Yeah. Words, having trouble coming up with them. I mean, hmm.

Kudos to you if you make it to the end.

So the world and the news this morning are all talking about the successful destruction of a US spy satellite. Apparently the satellite was channeling its inner three year old by refusing to stay where it was told (i.e. orbit) and threatening to take its ball and go home in a huff (i.e. bring its fuel tank full of a toxic witch’s brew back down to the earth.)

I would venture it safe to say that the insurance industry wasn’t looking forward to claims which read:

Act of God
Act of US espionage program gone awry

Technologically it was a very interesting event. The news outlets are calling it “hitting a bullet with a bullet” but that might be a tad on the over simplication side. It’s more like hitting a big, fast object full of explosive fuel with another big, fast object full of exposive explosives. Oh, and instead of aiming with a sight on the end of a barrel they used a super duper expensive Ticonderoga-class guided-missile cruiser.

The most amazing part to me is that this event wasn’t even the most notable technological thing in the news yesterday. It came in a strong second to be sure, and that’s nothing at all to be ashamed of, but the bigger news was that there is an AJAX version of Mathematica coming. Hard core numerical computation that used to make the college lab computers beg to be put out of their misery now done by way of Javascript? That’s just crazy.

I know I know, I might be overstating things here just a tiny bit. But Mathematica (or more correctly its competitor Maple) really saved my bacon in college Calculus. I mean, I’ll be honest here, the chances of Hydrazine napalm falling from the heavens and landing on me are really, really remote. The chances of me tanking out of Calculus without having the lab projects to prop up my pitiful exam scores are so high that no casino in Vegas would dream of taking a bet on it.

On the plus side, with this new version of Mathematica students everywhere will be able to slog the misery that is Calculus so that someday they too can build anti-ballistic missiles that we can then use the next time a government spy satellite throws a temper tantrum. Who would have ever thought in a million years that we would be saved by Javascript?

I’ll admit it, I’m terribly disappointed in myself. I’m sick with regret actually. Truth be told I haven’t done something this stupid since, well, let’s just say that writing about it in a public forum has been strongly discouraged by my legal team.

What I am talking about you ask? I made the boneheaded mistake of telling Yan that come November 16th it would have been ONE FULL YEAR since he had last posted to his blog. A year. 365 days. 1/3 of my kid’s entire life. I’m not sure how you say slacker in Russian but I’m sure it’s spelled Y-A-N.

Anyhow, because I told him this he goes off and does something silly, like making a post. This pretty much ruins my plans for a big celebration on the 16th. On the plus side I hadn’t made any plans yet so now I don’t have to bother. But still, a year. Sheesh.

In tech news I’ve got a story about what not to do when installing and configuring Leopard Server on a shiny new Xserve. First, here’s the list of things to do.

1. Have someone other than yourself haul the unwieldy beast from the FedEx pickup point to the network room.

1a. Hide in shame when said hauling person is literally half your size.

2. Get the network admin to install the rack rails and shove the (still) unwieldy beast into the rack.

3. Have the Xserve hooked up to the remote terminal so that you can sit in relative comfort from a workstation to configure it rather than stand in a room that sounds like the deck of an aircraft carrier.

4. Install Leopard Server using the settings that you tried out on an old G5 so that you know they will work. This allows things like Active Directory integration to actually integrate.

Now, more importantly, here is a list of things not to do.

1. Tell one of the product managers that things are sufficiently stable and that they can start using the new Leopard wiki software.

2. Forget to ask the network admin if the backup client software has been installed.

3. Let the Xserve out of your sight while the network admin changes the run mode from Workgroup to Advanced.

It’s that last one that is the real punch in the gut. You see Leopard Server runs in essentially one of three modes. There’s a Simple mode which is for standalone servers. There’s Workgroup mode which lets you integrate the server with an Active Directory for authentication. (Or an Open Directory if you’re one of the ten people in the world that runs a corporate Open Directory.) Then there’s Advanced mode which is essentially what everything was like pre-Leopard. By using Workgroup mode pulling users from Active Directory is so trivial it nearly makes you want to cry. We did this initially and life was good.

