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Topslakr June 28th, 2009

• It's so clouding, I might need to turn on a light @ my office. One wall is glass.. it would be the first time I've done it during the day… #
• Time to head home. Another long day at the office. So much to do, so little time. #
• In spite of basically two weeks of rain, the garden is doing great. Potatoes are 3x the size they were on Saturday. #
• Just ordered the parts for the second low power Atom server. Should be here by Friday I hope. http://topslakr.com/?p=659 #
• Come on Wal-mart, get with the program. Yours is the only milk that doesn't say it's free from growth hormones. Fix it! #
• I'm a grump today. Nothing is working and it's not helping. #
• FreeNAS.. I hate you. Clearly something isn't working correctly but I have no way to figure out what the issue is. Moving on… #
• WhooHoo! Just got a SAN running via iSCSI. So far so good.. time to poke around a bit and see what it can do. Love learning new stuff! #

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Topslakr June 21st, 2009

• Heading for bed, that's what I'm doing. It not even 9 yet and I can't stay awake! #
• Been dealing with an awful back problem this weekend. It's a muscle that just tenses up and hurts a lot, hurts to breathe. Need to relax! #
• Hooray! Twiteriffic for the iPhone is fixed! Time to get my tweet on! #
• RT @TUAW: Mapquest on your iPhone (iTunes link) http://bit.ly/RfGc4 <– Finally an App that lets you route around highways and tolls! #
• Just drank last cup of green or oolong tea to be found at my office. I should have reordered last week! Plenty of darjeeling here though. #
• Very happy with my Atom based server. I'm going to get a blog post about it out when I can. Should be able to order the second one this week #
• Hrmf. I guess I should reboot mt Mac. I hate rebooting but the list of updates to install is long.. plus today's Java update is significant. #

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Topslakr June 16th, 2009

Time for another incredibly exciting post about linux servers and their power use. I have built and tested my Atom server and I’m pretty excited to note that it uses 33 watts when idle and a whopping 37 when under heavy load. You can find a detailed description of the parts I ordered to assemble the server on another post on my blog, so I won’t go back into it here. I will need to make one change going forward though. Hitachi no longer makes the 80GB laptop hard drives that I was planning to use but Seagate’s Momentus drives are almost exactly the same power use. It is important to point out though that while these drives are laptop style drives, they spin and run at basically the same speed as desktop drives so performance on them is very good.

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Topslakr June 14th, 2009

• Wish I had some non-fiction to read tonight. I really need to lighten up on my book choices… #
• I'm glad the WWDC keynote is today, I'm tired of all the rumors. Really sucks the fun out of Apple I find. Let's just get it over with… #
• Another low tweet day for me. I'm tired, I'm annoyed and I'm stressed. Not a lot to say.. no one wants to read about me whining. #
• I should start walking around the block after I eat my lunch. Would give me some time to step away and relax a bit before the afternoon. #
• Put a fork in me, I'm done. Homeward! Just sent a tough email that I hope I don't grow to regret. I think my anger has passed sufficiently. #
• Prepping for Praise Team rehearsal. First normalish rehearsal in more then a month. Should be excellent! #
• So Tired… #
• Wow. I am in a thick fog today, I am mentally very tired. Looking forward to a quiet evening though, which should be nice! #

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Topslakr June 7th, 2009

• Got a bit of work done in the garden today before the rain. Need to finish up the fencing and get our seedlings in the ground. #
• After a weekend’s worth of work I can be proud of… I need sleep. Lots of sleep, that I can be proud of. #
• From a co-worker: Is Limewire music really Illegal? Me: You are stealing, did you pay for it? Response: Oh, Good Point. #
• Time to get out of the office. It’s been tedious and awful and I think I’ve had my fill… for today at least. Time for some gardening! #
• My Boss on an end of day email he sent: “8) I forget what else….I’m going home.” It’s been that sort of day all around it seems! #
• I didn’t know @mgardot released a new album! Just bought it. Excellent. Such a talented artist! #
• I’ve been having a lot of trouble sleeping lately and I’m not sure why. No changes to the day or diet lately . So tired… #

