Murphy's Law

I had a bad day yesterday, things just ain't doing right. Users encountered slowness accessing two of the web systems maintained by our team. One was hosted on Mainframe, the other on Unix and Windows. I was bombarded with phone calls from users, SA, boss, management, etc.

The application running on the Mainframe was obviously not designed to take the load, more CPU MIPS were added, but, it didn't help much. There was simply too may users trying to access the system.

The other one, well, we found that it was due to some DB settings, which set the DB in batch mode during online hours, it slowed system access. One of the application batch scripts was supposed to change the DB settings (e.g. keep buffer) to online mode, but didn't.

The worst things, one of my SA was not at the DC, another one, on 3 weeks leaves (sigh...one more week to go). The other DBA, NE and SA were not familiar with the batch and middleware support. There's gap in the knowledge transfer somewhere, this has to change.

IELTS

You know what is IELTS? It's short for International English Language Test System. An international English test for people who would take if they want to migrate to countries like UK and Australia, or for academic study.

Usually for undergraduate studies, you will need to score at least a 6 out of 9, i think, for post graduate is 6.5. The test comprises of listening, reading, writing and speaking, if you think it's easy, think again. I have got a friend who used to studied in UK, he scored a 5.5 average, well, still good enough for him to migrate to Australia. He's a DBA, and this skillset is in high demand in Oz land.

I'm going for the test too, need to score at least 6.5 for my MSc program by June. I think this is going to be tough, most probably an uphill task.

She goes on holiday

I think she flew off to Melbourne yesterday's night. I sent her a messages wishing her a good trip today, but, she didn't reply.

I was told when she left office yesterday, she was in a rush and didn't even handover her outstanding tasks.

She applied leaves from 9Mar to 24Mar, but, her 'out of office' agent says 6Mar to 27Mar. This means she is clearing Offs for 6Mar, 25-27Mar, some of these off days were from her last year's weekend work.

I wonder where is she now? Kinda miss her...

She goes overseas

She is going Australia, Melbourne, next week's Friday, and will only be back at the end of the month (sigh...I have to find someone to cover her work!). I think she will also be travelling to Sydney and Canberra, visiting her guy friend and sister. Asked her where else she's going....err...maybe Gold Coast? She said she doesn't have much money (I don't believe!), so, not going to many places, anyway, she will be staying at the guy friend and sister's place, I think, so can save money on accomodation.

Well, if I have any advice for her trip, I would tell her "happy go there, happy come back. Don't lose anything there, don't regret doing something, and don't regret not doing something. Be safe."

Today is 14 Feb 2009

Yes, today is Valentine's day.

This is the time where you will see Roses being sold at 5x the normal price. Candle-light dinner package at restaurants being sold at hundreds of dollars. Couples really know how to spend their money in this economy downturn, times are getting bad you see. To me, it just doesn't make much sense, oh well, maybe tomorrow will be better.

I guess I will be spending time doing nothing today, it's so hot weather out there, yeah, stay in door.

*Sigh*...I have got some work to do tomorrow. *Sigh* again....

My thoughts

I have been thinking: have I done overboard? Gee, you know what? I actually lost 15kg for the last 4 months, and prety obviously, it shows on my face and body figure.

Should I continue with my runs and races? I just signed up for a full marathon event in May'09, crazy, you think? That means I have to run at progressive pace of 5, 10, 15...20km at each training run. I know I can do it, hey, I have done the half marathon before, you remember? But, this means I will continue to lose weight, spare my body fat, please! I think I have lost enough!

What do you think, dear? Or anyone out there, share your thoughts?

Chinese new year

Tomorrow is the first day of the Chinese new year. In this country, Chinese new year or in short, CNY means not just a two days break for everybody, but also, a time of sharing, meet up and gathering. For the Chinese, it is the time of the start of a new spring season, that's why it is also called the "spring festival".

Last year around the same time, things were much more expensive, but now, as the economy is in a pretty bad shape, things got cheaper. Chinese families would gather on the 30th night, or the day before the CNY, to eat a reunion dinner, so, everybody from the same family, if they are overseas, would fly back to have this dinner, usually steamboat or eat at restaurants.

Oh, my dear, do you miss someone now? 8-)

Volunteer for a day

Just yesterday (Saturday), I volunteered, with a friend, to help out with our parent company's fund raising event.

