Monthly Archives: November 2009

It’s Here, It’s Here!

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The new bed is here! Nothing like coming home from work and finding a brand new bed all set up in my bedroom just waiting for me! Gardner White delivered our new bed today, and thankfully Melissa had the day off so she could stay home to accept the delivery. They took down the old bed and took it away (except the frame) and put up the new bed in its place. I didn’t realize just how big this bed was going to be nor how high; i can sit on the edge and my feet don’t touch the floor! I can’t wait to go to bed tonight! I really hope this bed helps my back.

[Update 12/01/2009]
Oh man, that was a great night sleep. After laying in bed for a few minutes last night and allowing the new pillow top to conform to my lower back and support it properly, my back pain went away. This morning was the first one in a very long time that I woke up without back pain! I really hope this continues!

The Battle Continues

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Tiffany called me today and asked if I wanted to start doing the weight watchers program with her. We would be each others group support and we can talk to each other about how we are doing and hopefully lose some weight without having to pay for the classes. So starting today I am restarting my weekly weigh ins and hopefully some weight loss. I weighed in this morning at a disappointing 290.2 pounds. Let’s hope I can do some good and lose some pounds!

Black Friday Purchase

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Lately I have noticed that no matter how we turn or rotate the mattress my lower back still hurts in the morning. In addition to this I finally had to conceded that there is a visible caving in to the middle of the mattress. I really can’t complain though, seeing as I paid $200 for the bed and I got it second hand to begin with, I think it lasting 3 years for me was worth it. So tonight I finally broke down and went to Gardner White and bought a new bed. It was a short notice purchase with no real planning involved other than me complaining about my back for the last few months. Tonight, though, we saw a commercial that Gardner White was having a pretty decent sale for Black Friday so off we went to check it out. I have always said that the next bed I buy would be a king sized bed, because it would be my hope that it would also be the last bed I buy; so that’s what I did.

I just purchased a Simmons BeautyRest® Rozelle King Sized bed set (mattress and foundation), a new frame to support the new larger bed (the old one was a queen sized bed), and a Guardsman waterproof mattress protector. This bed comes with Simmons’ super pillow top, which was a huge selling point for me because when I laid on the bed in the store, after settling in for a minute, it contoured to my lower back and took away all the pressure on my lower back! Once this happened I had no lower back pain while laying on my back! I can’t even explain how amazing that feels and I really hope that mine will have the same result once it is set up in my room.

The bed and the mattress protector both come with a 10 year warranty. For the mattress protector any time during those 10 years I can call Gardner White and they will send me a new one at no charge, I can do this twice. As part of the sale this king size bed was sold at the price of a queen size bed so that cut the price down a little. Also, after I decided to buy this bed I was informed that this particular bed comes with a Dynex 42″ LCD 1080p HDTV from BestBuy, which, according to the reviews, is a pretty decent HDTV. Of course this now means I need to buy new bedding for the bed and a new pillow while I am at it. It also means that eventually I will need a new TV stand for the TV. In any event the bed is supposed to be delivered by Monday the 30th, and they are even going to take away the old bed for free. The TV will be delivered within 21 days of the bed being delivered, which means it should be here by Christmas, of course it will most likely take me another two weeks after that to get it set up though!

I can’t wait to get the new bed though, I am very much looking forward to a good night sleep and waking up with no lower back pain. I just hope I am not setting my hopes to high.

A Long Overdue Checkup

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Went to the doctor today for my first physical in over two years, all in all it went surprisingly well. As usual I need to lose some weight, but I guess now it is starting to show in ways other than just my weight. My blood pressure is a little high, not high enough to warrant medication, but high enough to mention that I should lose a few pounds. In addition I need to go have some blood drawn as the doctor wants to have my cholesterol checked, as he thinks that might be high too (makes me wonder about eating that burger at Heart Attack Grill, but it sure was good). I guess I will have to wait and see what the results actually are.

[Update: 11/25/09]
Got a letter from my doctor with the results of my lab work. Turns out everything but my cholesterol is fine. Here’s what the numbers look like (and the notes from the doctor):

  • Cholesterol     183 (Up from 148)
  • HDL Chol        45
  • Triglycerid      143
  • LDL Chol        109 (Up from 69)

Doctor wants me to continue trying to lose weight and getting exercise to try to correct these issues. Guess I need to regain focus and really try to lose weight.

Posted in Ed

Last Day of Class

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Finished the NetApp Fundamentals class today, all in all it was a good class. We covered a lot of information but not with a lot of depth. Knowing what I have lined up at work I think it would be great if I could take the CIFS class, however that is another three day class and I am not sure if work will pay for that. I’ll keep it in mind as the Healthcare filers will be doing some tricky work with CIFS and I know it would be beneficial.  We finished class early today (around noon) so I thought about going to the Grand Canyon, but with it being 240 miles away the time doesn’t work out to make it worth trying. I thought about trying to catch an earlier flight out, but sitting stand by potentially until my scheduled flight tomorrow doesn’t sound to appealing either. It was nice being out here though, the weather was perfect and from what I have been told it’s like this eight months out of the year, the other four are really hot, but I think I could handle it, after all that’s what air conditioning is for right?

