i just felt compelled to share that, regardless of context or anything else.

last year, in may or so, i moved from using a linode vps for my mail and domain hosting, to using hosted exchange for mail and a shared host for the sites. the shared host for the sites has been perfect. i’ve had 99.999% uptime, the only time the sites have been down is during maintenance. this is better than my own uptime with my vps. (i should say that wasn’t any fault of linode who are totally awesome and if you’re in need of a vps, you should look them up.)

why do i pay for mail? there are a few reasons.

1. i don’t trust people with my data. companies that offer enterprise-grade email and communications platforms have a lot more incentive to keep shit private and protect your stuff.

2. i like uptime, i like reliability and i like being able to contact the host to have stuff resolved if something happens, rather than getting to lose mail or something.

3. i like supporting businesses who offer competent, well-engineered, reliable services.

i started off with the hosted exchange company, sherweb, who when i signed up were offering a competitive blend of services and price that was too good to pass up. i really like exchange and i really like outlook and owa. they’re extremely well-integrated, well-tested, reliable platforms for mta use, pc clients and web clients respectively. after having service with sherweb for around 4 months, i started noticing that it seemed like they had downtime two or three times a week. of course, this isn’t a huge deal, but the loss of performance and issues with their (terrible) barracuda hardware firewall/spam appliance made me want to try something else. i read some reviews and against my own better judgement (i despise google) i signed up for google apps premier.

google does lots of stuff i don’t agree with and lots of things that make me really nervous. they don’t do any one thing terribly well. their search algorithms aren’t all that great. their maps platform hasn’t really evolved since it was first released. gmail offers free mail at the expense of letting google rifle through your personal stuff. their metrics allow them to track user site visits and stuff, which is interesting in that you can see who sees your site, but you’re also doing a big disservice to your users by allowing google to follow them around. they’re just a creepy, orwellian company who make money from your personal information and other net-metrics.

getting back to signing up for google apps, i don’t know why i did it. the thought of having what i felt was a somewhat reliable infrastructure keeping my mail flowing and my information safe (their apps privacy policy at the time was very strict and decent, all things considered.) i ran into numerous quirks and broken features and google had their instances of downtime that people seem to have absolutely no problem with. at any rate, the price was right, it was $50/year for mail, contacts, calendar access, documents and it’d sync with my pre. this in itself was significant, because it saved me approximately $60/year over my current hosted exchange provider. i purchased my service, waited for it to be provisioned, then moved all my mail over, set mx records, waited a week, then was ready to roll. i had a total of 12 incidents where i couldn’t access my mail for 4-5 hours at a time. a few of those were reported on as they affected their regular gmail services as well as the premier apps service.

for the most part, their service was alright. i hate gmail’s interface. their calendar support is alright, their docs support is actually pretty good. other than the aforementioned downtime, the system was pretty reliable. fast forward to february, this year. last month, i’d been reading some pretty screwy/scary statements made by folks at google that sort of confirmed my opinion of them re: data security/information as a commodity. it made me nervous, but i still had just a few months left until my apps acct would lapse and i could move my domain somewhere else. one night, i was bored at work and read a bunch of stuff that made me wonder about google’s apps privacy policy, so i went to read it. i wish i hadn’t.

i immediately began looking at my options as i only had a few months left on my account and decided that i’d just go back to another exchange provider. i settled on one, set up an account and was ready to go.  except, the new company didn’t process my order. i had to call the following morning, and spoke to someone who finished processing my order for me. thinking that was that, i logged into the control panel, and saw that postini had hung on provisioning and my account wasn’t ready. i called the provider again who explained that the postini provisioning api had stalled because my existing domain had postini service. it didn’t, so i thanked the guy and went to research it a bit. i learned a few really wonderful things about the google apps platform. you can’t have google apps premium and separate postini service. there’s no reason it shouldn’t work aside from google either being too fucking lazy to figure out a way or just flat-out not wanting users to be able to do it.  at any rate, i researched a bit more and found hundreds of threads on google’s forums and on other forums stating that they couldn’t move from premier to free apps without deleting their domain and having mail service downtime because google has no way to migrate between services. i also found out that when you disable service and delete your domain, it takes them 5 days to delete it. well, that’s what they say on their site, but from what i read, it can take 6-8 weeks in some cases, even with constant contact with google support, for them to finally release your domain. only then, can you add additional services or make changes to things. they also make it impossible to change your domain once your account is provisioned. also, they make it impossible to change your username without using their provisioning api. is it really that hard to add a ui element to let users change their address?

