It’s about 8:15…  I’ve only been at work for 15 minutes.  I haven’t even had a sip of my coffee yet.  I’ve had no time to catch up on anything yet…  Haven’t looked through my email, haven’t checked backup logs, haven’t checked on remote servers…  Nothing.  I’ve literally walked through the door, taken my coat off, filled my coffee cup, and sat down.  That’s how much I’ve accomplished this morning.

And I’ve already got a call from our “server down” client from yesterday.  They want to know precisely how much longer they’re going to be down.  And they want to know why it didn’t take the 3-4 hours I promised it would take them yesterday.

…it is entirely too early in the morning to be dealing with people like that.

As far as the server goes, things are moving along nicely.  I haven’t actually run into a problem yet.  The images were made and verified with no trouble.  The boot image was moved over to the new array with no trouble.

At this point I need to track down RAID drivers and get them installed so the server will boot again…  And then I’ll need to grab drivers for random bits of hardware – NIC, video, whatever else.  And then I’ll need to restore the data image…

But, so far, things are going fairly smoothly.

As for the 3-4 hours thing…

Originally the plan was to order in a replacement motherboard and CPUs for their old whitebox server.  It would mean that they’d be down until the shipment came in today, but it was a garonteed fix with a very simple path to completion.  Just wait for the hardware, throw it in, call it done.

Our client decided it would be faster to move everything over to their SQL server.  Wipe out everything on the SQL server, since it is hardly being used, and turn it into their main server.

I was trying to explain to our client that we’d have to get a backup of the SQL server, so they didn’t lose what little was on there.  Then we’d have to reformat and reload that hardware from scratch, install Backup Exec, and then restore the backup from tape.  The only time I mentioned a hard figure was when I told them it would be at least 3-4 hours to restore the backup alone.

I was trying to dissuade them from this course of action.  It was a much more involved and complicated process with more room for things to go wrong.  And, ultimately, wouldn’t be any faster than just waiting for new hardware.  But apparently all they heard was 3-4 hours, and they expected their server back yesterday.

I’ve finally got some new pictures of my 40k models.  Unfortunately, the pictures aren’t so good…

I got a new camera from a guy on CraigsList…  A Kodak EasyShare CX6230.  Not the most amazing camera, but good enough for me.  Unfortunately I’ve got little idea what I”m doing with it.  So these newest pictures are pretty rough.  Hopefully that’ll be corrected as I better learn what I’m doing.

Anyway…

* WPG2 Plugin Not Validated *These three guys are, I think, basically done.  There’s a little touch-up to do here and there…  And I’d like to seal them somehow…  But I think I’m mostly done painting them.

I’m pretty happy with the level of detail I managed.  It’s nothing like what I see on the 40k websites, but I think it’s pretty decent for how little practice I’ve got at this point.

I like how the yellow turned out now that it’s been toned down a bit.  And I’m very happy with how the horns turned out.  The little guys are decent, but don’t have quite as much personality.  Still, I think they turned out OK.

It just wouldn’t be a Monday if there wasn’t a crisis to deal with.

This week the crisis is a dead server at one of our larger clients.

They’ve been slowly but steadily growing over the years, and this one server has become absolutely vital.  Features and bits of software that weren’t initially imprtant enough for a server of their own have now grown to be absolutely essential – but they’re still all on this one piece of hardware.

This server is domain controller, which means it is doing DNS as well.  It’s their file and print server.  It’s their backup server.  It also runs their custom order tracking software.  It also acts as the license server for their 3D drafting software.  It’s their terminal server for remote users.

So they’re completely dead in the water without this server.  Can’t get anything done at all.

Of course I saw this coming.  I was talking to my boss just last week about how overloaded and critical this one server is.  I suggested that we try, again, to sell them an additional server and split some of the workload out.

To make matters worse, it looks like this is a hardware issue.  It appears to be a bad motherboard…  But maybe one of the CPUs went…  It’s hard to tell right now.

Unfortunately this server is an old whitebox thing we built for them before I even started working here.  There’s absolutely no warranty left on any of it, and a lot of the hardware is now difficult to find.  If this was a new Dell we could get a replacement motherboard in about four hours.  Since it isn’t, the best we can do is to get something overnighted to us.

So we’re trying to get their old load up and running on different hardware.

These folks at least listened to us about backups.  They’ve been using Backup Exec to write a full system backup to an LTO-3 for the last year or so.

Of course, restoring a full backup with Backup Exec can be tricky…

And we’ve had some issues with their external tape drive lately…

So I’m not feeling terribly confident about this.

I was able to get their boot array up and running on a different machine, and I’m trying to get an image of it with Acronis before we do anything terribly interesting.

Yesterday I accidentally finished Fallout 3.

I was getting sick and tired of all the combat in and around the metro area.  Three Dog wanted me to go fix his relay dish…  And the folks in Rivet City wanted me to go look for my father beneath some monument…  And the loony author in Megaton wanted me to go play with mirelurks…

And I just did not want to deal with any of that.

