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Server Room Disaster
Our OLD server room here at work just had a new Air Conditioning unit installed, of course I didn't know when it was going in until it was done. over the last few hot days the room has been getting hot. REAL hot. so the idea of the AC was to keep the computers save and in an environment that would extend their lifetime to the expected full length.

This is where the fun starts. The AC installers did heaps of Cutting of Plasterboard in the room with out using any precautions. every surface of the room was covered in Plasterboard dust. (It MAY be Gyprok I'm not sure the difference. I should Google.. I would if I didn't have so much to write)

Now, the mortals amongst us would think "Plasterboard dust, thats like.. a white powder, its inert, Its harmless why do you care". The other people amongst us will go "Plasterboard, thats got a significant proportion of LIME in it which is going to make it quite caustic" and the answer is YES.. its Caustic. in a test we ran here in the lab we got a pH of ~11.6 on the scrapings of dust i took from the room.

The result of this is we have HIGHLY caustic dust throughout our server room, many of the servers have ingested this dust. and we have to get it cleaned out.. Urgently before it absorbs moisture and creates a highly caustic solution surfaces in the servers.

A company called Cyberclean is coming in to have a look and quote on the removals. I may even do the work myself if I think I can. Get them to decontaminate the actual room and then do the servers myself over the weekend.

Hopefully the company insurance will pay for it. Luckily this fuckup isn't my fuckup. Nor i think its safe to say is it the guys i work with.

Building of a Side fence
The fence between my house and the Neighbours house was falling down horribly. When all the creeper and other shrubs were pulled off the fence it was discovered that the only thing holding the fence up was the green matter and not the fencing materials. So over the course of a couple of weeks we ripped out the fence and replaced it with a brand new shiny wooden fence with trellis on the top. It looks nice and shiny. Dropping Chick Straw (Chick Pea leftover) on the garden bed in front of it makes the whole side of the garden look VERY smart. Chick Straw sits on top of the soil and helps keep there moisture in the soil.

Drought
Which leads into the next problem. My Garden. It's getting very dry. Which is why I put the Chick Straw down. MOST of the plants in my garden are fairly hardy individuals. My Garden has had very little water in the last 10 years, HOWEVER there are, (as there always are) a couple of plants that need water or they will die! One of the plants is next to the new front fence and the other is at the back of the house. I'm not sure how I'm going to keep them alive during the new year with the ban on watering but I should be okay. Hopefully we don't go to stage four them those plants are really screwed. Fingers crossed they can survive a few months with out water.

My Car is Sick
I walked out of the house this morning to get into the car and noticed that there were some old looking drops of oil on the garage floor underneath the front of the car.

Now, the car that was parked in the garage BEFORE I moved in was a little shit box and it leaked oil quite badly. I couldn't remember if the drops had been there or not. I rolled the car forward and checked again.

:( A VERY fresh dollop of oil was sitting in the middle of the floor! :( i think my car has blown a seal! I checked the oil levels in the car and it has heaps so its not GUSHING oil.

I got to work and checked my car park and noticed oil there as well :(

My Car is checked in for a service and repair next Thursday at the local car mechanic my family has used (and has been pleased with ) for the last 10 years. Going to be an expensive service though :( A belt change and a seal change!

Job Hunting - resume Writing
I'm job hunting again. I'm fully employed at the moment and theres no likely hood of me loosing my job, but im not happy here. The Management decisions due to the companys being merged into one and then outsourced to the parent company have resulted in the following happening:

I was passed over for promotion to for the management of the IT group in the company because the OTHER guy who is here is older, and was earning more.. so they Couldn't see how they could make me manager without giving me a pay rise. I accepted this because my Canberra manager promised me it would be short term. The guy who was made manager isn't very popular because they often have trouble making him show up. The management team here in Melbourne aren't very happy but theres nothing they can do because:

The Canberra company sold the IT department and all equipment back to the parent company, this means they have no control over the IT department anymore so even if they WANTED to change the way things worked they cant as it has to go back through to the parent company who i now work for and actually dislike quite a lot because they are arrogant and cant understand why we don't want to be part of them even though they cant provide us any services..

My Canberra manager was sacked because the board lost faith in him. This was the guy who made promises to me on how my career and salary would go in this company. With him gone so are his promises. he promised me that i would be manager in the long term. He also promised me a pay rise in the near future.

I used to have a project that was the integration project that was the project for uniting the it infrastructure of the two companys. it was working well.. Really well. then the other guy was made manager and they decided that keeping me as the Project Manager wouldn't work as you would have me calling the shots on one part of the work and him on another part. So i'm no longer project manager.

The result of this and my Canberra manager leaving is that the NEW managers in Canberra don't realize that I ever ran anything on my own that I managed ap project successfully or that most of the work that was happening was my stuff. To them im just the sysadmin who is in Melbourne.

I used to have the ability to organise purchasing of equipment. Now with the Canberra office taking over the company and us working for them, they are being a pain with the purchasing. EVERYTHING has to go through them so I no longer have any choice in what we buy.

So in the last 6 months I've , Been passed over for promotion, Been sold to a company that has shown time and time again they cant provide the services we need, I had my integration project taken away from me, Loss of Skill recognician and finally loss of the purchasing power

So add that all together and im not happy here and im going to start hunting for a new job. My resume needs to be reworked because its out of date and too long now. I need to reduce 6 pages to 2 and cut out the older jobs and put in more interesting stuff that catches peoples eyes.

Cat Hunting
I'm about -> <- close to goign up and getting a cat. Aparently theres lots of cats at the RSCA and there more at the Coldstream Anamal Shlter because all the animals form the fire regions were brought in to a safe location. I have sombody (I think) who would possibly be able to look after it whilst im away next year (if I actually sort that out) so its just a matter of deciding if I can handle the commitment.

Most people know im not very good at commitment at all. Infact im damn right shokcing at commitment.