OS X Command to return last successful backup

This may not be useful to everyone, but it’s useful to me, so I’m documenting it here.

At my work we have a number of systems that use Time Machine to back up locally or to remote, networked storage.

Part of my job is to make sure that this is working properly for all users. Until I figured this out, I would have to walk around to each computer, or call up each user, and manually check using the Time Machine preferences. This can take hours (or days if they’re not available), and is a major hassle for everyone involved.

This is much better.

This is the UNIX command to return the last 5 successful backups for OS X:

grep “Backup completed successfully.” /var/log/system.log | sed s_/System/Library/CoreServices/__g | tail -n 5

By issuing this command via Apple Remote Desktop, I get a quick report breaking down each computer and the last 5 times it was backed up.

…and I quote…

“And so these parties divided upon the midnight plain, each passing back the way the other had come, pursuing as all travelers must inversions without end upon other men’s journeys.”

-Cormac McCarthy in
Blood Meridian

Thanksgiving

At what age do “the holidays” quit being something you look forward to and become something that you dread?

Maybe “dread” isn’t the right word, but you know what I mean.

Particularly when the people that you’ve spent the holidays with for years and years (and years) are no longer in your life. Regardless of why they’re not in your life, when the holidays roll around you spend a lot of time reminiscing about history, family, life, etc. Good or bad, you always have this idea about the holidays that they’re supposed to be this magical time of snow and happiness and hot chocolate and family and new socks.

And part of me is afraid that this year won’t measure up. That this year will be a disappointment ’cause of the horribleness that’s preceded it. That it will be a long, gross, cold, freezing rain of re-telling the story of how things fell apart, and saying that you’re “good” when no one believes you possibly could be, even if you did.

I started this post hoping that it’d be a good, positive one that reassured all of us that things are going well.

The thing is, things are going well. They are. I have a great apartment, great dog, great friends, and I’m doing a pretty damn good job of holding shit together and rebuilding my life. But there’s still this…I don’t know…

You know that swirly black swirling mess that appears over your head when you lose at Wii tennis? It feels like that. More on that later…maybe.

Despite everything that’s happened this year, I do have things that I am thankful for:

• I’m thankful for the friends and family that I have who’ve helped me through this.
• I’m thankful for the opportunity to start my life over again. Not everyone gets that chance.
• I’m thankful for what I’ve learned about myself, and the way that I think and feel.
• I’m thankful for the things that didn’t kill me, but made me stronger.
• I’m thankful for what I learned about trust and loyalty, and the people that I thought were trustworthy and loyal, and the people that I know are.
• I’m thankful that every day is easier than the one before it.

In truth, things could be WAY different than they are now, and I am truly thankful for the people in my life who’ve helped me through it all.

Sorry, everyone

I know that a lot of people are eager to know what’s going on with me, how I’m doing, etc. and this would be an excellent place to tell everyone the same thing all at once.
I’m not doing that, though.
Mostly, I am still trying to deal with this in my own head, and, though writing can be a good way to deal with things, I don’t think that I would be writing anything that I would want anyone but my closest of close friends to know, and this is the Internet. Not appropriate.
I promise that I will get back to this once I feel like I have something good to say.

Whats the opposite of “triumphal”?

Tomorrow I will return to Chicago from an extended vacation in Utah, mountain biking with my family.
Normally, I would be looking forward to returning to see my girlfriend, see my friends, and find out what had happened in my absence.
Not this time.
This time is different.
This time I kinda want to vomit.

In case you hadn’t yet heard, right before this trip my five and a half year relationship with Talia ended.

I am returning to Chicago to start trying to find an apartment, sell furniture, and divide up our posessions.

It feels like I am flying back to make arrangements for the care and burial of my relationship. Of five years of my life.

If you feel like coming up to the podium and saying something about the deceased, please send an email instead. While I am trying to be more open (hence this post) that doesn’t mean she would want this to become an open discussion on the topic.

PS – Sorry if this is how you’re finding out about this. I do love you all, but I am over regaling survivors with the tale.

End of Week 1

Today was the end of week one of my new job, and I gotta say: Damn.

This place is awesome.

The people are super cool. The work we (they) do is amazing. The perks are plentiful (free drinks, free snacks, breakfast, etc.). The work is interesting and fun and I get to learn new things.

And, to top it all off, here’s an excerpt from an email I just got:

…it’s time to think about a Halloween themed power hour.
It’s important that we find 60, Sixty second clips of the best, most nasty, most scary, most tense, most funny, most awesome horror films ever.
Also, we must find 60 separate one second vampire bites or vampires drinking blood scenes that will go between the horror film clips.

Everyone submit and load your clips.  If you don’t know how to load into and avid find a friend who can help. Everyone is invited to submit clips and come to the screening that is TBD, but somewhere around halloween.

This will be best ever.

That is correct. We have holiday-themed company power hours.

Jackpot!

Yes, that is, in fact, a ping-pong table, coffee maker, snacks table (they’d just cleared breakfast), and fridge full of drinks. And the bottom shelf? That’s beer and wine.

“Generally you should wait ’til after 5:00, and don’t get hammered.”
“OK.”
“You’ll get hammered.”

Now, where is that Xbox that’s showing up on the network?

“I am resigning”

The process of resigning can be a lot like breaking up with someone: an awkward mess, especially if it comes as a surprise to the other person, or there’s a real dependency on one side.

This, fortunately, was not like that at all.

I scheduled a meeting with my boss and before I even said anything he guessed what was going on. Well, close, anyway. He thought I was moving back to Portland, but the effect was the same – I wouldn’t be working for him. And he seemed genuinely happy for me. He knew my job wasn’t doing it for me, and that I wasn’t getting any opportunities to move up.

He was a great boss, one of the few in the organization, and will be a great mentor to the people I left behind. I would definitely work for or with him again, but the circumstances would have to be different. His boss was a micromanager with no real vision that will probably be the boss for the forseeable future. And that is not the kind of place I want to work in.

Take THAT, the current economic situation!

I got a new job.

That’s not something that you hear a lot of these days, but I did it, and it surprised even me.

I haven’t really been looking hard for a job – I’d check craigslist every once in a while, make sure my resume is updated, etc., but I wasn’t sending out resume after resume hoping for some feedback. In fact, I only sent out one. I saw a job called “Mac & Linux Admin” on craigslist, read the description, and thought I should just do it, even if nothing else comes of it. So, after procrastinating for a week, I hammered out a cover letter, attached my resume, and expected nothing to come of it. Especially since I know how many resumes prospective employers get these days. Surely, I thought, someone who’s applying will be more qualified than me.

som of his king, but it is

I’ve decided that some of the junk mail I get is too good not to pass on. Some of it is almost poetic.

This one is called

Interest

there can be no rational debate.

a

There are some things

so simple

that one can almost prove them

with plans

and diagrams,

as in Euclid.

a

One could make a kind of comic calendar

of what would have happened to the English diplomatist,

if he had been silenced

every time by Prussian diplomacy.