• $397 for the best design at @99designs! Logo Design Package For Online Training System: Logo design contest – http://c.99d.me/51944 #

• The sun is rising on what is likely to be a humid, foggy morning. #

Our 4th full day on vacation had us going to Hollywood Studios. It was the only remaining Disney park that we had yet to get to so far on the trip, so it seemed like the fitting choice. On this particular trip to Hollywood Studios, we decided to try to not make some of the same mistakes we did on our Honeymoon, namely, we completely forgot to check the showtimes for all the shows here when we started the day, and as such, we failed to see all of them. This time though, we managed to make all of them. We didn’t completely succeed, as I’ll explain in a moment…

Our first stop was the Lights, Camera, Action show. We did make this one on our Honeymoon, but it’s a pretty cool show to see, with cars jumping over things, making it look like they are jumping backwards, etc. Ultimately, I think it’s the best show at Hollywood Studios, but be warned: it generally only has 2 showtimes per day, so if you want to catch it, plan on setting aside time to make sure you get there.

I do have to admit that I do kind of miss the Backlot theatre (now Premier Theatre, which is not presently in use). I remember seeing both Pocahontas there, as well as the Hunchback of Notre Damn.

From there, Amber and I headed to Beauty and the Beast. We missed this on our Honeymoon due to bad timing. Unlike most of the other parks, the shows are almost all outdoors. Every day we were down in Florida, it was very warm… That said, Disney makes up for it by allowing you to bring drinks into the shows, which was good. I do not envy the actors though that had to put on this show.

We then cut back and caught to catch American Idol, another show we had missed when we were here on our Honeymoon. My mom ranted and raved about it when she came back from Disney last year, making Amber and I wonder what exactly we missed. I have to admit, I firmly believe that is the closest I will ever come to seeing and feeling the real American Idol stage show. The lights, the drama, the premade editted videos to simulate the show… It’s all so well done. In fact, after dinner, I found myself watching the finale show outside the stage while Amber went to the bathroom waiting to see who would win the ticket for the day. Did I mention it looks cool?

I skipped right over dinner didn’t I…. This was the first night that we booked reservations (about half way through the trip, I decided Disney just wasn’t Disney without Disney food…) for the Brown Derby. This is the same place we ate on our honeymoon, and is by far and away probably my favorite of the restaurants on Disney campus. Although I don’t think our experience was as “magical” as the last time, we did manage to score some special setting for Fantasmic!, the fireworks show at Hollywood Studios. In fact, that’s where we headed next. We got some great seats, and as a result, some great photos:

As soon as the show was over, we made one last quick dash over to the Great Movie Ride to end the night and close down the park. It was on the way out that I realized that we had managed to miss 2 very important things for the day… 1) Star Tours, a ride that would be closing soon, and 2) The Backlot tour, something Amber missed on our honeymoon, and we still managed to not get on it again.

What to do what to do…

Just a quick recap of where we’ve been:

• Part 3- The Tour of the Magic Kingdom (Sunday)
• Part 2 – The Animal Kingdom (Saturday)
• Part 1 – Arriving There (Friday Night)
• Pre-Part 1 – From there (Saturday)

So day 4 was Monday, and after an 15+ hour day at the Magic Kingdom, we were TIRED. We knew we wanted to get to Epcot, but instead of waking up at a normal hour, we ended up leaving rather late. I believe we finally got to the park at roughly noon. We really had only one goal for the day, and that was to get to the 1 hour walking tour of The Land, at Epcot. Unlike the tour we took at the Magic Kingdom, this one didn’t require any advanced reservations, and was significantly cheaper (I believe it was $15.00 per person or something like that).

Our timing though for the day was all wrong. We ended up frustrating ourselves by not getting food (long story), and by basically doubling our walking. Regardless, we did make it to our tour at about 1:30, and it was rather cool to see the Greenhouses at the land from something other than the boat. The tour included going into all 3 of the greenhouses. We also got to eat some cucumbers that had been grown there, disperse some lady bugs, and mess with a touch sensitive plant. I have to admit, I didn’t find it quite as cool as the other tour, and most of the stuff you see on this tour you also see on the boat ride going through the land, but it did provide time to take some cool shots of some of the plants.

