Friday saw me once again back in the office, furiously working the day through on my laptop to get as much as possible set up before the big server move on Saturday. Even the scheduled load shed at 12:00 wasn’t enough to stop me thanks to the increased UPS capacity that we finally got installed which meant that the servers could stay up for the duration of the outage – yay, more productivity hours for me :(
Of course, the real reason for attempting to hurry through the day wasn’t so much for work as what it was for ushering in the evening because come 20:00, I needed to have my ass seated in Theatre on the Bay, Camps Bay, for Alan Committie’s Defending the Caveman show. Work passed by pretty quickly and after one long drive home, I found myself sitting cross-legged in the lounge playing some Godfather (thanks Ryan for getting me hooked again!) and waiting for Chantelle’s return from work.
Truthfully, we didn’t have all that much time to dilly dally and after a quick KFC meal for supper and a wardrobe change for Chantelle (who naturally had to buy a new top for the occasion), we set off across the boerwors curtain and headed for the alien territory known as Camps Bay.
Now we have both seen the original Tim Plewman’s Defending the Caveman before, but an invite from Mom and Dad and the desire to see the man who had entertained us so at his “Stressed to Kill” show meant that Chantelle and I wasn’t going to miss this show for the world – and by the looks of the crowd – neither was the rest of Cape Town! The show is so popular that it is already booked out and the first Cape Town tickets you can now get are only for November!
For those of you who don’t know of this legendary global comedic one-man show, Defending the Caveman is basically a hilarious analysis on the differences between men and women and how they try to co-exist, making it one of the best date comedies ever produced! And even having seen it once before, Alan’s take on the show was funny enough to still have you laughing out loud every minute and by the end of the show there must have been more than a fair share of people who needed a change of pants! In the end Mom, dad, Chantelle and I had an absolute blast and walked out feeling thoroughly entertained, a good feeling that lasted only as long as it took me to reach a petrol station on the long drive home and fill up my tank – one wallet lighter and the world just doesn’t seem as funny anymore.
Come Saturday morning and I was back on the road at the crack of dawn, on my way to UCT to prep the new OBE1 server which had finally been stabilized enough to be put into production. The installation of this replacement server had been put on hold quite a couple of times already, but now with the last of the hardware and driver issues sorted out, it was up to me and Bobby from Pinnacle to set it up, connect the SAN hardware and get it running! So from 06:30 on a rainy Saturday morning, I was in the office busy installing software with no relief in sight. 08:30 and Bobby arrived, meaning I had to relinquish my work and spend the next hour or two with him setting up the SAN system on the machine. Again, this section ran pretty smoothly and with the final network cable connected, the new OBE1 was live!
Well sort of. Turns out that this was the worst IIS6 migration we have ever attempted, causing multiple failures across the site and basically leaving me in tears for the rest of the day while trying to put out the multitude of fires raging across the sites. The others were long gone by the time I decided to pack up and leave, but in truth it was just to get out of the office a little because back in Gordon’s Bay it was once more all hands to the pump as I stepped back into battle with the non-responsive software.
By evening I had at least got the basic structure to work again, but to a very frustrated Chantelle, this also meant that our plans for going out to watch a movie was a little squashed, so instead she went out to buy hotdogs for supper while I reached for the tissue box to dam my tears of frustration. A bit later in the evening I finally threw the towel in (not breaking anything luckily) and joined Chantelle on the couch to watch ventriloquist Jeff Dunham’s Spark of Insanity Comedy Central special, featuring his popular laugh-a-minute-I-kill-you Achmed the Dead Terrorist act. Having seen the YouTube and email clips, we thought we knew exactly what we were going to get, but in all honesty, Jeff’s full act is kind of painful to watch – meaning we only made it about halfway before flipping to something far more entertaining and then finally hitting the sack for some well deserved rest.
Sunday morning and Chantelle abandoned me for work (lucky bugger had in fact got the day before off as a nice surprise from Wammy and Louise) and I was left to my own devices which meant hopping onto my computer and continuing with the repairs to my sites. Unfortunately by mid morning I was sick and tired of having to work over the weekend that I raised the white flag, pushed aside my chair and grabbed the PS2 controller in the lounge for the rest of the afternoon. The Godfather is one of those addictive GTA style games and before I could blink most of the day had already disappeared right before my eyes (though not quick enough for my liking because there was still enough time for me to do the ironing and washing up).
I did however get some fresh air when I trundled over to the little shopping centre across the road to pick up some drinks for our little mini-braai in the evening – only to stop short, slap my forehead and exclaim ‘doh!’ when I realized that is was Sunday and the chance of me finding an open bottle store in the Western Cape is as remote as finding a successful black business man in the Afrikaaner state of Orania!
Evening eventually hit Gordon’s Bay and after a nice stroll out on the main GB beach with ice-cream in hand (and on arm, on shirt, on toes, on face and in nostril) I got stuck into the manly task of setting up the fireplace for our little ‘test’ braai in preparation of next week’s little ‘house warming’ braai. With ‘30+ Goue Sokkie Treffers’ blasting in the background, Chantelle and I prancing around the lawn in mock dance and the fire blazing in the darkness, our little braai was on!
As it was, I was on fire that night because damn, Tongmaster Craig made some of the best meat he has ever made before, so much so that Chantelle was nearly moved to tears – tears of happiness for a change mind you. And as for entertainment, my attention was fully gripped by Sandra Bullock and Keanu Reeves in Speed, eTV’s main movie for the night. Chantelle tried to keep up by staying awake as best she could, but for most of the movie all I heard was a gentle snore coming from her side, so I left the sleepyhead alone and watched the show instead (which I thoroughly enjoyed let me tell you! Just as well we cancelled our plans to go out to the movies because there was no bloody thing showing that I wanted watch – damn you Rogue Assassin for not coming to Somerset Mall Ster Kinekor!)
Eventually enough was enough, and come midnight I dragged Chantelle off of the couch and tossed her into bed, following shortly after for some much deserved rest after a weekend that truly was dominated by Commerce IT work, the first time in I don’t know how many years! *sigh* Here’s to hoping Monday runs just a little bit smoother…