I got home from work last night ready to start my two week vacation away from the office when Jake gave me the announcement that the “network was down”. I ignored it, because our SBC DSL connection tends to fade in and out lately, just disconnecting randomly and then coming back after a bit.

After we went to dinner, we came home and Jake asked me if the network was back up, as he wanted to check his MySpace to see if anyone had listened to his and Kelsi’s experiment in spoken word music that they have put up on their account.

What I found is that the UPS on our main Linux server in the labs had died and the machine had turned off. Since this runs our primary caching DNS server that the DHCP server in our router points all of our machines to, no one could get to the internet. I brought the server back up and our online lives continued, though now I have no battery backup if a power outage occurs (we’ll be picking up a new one today). Right now the unit is serving only as a surge protector.

Flash to this morning. I am preparing to do the next podcast, looking for instrumental guitar music to play on the Podsafe Music Network. I found some great stuff, so make sure and listen to show #9.

Periodically, the battery backup unit begins to beep, because the battery is essentially dead. Luckily I have my headphones on listening to music so I only notice it periodically. However, it still begins to bug me.

I switch over to Google to do a search for the artist I’ve found to see if he has a web site. I use a customized Google home page, and my latest mail appears at the top and I see a few messages from my darling wife who is sitting in the family room watching TV and surfing the web. Following are the texts of the messages that she has sent me during the time I was oblivious to the world.
Message 1 (7:36a):

your microwave dinner is done

Message 2 (7:41a):

you’re mini-doorbell is ringing

Message 3 (7:44a):

a big truck is backing up in the living room!

Message 4 (7:54a):

your Morse code message is coming in!

Message 5 (8:01a):

your heartbeat monitor is going off!!

Message 6 (8:14a):

school hearing testing in progress….which ear to you hear the beeping?

We definitely have to get a UPS today. Its disappointing that this one only lasted for a couple of years. Its encouraging, however, that I have a wife with a sense of humor.