The end of a long journey
2011-Sep-21, Wednesday 13:56![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
texxgadgetIts been a while since I last posted.
Ive been busy, very busy, but no, I havent died yet.
This last July was probably my last July4 on a pyro crew.
Steve has decided to get out of the business and Ive been unable to
figure out how to get licensed to go into it. He offered me his business.
Im almost a year into my 3 month project.
This client is probably the 4th fastest growing startup in Silicon Valley.
The demand for resouces is growing faster than we can fill them.
We are helping lead the pack to IPv6 and in application level load balancing.
Youve probably heard of layer2 switching and layer 4 switching, we are doing layer 7 switching.
With luck we will be moving to a new building after new years.
This one is falling apart. We are blowing chillers and electrical panels to beat the band.
The plumbing is starting to fail and the roof has already.
It rains on the CFOs desk, which I find amusing.
Ive been having fun writing monitoring scrips and power & temperature plotting programs.
Now Im working on one that can predict imminent chiller failure.
A while back i ran into "Grey" from my old fandom days when he was here on training.
It was a blast.
Recent fun included a CISCO 2511 with a corrupt firmware file in it.
We decided to update it and found a firmware image.
We couldnt download it because the CISCO was out of space, so we deleted the corrupt file.
The firmware STILL wouldnt load and now we had NO boot file, so we were OK as long as we didnt
reboot it. We had 8 meg of flash and the image was 16.
After several hours of websurfing, we found an image that would fit and we got it up and running.
Since we got it off LSD24.ru we are watching it very carefully to make sure it doesnt try and call
out anywhere (nervous look)
Dad & my evening schedule has been altered drastically.
Dad normally visits Mom nightly after dinner and me on weekends and during the week when work allows.
I usually get home around 10PM and Mom is usually bedded down around 9.
We are one of a couple families who visit often enough the residents are confused as to whether we
are staff or not. Sadly, some residents Ive never seen have a visitor.
Our schedule has been this way for about 4 years. Last Thursday it changed.
Mom usually gives us a scare about twice a year. We already knew how it would end.
A while back when she slept for a week, we were wondering and then she perked up.
2 weekends back I went and she slept most of the time.
She didnt even wake up when we wheeled through the rose garden.
Then Dad reported 2 good nights when he got home, and then I was late home Wed and he still
wasnt there. I didnt have a good feeling. When he came in after 6am, I knew.
A couple of the staffers were close enough to her that they called in on days off to ask how she was.
Weve wondered when the other shoe would drop for the last several years.
Now we know. For us, the grieving process ran its course before she died.
The task at hand was to ensure comfort, what quality of life was possible etc,
but coherent conversation ceased long ago. Even nonsensical speech has been absent a while.
The hardest part was knowing that there was no way I could tell if she was hurting.
Im wondering if I should feel guilty for feeling relief.
I know this is not how she would have chosen to go.
Her final legacy is that of teacher. UCSF will learn alot from the autopsy.
Long after her ability to speak, she continued to teach. Im slow on "people cues" which
most people are born with. Its taken years for me to get as good as I am and thats not much.
Having to work hard to gauge her needs has improved me some.
The other lesson we should all pay attention to is this:
"Living forever is NOT what its cracked up to be!"
Ive been busy, very busy, but no, I havent died yet.
This last July was probably my last July4 on a pyro crew.
Steve has decided to get out of the business and Ive been unable to
figure out how to get licensed to go into it. He offered me his business.
Im almost a year into my 3 month project.
This client is probably the 4th fastest growing startup in Silicon Valley.
The demand for resouces is growing faster than we can fill them.
We are helping lead the pack to IPv6 and in application level load balancing.
Youve probably heard of layer2 switching and layer 4 switching, we are doing layer 7 switching.
With luck we will be moving to a new building after new years.
This one is falling apart. We are blowing chillers and electrical panels to beat the band.
The plumbing is starting to fail and the roof has already.
It rains on the CFOs desk, which I find amusing.
Ive been having fun writing monitoring scrips and power & temperature plotting programs.
Now Im working on one that can predict imminent chiller failure.
A while back i ran into "Grey" from my old fandom days when he was here on training.
It was a blast.
Recent fun included a CISCO 2511 with a corrupt firmware file in it.
We decided to update it and found a firmware image.
We couldnt download it because the CISCO was out of space, so we deleted the corrupt file.
The firmware STILL wouldnt load and now we had NO boot file, so we were OK as long as we didnt
reboot it. We had 8 meg of flash and the image was 16.
After several hours of websurfing, we found an image that would fit and we got it up and running.
Since we got it off LSD24.ru we are watching it very carefully to make sure it doesnt try and call
out anywhere (nervous look)
Dad & my evening schedule has been altered drastically.
Dad normally visits Mom nightly after dinner and me on weekends and during the week when work allows.
I usually get home around 10PM and Mom is usually bedded down around 9.
We are one of a couple families who visit often enough the residents are confused as to whether we
are staff or not. Sadly, some residents Ive never seen have a visitor.
Our schedule has been this way for about 4 years. Last Thursday it changed.
Mom usually gives us a scare about twice a year. We already knew how it would end.
A while back when she slept for a week, we were wondering and then she perked up.
2 weekends back I went and she slept most of the time.
She didnt even wake up when we wheeled through the rose garden.
Then Dad reported 2 good nights when he got home, and then I was late home Wed and he still
wasnt there. I didnt have a good feeling. When he came in after 6am, I knew.
A couple of the staffers were close enough to her that they called in on days off to ask how she was.
Weve wondered when the other shoe would drop for the last several years.
Now we know. For us, the grieving process ran its course before she died.
The task at hand was to ensure comfort, what quality of life was possible etc,
but coherent conversation ceased long ago. Even nonsensical speech has been absent a while.
The hardest part was knowing that there was no way I could tell if she was hurting.
Im wondering if I should feel guilty for feeling relief.
I know this is not how she would have chosen to go.
Her final legacy is that of teacher. UCSF will learn alot from the autopsy.
Long after her ability to speak, she continued to teach. Im slow on "people cues" which
most people are born with. Its taken years for me to get as good as I am and thats not much.
Having to work hard to gauge her needs has improved me some.
The other lesson we should all pay attention to is this:
"Living forever is NOT what its cracked up to be!"
