The plan...

The plan today was to see my super about my house (done) then..

The plan was to get to work and have a nice shorten day and go home..

The plan was to get home and post some new pictures from my house for you all.

The plan has been destroyed.


As I walked into work, coffee cup in hand, filled with jubilation about my house, Jim Squire (out network admin) literally pointed at me with part glee, and part "ahahaha you get to fix it now" (I think they are a very closely tied emotion).

Why you ask? Oh, there's this thing called email. It lives on a server. Usually. Ours is dead on a server. ><

So, as network admin (squire) he'll fix it right? Well.. sort-of. About 11am they decided it was far beyond just a couple scripts and such and needed to go to tape. Now, in the tech world, "going to tape" is like calling in a relief pitcher. Sometimes he's great. Sometimes he gives up a grandslam, and you wonder why you even have him around.

Wednesday's tape was easy. He didn't even get to face a batter. Why? Oh because maybe I forgot to change tapes last night. Oops. Strike one Bryce. Though I know I stuck Tuesday in... right?

Yes... but Tuesday died mid backup and gave itself a digital hernia. Sexy.

Monday. Okay, I checked the logs for Monday - Successful. Nice. I grab the database (they are full) and I do a restore. "Restore Failure - File has bad stuff" @ exactly 13,999.50 MB. Okay.. So now I have Microsoft in one ear (our email software) and Computer Associates in my other (our backup software)... after three more failed restores; we give up. ALl three have died at 13,999.50 telling me that its not something I'm going to get past. I cry a little.

What now you ask? We tell all our users we are starting over. Hehe, kidding. They'd kill me. We do what's called a "hard restore", and its called that, because its long and hard (never claimed us tech folk were creative) ... I cry a little more.

Luckily from about 1pm until 4:30pm Jim does take over with Microsoft. Though he forgets to tell me that he's running the sound at a show from 5pm - 8pm tonight. Do YOU think the "hard restore" will be done by 4:30? Of course not. So he hand me the phone to talk to Kreshan (yes, he's East Indian). Kreshan of course is now at the end of his shift and hands me over to Ashir. Great. Now both people running this show have no idea where we were heading. Great idea. Thanks guys.

Luckily Microsoft has some great technology so Ashir can actually control my keyboard and mouse, and do what database things he needs to do. I can only describe this experience as the digital equivalent of getting into a cab driven by a guy you can't understand, don't know if he knows where he's going, and it feels like he's litterally toying with your life. I cry some more.

Right now we're on hour 10 with microsoft .. I'm waiting on some diagnostic tests to finish while I'm writing this. At this point I've had to correct Ashir once from deleting all our emails and causing at least 5-8 hrs of work. He's super.

Sorry, I haven't proof-read this and I have to get back to Ashir. I think he wants me to do click on something.. or cook his cat. I can't understand him.