brad's life

uswest's name servers are down, so i can't log into anything too quickly, because ssh likes to reverse your IP before letting you in.... which means i have to wait an ungodly amount of time for the DNS lookup to time out. stupid us west. worse: openssh tries to reverse three times.... once when connecting, once right after key exchange before logging in, and once after your authenticated.... aahghhghhah

but, this amused me. haha.

getting frustrated/discontent these past few hours... there's so much I want to do and need to do with livejournal that nobody knows how to help me with, or that nobody has time to help me. :-/

in other news, i'm getting extremely paranoid about data loss on my personal computers.... i had some minor drive corruption the other day and now i'm set on building myself a reliable file server .... i'm thinking two of these (one per IDE bus), 100 Mbit ethernet card, linux w/ software RAID 1.... in the future i can buy two more if i need more space.

it's raining! i love the sound of rain..... i have a window right to my left, and a door behind me..... sounds like the rain is all around me.... that, along with my new xmas lights hanging around here, makes for a really cool environment

going to bed, i guess.

woke up at 1 or so.
good sleep.
skipped music, as did blythe and sherm. (no homework due)
went to dick's with blythe
went to a computer store to get quotes on parts
took blythe home
ran some errands
a file server will cost me $1,010.00, but then i'd have an extra computer being loud in my room.
instead... i'm thinking of just upgrading pieces of my linux box:

• Keep:
  • case
  • video card (matrox g400 dual head)
  • sound card (sound blaster live)
  • one of my 16 gb drives (to boot off of)
• Upgrade:
  • processor (from P2-400 to P3-800)
  • cdrom (from creative-labs dxr2 DVD to Sony 48x CD... who needs DVD? i have a real DVD player.)
  • floppy (don't have one now)
  • RAID 1 array:
    • maxtor 60gb harddrive (have this sitting around)
    • IBM 60gb harddrive (have to buy this)
  • motherboard (asus)

it'll end up costing about the same..... the money I save from reusing parts will let me get a faster processor, but I'll save on computer noise and space by only having 3 computers in here instead of 4.

BTW, what are good computer part stores in the Seattle area? I knew all the cool places around Portland, but I haven't been having very good luck here. :-/

working on getting the new livejournal servers workin'. writing some tools to help me easily manage them all centrally. yeah, something like this probably already exists, but i don't care. i'm rarely impressed by other people's code. plus, doing it myself the first time helps me appreciate other solutions when I see then, and better evaluate if they're sufficient or not.

megan and brittney are outside playing nintendo and doing their loud girl giggling and shrieking whenever they get a mushroom... kinda annoying, but tolerable i suppose. i had to turn on music to drown it out, but I don't even want to listen to music. *shrug*

looks like i'll be making a trip to hard drives northwest this weekend to upgrade my computer. i'm pretty excited about that... it looks like just the sort of little parts store that I love, just like my little favorite store from back home.

It's snowing! more pictures uploading now to here.

Isn't she cute ?