after doing some research and submitting a ticket to google to have postini deleted from my account so i could provision my new mail service, i logged in to get my support PIN and noticed i had no mail. zero mail. i checked docs, that too was empty. looked at my calendar. blank as well. well fuck. at this point, i’m livid. i have my mail backed up in preparation for moving to a new host, so it’s not the fact that i lost my mail that made me mad. it’s that there’s no recourse for it. according to their phone system, it’s not an “emergency” because i have less than 10 users.  at this point, i’m so angry i just contact the new host to see if i could get a temporary MX record to just get the fuck off google apps til i can get them to remove my services. of course, since my luck is so awesome, they won’t do it. i started scouring the interbutts for another hosted exchange provider who might give me a temporary MX record and happened upon the message center. they said they had 24/7 support, so i figured i’d give them a shot. i called their support number and spoke to someone who gave me some suggestions for removing postini/apps stuff from my domain and gave me their phone # on file for google support (which isn’t published on google’s site, btw). the dude also told me that their provisioning system would give me a temporary MX to use until i get squared away with the google bullshit. great.

so i got my mail set up, migrated over, changed my MX records and now i’m waiting til tomorrow when i can actually (hopefully) speak to someone at google and get them to remove their broken fucking apps service and other bullshit from my domain so i can get provisioned with postini service and return to ignoring their existence.

google pledges enterprise reliability, but doesn’t actually have 24/7 support, nor do they actually answer email tickets. i found numerous threads where people hadn’t heard from google in 6-8 WEEKS since submitting a ticket, their issue was still unresolved (and in some cases, totally unacceptable) and yet people still continue using their services. i don’t get it. if they treat their paying customers like shit, what do they do for the folks who use their “free” stuff? gross.

when she brought her home, she was really scared of everyone and was really uncomfortable in our home. what struck us as the most strange, however, was her affinity for our golden retriever, bo. while she didn’t really like any of us, she loved the dog. when she ate, she’d take her foot and put it in her bowl and pull food or water out of it. my parents guessed that she must have been kept with dogs, fighting for food for most of her life.

after a while, she started to get used to living with us, and really enjoyed the company of my mom and i the most. she didn’t really get along with our other cats, figment and smokey. she preferred being outside where she could roll around in the sunshine and dirt. always a dirt and grass-roller, always chasing and catching birds and leaving them on our doorstep, catching and eating lizards, this was my kitty sadie.

one tradition we had on holidays involved making a little plate of food at thanksgiving or christmas for sadie. my mom would also make little plates of food for the mice in the woodpile on the side of our house. it seemed as though sadie knew what time of year it was and every time we’d go outside, she assumed she was getting her little plate of turkey and stuffing. when the holidays actually came, she would gobble up everything and stare up at us with her big green eyes in an attempt to guilt us into giving her more food.

we moved from our home on western hills to another house at the other end of the city when i was 12 or 13. sadie immediately took to watching all the different birds and also to running around in the abundant grass in our front yard. being much braver than she should have been, she would take on and beat up any neighborhood cats who dared enter her yard. (this is something she did, even at 20 years old) i remember once when she was intensely interested in a roadrunner that was hanging around and chased it up onto the patio cover in our back yard. the bird grew tired of the black cat following him around and chased her right off the patio cover. she fell and injured both of her back legs and had to be given anti-inflammatory medication for a few weeks til she recuperated.