Heart Attack Grill

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What a dinner! The other day in class one of the Phoenix natives mentioned a restaurant located in Chandler known as the Heart Attack Grill (Wikipedia). This restaurant is known for two things, there giant hamburgers and their, um, visually appealing environment (aka their “nurses“). After the instructor looked it up online during one of our breaks and shared it with us I decided I needed to try this place before leaving Phoenix as it is only a few minutes from my hotel, and let’s face it when will I be out here again? It was easy enough to get to seeing as I have a GPS unit in my car, the hard part was once I got there I needed to find an ATM as the establishment is cash only; a fact I wish they had stated on there website. I had a feeling this place was going to be good when I approached the door and a sign on it said “Caution! This establishment is BAD for your health.” When I went in my “nurse” greeted me and informed me that each hamburger on the bun weighs in at a half pound, at that point I decided to order the Single Bypass burger. The flatliner fries, which were delicious, where unlimited and self serve. I watched as an entire potato was placed on a press, the bottom of which was a metal grate, and the potato was rammed through it to create the fries, which fell directly into the deep fryers basket, I had one order of these delicious fries to ensure I had room for my Single Bypass. The whole “hospital” theme is continued (in addition to the waitress wearing sexy nurse uniforms) by the fact that they actually placed me (and every other “patient”) in a hospital gown and wrist tagged me with a band saying I was having a Single Bypass. After coming back to my room tonight I did a little more research into this place and found this CBS News review which gave me some interesting information, like everything is cooked in, and with, lard! I really wish I would have tried the Quad, I guess now I have another reason to come back to Arizona (seeing the Grand Canyon is the other, it’s 240 miles away from me now so I don’t think I’ll have time to go see it). The hamburger was easily one of the top 10 I have ever had, and if I lived out here I am positive I would go back, often. After finishing my meal I had my picture taken with my “nurse” Alyssa, and though you can’t tell from the picture, I am sitting in a wheelchair. I wonder if I could open a franchise back in MI…?

java netapp.cmds.jsh

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One of the problems I have with the NetApp filers is the inability to use simple UNIX commands like cp (copy) and mv (move) even though their base OS is Linux. Often times I have needed to use these commands to make backup copies of files I need to modify but have not been able to. There are a number of ways to get around this problem:

  • export and mount /vol/vol0 to a UNIX host and use native UNIX commands
  • CIFS share /vol/vol0 to a Windows host and use Native windows commands
  • create a snapshot of /vol/vol0 and use the Data ONTAP native rdfile and wrfile command

Of course there are problems with these as well.

  • In order to make use of exporting and mounting the volume I would require access to a UNIX host with the appropriate permissions to perform these actions; which often enough I do not have access to.
  • In order to use a CIFS share the filer needs to have a CIFS license in place and have access to a windows system that has access to the filer; and at least one of my filers does not have a CIFS license, and on the ones that do I may not have access to a system that can map the CIFS share on the given network.
  • the Data ONTAP rdfile and wrfile commands are useful, but dangerous. wrfile, which allows you to write to a file, first destroys the file (removes all data from it) then opens it for you to add to. This means if you forget to use rdfile first to see the contents of the file, then you have just erased the file. Correcting this can be as simple as pulling the original file from a snapshot (if you remembered to take one) or as complicated as needing to create the file from scratch.

The solution to all these problems is to use an undocumented java shell on the filer which grants the ability to use cp, mv and other commands.

Here is an example of the command to drop to the java shell and a list of the commands available:

filer01>java netapp.cmds.jsh
jsh> ?
Java Shell commands:
cd [directory]
pwd
ls [-l]
cat file
rm file [file2 …]
cp src dest
mv src dest
ps [-l]
kill <-1|-9> threadName
gc
classpath [pathname]
syspath [pathname]
Debug on|off
threads
monitors
heap
version
syncdb
du [-sk] [files or directories]
java_class [&]
ONTAP_cmd
jsh> exit
filer01>

This command alone has made this class worth it for me, this will come in very handy in the future.

First Day Results

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Looks like I worried about my driving route to class for nothing. When I went out this morning to head to class I found the road had been re-opened, apparently they only close it off on the weekend. I got to the training center early, as is my habit, and got registered and signed in. Turns out there only four of us in the class and three of us have some NetApp experience. Should be interesting, this is just the Data ONTAP 7.3 Fundamentals class, so hopefully I will get some good information out of the class. The instructor seems pretty knowledgeable and easy to talk to, should be a fun and quick paced class due to both the small class size and the people here. The first day went by pretty quick and so far the knowledge was pretty basic and stuff I already knew, but some of it I had never used so the labs were pretty useful. Looking forward to what the rest of the week brings.

Arrived in Phoenix

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Landed in Phoenix earlier today and made my way to my hotel. I actually managed to take a wrong turn on the way to the hotel even with having a GPS unit in the car (a Toyota Corolla) so I am not to thrilled about the potential of me getting lost over the next week. To top it off the main road is closed right outside my hotel in the direction I need to go to get to class. I was able to find a different route to class already, but I have to do it by driving the opposite direction than the GPS says to go, thus forcing it to calculate a new route. The area is nice, though I am already tired of the dessert colors, all of the houses are painted a muted yellowish color or a kind of sand gray, on the bright side the temperature is in the low 70s and the sky is a brilliant blue. I wouldn’t mind having this kind of temperature year round! Can’t wait to see what tomorrow brings.

Training, finally.

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For the past year I have been trying to get training approved to help me in my day to day work of supporting a number of NetApp filers, today I was informed that this training has finally been approved. While this is a good thing and I am happy to finally be getting some formal training, I am a little disappointed in the timing. Seems that my manager wants to make certain this training falls on the 2009 budget, so I have pretty much two choices in regards to when I can take this 5 day training class; I can either go to Phoenix AZ next week (11/15/2009  – 11/21/2009) or I can go to NYC the week of Christmas. I really don’t want to be out on training during Christmas, so it looks like I am going to Phoenix next week. I’ve never been to AZ, in fact this will be the furthest west I have ever been, so that is cool. However, I was supposed to be on vacation next week so I could go hunting, so I will miss hunting season for the second year in a row and will need to reschedule my vacation. Well, at least I will be getting my training, I just hope it is worth it in the end due to how much I have already learned from dealing with this hardware on a day to day basis.