Some of you will have encountered problems accessing the blog.
Obviously we are back!
"But Father! But Father!" some of you are surely saying. "What happened? I was worried your provider went out of business, or the server died, or… well… maybe you pulled the plug!"
Not this time, and not yet.
There were two problems.
First, so many people come here now that we had to increase the maximum number of connections possible.
Also, the blog has gotten so big that the database was running out of diskspace! So, we have done some maintainence to clean things up and, cause the files to compress and rotate.
Furthermore, while I was away from the Sabine Farm on my trip to Virginia and Florida, there was some sort of storm here which caused problems for my Sabine network. Folks, I have some pretty hefty surge protectors and UPS units. You need stuff like that when you are out in the country and on a pretty spread out power grid. This must have been a pretty big blast.
I have various computers hooked together, as well as all sort of other equipment that can connect to a network. First, I found that my remote network power switch was blown away. This is a super useful gizmo. I would use that switch, through a web interface, when out on the road or in Rome to cycle power off and on on certain pieces of equipment such as my Slingbox (blessings on its creators). This way I can renew IP addresses, etc. I can also set it to cycle on a schedule. That eliminates the need
for someone physically to have to come into the house when I am gone and do it manually. These switches are often used on computers and other equipment in remote locations, such as ATM machines, so that a techie doesn’t have to go out physically to reboot it. Anyway, I cannot anymore access the web interface for power switch, which makes it useless. That must be replaced.
Also, a couple network switches were damaged as well, so my network was broken. I also couldn’t use my internet phone (Vonage). Yesterday I found D-Link switches on sale for $10! No kidding! $10! So, those were replaced and now my equipment can talk to each other again.
Then there is the car. I had some work done on the car while I was gone. But when I got home, the car was dead, so I had to put the handy slow charger on the battery and get it going. No good explanation there.
Then last night there was another storm with lightening while I was having a little work out. "KABOOM", quoth the storm. By the time I got to the door of the barn where the workout space is, I couldn’t see the house for the rain. Arriving at the house and shutting down electronics, I found later that the TV now shows only green and pink! That is going to be really annoying. I wonder if it isn’t time to switch to the digital thing. Grrr.
Later I discovered that there was no water.
"Hmmm"… quoth I… well… not quite that.
The water pump for the well is about 3 football fields away but the fusebox is in the basement. One of the fuses had literally had the front blown off. I concluded that that was in fact the problem with the water. I replaced the fuse. Voila , water.
Then this morning I find that the blog has been down, all night I think, since there were very few fresh comments.
In any event, I seem to be under attack by Old Scratch and electric stuff seems to be the front.
I will be fighting back with prayer and fasting as well as requesting your prayers as well. I suggest we get out guardian angels to work on this together.
Oh yes… its 33 degrees (F) and trying to snow.