this around when she and i became better friends. she’d always sort of tolerated my mom and i more than other people, but never really seemed to do any more than that. my parents were having marital issues and it seemed like sadie was suddenly much more interested in my companionship. in november of 1998, when my mom, sister and i moved back to our old house on western hills, it seemed like sadie sort of knew what was going on and did her best to make me feel better. instead of wanting to be outside all the time, she’d come inside when i was home or when i’d arrive home from school. she slept in my bed, she provided me with a bit of stability while the rest of my life was being turned upside down by divorce and other drama.

when i started high school, i found myself out of the house more often, but she would always be there waiting for me in the driveway when i’d arrive home. as she got older, we had to start keeping her outside more often because of constant scuffles with our other cats and because she was nearly always on edge. she’d still spend all her time outside sleeping in the sun, rolling around in the dirt, begging for more food (she was always hungry, never a meal too big for her) and enjoying her yard, her family and her life with my mom and i.

i moved out of my mom’s in 2007 and reluctantly had to leave sadie behind. she was too old to be moving about, too set in her ways, too fond of being outside for me to take her with me and lock her up inside our apartment. even still, every time i’d visit, she’d trot right out to my car and we’d start over where we left off, with hugs and a little chat. i think that’s what i’m likely to miss the most, going to visit my mom and having my friend come running out to greet me, ask (loudly) for more (always more…) food and attention and sit on the hood of my car.

now that she’s gone, i’m finding myself really wishing that i’d spent more time with her. it breaks my heart to remember how many times i drove by my mom’s, only to see my kitty streak across the front yard, thinking i was going to stop. it also breaks my heart that i’ve lost my oldest friend and companion.

twenty years old, feisty, fiery and happy.

so long sadie girl, i hope you knew how much we all loved you and how much we’re all going to miss you.

here are some fun GV transcriptions i’ve gotten:

From my good friend Phil, who is having trouble with his monitor:

Hey. It’s Phil calling to ask you questions. Just curious if you’ve ever run into an issue with your monitor like I just did. I think my mother died. I don’t know if you really. Another little, but I just started getting these. Birkel flights like he kinda went past, but I just went black, or the other office til the desktop and Also unlike this little wanna sort of paint all over the screenwriter, redline Jill, I’ve quite live, and I hope this is gonna fill the whole screen with little colors. The. Grink I was well, so try to clear off and just trying to Mon around it’s just a monitors my cos I’m not in the still do it, so I don’t know if you know anything about those type of this crap anyway if if you have a chance give me a call if you could help. If not, I will. P Olympia for a while so. Alright dude. Later.

From Doug, the douchebag tech at Qwest who doesn’t return calls or emails:

Are you. This is Douglas quest tech support. I was asked to give you a call regarding some slow speed issues and dropping connection. Mike with your view. I. P set up or if you have any was alright. Take a look at the levels email what I’m seeing is your upload speed is o’clock in the red, it’s full rate, it actually and it’s about half what it should and I have taken some errors pummeling as well, which I don’t really have any to do is congested Gateway hurt your, and I T data or V D S, L to as it’s also called which it there is really cool congested gateways on on that type of system so something else. Maybe inside wiring issue. Jack as you possibly the modem call me and so yeah but you see a problem, so I’ll be here for the a couple more hours today if you wanna send me an email. I can give me a call back. I want to hear from you. It’s Doug dot Morgan at Qwest, dot, com and again. I’ll be here all day tomorrow so I don’t talk to you today. Thanks so much bye bye now.

From our Realtor:

Hey Chris Calum ward O’Brien doing a couple of things. I printed out a bunch of stuff, just a little while ago. I wanted to get out and fill love and that’ll give them an account. The warm up and then it occurred to me. I, I. I’d check in with you find out how we’re ready to go and then where I need to come pick you up so I can come pick you up and I will get out. Rock and Roll see what we can see it was wonderful slushy dreary morning but in the meantime, just give me a call when you’re up and I got plenty of things I can be David here for a second. I’ll call you back a little bit import see you bye.