The problem came where the mode got changed to Advanced which has the most curious side effect of completely hosing the Active Directory integration. Authentication errors led to application errors which led to the discovery that really ruined the day:

THERE’S NO WAY TO GO BACK TO WORKGROUP MODE FROM ADVANCED WITHOUT RE-INSTALLING THE OPERATING SYSTEM.

So when you then add a re-install to items #1 and #2 of what not to do, mixing thoroughly with a dash of profanity, it equals a kick in the head to match the punch in the gut.

The lesson here as always, to channel my inner Sports Guy, is that I’m an idiot Yan’s a slacker.

This past week I was on vacation. That fact is actually germane to the story, it isn’t just boasting or a catchy starting sentence. You see we were driving back home when my wife decided to call and check our voicemail. When she got into the system there was a long pause followed by her replaying the message after muttering, “That’s weird.”

Me: “What?”

Her: “There’s a message for you from a law office.”

At this point my natural reaction was that I was being sued for something. I ran a quick mental inventory and found nothing particularly lawsuit worthy. I also figured that they would never find THAT, I mean that hole we dug was pretty deep.

Err. Right. Probably not the time and place for that. Plausible deniability and all.

It turns out the message said that they had found a wallet with my name in it and were trying to contact me to see if it was really mine. Now, it is very important that I am clear on the circumstances of how I lost my wallet. My best guess was that I was filling up my car and for some reason dropped it at the gas station. I had even gone back there hoping and praying that it was turned in by some kind soul. I also ransacked most of the house looking for it until I finally gave up and did all that crap you need to do when losing a wallet. (Cancel credit cards, get a new license, etc.)

Oh, I should also mention that all this happened TEN YEARS AGO.

It was during my last year of college and I remember it well. It is clear to me because it meant I had no ID, which meant no going out that night, which meant no beer, which at the time was a colossal traveshamockery.

So first thing yesterday morning I gave them a call to find out what was going on. After I passed the interview questions proving that it really was my wallet they explained that some of their workers cleaning out a flower bed at one of their properties had found it. They then looked me up (sometimes having a unique name really works in your favor) and here we are.

I asked for the address so I could come get it and the puzzle started to fall into place. You see, here is where I lived when I lost it.

And here is what is right next door to the left:

Their office is the red brick house on the far left. The wallet was found in the landscaping of the square building which was right next door to my house. Ten years it had sat in the elements twenty feet from the house where I lost it. If you’ve ever wanted to see what happens to a wallet being outside in Cincinnati after all that time today is your lucky day:

I can’t remember if I had any money it, if I did it was certainly a minimal amount. I’m thinking I probably dropped it getting out of the car or something, someone helped themselves to the twenty or so bucks it probably carried, and then chucked it into the foliage along with all the cards still inside.

That’s right, except for the cash everything else was still there. The wallet itself pretty much disintegrated when I opened it but inside, safe and sound, were fifteen cards.

Apparently in 1997 I liked to carry around:

1. a driver’s license
2. my college ID
3. a Visa card
4. a Visa Check Card (those were wild new back then)
5. an ATM card (because the Check Card wouldn’t work in an ATM, ha!)
6. two AAA cards
7. an AT&T phone access card for the university
8. a Sprint “Foncard” (remember that stupid spelling, also remember cell phones weren’t wildly spread in college back then)
9. a Dave and Busters Powercard
10. a Firestone card (which I’m not sure why I had, maybe I bought some tires)
11. a Sunoco card (of which I have no recollection of ever having)
12. a medical insurance card on my parent’s plan
13. a Finish Line rewards card
14. a video rental card for some place called Picture Show Video (I have no idea where this was, if I ever rented anything there, nothing.)

Talk about a little time capsule buried in a little topsoil. I have to send my thanks out to the folks at Thomas & Thomas, in particular Evan Thomas for taking the time to track me down. If you need any lawyerly stuff I highly suggest calling them up. Unless you need to sue me, at which point just put that off. Procrastination is a Good Thing.