Once the tour was done, we tried to clear the park. We did a pretty good job. The only 2 things we missed when all was said and done was America, Mission to Space (Amber wouldn’t go on it anyway), and Spaceship Earth (the big ball at the front of the park). We stayed again til park close, and watched most of the fireworks.

We managed to miss our evening meal as well, so I ordered Domino’s, which gave Amber and I both time to relax and watch some Hannah Montana on the Disney Channel.

I finally got some photos uploaded to make this post worth while late late last night (at least relative to this post). That said, I felt it would be a good time to blog about day 3 of the trip to Orlando. The days focus was a tour we had booked at the Magic Kingdom. It was a 5 to 6 hour tour, that was supposed to take you behind the scenes, through the park etc. We were booked for 9:00am, so we had to start early.

We arrive insanely early (in fact, almost a whole hour before the park opened… The express monorail wasn’t even running yet…), so we ended up standing outside the gates of the magic kingdom for a little while. It has been YEARS since I have gotten to the Magic Kingdom before it opened. I had forgotten that there is a little show they put on before you enter the park to welcome you in and to “start the magic”. I think Amber really enjoyed being able to see that, and it definitely was a great way to start the day.

We then proceeded to the tour start location. I could blog the entire tour, but this would be like a 10,000 word post, and I’m already tired. Let’s see if I can cover some of the highlights…

The Magic Kingdom is designed very much like a movie. The journey from the parking lot to the park is sort of like the trip to the movie theater. As you get closer to the theater doors, you normally see billboards, or other things designed to highlight the major attraction. There are quite a few things that does this, but the castle in the distance is probably the biggest one… You know the main character is there, but it’s not time for you to meet him/her yet. Upon entering the Magic Kingdom, the first thing you experience is the smell of popcorn. It’s always there, just to right of the main entrance. You then have main street. Main street represents the credits…. To enter and leave the park, you see those credits, in almost the exact same order you would at the start and end of a movie. The credits are shown on the windows of the shops, and each one has some unique meaning regarding the people who help build the park, or currently are running it, etc. Here’s one of the more famous ones:

After taking a walk down main street, we talked about the hub, and how it pulls people certain ways. Each direction has a sign or object (called “wienies”) that is designed to pull you into that portion of the park, the castle of course, being the biggest one . We also talked about  a little bit about the partner’s statue in the center of the park, and what it looks like if you look at it in profile… Also mentioned during this segment was some discussion of the force perspective used throughout the park to make things seem bigger than they are to guests (including the castle). And one last little tidbit: the color of the ground is not arbitrary either, the red used for pavement throughout the park is designed to make photos look better (developed by Kodak).

We then took a trip to Adventure Land, and cut in line at the jungle adventure ride. Our tour guide took over the boat if you will and gave us a unique trip through the jungle, pointing out some hidden Mickies, as well as talking about how the ride works (and why the water is intentionally dirty). From there we proceeded to Pirates of the Carribean, where again we sped through the line, and got a tour of the ride while riding the ride. We talked about how Pirates has been haunted since the park opened by a ghost named George (he was one of the builders who died while building the ride). The ghost has been known to cause the ride to break down and open doors… So much so, that they have added a “say Goodnight to George over the rides intercom” to the shutdown checklist for the ride. If the fail to do this, boats get stuck in the ride, and other various problems with the rides animetronics and systems are almost guaranteed to happen the next day.

