Date:     Fri, 16 Mar 2007 05:16:43 -0700
From:     Mike Gull
To:       Kitt Hodsden
Subject:  One of those scary moments...

Do a man on crontab.
Notice the -r option.
Notice how close the "e" key is to the "r" key.
And realize how pissed Mike is that there's no confirm on this  
command....

Fortunately, still had a -l on my screen.

Well, the first of two Mischief 2007 tryouts happened today. I have to admit I'm a bit disappointed in the turnout. You'd think the National Champions would have tons of people trying out for the team. We had maybe 20 tryouts today. Sure, we're in the South Bay, but come on, Brass Monkey had 50 tryouts last year and had to close tryouts after one, given the number of interested people they had on the first one.

How is it that Mischief goes all the way to the top and still doesn't receive any respect? Sometimes I really hate this sport.

I played okay when I played. I didn't participate in all of the skills and drills sections. In particular, I skipped the huck drill, as it seemed too much long distance sprinting for my hamstring to take. I have an appointment on Monday to see what's up with my hamstring, why hasn't it been healing very well over the last two months. I really don't want last year to be my career ending year: I'd like to actually play in my last year.

On the sideline, I talked to Kyle, who also was sitting out some drills. I commented that I hadn't played a full Sectionals since 2001, since playing with Rippit.

In 2002, I pulled a hamstring on the first step of the first game of the second day and was out the rest of the tournament.

In 2003, I rolled ankle in our Donner Party game, which I think was on our first day of play.

In 2004, I was out for four broken ribs from my Ben squishing.

In 2005, I played some, but not fully, as a hamstring injury impaired my playing significantly. Playing on Vicodin is worse that not playing, in retrospect.

Last year, I rolled ankle at Labor Day.

I'd like to play at Sectionals this year. We'll see how this season goes.

Today is the first of two Mischief tryouts. The team has been trying to organize fun activities around the event, as playing at Baylands is always fun, both for the wind, and with the barbecue pits next to the Great Meadow.

At one point yesterday, a teammate suggested, well, hinted really, that water balloons would be fun to bring and use. If the weather is hot, then water balloons are indeed a great way to cool off. The problem with this, however, is that Baylands is a protected wildlife habitat. Various things are prohibited at the part in order to continue that protection, dogs and balloons being two of such prohibitions.

When the teammate made the suggestion, I immediate responded with a request that people not bring said balloons, as they both endanger the environment, as well as the ultimate community's continued use of the Great Meadow.

My request wasn't unreasonable, it was perfectly justified. However, after making the request, I totally felt like the world's biggest party pooper. Once again, here I am, telling everyone what they can't do. Don't bring balloons. Don't bring glass to the fields. Don't do this. Don't do that.

What is it about me that I'm always worrying about these things? I blame it on "being responsible" sometimes, but I'm not sure that's really the reason (but it certainly the problem).

At Nationals last year, when we had made it into the finals, DanO and Pickett bought a bottle of champagne, just in case we won. When we did win, they brought out the bottle, and opened it. They opened the bottle. The big glass bottle. The big glass bottle with lots of cameras all around and everyone watching as we violated one of the biggest tournament rules: no glass on the fields. DanO handed the bottle to me and I upended the thing, drinking a full swig of the victory champagne.

I later asked him why he handed me the bottle first, since I hadn't actually played in that game. He said it was a litmus test: if anyone was going to be upset with the glass on the field, I would. If I drank from the bottle, he'd pass it around the team. If I had reacted with shock or been upset at the clear rule violation, he'd put the bottle back into the bag and sneak it back off the field.

I think we were both relieved I decided to tip it up and drink. The incident clear shows, however, just how much everyone views me as the worrier, the rules enforcer, the party pooper. I've talked to Kris about it, as I talk to him about many of the things I worry about. His advice is still the same as it was before: remind myself it doesn't matter.

Should I worry that everyone thinks I'm a worry wart?

Eh, doesn't matter.

I'm not sure what happened, but this baking experiment was a near complete disaster.

Yeah, I'm confused about this event. Sure, I have my culinary problems, a tragic meal that makes my guests think I've gone insane, but they are typically few, and never with souffles. My souffles are always light and fluffy, rich and exotic, and, oh, so very tasty.

Of course, they've all been chocolate souffles until today.

I mean, what's the point of making a souffle, if it's not chocolate?

I mean, really!

I picked up the cheddar-bacon souffle recipe from the Williams-Sonoma store where Mom and I went when she was visiting, where, of course, I spent too much money on kitchen items (but just try to wrest those new kitchen shears from my cold, dead hands, and see how much luck you have). Given the recipe called for a half pound of bacon, how bad could it be?

Not bad at all. If you like bacon bread.

About a year ago, my mail server started acting up.

The problem was subtle at first: mails to BJ's account wouldn't deliver, but mine would. Mostly. Kyle might have lost some emails, but I couldn't be sure. I also started receiving errors when viewing my mail via a web-based mail reader. The pages often wouldn't display at all.

Eventually, the problem became so bad I couldn't load more than one or two pages before I wasn't able to load any pages via the mail reader, and I had to check what was up. I had checked a few times, running "ps -ef | grep qmail" and looked at what was running. I'm not sure what prompted me to check, but I took off the qmail grep filter and looked to see what was up.

Turns out, the problem was each email I tried to delete (delete because I knew the email address was a spam address) caused a process to start up and not die. My system was running out of resources because of the undying processes. Instead of deleting the emails, I switched the processes to deliver to a dummy email account, which I could later view and filter.

When I figured out the fundamental problem (the delete email processes not dying), I recalled the change I had made a month before I started having the system problems. I, then, remembered my most recent lesson learned: listen to the little things, before they grow into big ones.

Clearly I need to listen better.