Tuesday, July 15, 2008

Urban Legend: Have you ever heard the story of the lost server? The story goes that an institution had a contract to replace their servers on a rotating schedule. The company notified them that it was time to replace Server, let's call it X. Institution's IT department checks their maintenance logs & can't find a server X on it. They double check with the company, who confirms that yes they have a Server X. IT people ping the server & to their surprise they get a response. So the server does exist, but where?

They do a quick check and can't find it. In resignation, they form teams to start tagging and tracing cables, to find the server (good things those thing aren't wireless, huh). These cables sometimes go through walls and so on, too, increasing job fun. One team, in a recently renovated building, traces a cable going into a wall but can't find where it exits. As a last resort, they cut open the dry wall to see where the cable went.

There, behind the drywall, still in the plastic, protective dropcloth, is the missing server. It had been placed temporarily between to wall studs and then the workers had just drywalled over it. In all the time since the renovation, it had done its work, without requiring service, covered by a dropcloth.

Here's the kicker. I know the building where they found the server. One of my friends was on a search team, although not the one that found it. This is not an urban legend. It really happened.

Bus: I was (I counted) 36 steps from the bench at the bus stop when the bus drove by. It must have been a new driver because although the sidewalk is not right next to the road there, experienced drivers look to see if anyone is close to the stop. I know because I've had them stop for me. I got to work a little late as a result. The sad thing is, if I had walked back home and driven to a park & ride to get to work; I would have gotten to work at the same time as I did waiting for the next bus.

Gaming: Chris's game was last night. We're sticking with D&D 3.5 because switching to 4.0 would be like changing game systems entirely. One player is at the beach & another one had car problems but we continued the adventure anyway. We descended into the underground river to sneak into the giants' keep.

It was all navigating natural hazards and one character's lack of engineering knowledge. Our scout almost drowned but the one who almost drowned her, rescued her. We used an immovable rod to belay the rope to lower folks down the waterfall. Which is great, but the monk deactivated the rod early and let all the rope descend on the scout swimming downstream. She managed to cut the magic rope, making is disappear, before she drowned. The monk had consumed a fly potion so he was able fly over and grab her to finish the rescue.

My druid Kelis, 12th level now by the way, used her 2nd wild shape of the day and took the trip as a polar bear. I need to check how long she's been changed, I think she's limited to her level in hours.

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