This is the first time I'm doing it, other than the occasional Sundays where I go the the grassroot centre to help out with teaching small kids to read and write. It's kinda of fun to do this, I was supposed to help out with the Water Dunking event which was supposed to run from 2-3pm, but, I was busy with another, the Jumbo sale. It just amazed me that old stuffs donated by the staff were so sell-able, $2 or $3 clothings, stuff toys, bags, souvenirs, etc, were selling like hotcakes!

Now, come back to the Dunking event, this time, the organisers got the F1's SingTel's Grid girls to sit on the platform, with a water tank below them, one at a time. Well, they all got wet for the price of people paying $50 or more! The CxO were also up there, all wet, but, at a higher price, of course.

Well, I think the event was really nice, but, there's no free meals, only bottled water and a T-shirt, lucky, some of the volunteers gave us some free coupons to buy food, how nice! Anyway, I also got some souvenir pins (my favourite!) from the old stuffs for sale. Ok, still worth it.

Happy New Year 2009!

Hey, happy new year 2009!

What's up for the new year? Well, thinking big for this year, looking at further studying, probably overseas. The Australian dollar has been nose diving recently, almost 1-to-1, may be a good time to plan a trip or study there.

IT is getting too tough and too fast changing for me, need to re-charge myself, good to learn some new knowledge. I have email boss to ask him can take up PMP course, but, till now still no respond. I think most probably chance is slim, because there seems to be some cost cutting and controlling going on due to the economic crisis. Well, will see how, maybe is a good time to go overseas for studying by taking advantage of the money exchange rate.

Dinner and Coffee Break

After you went back, I went out with the other two pals for dinner at around 8pm. I had the korean noodles (W3500) with soup and shared the kimbap (sushi roll). The food was nice to eat, especially with the hot soup, good for warming up the tummy, it was so cold out there, you know!?!

After that, we went to Myeongdon at the Coffee Love (6th floor), just opposite the Dunkin Donuts. This cafe is a cool and cosy, with nice seats. I had Citron tea (W6000), it tasted very sweet, we also shared waffle (W10000) top up with 2 flavours of ice cream (Vanilla and Strawberry). We went back to the guesthouse at around 11:30pm.

In Kimchee Land

For almost 2 weeks in Seoul, it's really freezing cold, temperature going as low as 1 degree celsius. The snow didn't come, but, the temperature is expected to go down -10 degree next Monday.

The others are busy checking out bargain buys at Nandaemum and Dondaemum, I didn't get to go there, but, mostly to Myeongdon, just within walking distance from our Namsan Guesthouse. The gals bought a lot of cosmetic stuffs, cheaper than in Singapore, especially BB cream, the current craze, magic cream that can be applied on the face to 'hide' blemish.

Oh right, we also went up to the mountain where the Seoul tower is via cable car. There is also a place near the City Hall where we walk down a river stream, bought something warm to eat at Kwangjang Market, where there are at least 200 small stores selling local food like spicy rice cake, pork meat, etc.

So far, things have been going well, the treatment was fine, in two days time, I will be back home!

Tight on Resource

One of our sys admin people has gone back to his hometown as wife just gave birth to a boy, 2nd child. The other sys admin, whom is still new to the work, is now having a hard time covering his area, so, I have to help out.

Two days ago, the network guy last him wallet and some of his documents, had to make a police report, also, need time away to re-reply for the documents as he will need them for his travelling between here and his hometown. Not only was he not around, his backup was also at another site.

For the last few days, lunch for me is mostly eating alone. The other sys admin (she) simply refused to eat lunch with me.

In a wonderful world, but, pathetically lonely...

Recovering from Flu

The last time I had a flu was more than 4 years ago. So, for the last 4 years, i always went for my yearly flu vaccination.

I have had flu for the last 2 weeks, I guess the flu vaccine had already expired, in fact, for almost 5 months. Lesson learnt: better go for the vaccination again, especially, I will be going overseas next month, don't really want to get struck by flu again.

Well, today, I went back to office to help my fellow System administrator to patch the server, HP-UX, she is new and needs help. Wow, so long never patch servers, almost forgotten how to do it.

Incident reports

3 months in the job, already with at least 4 incidents happening, and other smaller ones not recorded, i.e. managed to cover up.

