Apr 14 2010

Phaysis.com: Celebrating a Decade of High Hopes

> whois phaysis.com

Whois Server Version 2.0

Domain Name: PHAYSIS.COM
Registrar: GODADDY.COM, INC.
Updated Date: 09-mar-2010
Creation Date: 14-apr-2000
Expiration Date: 14-apr-2011

Yeah, you read that right! Today, Phaysis.com (this very website, yo) is TEN YEARS OLD! Oh shit! That’s older than most websites I visit. If it were my kid, it’d be in fifth grade by now! What a mild ride this past decade has been! So much squandered potential, so many false starts, so many failed attempts, but my website still stands.

I started this site in April of 2000 as a way to learn web programming, to finally have a place on the web to call my own. Once I moved to Austin, it became a way to keep in touch with friends back home. Time and tide wears all shores, and Phaysis itself has changed, albeit slowly and almost imperceptably (and sometimes nonexistently). And now, it is the mostly-functioning site you see now. Hail Progress!

Today is an important milestone for my site, and I want to thank all of you for reading as often as you have and for coming back even after all my update neglect and my half-assed attempts at the Big Dreams. I still have dreams, and still have hope. You people are why I keep doing this. Thank you!

So here’s to ten more years!


Apr 26 2003

It’s a ROLLERCOASTER!

Man, today has been a rollercoaster, and I haven’t even been awake for two hours yet.

Ok. First things first: I wake up just before noon, a few minutes before my alarm was set to go off. Have to pee real bad, and I had to do it in record time, before my alarm went off (didn’t feel like jarring myself with its noise). Happily, that whole thing went off without a hitch.

So. Bladder emptied, alarm disabled, I go to my computer to wake it up. Waitaminute, it’s not on. Did I turn my monitor off? Can’t remember. Not unless I did it in my sleep. I sleepwalk? Wait a minute: I can’t hear the CPU fan. Aw, shit. It’s shut off. We had a power outage. We had a power outage? Damn. Battery backup hasn’t turned back on. Ok. I reach down and toggle the backup’s switch, my system turns on. Feh. Have to tweak with some BIOS issues, then I continue booting. Mmm. Norton Disk Doctor, yes I want to fix errors, no I don’t want to make an undo disk. Feh. Ok. Finally, I can log into windows. What? I can’t get online? Christ, this is gonna be a long ride.

I go to the kitchen to grab a coke, notice the coffee machine’s clock was flashing. Ok, yes we *did* have an outage. Ok. I turn on the linux server’s monitor and log in as root. What? There’s no trace of the power outage in the system logs? Huh?! That server’s UPS lasts for, like, half an hour. The server would’ve noticed a power outage. Not a trace. I am confused.

I check the internet connection. Appears fine from the server. Hmm. Go back to my room for a smoke, check again, nothing. Ok, something is definitely gone south. Back at the server, I check the firewall settings. Hmm. The firewall kernel module isn’t even loaded. I load it, tweak a few things, still nothing. I do a shutdown and reboot. On the reboot, the server’s init notices the drives weren’t unmounted properly and does a scan on the drives. Reboot continues as normal. Log back in, check the connection. Still fine from there, but the firewall module still wasn’t loaded. Good gawd. I load it again, and this time I run the firewall config tool. Ok, good. It’s loaded and working. Back to my bedroom computer — what do we have? We’re ONLINE!

I am much relieved.

So, a few smokes and a sandwich later, I check my bank account. What? There’s more money in there that I didn’t put in there! Could it be? Well, paint me green and call me money, the Feds decided to let me have my tax return! Hell yeah! I immediately place a large portion of it in my poor little flagging savings account and badda-bing, I’m a happier man.

You know, I’m a simple man with simple pleasures and simple needs. All I need is sleep, elimination, nicotine, caffeine, nutrition, an internet connection, and surprise money. And I got all of those needs in the first hour of my day! Fuck yeah!

Ah, today’s gonna be a gooood day. I got Eeyore’s Birthday to attend. Let’s see if I can get some of my other needs taken care of: booze, fun, community, companionship, and luuuuv sweeeet luuuuv, baby.

Pop a top and raise a can; this might be Shawn’s luckiest day.