Guess who finally cleaned his office?

On any other day, I’d suggest that if you guessed me, you should probably guess again.  As it turns out, I can’t sleep, so I finally finished a project I first attempted to start back on Thanksmericangiving.

Of course it also helps that I’ve had a few upgrades since then — In fact, the recent death and subsequent replacement of my printer/scanner/copier is in large part why I got around to cleaning up tonight. So, without further ado (a phrase which I have been known to use — I can only assume Ado refers to the 9th century archbishop), I present my office.

Note that each photo is linked to my photo gallery which has a “view original image” button that will let you view an image in high resolution, should you so desire…

Desk - Left

I work from home, and spend the majority of my day here, which is how I justify my two Samsung 245B 24″ monitors, one mounted above the other. I also have a 17″ widescreen which I use primarily as a TV.

Desk - Right

The phone to my left is a Grandstream VoIP phone — I’ve long since canceled anything resembling an analog landline and run my own VoIP PBX.

Behind me is my watercooler and fridge, mini server rack, and my Gorilla Rack storage shelves.

Storage Shelf

On the bottom-left hand shelf is my full size tower server shelf, consisting of a duplexing networked colour laser printer, two of my Windows 2003 servers, two of my four APC 1250 SmartUPS, two drobos, an Apple Airport Extreme (gigabit version) and a KVM switch.

Tower Servers

I’ve had these cases for several years now, although the hardware inside has been replaced a couple times over with upgraded components.

Last, but not least, my mini-network-rack:

mini network rack

This is an old Sony audio gear stand, currently holding three Dell Optiplex boxes, running FreeBSD based router/firewall package pfSense, Linux based Trixbox PBX, and my final Windows 2003 Active Directory domain controller. Above the servers is my 24 port managed 10/100 switch, and below is my Shaw digital cable terminals which supply my office with a poor selection of digital music, plus my cable modem. Finally, the bottem shelf contains a set of emergency network destruction tools, should the need arise.

A fair improvement over the disaster that was my office before the reorganization:

Old-Computer

Old-Desk

Old-Workspace

Old-Server-Shelf

Since you’re here anyway, have a seat… Old-Mess
… and tell me what you think — What should I change, what is well done, what would you change?

Hot Enough For Ya?

I just wanted to share the current weather in Calgary today…

It’s currently -36C (which for the ‘merican is -32.8F), with a chance of “even colder”.  We’ve got wind speeds of up to 22KM/h (a little over 13 miles/hour), which means the wind chill is approximately -47C (or the more impressive -53F).

For those who don’t know, wind chill is designed to tell you how cold it “feels”, and is useful to calculate how long until exposed flesh freezes.

While -47C isn’t a record, the theory says I’ve only got six degrees of separation from inviting Al Gore down here to enjoy some global warming first hand.  We can pitch a tent, he can sleep outside.

According to the wind chill calculation tables, at -47C, exposed flesh is already frozen, and psychiatric help should be sought immediately by anyone even considering going outside.

Another long night

Friday night I went to bed early, with the theory being I’d fall asleep quickly since I haven’t gotten a ton of sleep the last few nights, then I could get up early.

So at the crack of 2pm I got up.  Hmm, not quite the plan… So instead I spent the night going through a few bins of stuff I’ve got kicking around in my office, throwing out about half the junk, getting the rest up for sale.  Once I get the bins cleaned up, I’ll attack my desk, then I might actually declare my office clean.  ish.

That’s 43 new items up for sale.  Sweet!  You should buy stuff!

I also took the time to clean up my WordPress tag list a little, combine some tags more logically, plus I’m now using the Simple Tags plug-in, which is, quite frankly, awesome.

Another bonus, Mah Lori will back home today!  She’s been off in Vancouver for a coaching thing…