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Posted by: kazkoI was up very late this morning. A storm rolled in around 3am and I decided to go to bed. Just as I did, the power went out. Since I host our web site here, I have to be somewhat concerned. So I got up to see what I needed to do. First thing I noticed is that the server room was quickly getting warm without hvac. Data center servers dont like to be in warm environments. Luckily the storm brought with it cool air so I opened the windows and the door to let the breeze keep things cool.

I also manually shut down other servers that were not needed in order to keep the web server going as long as possible and to reduce heat output. I am now looking at a way to do this automatically in any power event. Problem is, once you shut off a server when on battery, the UPS generally needs to finally shut down and then power back up when the power is restored. The power reset generally boots up all of the servers your script turned off. But, if the UPS never power cycles but instead just comes back to line, there is never a power reset event to turn on the other boxes. So one needs to figure a way to script this scenario using wake on lan or some such device.

I have found some software that should be able to handle this but it has to exist on the last remaining server running (my web server) and it needs access to the UPS management cards and server nics (internal network)... So I have a few problems to figure out. I may have to keep an internal server running for this process.

At any rate, I have a battery bank of 48VDC at 170A. It runs things fine for awhile. This outage lasted three hours and the web server remained up and accessible with a small load including itself, the firewall, cisco switch, fiber switch and some other various network things.

08/15/2008 03:19:02 UPS: Switched to battery backup power; utility power failure.
08/15/2008 06:16:54 UPS: Returned from battery backup power; utility power restored.


I went to bed at 6:30am after closing the windows and restoring things.

We used to never ever have power issues here during even the worst storms. The day they were boring underground down the alley to lay the new fiber, the lights were flickering all day. This told me then that they were scraping along the 8000V underground power lines. So now, when we get heavy rain that soaks the ground, power shuts off as the transformers get overloaded due to the bare high voltage copper lines in the ground.

Nobody cares. It's scary and a shame. Anybody wanna donate a natural gas generator? Anything from 8,000 on up to 20,000 watt will do.

SEE ALSO:
http://www.sugarglider.com/glidergossip/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=14274&whichpage=1#93076

Posted by: RitaI havent talked about this before because its very painful for me.

My cousin, Joe, who besides being family, is also a great friend. About a 1 1/2 years ago, he was diagnosed with cancer - which started in his neck. He went thru all the usual treatments, meds, etc. But he was to far along and cancer had pretty much spread all over him. Joe has been very positive about his illness from the beginning - bound and determine to make it. Joe has bone caner, which is one of the most painful cancers you can get. And he has suffered. About 3 months ago, he was told it was in his brain. He called me that night and after he told me, he started crying so hard he hung up the phone. That was when he knew he wasnt going to make it.

Joe went steadily down hill and hospice was called about 6 weeks ago. Last week, he was given two to six weeks to live. Joe is a very good person but never a church goer. He decided he wanted to be baptized. Even tho he could barely stand up at that time, he wouldnt let the preacher come to their house to do the baptism - he wanted to go to the church. With help from family members, they got Joe to the church and he was able to get into the baptismal pool. He is on oxygen, so the preacher couldnt submerse him - only pour holy water over his head.

Joe is now totally bedridden - he is on morphine every two hours around the clock - he doesnt know anyone and can no longer even take a sip of water. Needless to say - he isnt going to be with us much longer.

Joe lives in Indiana. We have always remained close thru phone calls, letters and then e-mail. We have written to each other, sent jokes, vented, laughed with each other for many years. The last e-mail I got from him was July 7, 2008. The last time I was able to talk to him was 2 weeks ago - and he was gasping for breath with every word.

My cousin, my lifelong friend, Joe, hasnt passed yet - but he is gone. After talking to his sister, I think it has finally hit me today that I will never be able to talk to him again. Or read another of his e-mails. And I miss him already.


08-12-08 Joe passed away at 6:15 this morning.

