Took the website offline for about an hour tonight (Sunday) to wire up a new UPS I picked up off of Craigslist and do some general “wiring maintenance”. It’s amazing how quickly and tightly computer cables are capable of tangling themselves in a relatively static environment. Cables were unknotted, power cords were untangled, and everything’s now back up and running.
Spent the past couple of days (off an on) working on the golf cart, one of my “to do” list items for the three day weekend. For some reason, the cart hasn’t been holding a charge. I pulled the seat up and found that the two battery cables I replaced last time were completely eaten away by battery acid. Dad and I did a lap around town and, of the places that were open, nobody really had exactly what we were looking for. We settled for a “pretty close” cable from one O’Reilly’s Auto Parts and came back home. I replaced the old rotten cables with the new ones, and while tightening the last one I busted the battery post clean off. The cart was wheeled back into the garage manually. Today I stopped by Sam’s and picked up a new battery. One battery costs $70 and the cart uses six, but the other five seem okay so I just bought the one. Dad stopped by again today and we pulled out the bad battery and put the new one in. The cart seems to be charging right now so if all is well in the morning Mason and I will take a spin around the block in the morning and see how she holds up.
Next week is the one week a year Morgan’s daycare closes, so Susan is taking off two days and I’m taking off two days. I’ll be off Wednesday and Friday so we’ve got to figure out something to do those two days to keep one of us from killing the other. Love that kid to death but, man, she’s a month away from turning four and still hanging on to those terrible-two’s with both claws.
Ah yes, yesterday seemed like a good time for server maintenance. I took down my site and moved all my servers down into an equipment rack in the garage. Now I just need some new UPS batteries and a some ears for the KVM and everything’s golden. It is truly amazing how quickly wires get tangled, I swear the KVM cables and ethernet cables are trying to bond or something. Even with wire management clips in the rack, it still looks like some sort of digital jungle.
Ugh – cables. I have a pile of them laying on the floor behind my rack right now. I know how mine get tangled. It is a problem of hastily hooking up a 25 foot cable to bring a new system online or to test something – when in fact a 3 foot cable would easily suffice. This happens over and over. The thought of installing the correct cable later turns into it is working so I will leave it. I am moving the rack in the next couple of weeks and will have to spend some time straightening out the mess.