Rainbow’s Point

the idiocy of my school’s technical crew never ceases to amaze me. today is wednesday, and the semester ends tomorrow. while some of the internet-based courses had finals that were administered on campus monday and yesterday, some of them had finals that were administered on the web site and graded automagically.

some of these finals administered on the web site haven’t yet been finalized, and some students no doubt still haven’t taken them.

tomorrow is the end of the semester and all finals and all classes end no later than about 11pm tomorrow.

so today the site is completely down. not just minor fubar, with html errors or something. not just problems with email getting hosed or something equally stupid. not even something like a server that answers with a 404 (file not found, the error you get when a page is missing or you mistype a file name).

no.

the site is 100% down. no answer. timeout.

mission-critical systems that go down during critical times.

and they expect me to pay for this shit?

the stupid physical education final is done. the government final is done. the history final is done. all that’s left is the psychology course, and it’s the one that bothers me the most. oh well.

looks like i lined up a b in the government course. an a in geology. a b or c in history. who cares in phys ed as long as it’s d or better.

just tired.

dear me

congratulations! you have been awarded the dr. charley wootan scholarship for the spring05 semester. this scholarship will be in the amount of $508. the award will first be applied toward any outstanding tuition and fee charges. if your tuition and fees have already been paid, a check will be ordered and sent to the address on file at the registrar’s office. please be sure that this address is kept current.

to be eligible for this award you must meet all the criteria listed on the acceptance form that is enclosed. pay particular attention to any renewal criteria, sign the form, and keep the last copy for your records. the first two copies should be returned to your campus financial aid office or to the address listed at the bottom of the form. no award can be applied until the acceptance form has been signed and returned. if you are unable to accept this award, please call my office at xxx-xxx-xxxx.

our best wishes for your continued academic success.

sincerely,
[signed]
rudy v. gonzales
vice chancellor for financial services

today: geology lab
saturday: physical education
monday: geology lecture, texas government, american history
thursday: psychology

in geology, i could skip the final and still pass. in the rest i need to take them but it shouldn’t be super-difficult. the one that gives me pause is the psychology one, and it’s a good thing it’s on thursday because that gives me a while to study.

looking forward, though, i’m going to visit my mother in san antonio the saturday after finals. i’m lookin gofrward to the trip. she has a very nice house, and it’s quite relaxing. she’s done some really cool stuff in the back yard, creating a natural beauty yard that’s basically based on native grasses and plants. and she’s thrown in some nice touches, like the little iron cutouts of a family of havolinas, and the bird houses from the university of texas and texas a&m.

the birdhouses are made of boots, with a roof on top. the ut one is painted in orange and white with bevo on the side of course; the a&m one is painted in maroon and white, and has the a&m logo, but there’s no hole for the bird to go in and out.

i’m sniffly. i attribute the sniffles to semen backup. a girlfriend would do me some good right about now.

the migration is complete. all of allevil’s functions have been moved to monster, and monster is now serving all requests. the db that runs the blog is protected on the raid array (which makes me very happy), and everything else is working okay. and i’ve fixed the rewrite problem.

the only remaining hiccup is an issue with the kids’ photo site. it’s spitting out some errors about file access, but the photos are coming up so it’s less an issue than it might be, and i’ll track it down eventually.

sold my ipod to my mother. i’m going to be getting one of the u2 ipods. way cool.

links and searches and whatnot will work, but trackbacks i left on other blogs, or internal links to older posts, won’t, at least until i get mod_rewrite and my .htaccess working correctly. this is most fundamentally non-trivial.

but you can leave a comment about how stupid i am, if you wish.

another migration, this time from allevil to monster, for the blog and other services. it’s gone okay, except i’m having trouble with links. so you can’t leave comments, sort by categories, or whatever, until i get it straight. working on it as i write this. blah, i hate this.

See the TURTLE of enormous girth!
On his shell he holds the earth,
His thought is slow but always kind;
He holds us all within his mind.

On his back the truth is carried,
And there are love and duty married.
He loves the earth and loves the sea,
And even loves a child like me.

– the dark tower - book vi: song of susannah
stephen king