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Topslakr May 31st, 2009

• Another day, another grill full of food. Tomorrow is memorial day, and we just emptied our first tank of propane for the year. I grill a lot #
• I’ve got a long day ahead. Rototilling, shifting several tons of loam and compost plus getting ready to get our seedlings out of the tunnel! #
• Rototilling is the hardest thing I have ever done. I can only assume I’m doing something wrong. #
• So, lessons have been learned about rototilling. It’s still pretty hard… But not as bad as I first thought. Next year will be a breeze! #
• What a weekend. I am going to be sore tomorrow! Garden looks great though and it’s good to see so much progress! #
• Hrm. After much looking and asking it turns out the White Whole Wheat flour I was looking for… is at my local grocery store. Who Knew? #
• Wow, reading pages and pages of Microsoft documentation is really fun! Oh.. wait.. no. It’s just the opposite. It’ll be worth it though #

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Topslakr May 29th, 2009

As a geek and IT person by trade I have a somewhat unique setup at my home, in terms of computers. I have several web servers, a mail server and a large storage array that I keep running for my personal use. On the one hand, it’s fun for me and allows me to do things most people can’t dream of, but on the other hand it’s all valuable training setup and a great place to do testing before trying it on production servers at the office. The stakes are much lower for me then for the company I work for. To that end I have a stack of server hardware, sitting in my basement, running all day and night sucking down power.

As a lone person accessing the network and with several pretty low profile web sites it’s not crucial for me to have ultra high performance. All I really need is reliable hardware, and the cheaper the better. With the exception of my recent router upgrade all the hardware I use for servers are just old desktops that were replaced for one reason or another. Free hardware is (was) better then having to spend money and is a great way to get started.

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Topslakr May 24th, 2009

• Just finishing up the 1969 version of ‘The Italian Job’. Great movie! Only makes me want a classic Mini Cooper more! #
• I tried to purge my ‘Following’ list last week, I took off a ton of names. Looking at it now though.. and I have 8 more then when I started. #
• Why didn’t anyone tell me Green Day’s new album was out? Just bought it, and a bunch of stuff I like at the CMS conference. Love new music! #
• Have I tweeted at all today? Either way.. I’m off to bed! #
• Wow. I didn’t put on any weight during my trip! Didn’t lose any.. but not gaining makes me just as happy! #
• Cleaned my IngenuiTEA last night with some bleach. Not sure if my tea will kill me today or not… #
• Ok. I’m going to dump this batch of tea, though it smells OK, do another full rinse and see how things taste after that. #

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Topslakr May 17th, 2009

• Got town approval to go ahead with the plans for Supporting Door Farm. Pigs, Goats and chickens are in my near future! So Excited! #
• Always funny to read about Twitterer’s collective case of the Mondays. I of course am a part of that too #
• Wow. I am tired and it’s only Monday! If only I could take the night off and relax. No rest for the weary though… #
• Looks like my 6 1TB disks could, maybe, be here tomorrow. It was in the state this morning.. and has now left the state. Do I chase it? #
• RT @admicale May you rest in peace, my friend, Patty… in reply to admicale #
• Wonder of all wonders it looks like my hard drives have arrived after all! I’ll do some testing on them and then it’ll be RAID upgrade time! #
• RT @TUAW Yep, 10.5.7 is out: http://support.apple.com/kb/HT3397 #
• OS X update went fine on my Macbook but my iMac doesn’t seem too happy at this point. #10.5.7 #

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Topslakr May 10th, 2009

• Stopped by the poly tunnel this morning to get a few more pictures. As soon as I stepped in, it was like being in a jungle. Working great! #
• Lunch: sliced grilled pork chops, cheddar, and cranberry sauce on homemade toasted sourdough. My mouth is watering… #
• Stopped over at ‘Supporting Door Farm’ on the way home. Got some more vines cleaned out and the poly tunnel continues to impress! #
• It’s been an interesting day but things are gettng back on track.. plus Windows 7 RC is nearly done installing #
• Ordered 6 more 1TB disks today. I knew video took a lot of space.. but this is unreal! 80GB/hr fills ‘em up fast! #
• I had be hoping to get out of work a little earlier today.. of well. Time to go pickup some steaks for dinner.. that’ll be nice! #
• Going to try and unwind before praise team rehearsal tonight. Lots of work to do but we’ll have close to a full crew. Should be great! #

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