Untitled.
11 December 1998
![[ ]](http://mbpix.mushroom.net/19981211y.png)
dreams:
i was shopping at a large thrift store with er!n and q. i was buying a suit (the one that i bought at the salvation army store in danbury before i left connecticut), and they were looking at tacky, retro coats. with leopard-skin print and stuff. then outside on the steps, which were considerably more like the steps of a courthouse, i left to go somewhere with sam and my mom. we were then in sharon, it was night, and the town was like a wasteland, just flat and black for as far as you could see (which wasn't terribly far), and there were big overpasses and such constructed among what was still present of downtown: the quick-e-mart, although the gas pumps were beat up and mostly out of order, and the shopping center, although things looked mostly closed and maybe boarded up. sam was a few years older and was driving. we were going to do some holiday shopping, but had to wait for mom who was buying lotto tickets or something.
okay. so today's just been a really terrible day. i was trying to fix some of the dns problems caused by this ip change, and so figured to clean all that out, i'd restart turnip. it didn't come back up, or if it did, it didn't initialize the network connection properly. i figured that chances are i messed up one of the settings, and fired an email off to bryan from my io account explaining that i had screwed something up.
basically there were two ways that things could go. bryan could plug a monitor and keyboard into turnip and change a few setting and we could be back on out feet. or he could decide that legally he shouldn't touch our box and daniel would have had to find a ride to stamford, and then try to fix it with my help over the phone.
daniel called bryan, and apparently bryan seemed willing to help until he got my email while they were on the phone. i'm not sure why my email had that effect on him. i tried to be honest, to say i fucked this up, and ask as sysadmin to sysadmin for help, without getting involved in all the business politics. (li and discovernet are not on the greatest of terms at the moment.)
bryan took off for a while to talk with evan and sort things out, and daniel and i got into an argument about what would have been the right course of action. he accused me of fucking things up on a business level. i said that i was just trying to be honest and wasn't at all interested in playing all those sorts of mind games. i said i'm not interested in them in a business context, i'm not interested in them in an interpersonal context, i'm just not interested. i said you like playing these games, it's all like chess to you. he said it's not mind games, it's just tact.
whatever the case, i wanted to email bryan again and better explain myself. i don't like being misunderstood. i felt like i had to fix that. but, i didn't. i just emailed the simplest solution to the problem, and how to contact me via phone, pager, alternate email, whatever.
i felt like this was just all another level of the game that i didn't want to get into. that if daniel and i spent all this time planning out the proper "strategy" to get bryan to help us out, that was very much a game. daniel asked if it was a strategy or just common sense to think that if my email freaked bryan out i just shouldn't send him email. i said if it freaked him out, he took it too seriously, and he was caught up in the same games as daniel. and maybe that means that daniel is better at dealing with him. but it's still games, and it still makes me uncomfortable.
bryan paged me, i called him. a two minute fix, and turnip is back up. i felt like an idiot talking to him. networking has never been my thing. i don't really have a grasp of how tcp/ip works. i've never bothered to look into it.
i got back on turnip. got dns working as well as it was before all this. but noticed that the web server didn't come up. tried to do it manually and realized that i had completely forgotten that the secure server is keyed to the machine's ip address. so, in a panic, i tried to to revert back to the old ip, and lost the network connection again.
now i feel like a complete idiot. i send another email to bryan, saying you won't believe this, but i fucked it up again. i feel like i'm imposing on you, but if you could fix it again that would be so cool. i get no response and daniel pressures me to call him. and not only to call him, but to use his emergencies only cell phone number. (the last time i called his cell phone number, he was very pissy, and told me never to call it again. i'm not exactly sure why, but i didn't want to press those buttons.) i tried the main line first, and it being after five back east got a message. so i called his cell phone. he was very trite, and said "we're looking at it now. we'll be in contact with daniel." made me feel totally stupid, and about three inches tall.
bryan calls me back and another two minute fix later we're online again. i'm trying to keep an upbeat tone of voice. he says i told you not to call my cell phone. i say daniel was really pressuring me to call this number. i tried the main number. i don't have yr beeper number. he says from now on all contact should come through daniel. he says this is the last time we will be able to do this for you. i say i understand. no goodbyes exchanged. dead air. hang up.
i told daniel things are back up. or, at least at the point of half working that they were at before i caused this whole mess.
at this point i just can't deal anymore. i broke down in tears. probably the most i've cried in years. i just feel so incompetent. so fucking small. i've always felt like i was imposing on bryan when asking him to do admin stuff. and now i'm asking him to fix something that i broke. twice. it was just completely draining. i don't want to be in the computer industry. i've never wanted to be in the computer industry. this was once a fun hobby. yes i know more about computers than probably 99% of the population. yes i was an old school hacker. but.
i need to eat something. i'll be back later.
food is very therapeutic. i'm not sure how the end of all that came across. i think i might have kinda dipped into self pity. not what i was aiming for anyway.