Joe and I e-mailed almost every day for several years. The last e-mail I got from him was July 7, 2008.

His last e-mail had a link to this song and poem. I wonder if he was trying to tell me he knew his end was very near....

http://www.allright.com/Poems/TOLRailway/TOL.htm

Posted by: kazkoJanice and Katy came today to pick up a m/f pair and the lone f abandons that I got in earlier. We spoke a bit about care and things and I offered myself as well as our community for continuing questions and answers as usual. I hope they do well and am anxious to hear about things in the future.

Posted by: mercedes1734

Posted by: kyro298Once again, I'm seeing a very distinct lump on Skitzi. She had one a few months ago, we all saw it and then it was gone. :( I have no idea what happened, but there is DEFINITELY one again. I'm not going to get too excited until it gets larger so we're keeping an eye out and ours fingers crossed! Then, we can finally take Daddy in to get neutered so he isn't so...RIPE! P-U!

Posted by: kazkoI have known for some time that our house is very energy inefficient, or rather, very wasteful. Also, running so many computer systems and support devices and network gear and cooling for those really adds up. Match that with a 30 year old bulletproof Lennox HVAC unit and the fact that I am home all the time and cant really set the temp for away, and you have extremely high energy bills.

Over the recent years I have replaced all light bulbs with CFLs which helps with consumption as well as heat. An average Incandescent bulb draws 60w and it's CFL mate is 13w. So anytime I replace or add lighting or any such endeavor, it is always Fluorescent in nature. I have even converted our security and tree and landscape lighting to fluorescent and I also have not been using most of that as of late in order to curb the scary bill a bit.

So this last week I have been going around the home-office and measuring power consumption on my devices. The workstations werent much of a surprise, but some things were. Did you know that your pc turned off draws around 30va/hr? Multiply that by 24hrs, then by 365days and then by my current power rate and I get $35/yr by just having my one pc plugged in and turned off. That isnt all that much for a year really, but then multiply that by every pc in the house, in my case, alot. Also add in ALL other electronic devices that are slowly draining power. Your vcr that you never use draws 50va turned off. Your gaming console draws 50va turned off. On and on and on. These devices are called vampires as they slowly suck energy which truly adds up over time and more noticeably now that rates are on the rise.

UPS "battery backups" draw a lot of energy just to keep the batteries charged. I have been using two ups's on my server farm knowing that each was lightly loaded. I just measured and found that each unit was drawing 170va with no load. That means that having dual ups's connected has been costing me $1.06 each day just for the privilege.

I have had six dell data center servers racked and plugged in but only 2 in use. The other four have been sitting there turned off waiting for my next project. I only now realized that each server sitting there has been slowly sucking 30va. So I have been wasting around 3kw per day or .40 by having unused servers plugged in.

I have since unplugged things not in use. I migrated all stuff to one UPS. I have made everyone in the house set their desktops to go to standby after 20 min. I have made my internal file server shut the hd's down after 20 min of no use.

I believe that I have at least saved 8kw per day and it took no effort to do, just effort to realize. I am going to attack the general house next. Gaming consoles and other unused devices are going to be unplugged and/or put onto mechanical switches. My large electronic piano that I use maybe once a week is going to be unplugged. Unplugging saves power and also keeps devices from being blown up if there is ever a power surge or lightning strike.

I spent this morning up in the attic working on our air conditioner. Turns out that our plenum was leaking rather badly so we were essentially cooling the attic and not recovering that cool air so the system works harder and cools less. I ripped off all the old dried and dead duct tape, reworked the plenum a bit and then sealed with wide foil tape like it should have been done. I also cleaned the coil and inspected the entire system upstairs like a good geek would do. I wrapped the naked plenum and coil housing in two layers of reflective blanket so all of that should absorb less heat. I have stopped the waterfall of AC to the attic so that should save some kilowatts per day or at least make me more comfy inside.