From there, we took our first trip back stage, where we saw the parade float parking area, as well as how garbage leaves the park, and where the water for Splash Mountain is stored. Pretty cool to see where the magic all gets worked on . We also learned about Disney’s evacuation plans here… There are 3 different plans, depending on the crisis, that are in place should something occur.  Only plan A (the main plan to shut down the park early and get people out as fast as possible) has been executed according to our guide, and it was only executed once… On September 11th.  Plan B involves the main entrance being shut down… which would be a scary thought if they ever had to execute that plan…

We had lunch in independence square, where we learned about the river of poo running through this area of the park… And yes, it really is meant to be a historically accurate river of poo. Lunch was great, we got to ask some questions about other things, such as Discovery Cove (a park that is gone at Disney), and Body Wars (an area of Epcot that is no longer open). We also got to talk about the expansion that would be coming to the Magic Kingdom in 2011/2012. It’s being added to the back side of the park, where 20,000 leagues used to be. I managed to find a hole in their wall.. Here’s what it looks like so far (not much to see):

After lunch, we made our way to the Haunted Mansion, and learned about how parts of the ride work. We got to cut in line again (yay), and see sort of a back entrance. Amber even got to sit with the tour guide and have him point stuff out along the way…There’s a hidden Micky on the table in one part of the ride that actually isn’t supposed to be a hidden Micky… Everytime the imagineers come through and work on the ride, they restore the ride to what it should be, only to have the cast members put it back later. He also pointed out to us that Mr. Toad’s statue from Mr. Toad’s wild ride (a ride that has been replaced by Winnie the Pooh), is in the animal graveyard outside the mansion .  I tried to get a picture a little later of a picture in Pooh’s ride of Mr. Toad handing the deed to Mr. Owl. How touching .

From there, it was into the tunnels beneath the park. It’s not as exciting as one might think, but we did get to see how it connects throughout the park, and how the employees are able to move around. The tunnels were a solution to Walt’s Space Cowboy problem… I guess in Disneyland (where they don’t have the tunnels), there was a day where a cowboy from adventure land was trying to get to the staff parking lot. To get there, he cut through tomorrow land, where he ran into Walt himself, who asked what a cowboy was doing in his tomorrowland. Poor kid… but yeah, Walt didn’t want space cowboys in his park.

At that point the tour was pretty much over. There are a ton more facts that were shared with us over the 6 hour tour, but to type them all down would take… 6 hours. Needless to say, it was very cool, and probably the coolest “new” thing I did on the trip.

After the tour, we stayed in the Magic Kingdom, exploring the rest of the park. At one point in the day, we got caught in the “celebration” parade, which was basically a giant street party. Amber really got into it:

We stayed at the park until the park closed at 11:00pm. Basically a really long day. In fact, it was after 11:00 because we even did some shopping and watched the parade from a distance. We said our goodnight to Walt, and made our way back to the hotel.

• I did not leave MSA a hero tonight… tomorrow is going to be a LLLLLLooooonnnnnngggg day #
• Mission Objective: FAILURE….. Time for round 2 of another very very long day… #
• I think I should write a book of short stories called "The Legends of MSA" that is used as required reading for incoming 6th graders. #

I have a lot of multi-part posts going on over here, and who knows if I will ever finish all of them… but thats ok, I can write how I want to .

It’s been a rough week over here… Just before we decided to rebuild the Teacher server at MSA, it decided to beat us to the punch, and crash. And it crashed hard… In fact, crashed might not be the right word… Although I don’t know exactly *what* caused the problem, I do know that whatever it was caused a bunch of 0′s to be written to the drive… Not a good thing, as to my knowledge there is no “software” program that can recover a “zero’d” drive… And I’m not sure if anyone other than the Government and Colleges have the time or the means to do it regular hard drives.

That said, I’ve spent almost every night this week at MSA… Working at JR during the day for 8 to 10 hours, and then working at MSA for another 8 to 10 hours. It’s made for a really really long week of heartbreak and disappointment, as I kept running into “bad backups”. Needless to say though, we surrived (a little bit by luck). I’m going to document some of “best” practices that I’m learning/doing this time around as I rebuild the teacher server. Starting with this post, which is basically the setup of every feature and service we use here in order of operation (no really specific details):