i was shopping at a large thrift store with er!n and q. i was buying a suit (the one that i bought at the salvation army store in danbury before i left connecticut), and they were looking at tacky, retro coats. with leopard-skin print and stuff. then outside on the steps, which were considerably more like the steps of a courthouse, i left to go somewhere with sam and my mom. we were then in sharon, it was night, and the town was like a wasteland, just flat and black for as far as you could see (which wasn't terribly far), and there were big overpasses and such constructed among what was still present of downtown: the quick-e-mart, although the gas pumps were beat up and mostly out of order, and the shopping center, although things looked mostly closed and maybe boarded up. sam was a few years older and was driving. we were going to do some holiday shopping, but had to wait for mom who was buying lotto tickets or something.
okay. so today's just been a really terrible day. i was trying to fix some of the dns problems caused by this ip change, and so figured to clean all that out, i'd restart turnip. it didn't come back up, or if it did, it didn't initialize the network connection properly. i figured that chances are i messed up one of the settings, and fired an email off to bryan from my io account explaining that i had screwed something up.
basically there were two ways that things could go. bryan could plug a monitor and keyboard into turnip and change a few setting and we could be back on out feet. or he could decide that legally he shouldn't touch our box and daniel would have had to find a ride to stamford, and then try to fix it with my help over the phone.
daniel called bryan, and apparently bryan seemed willing to help until he got my email while they were on the phone. i'm not sure why my email had that effect on him. i tried to be honest, to say i fucked this up, and ask as sysadmin to sysadmin for help, without getting involved in all the business politics. (li and discovernet are not on the greatest of terms at the moment.)
bryan took off for a while to talk with evan and sort things out, and daniel and i got into an argument about what would have been the right course of action. he accused me of fucking things up on a business level. i said that i was just trying to be honest and wasn't at all interested in playing all those sorts of mind games. i said i'm not interested in them in a business context, i'm not interested in them in an interpersonal context, i'm just not interested. i said you like playing these games, it's all like chess to you. he said it's not mind games, it's just tact.
whatever the case, i wanted to email bryan again and better explain myself. i don't like being misunderstood. i felt like i had to fix that. but, i didn't. i just emailed the simplest solution to the problem, and how to contact me via phone, pager, alternate email, whatever.
i felt like this was just all another level of the game that i didn't want to get into. that if daniel and i spent all this time planning out the proper "strategy" to get bryan to help us out, that was very much a game. daniel asked if it was a strategy or just common sense to think that if my email freaked bryan out i just shouldn't send him email. i said if it freaked him out, he took it too seriously, and he was caught up in the same games as daniel. and maybe that means that daniel is better at dealing with him. but it's still games, and it still makes me uncomfortable.
bryan paged me, i called him. a two minute fix, and turnip is back up. i felt like an idiot talking to him. networking has never been my thing. i don't really have a grasp of how tcp/ip works. i've never bothered to look into it.
i got back on turnip. got dns working as well as it was before all this. but noticed that the web server didn't come up. tried to do it manually and realized that i had completely forgotten that the secure server is keyed to the machine's ip address. so, in a panic, i tried to to revert back to the old ip, and lost the network connection again.
now i feel like a complete idiot. i send another email to bryan, saying you won't believe this, but i fucked it up again. i feel like i'm imposing on you, but if you could fix it again that would be so cool. i get no response and daniel pressures me to call him. and not only to call him, but to use his emergencies only cell phone number. (the last time i called his cell phone number, he was very pissy, and told me never to call it again. i'm not exactly sure why, but i didn't want to press those buttons.) i tried the main line first, and it being after five back east got a message. so i called his cell phone. he was very trite, and said "we're looking at it now. we'll be in contact with daniel." made me feel totally stupid, and about three inches tall.
bryan calls me back and another two minute fix later we're online again. i'm trying to keep an upbeat tone of voice. he says i told you not to call my cell phone. i say daniel was really pressuring me to call this number. i tried the main number. i don't have yr beeper number. he says from now on all contact should come through daniel. he says this is the last time we will be able to do this for you. i say i understand. no goodbyes exchanged. dead air. hang up.
i told daniel things are back up. or, at least at the point of half working that they were at before i caused this whole mess.
at this point i just can't deal anymore. i broke down in tears. probably the most i've cried in years. i just feel so incompetent. so fucking small. i've always felt like i was imposing on bryan when asking him to do admin stuff. and now i'm asking him to fix something that i broke. twice. it was just completely draining. i don't want to be in the computer industry. i've never wanted to be in the computer industry. this was once a fun hobby. yes i know more about computers than probably 99% of the population. yes i was an old school hacker. but.
i need to eat something. i'll be back later.
food is very therapeutic. i'm not sure how the end of all that came across. i think i might have kinda dipped into self pity. not what i was aiming for anyway.