Scotch is good for anything IT and seems to be the common denominator here.
-Nnobody seems to like McAfee... luckily for me, My boss isnt interested in SP2 at this time and believes in Corporate Norton for protection.

you guys hiring?