• Install Any Bios Updates/Firmware Updates You Can Find
• Make sure the data on the drives is backed up before you proceed with format (unless it’s a new computer)
• Setup Raid – Ideally Raid 1, Raid 5 if you need a bit more performance. Raid 0+1 if you have the drives and drive space.
• Format the drives. Ideally into 2 partitions, a system and data drive. You may want 3 partitions if your going to put swap onto the third parition. Make your system drive at least twice what you think it’s going to need to be.
• Install Windows and Name Your Server. Pay Close attention to the name your server step… As after one of the steps, changing the name can result in additional hours of work.
• Install Latest Drivers
• Install Any Windows Updates
• Copy the files on the windows CD to a folder on the c: drive… this will save you some time in all future installs. Especially if your doing the installs via remote desktop in another room .
• Install DNS
• Install DHCP
• Install Routing and Remote Access (If you intend of having a VPN or routing your connections through this server).
• Install Active Directory (DCPromo)
• Install Exchange Server (Careful with this one… Follow all the steps to doing this properly. If it says reboot, REBOOT! A backup of AD might save you some time… Do a typical install. Don’t install extra stuff if you don’t need it. If you make a mistake in setup, be prepared to reinstall the entire exchange server.)
• Apply Exchange Server Service Packs
• Run Windows Update 1 more time (just in case).
• Install Printers and possibly Windows Print Server for some extra fun.
• Activate Volume Shadow Copy, particularly on the Data store (where the shares will be held). This acts sort of like a real time backup for those people who decide to delete files off their network share and then say “whoops”
• Install Windows File Service (If you want… we use it for NFS, you can use straight file sharing though)
• Install Windows Deployment Services (and setup your images if you have them ready to go… Image can wait though, this whole step can).
• Setup your File Shares
• Setup Backups…. This is the big one. SETUP BACKUPS… 3-2-1 Backups. 3 Copies. 2 Mediums. 1 Offsite. Here’s some more recommendations on this particular topic:
  • Use good backup software  such as Cobian Backup. Your backup sever should be able to rotate your backups. Create logs of what it did. As well as execute tasks after the backup has been performed.
  • Break your backups up by size and usefulness. For example, I have all the backups broken into 5 users each, and different users are backed up on different days (Staff files are backed up 3 times a week). Important files are backed up daily. I determine how many “versions” of the file to keep backed up based on how important the data is as well. I do not recommend full system backups, except as a “4th” backup source… simply because depending on how your backup is stored, you could end up corrupting your entire backup. It’s also not easy to quickly restore the parts you need (again, depending on how the full backup is implemented). It’s almost more time consuming. It also does’t aid with the next thing.
  • Offsite backups are a must… And thanks to the internet, there’s no reason not to do them with unlimited storage services like Amazon S3 and the Rackspace cloud. Data retention becomes a non-issue when storage is that cheap. However, keep the files your uploading small and easy to work with… that way your not bogging down your internet connection with backups all the time.
  • Test all your backups! Regularly. If you can, have your backup software email you a report everytime it generates a backup. Read the report!
  • Last but not least: Just remember there is no such thing as a perfect backup.
• Begin copying over data from your backup/restore that needs to be put into place.
• Configure Active Directory for the client machines and for the users (as well as exchange)… Basically all the user related stuff goes here.
• MAINTAIN

That’s pretty much it, and what I’ve been doing this week. I’m still going in fact, completing some of the later steps relating to users. I’m also trying to get my backups to be as air tight as I think they need to be… In fact, I might post the backup policy I’ve put together just to emphasize how many backups MSA will now have to protect itself from what just happened this week.

Well back to work I go world. Thanks for the 1000 word break.

This won’t be a really long post…. But  I think it would have been cool to be in LA this weekend. I would have loved to partake in this little tournament:

http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-tetris-20100809,0,2447627.story

Odds are I would have got my but kicked… As the original NES Tetris has some quirks to it that would make it difficult for me to compete in (it’s very similar to my arcade cabinet, but still… not my prefered style… Give me Tetris DS or The New Tetris on N64… then we’ll talk.) It would have been fun though, and I might have ended up in a movie… Maybe they’ll do it again next year .