If I ever build a house, I am making sure there is a facilities closet in the center of it where a vertical HVAC system and the water heater, plumbing and other stuff will reside. It is unbearable working in a hot narrow floorless attic, peered between two beams trying not to fall through the ceiling. It's also just a dumb idea to put anything at all that needs servicing into the attic. Instead, there should be 16" of insulation covering all things and you never ever go up there. I wish we had basements here in Texas.

I am heavily considering having a radiant barrier sprayed onto the bottom of the rooftop decking to keep the attic cooler. When it is 108F outside, the rooftop can easily become 160F+ and the attic can easily become 140F+. That heat transfers to your AC system and through your roof. A radiant barrier will bounce some of that heat back out and can cool the attic by 20 degrees or more. Some updated insulation can also slow heat gain, and we need it all here, badly.

Then finally, I am looking into replacement HVAC systems. The new systems have some very nice features which is about time. Dual stage condensers, variable speed blower fans, humidity sensors, air flow and duct air temp sensors... I am even considering somewhat of an electronically zoned system in order to cool differing areas of the house differently. A heat pump may also be in order for us since Texas has light winters and I hardly ever use the heat then anyway. A cold 60F house beats the heck out of a humid 80F+ house anyday. I like to enjoy our winters since they are so short...

Posted by: StripedfireWarning: This story may be incredibly long as I don't like to skip out on the details.

The beginning of February marked a new semester. I was noticing many transfers from a school similar to ours coming in. I ignored most of these new students unless they talked to me first. One day on morning announcments, I heard a girl being praised for inviting a new student to sit with her at her table because they looked lonely. I thought about this story and remembered how nice that would have been for me when I was a new student. Well, one day when I was eating lunch at my usual table with the group of people that I usually sit with (I don't really consider them to be my friends, but they were the closest things to it I had and welcomed me in), I noticed a boy standing up and looking really confused. I have no idea why, but I started to try to invite him to my table to eat. After many attempts of "Hey! Kid! Hello!" that failed to get his attention, one of the people sitting across from me tapped him and pointed to me. He looked at me in question and all I said was "Sit down here!" And he did. It was really easy to get into conversation with him and we had a lot in common. On that very lunch, something stroke up the conversation of "how many animals do you own?". I thought I would have him beat with my 2 cats a dog and 5 fish. And I was incredibly wrong. He had 4 dogs, 6 birds and 5 suggies. I had heard about sugar gliders before, but knew nothing about them (and now I'm stuck with Glideritis for the rest of my life. Who knew?). We became friends easily and just a few days after meeting, I went to his house. I was amazed at the size and the amount of animals he had. It had been a long time since I had held a small animal, let alone let it climb on my shoulders, so you can probably easily imagine the way I shreiked and laughed in fear and delight, a mixture that only created torment.

Soon after meeting the gliders, I learned that 2 of them (1 female in each cage) were pregnant with 2 babies each. He told me that they would need to get rid of the babies as soon as possible, because they did not have enough room for them. I started thinking of having them as a pet and offered the possibility of me owning them. So since then, the plan has been expected for me to own the babies. I didn't think of too much of what was necessary. My friend told me the basics: you NEED at least 2; a big cage is necessary; they cost a lot. I didn't really think much of it and didn't get my hopes up too much for getting them. But every day, my friend and I would go through a usual routine of me asking "How are the babies?" and him going "They're doing well". That was, until april fools day when he said "Not good at all." I thought he was joking, but half serioused up near the end. I couldn't tell whether he was joking or not. The next day I asked him the same question and he said "The 2 remaining ones are doing well" And I said "Wait. You were serious yesterday?" and he replied "Yes. I wouldn't joke about the babies." I felt bad. He told me the story of how he found the 2 babies at the bottom of the cage: 1 dead and the other barely clinging to life. They couldn't save the other baby. The 2 that died belonged to his favorite glider named Scrat. This just made it a little bit more sad. They were the ones I was expecting to take, but I would take the other 2 just as easily.