The combat system isn’t bad.  It’s actually kind of fun in small doses.  It’s neat to stumble across a small band of raiders out in the wasteland…  Or a lone robot…  Or a few super-mutants…

But the metro area is just plain painful.  Every two or three steps you’re getting jumped by someone.  And the ruins are full of impassable barriers, so you can’t just go from point A to point B…  You have to keep ducking into the tunnels, which are stuffed full of enemies.

Making my way through the metro area really reminded me of playing Quake 2…  With super-mutants instead of Strogg…  And a much higher chance of death.

So I got fed up with all the combat.  Figured I’d go wander the wasteland – that’s what I was having the most fun with anyway.  Wandering across the barren wastes…  Stumbling across deserted towns…  Making my way through the ruins of civilization…  Occasionally having to fight off a radscorpion or two…  Good stuff.

I basically just started wandering off to the west.

I stumbled across some kind of military base, which I carefully avoided.  The whole reason I was out there was to avoid the excessive combat in the metro area.

I saw something fly overhead one night…  And got irradiated…  And then found a bunch of alien power cells…

I located a big ol’ toxic waste dump…

Freed some slaves here and there…

And then I stumbled across some kind of gas station with a vault hidden in the basement.  This vault, unlike some of the others I’d found, still appeared to be functional.  I was greeted at the door by a robot who told me to put on a jumpsuit and go sit down in some kind of relaxation pod.

I did, and was dumped into a virtual reality simulation of some kind.  I worked my way through a number of quests and eventually ended the simulation – and rescued my father.  Somehow I managed to bypass a big chunk of the storyline and stumble upon my father completely by accident.

The game didn’t seem to know what to do with me.  I still had a quest telling me to go look for my father beneath some monument…  And there didn’t appear to be any way to abandon the quest.

More importantly, I didn’t really know what to do with myself.  I could certainly continue west and see the sights…  But that didn’t seem nearly so engaging now that I knew how it would all end.  I could go do some of the other quests I had – like the mirelurks, or fixing the relay – but I still didn’t want to deal with the combat.  I could reload from an earlier save…but that wouldn’t erase the knowledge of how things end.

I contemplated starting the entire game over again…  I thought I might enjoy myself more if I rolled up a more combat-oriented character this time around.

I actually created a new game, started running through the character creation/tutorial stuff…  But before I even made it to my 10th birthday I was disinterested.  I just didn’t care enough to go through all the lowbie stuff again.

So, I’ve un-installed Fallout 3, and I’m glad I never got around to spending any money on it.  I wound up playing for about six hours, not counting all the dying and reloading.  I’m sure there’s hours and hours more gameplay if I actually bothered to go through the storyline, or if I did more of the side-quests…  But I just can’t be bothered.

Originally, we had a copy of Fallout 3 pre-ordered and paid in full.  We were just waiting for it to be released.

But as the release date drew nearer, and more reviews became available, my interest waned quite a bit.  It looked more like a shooter than an RPG.  It looked like it had been simplified and dumbed down a bit too much.  It looked like Oblivion with guns.

Even though the reviews were generally positive, I had the sneaking suspicion that this wouldn’t actually be the game I wanted it to be.  So, we wound up canceling the pre-order.

And, until recently, I’d completely forgotten that Fallout 3 even existed.

But then Terri started talking about it again…  And they released the new DLC stuff…  So I decided to track down a copy and give it a try.

They’ve done an incredible job of creating the wasteland.  It really feels like a post-apocalyptic world.  I feel like I’ve just stepped into Mad Max or Six String Samurai.  The voices…  The characters…  The visuals…  The over-all setting…  They’re terrific.  Absolutely amazing.  I’m thoroughly impressed with the job they’ve done in creating the world around you.

However, the gameplay and plot aren’t quite doing it for me…

The gameplay is a little too much Oblivion and not nearly enough Fallout.  I miss the complex, roaming, rambling quest lines of previous Fallout games.  The kind of quests where you weren’t really sure whether you were doing the right thing or not.  The kind of situations that were genuinely morally vague.  Things are a little too simple, a little too obvious in Fallout 3.  It’s usually pretty clear what the right choice is.

And the main storyline…the quest to find your father…just isn’t doing it for me.  In previous games you were sent out to save you vault or re-build the world…  This time around you’re just running along behind your father, trying to figure out where he’s gone and why he left.  Again, it seems a little too small, a little too simple.

So, I’ve pretty much grown bored with the main storyline.  I’m now wandering the countryside looking for adventure.

The gameplay is a little too shooter-y for my tastes…  There are lots of encounters that boil down to simple run-and-gun gameplay.  And the V.A.T.S. thing just doesn’t really seem to do much…  Sure, it’s a nice way to specifically target a body part, but I can usually do almost as good by aiming manually.

Ultimately I’m just not feeling terribly compelled to keep playing.  It’s a decent enough game…  It’s a great setting…  But it just isn’t engaging enough to make me put up with all the annoyances.