Nintendo was also in town this weekend… I didn’t get there either… Not sure why I didn’t think of it. They were at the Ridgedale center showing off sometihng or another (I was betting they had 3DS’s with them that could be demo’d…). I suppose I could put together my own little home tournament using their home kit, but that just doesn’t sound as fun either: http://www.wiigames2010.com/wii-event-locations.aspx

In other words, I missed out on a lot of video games this weekend.

What was I doing instead? Playing World of Warcraft and The New Super Mario Brothers (wait a second….)

One last note before this post goes live:

Happy 2 year anniversary Honey! It’s been a great 2 years so far, lets make it another 100!

• First day back at work… so far, so good. #
• @DavidPlappert Still love my implex.net, but I've only seen a handful of solutions that can legitly beat S3 for storage costs… in reply to DavidPlappert #
• @chamillionaire Is it weird that I watched Jadzia Dax die on #trilltuesday .. Tears of the prophets, one of the best episodes ever. #
• @Scobleizer Did you just pull a @levarburton? in reply to Scobleizer #

Our first day in the parks was spent at Animal Kingdom. Generally Speaking, I believe Amber considers this her favorite park because of all the animals. Because we were up so late the night before, we arrive there rather late in the day… So instead of going on all the rides (which Amber hates anyway), we did our best to make it to every show… And we did just that…

First up was the bird show, one of Amber’s favorites. She likes seeing all the birds perform their tricks. Universal has a similar show as well (in fact, both shows share a trick involving a dollar bill), but personally, I think the Animal Kingdom one was done better. Amber particularly liked the owl pictured below:

The next show was the Legend of the Lion King. It’s a musical number taking you through all the songs from Lion King, and doing so with gymnastic like dance. I’ve seen this show a few times, but I think this was the first time I remember to be in the lion section (they get the coolest sound).

Next, we made our way to Finding Nemo. This show also tells the story found in the movie, and in musical fashion, but does so using Black Light actor/puppets. It’s probably my favorite show at the park, and all around has some of the most breath taking colors (although the Legend of the Lion King would be in close second).

Besides shows, we also went on the Harambe Safari to see all the animals, as well as a walking tour view of the animals. All around, it’s a cool place if your one of those people who like Animal’s alot .

For dinner on Saturday, we went to Bahama Breeze. It’s kind of like a tropical version of Olive Garden. We had eaten there on our honeymoon the night we arrived, and Amber really liked it, so we returned there again. However, we didn’t call ahead, which resulted in an hour and a half wait to dine there. While we waited, I played some chess on my iphone, and rediscovered an application I had installed months ago, but never used, called FourSquare (perhaps you’ve heard about it). This would be the start of me checking in as much as I could using my phone (perhaps you saw all my updates on faceboook). For me, earning badges and trying to check into everything was something new to do on this trip, and kind of a fun thing to do on top of just visiting the parks. I failed horribly at checking into everything, but if I ever had to wait in a long line, I almost certainly was checking in.

After dinner we returned to the hotel, and began watching the Disney Channel… big mistake … But non the less a great first day at the parks. The next day would bring something new for us both at the Magic Kingdom, but more on that in my next post .

I think I have enough blog content to make a few of these posts… Especially if I do them day by day.

So let us begin by talking about the first night there. About 15 minutes before we left for the airport, my Aunt Linda (who has been sick for some time), passed away. We kind of knew this would be coming, but there was really nothing we could do about it other than cancel our vacation. We were pretty sure that my Aunt wouldn’t want us to do that, so we made the decision to continue on with our trip. (Linda is second from the left in the below picture)

We arrived in Florida a little late due to a delayed flight (roughly 12:15 AM CST). My cousin Lori loaned us her car for the week, and came and picked us up at the airport. We took a brief car tour around Orlando, and then went to a Steak and Shake (as not to many places are open at 2:00AM). We ate til about 3:00, and then went our separate ways. I was hoping that we would get to spend more time with my favorite cousin and her family, but Lori left for Nebraska and Linda’s funeral the next morning, so it didn’t really work out.

We arrived at the hotel right around 4:00AM, and went straight to bed. As we knew we would have our first day in the parks the next day.

