Last Updated on September 30, 2010 by Dave Farquhar
When I gained consciousness Saturday morning, I was on the phone.
I don’t remember it ringing. I don’t remember the caller identifying himself. All I remember is a coworker describing a problem with a tape backup. I had to ask him at least three times which server it was, and it took me a few minutes to figure out where that server was and what it did.
That was about 5:15 this morning. By about 6, I’d figured out what went wrong with the backup, gotten it running, and crawled back into bed.
Such is the life of the professional sysadmin. The 1-AM road trips to Miami Street in south St. Louis or to Highway 40 and Mason Ridge in Town & Country are nearly as delightful. But having a regular paycheck really is delightful.
The phone rang again about 9. I’d told the world I’d be up by then. But I hadn’t counted on being roused from a deep sleep when I was half done. I was slightly more coherent this time–I remember the phone ringing, I remember clumsily knocking the phone and the base off my nightstand, and I remember picking it up and saying hello. I didn’t remember I’d promised to edit video that morning.
So I spent much of the day assembling clips, hunting down stray frames, and generally polishing a pair of just-over-two-minute videos.
During my breaks, I investigated the possibility of upgrading to the latest version of b2 0.61. It works and its feature list is impressive–not far off from offering what Movable Type offers out of the box and in some ways superior–but I couldn’t get all of Steve’s custom code to work with it yet so I haven’t gone live with it.
My girlfriend called around 8 pm. I told her I was tired. She called me an old man. I was too tired to protest. She told me she replaced her Vin Diesel wallpaper on her computer with a picture of the two of us.
I’m moving up in the world.
Or maybe I dreamt that last part.
David Farquhar is a computer security professional, entrepreneur, and author. He started his career as a part-time computer technician in 1994, worked his way up to system administrator by 1997, and has specialized in vulnerability management since 2013. He invests in real estate on the side and his hobbies include O gauge trains, baseball cards, and retro computers and video games. A University of Missouri graduate, he holds CISSP and Security+ certifications. He lives in St. Louis with his family.
Dude!
I dreamt I was moving up in the world once too, but then I married.
I had to laugh…
Thanks!