Thursday, November 26, 2009

Catch Up

So, it's been a while since I've written. I'll just do a quick recap of everything that has gone on.

The Sentinel

Issue 3 of The Sentinel came out on Nov. 16. It was a crazy issue. At 11:00 pm on Saturday night the server that all of the work is held on disappeared. We could no longer access the pages we had designed, the articles we had written etc.

I did what I could but it quickly became apparent there was nothing I could do. I called our emergency tech support guy and he told us that the server was down for routine maintenance. We weren't notified. He said that it may or may not be up and running by Sunday afternoon.

It sucked. So, after running around the NIC campus trying to find the guy who was (supposedly) doing all the work, I decided to send all the editors home and just come in early to see what could be worked out.

I left NIC at 1:30 am. I slept until 5:00 and then drove on back. The Server wasn't up, so I went to sleep for 30 minutes. Woke up, checked the Server. Still not there. Went back to sleep. This cycle continued for about 3 hours.

Finally, that little gray globe of hope popped up.

Almost immediately my tech support friend called telling me we had an hour to get everything we needed off the server.

Well, to make a long story short, the paper got done. It involved a lot of flash drives and a lot of waiting around for things to transfer.

Possibly the most frustrating thing about this all was that the server stayed up the whole time we were using the flash drives. Yet, I didn't dare use the server, for fear that it would disappear.

But the important thing was the the paper got out on time, with no major mistakes. There were some minor ones, unfortunately. It certainly won't win any design awards but at least it's respectable.

Arizona

So on Nov. 16 (Monday) I got on a plane headed for Prescott, Arizona. The trip was a combination Yoga adventure/friend visit. I did a Yoga workshop there and also got to spend some quality time with some good friends of mine. It was a great trip, full of sun and natural beauty.

I was planning on bringing my camera to document the trip, however, at the last minute I decided to forget. I have this thing about cameras. I love taking photos, I love looking at photos. Yet I hate taking photos and looking at them.

Yeah, confusing.

I think what it comes down to is that I find it hard to really concentrate on what is going on if I'm always trying to take a cool looking photo.

I know that really good photographers don't have this problem. They actually focus more and experience more. Me, I just get frustrated. I want to convey the beauty or whatever it is in a photo, yet I always find my photography lacking. So, often I simply won't take photos. Which, isn't the way that you get better at taking photos. It's a dilemma.

So, that is why there are no photos of my trip.

So, yup that basically recaps the last week or two. Right now it's thanksgiving. My grandma is here from LA.

Starting tomorrow I will begin working on the upcoming issue of The Sentinel. It's the last one of the semester and it's going to be a big one (and good). So I'm getting a jump on that.

Well, that about sums it up.

Have a great thanksgiving.

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