Evening Trippyville,
Just caught up after a couple of busy days. My job has just exploded as the boss of my boss just made me the lead on a multi-million dollar project to specify, acquire, locate, implement a converged-architecture virtualized computing environment we hope to eventually sell to up-scale companies as an all-in-one Auto-Dialer/ACD Call Center phone system. Each 10U enclosure will replace 55 typical servers in the space of 10. Each enclosure will provide 256 cores/512 threads of processor and 3 terabytes of system memory as well as 30TB of 2-tier storage divided across SAS and SSD drives. It is a great opportunity to finally dust off my project management skills but it has definitely taken all available time. I've missed hangin out with everyone but it seems by the time I get home I have about 2 hours to eat, charge
batteries and crash.
I also believe this was given to me by our youngest VP in hopes that I'll either fail so he can justify getting rid of the old guy or that he can move me into a senior position to no longer look bad because I choose to have a life outside of work and haven't taken any of the 24/7/365 gigs or anything with travel. I have been in the same position for 9 years and his just 30-something brain can't understand why I'm deliberately not climbing the ladder. In 8 more years, I'll have enough saved to comfortably retire but until then I really just want to tread water. I do a good job; I'm here 20% more than the young guys who are regularly taking sick-time because they're either hung-over or sick for stupid reasons. I can be depended upon to need next to zero supervision and I regularly resolve multi-million dollar mistakes before anyone knows there was even a problem. Just not enough to be a solid performer these days! We'll see where this all goes but I do have a lot going on. My direct boss is a great guy and understands that I'm dancing as fast as I can with taking care of my Mom but his boss has other ideas about perceptions from Senior Management who keep implementing programs to show of certifications and degrees that I don't go after. My experience comes from 25 years in this industry and can't be had out of books but they need to see some 3 or 4 letter acronyms listed on the certifications wiki after my name to stay happy. I really need to go home and have a serious sit-down with the Captain!
Cyclin my friend, I'm so sorry to hear of your loss. These little furballs come to be our companions and it is so unfair that they can't stay longer. Perhaps they live only so long because not everyone can be trusted to treat them like we do. I do feel for you and am gonna give all my guys extra hugs when I get home.
I hope everyone in Trippyville is doing well or heading in that direction. I saw the Trippy Pron that Bert posted and am awaiting the second wave he mentioned. You guys just keep getting better as time passes. I rebuilt my SS ERA and Hornet last night and both are working well. But both of those REOs are my late evening solution that will see limited per day usage. I'm tempted to try a Chalice to see if having any extra
juice pull back into the bottle might make my "out and about" experience better. I might also be able to blind squonk again! The ERAs just don't take to being tilted off vertical without leaking. I've been tempted to try Robert O’Neil’s REOmizer but that too is using a 901-style air inlet. I just hate that I can't tell when an ERA is flooded and during my typical day it's just too easy to lose my concentration and over-squonk. Well that was a bit verbose

Brew