• Part of me wants to move to the eastern time zone… Just so it's always an hour ahead. Vacation going well!! #

• You will be missed Linda Nichols. #

Amber and I are here at Bahama Breeze waiting to get in. We just finished a day at Amber’s favorite park Animal Kingdom (at least it’s her favorite for now.)

I thought I would test out the wordpress iPhone app and it’s ability to take pictures… so here goes nothing:

In just a few short hours, I’ll be boarding a plane to Orlando, Fl. My house will be occupied by Amber’s aunt. And for all practical purposes, I will free of all real world concerns (minus the ones I decide to let creep in via my cell phone or laptop.) It will be the return to Justin and Amber’s honeymoon Part 2… This time, feature a smaller amount of tropical storm… but we should get some of it, non the less. It’s been 2 years now that we’ve been married (or at least, almost… very soon). Hard to believe.

One thing I hope to do this time, that we didn’t do so much of last time, is take more pictures. I’m bringing my camera and all my lenses in a nice back case, which should allow me to take plenty of photos… Something I wasn’t going to concern myself with on the honeymoon. Hopefully I’ll be able to post some of them back to the web before I get back.

In case I fail to post during the next week, my apologies… . I will be back!

I don’t know how I missed the premier but The Guild is back, and better than ever!

I would say more… but I’ll just let you watch the premier:

• What happend to 7,8,9, and 10 PM tonight… Ugh… time is going to fast! #

Chess is one of those games that I never really tire of, as long as I have opponents who can think.

Recently, thanks to a game I played in Nebraska with my cousin, I’ve found myself falling in love with correspondence chess. It’s basically a version of the game, where both players don’t have to be on at the same time to play… We simply make our move, and wait a day or two until the other person makes their move (sometimes more than a day, sometimes much much less). It allows you to play on your own time, and without worrying about when your friends have time to play.

Now that said, I may be back to playing it… but I got my butt kicked by John Clappier yesterday… Two big mistakes involving queens, and that was that…

I would love to have more people to play against, so if you want to challenge me, click the image below, get an account (either on chess.com, or via facebook), and lets get a game or 2 going! (It’s free!)

I play chess at Chess.com!

jjdb210
Rating: 980

Challenge me!

View my games

There’s a version of me that comes around this time of year. Thanks to Joe, Dan, Steven, Adeeb, and well… me being better at what I do (and because I’m married, it hasn’t quite “come out” like it used to.

It’s a version of me that stays at MSA for hours on end, eating delivered pizza, drinking way to much soda, and moving computers, servers, wires, and software wherever I think it should go. Everything has to be just right. Everything has to be perfect. The goal: rebuilding the entire MSA network from the bottom up for yet another school year of student abuse.

The last few years, I haven’t been doing the full rebuild as much as I would have liked. Either due to not having new hardware to worry about, or servers that were lasting longer than normal. So things have gotten missed… Something that has been long overdue was redoing the server rack.

In fact, I’m not sure the last time anyone redid the server rack… it has to be at least 5 years ago now… So this afternoon, and most of this evening, Steven and I tore apart the entire rack. We moved severs to new spots in the rack. We re-cabled the sucker… And now, for the first time ever, I can see the backs of the servers without cables getting in the way… It is shall we say, “Clean” again.

We also rebuilt 1 of the servers… 3 more are slated to be “redone”, and I’m debating doing the 5th server just for the hell of it. We’re not quite done rebuilding the one we did today, but hopefully Joe can figure it out from where we left off tomorrow. I’ll leave him a note tonight.

I’ll try post a network diagram a little later this week… It’s surprising how complex we make it over at MSA (although so dang cool too).

Oh, and some new computers come tomorrow as well (yay!)

I’ll try to give you a run down of what all I’m up to a little later this week (it’s going to be a week of code, because well… I’m wifeless for the moment.)

• Waiting for what I hope will be my 2nd great night of fireworks this weekend . Happy 4th of July Everyone! #
• @simland The earth's inner core must be erupting! the iron buildings are melting! Don't step out into that temp, you cremate yourself #