I was attached to both sets of babies. Scrat's were a bit more special because hers were the ones I saw poking a body part out of the pouch, or just looking at them before they had their eyes open. He explained that the cause of death was most likely to be that Scrat was too small andcould not provide enough nutreints for both her and the babies. That week was pretty sad. But as time passed, my friend got better and we continued on looking at Luna's babies. They have known me their whole lives. I saw them when they had their eyes closed, then when they opened them, and then when they were weaned. Through this period of watching, I started asking if they had names and my friend said no. Then one day he suggested that we choose the name for them together, but it was mainly my choice. I would usually call the one to be named Lila, Sweetsy and the one to be called Rose, Crabby. I immediately thought of Rose for the crabbier one and it suited perfectly, and still does to this day. But finding Sweetsy a name was a lot more challenging because the only name that seemed to fit her was Lilly, and that's my name. I wasn't about to have an animal that could soon be my pet have a name that would make it appear to be named after me (I love individuality).

The answer for Sweetsy's new name came to me when I was watching August Rush, my favorite movie, one night. The mother's name was Lyla. I thought of the name and thought it was perfect for Sweesy. Either that or Lilac. My friend liked Lila better (notice the change in speelling from Lyla, the character's name, to Lila, the sugar glider's actual name. It is said exactly the same, but I thought that an i instead of a y suited better). So there were their names. Well, I went the rest of the school year not getting my hopes up about actually being a mother to Lila and Rose. I don't know what changed my mind, but suddenly, one night, I decided to dig myself into a pit and just plain almost expect to own the sugar gliders. The reason I say pit is because this could backfire on me and send me through enormous amounts of pain if I found out that I could not get the gliders. If such a thing happened, my pile of dirt practically towering over me, something that I created, would come down on me and bury me alive. I got up that next morning and began looking up things about sugar gliders. And so dawned my obbsession with them and also my infection of glideritis. I went to google and typed in Suger gliders. It corrected my spelling, and then gave me the list of sites. First one on the list: Wikkipedia. Ugh! I hate wikkipedia. Next on the list: Sugarglider.com! I clicked on that link and it took me to this site's home page. I took a breif look at every thing and the subjects in the glider gossip caught my eye. I began reading and it only took reading 2 for me to make an account. So I read. I offered advice from the little amount of knowledge I had where I could. I read every forum as far back as I could. I saw Suz's website mentioned a few times and read that entire site as well. It only took 3 days for me to gain more knowledge about sugar gliders than my friend. I quickly tried the bonding techniques which worked well, even though I didn't try tent time. I now have a relationship with my soon to be babies, where they fully trust me. One of my biggest moments of joy was when our bonding was secured. This happened only a few days ago. I went over to my friends house after being away (mainly in Mexico building a house) for a week. One of the first things I did was go to the sugar glider's cage and get Rose and Lila out. This went quicker than expected. I let them climb on me after allowing them to go to the bathroom on top of their cage, and they were both so calm. We had never seen this before. Ever. Then they climbed to my back, for the first time being careful not to leave scratch marks (first time trying not to leave scratch marks, not first time trying to climb on my back) and sat on the back of my neck, behind my hair. This was my first hamster's, Zeda's, favorite place to rest. They kept up their tradition of poking their little heads out of their resting spot and saying Hello. This was made especially cute because you would see a little gray head poking out of a shower of orangish reddish brownish hair. After a little bit, I was surprised to hear one of them purring! It was either a purro r the VERY content and happy sound. I had been able to have them fall asleep in my hand, but this was a new level! They didn't even want to go back in their cage when it came time to! This made me very happy.

