i summon one kim

GW’s Manhattan network has been back since October 6th. It took a while to bring everything back to normal, but now it is done!

We had no Internet connectivity for almost 3 weeks, and there was really nothing we could do about it. These pictures from the CO that our lines run to won’t leave you wondering why. I’m glad it didn’t take any longer to restore connectivity. We had a wireless link up a bit earlier, but it was only for private connectivity and could not be used effectively for our services.

Several temporary services have been running at my home to provide e-mail and net access to our users. Next week these are being closed down — my residential RADSL line is no T-1. I almost lost that line, too, but Speakeasy relocated their NYC POP customers to other POPs. For a while I had to run everything on the Optimum Online cable TV hookup, which is practically never down. It is just a pity they don’t provide static IP addresses or allow running servers.

Now it is time to plan for better replication of important data, an off-line archive of backups, and a new network hookup that does not run through NYC.

I don’t usually like movies with lots of violence, but I just have to make an exception here (once again). The camera work and the soundtrack combine extremely well with the plot. You will not want to leave your seat for a minute.

The experience from watching Snatch is a combination of Pulp Fiction and Fight Club (yeah, I know — hardly an original comment for this movie). Yet it is not a copy of either one. The plot moves at an extremely fast pace so don’t blink your eyes. Except for one or two predictable turns the movie keeps far ahead of you.

The amount of violence is unfortunate. It is so well put together that it is sad that I cannot recommend it to all my friends. I guess the well picked soundtrack softens some of the rawest parts for me.

I’m now definitely going to have to see other films by Guy Richie, especially Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels.

Another melancholy smooth album from Shawn Colvin. Excellent for those evenings of headphone listening.

I can put on Whole New You any evening and listen to it from beginning to end, and it always ends too soon. My favorite songs are Another Plane Went Down, Bonefields and A Matter of Minutes.

Another album from Shawn that has gotten a lot of play time here is A Few Small Repairs. I just love those train whistles on Wichita Skyline. This is actually the first album that I heard from her — so for me it has that original Shawn sound to it.

I spent the whole evening modifying the settings and the code for this weblog installation. I can see learning of PHP in my future.

The original code for the weblog is Personal Weblog 0.9.4 by Mark Pulford. I haven’t done any major changes to the code, but I have changed the configuration a lot.