So, as you can see, the transcription tech is sort of accurate, but for the most part it just generates what Cadie describes as “weird poetry”.

anyway, after debating whether i should keep it up or just forgo that type of communication, i decided to delete it. i’m keeping my twitter account because it sort of amuses me and at least i get some sense of interaction (the whole “social” part of social networking) from it.

in other, more significant news, cadie and i have been looking at houses for the last few weeks. it’s something i’d sort of wanted to avoid, mostly because it makes me feel like i’m getting old and also that i’m getting rid of what little “kid stuff” is left in my life and replacing it with more real-life adult responsibility. after looking at a few, we grew really attached to one particular house and ended up making an offer on it. at this point, though, we’re in sort of a waiting game because it’s a short sale and that leaves the burden of approval on the bank who holds the current mortgage. usually, that kind of thing will take 30-60 days, so that gives us some time to look at other things, save some more money, etc. i hate to admit it, but it’s kind of exciting to possibly be getting a place of our own, away from idiot neighbors in such close proximity. i might actually be able to play amplified guitar (sans headphones) for the first time since april of 2007.

cadie and i had a great trip to nc. we went out to visit my dad and stepmom and spent 6 days in the raleigh area. we didn’t really do all that much, aside from visiting biltmore, the duke campus and raleigh to buy some music from an awesome local record store, we spent most of the time at my dad’s. on both the flight out to atlanta from albuquerque and back from atlanta to albuquerque, i used a free inflight wifi coupon, which helped to keep me sort of occupied during the 2.5 and 3.5 hour flights. it worked surprisingly well, so i was pretty impressed with it on the whole.

i received the new modem and installed it in preparation of the new circuit going online sometime before 1700 that day. unfortunately, qwest’s ordering system didn’t finish processing the order and it necessitated a call to customer service to get it completed so their engineers could finish provisioning. after that was settled, the line was up on the new vdsl circuit…but…the modem only trained at 6.5 mbit/sec. this was obviously disappointing, as my previous adsl circuit trained at a full 7192kbit/sec without issue. i contacted qwest support and they noticed there was a problem with errors incrementing at an insane rate. their engineers were pretty confident it was an external line fault, so they issued a repair ticket.

the qwest tech tested the lines between the premises to the termination point in their CO or RT, and it was pushing 12.1mbit all the way, when he tested at the jack in my office, however, it was only showing the same speed the modem had shown, indicating it was an interior wiring fault. he suggested finding the splices and wiring the jack directly to the plant coming in from the telco.

i managed to find our wiring and it turns out the contractor who built the complex didn’t follow best-practices for telephone wiring and used telecom beanies to splice together a total of 6 wires.

beanies are designed to handle a maximum of 3 wires each, so there was obviously an issue with this. after i identified the pair coming in from the office walljack, i directly connected the plant wiring to the jack, as the qwest tech suggested. when i fired the modem back up, it trained at 12122/888. it’s not the 12192/5192 that i was supposed to get, so i contacted qwest and it turns out they can’t provision my circuit for the 5mbit upload speed yet.

suffice it to say, i’m happy with the 1.4MB/sec sustained downstream and sort of happy with the stable 600kbit/sec rate-limited (qos) upstream. the line is nice and stable and after a couple weeks, i’m going to investigate whether qwest could remove interleaving from the line, so i could get sub-10ms first hop ping times like i had with the adsl2 circuit.

the broncos have managed to start this season 6-0, which is pretty awesome since they haven’t managed to play terribly well since around 1999. being brought up as a cynical broncos fan means that i’m still extremely skeptical of the possibility of any future winds.

i’ve been looking at playing borderlands, but i’m sort of on the fence about it still. some reviews talk about how great the game is and that it’s fun, challenging and also really great in terms of graphics. other reviews, however, have pointed to it being a repetitive mess that isn’t any fun for more than maybe 20 hours, and that it turns into a grind-fest.

i also recently picked up both infamous for ps3 and arma ii for pc. infamous is incredibly fun. it’s sort of like gta4 with superhero powers. arma ii is what project reality wishes it could be–full military simulation. everything from bullet physics to wind modeling to vegetation trampling, flight dynamics, vehicle behavior, etc are all accurately modeled. it’s sort of buggy, but it’s a lot of fun and looks fucking phenomenal.

guess people just can’t handle their stupid teams losing.