Now, before the bonding was secure, comes another story of suggies from the same family, still in the making. A bit before I left for Mexico, I had been reading a lot about pregnancy and births of Sugar gliders. The next day, I went over to my friend's house and for some strange reason, paid close attention to Luna. She seemed to be cleaning her pouch area a lot. Immediately, I think "BIRTH!" We took her out and my friend and I felt for bumps. We both felt one. But, a bump in the pouch cannot be felt that soon after birth and so I had a feeling that there would be a second baby. I was right. But with the babies come many issues. We need them to be female, because nuetering costs around here are around $111. And my friend has financial issues. They already need to neuter 2 males. But if they are 2 females, then no matter what, one of us will be over the legal limit for female gliders. I personally hope that it is a boy and girl pair because the bond between the 2 may be touching and sweet. So far, everything is going well. Plans for good neutering are already made and have been activated. Rose and Lila are doing very well. The babies in the puch are still growing. Hopefully, everything will go well, as it is.

Posted by: kazkoI cleaned out the worm farm last night. I had left it a little longer than usual and come to find that it was easier to clean this way. There were almost no tiny worms to worry about, 99.9% of them came out in one step simply using a plastic mesh strainer. So perhaps I have learned that it is acceptable to allow the larger worms to forage for beetle eggs for a time to allow the worm container to grow large so that they are all easy to migrate out of the frass. The worms climb up and eat eggs as well as the egg laying substrate which is empty egg cartons for me. Guess they like paper.

I have begun tossing all sorts of food items into my worm farm. Looking in there now I have flour tortilla, corn tortilla, corn cob, lettuce, shaved potato skin, apple skin.

Posted by: eyeheartglidersi cannot seem to find a glider here in ky. when i finally find one close to my area it ends up being far too expensive for my budget.

if anyone knows where i can get a great deal on a glider here around the capitol of ky (preferably $100 or less if possible) please let me know! male or female is fine!

Posted by: kazkoI received 5 sugar gliders (3 cages) today from the nearby wildlife shelter. They will accept abandons directly or from the various animal control facilities around the area and then I eventually get hold of many of them for inspection, care and rehoming.

They almost never get the sexes right so I run them through a grueling hand inspection. I had a very hard time with this last batch determining their sexes. Turns out that each pair was m/f but the males had each received the typical "snip" neuter which leaves behind no trace of obvious maleness. The remaining male "area" looks very much like a young female pouch and can be rather misleading. So I say that the only way to truly tell sex these days is to open the pouch. If you cant, then it is prolly a snip neutered male.

So it is a half blessing here. I received neutered males for the very first time ever; YAY! But this time around I was hoping for all females so I could try to build an all female misfit colony to experience what that would be like. I have heard stories... I wont split the m/f pairs, so I guess I'll just have to rehome them as such.

This leaves me with the single female. Shes sweet. I believe I received her at the beginning of HLP syndrome, but shes getting all the nutrients and exercise that she needs now so she's looking better. Id love to keep her for myself but I keep enough cages already and I just dont have one to merge her into.

Posted by: Buggie3i have a glider that just recently lost its mate. I want to find another friend as soon as i can because i dont feel that its right for him to be alone. I want him to be happy and live a long life with another one of his kind. If anyone could help me out that would be awesome. Thank you.

Posted by: Donna07Last week Jack went to see Dr. Haley. She is an exotics vet. and is very familuar with suggies.

She showed me the correct way to hold a suggie securely. Later that evening I took Jack out of his cage while he was in his travel pouch and had some one on one time. I am pleased to say we crossed many bridges that evening. Before it was said and done, Jack was bathing himself and letting me scratch him all over. He even let me massage his leggs, paws, ears, and around his cute little face.

Oh, Dr. Haley says Jack is just fine. She says his weight is ok and as for his cleanliness, he may just be a lazy groomer. She said I can take a warm wash cloth and and wipe him down if he gets to sticky feeling and he may go ahead and bath like he should. Of course I will not be using any soap and the wash cloth will not be dripping wet with water. I'll make sure the room is not to cool. I don't want him to get cold.

 

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