Most of the incidents were due to human errors, like today, one of the operators mis-keyed a command, mistaken 'z' for 'd'. As a result, the whole system hung and it had to be rebooted or in mainframe's term, IPL. When everything comes up, checked system ok, database ok and website ok, but, next morning during online, users cannot log on. System and middleware guys checked ok, but database side saw an utility holding on to some tables. After getting the agreement from the Apps, the System DBA terminated the utility, everything back to normal, login was ok.

I had to do the incident report again, and do some damage control, the system owner was asking for the names of the operator who made the mistake, oh gosh, should I give names? I'm now in a dilemma man....

There it goes...down...down...down...

Oh gosh, I made a big mistake yesterday.

So eager to test out an LTO tape drive on an Intel server that I , without thinking, plug in the SCSI connector on the 'live' server, oops, bad action, the server just went down itself. Even after a power recycle, it did not come up, worst thing is that a BSOD saying "the boot device is inaccessible".

How could I make such a big error, connecting a tape drive to a production server without having to shut it down first? In the end, we had to reinstall the OS, recover a back-dated system state, reinstall the middleware (oracle DB) and finally restore the files and DB data from the backup.

I guess we were lucky, managed to restore back the system, although, some batch jobs were affected, which can be re-run or recover.

Three cheers to the team, who worked through the night (>7hrs) to fix the problem. Guys, sorry for the err on my part, please accept my sincere apology.

Tell you a story...

If you are a gal, you saw something so interesting that you wanted your bf to get (read buy) it for you. What would you do?

Maybe you will tell him straight away, yes? So, this bf of yours says..."ok, can get it for you! but....", seeing that you have been dieting and your body getting very thin, he says..."try to gain some weight first, then, we will see?"

So, if you are a SG gal, what would you say?

Maybe, you would say...."nay, I don't need you to get it for me, I have a job, I got money, I buy it myself!"

So, what if you are not a SG gal, what would you say?

Maybe, you would say...."ok, dear, I will do it for you, don't forget, ok?"

So sweet.....

I'm getting crazy with work!

I must be getting more and more "inducted" into my job, crazy! More of the time these days, I don't really get to do anything, really, nothing much of interest at all!

What's up??? Well, most of the stuffs that I used to do, now I have passed on to my junior colleagues to do. Sounds good? Nay, not really to me. I feel the itch whenever I don't get to do things, I'm the curious type, you know, like to probe and find out things.

My ex-boss used to tell me, "you must learn new things every day, then your life would be fruitful!". Well said, don't know whether its time to move on, maybe an opportunity is coming this way soon?? I got this feeling....

For now, I just have to get to work on time, and leaves on the dot (time).

Not telling the truth?

She told me she needs to take 1/2 day off to send off her cousin, at the airport, I guess. I almost believed her, until, when going home today, I asked her to wait for me, she just walk and walk, occasionally, looking back at me, I guess. That's strange!?!?!

Then...I know why, she was rushing to meet someone, a guy, when she saw him, she arm hugged him, hmm...cousin? Don't think so, you guess. Well, if she has been more matured enough, she would have introduced me to him, I was just steps behind them, maybe I should have kept a distance away. Nice gal, but,....

Anyway, earlier on, I have already told her that she can clear 1 day off/leave for tomorrow. Perhaps, tomorrow she has more time to send off her boyfriend who came back from overseas(??) to celebrate her birthday (I gave her a card and gift, remember?), or maybe, he's her husband, well, she's still young, maybe not....

Happy birthday to her!

I did something that I seldom do on Friday, that is, gave a colleague of mine (a she!) a birthday card and a small gift! Since when was the last time I gave or sent a card to someone? Hmmm....long, long time ago, I think.

Well, hopefully, she appreciates it and work harder in future. She is kind of special, the funny side of her always makes us laugh, but, when she is serious, her face shows it, and she means business.

10KM run, very shiok, more!

Oh hey, I have managed to finished the 10KM run last Sunday. Great, so shiok!

Already gathered some friends to sign up for the half marathon in December, it's for the Singapore Standard Chartered Marathon. I have already signed up, and now trying to get the rest to sign up too.

I have started preparing for the run, first, building up my endurance and stamina, then, for long distance. It will be tough running the half marathon, I am talking about 2x the 10KM, plus 2KM more. Wow, not easy...