Klowns in my Koffee

There are good days and then days when the forces combine to produce a bumper crop of excellence. My Christmas club account in the karma bank paid a dividend today.

You know how we question when things seem too good to be true? Sometimes, things are exactly what they appear and still we are unsure. I saw an ad on one of the online "free goods" sites posted by someone giving away servers. The ad stated that the server was VM-capable and would be perfect for an advanced student or a small business. This all seemed unlikely, particularly since we had followed another computer ad in the morning that had been a tool to attract customers to a used goods store. Since we are planning on launching a business in a few months, the timing could not have been better if this was indeed a legitimate offer. We emailed to ask if the server was still available.

Getting an affirmative response to our email, we all piled into the yellow bus and went for a ride. We followed the directions to an office building in a neighboring suburb. Standing outside the nearly deserted building and being a jaded person, I wondered if this is how people fall prey to organ harvesters.

We cautiously approached the locked security entrance. A sparkling woman in about her mid-sixties and sporting a bluetooth headset met us at the door as she was helping some "scrappers" -- people who collect and seller scrap metal and materials for a profit -- out the door with piles of wire, cables, and various hunks of metal.

She directed us to their office on the third floor. There, on an office labeled for a networking company, we found the other half of the couple. We were greeted by the cheery older gentleman in an office suite where computer and office hardware in various states of removal were on nearly every surface.

The server was an HP 5U with quad processors and 1 x 18 GB and 3 x 36.4 GB of capacity. It was beautiful. We kept looking for the catch but there wasn't any. They were moving and right-sizing their company and were giving everything away that they hadn't manage to disposition otherwise.

We were speechless. We put the server in the car and we returning the cart on which we have moved this heavy, heavy piece of equipment. I guess they decided that they liked us, since they offered us a server rack, a firewall accessory (a 1U server similar to what we used to build at Porkus), a huge file cabinet and some office items. We already felt embarrassed at their generosity and didn't want to appear greedy. We left with the firewall, some binders and bins, and the magnificent server. And, yes, it works. It's sitting in my office now with its little green lights twinkling, driving my electric bill further into the stratosphere.

Before seeing the server ad, we'd been on our way to take to the dump the third lawn mower that T has blown up in four years. I am dangerous at the dump because we usually come in with a loaded trailer and also leave with a trailer loaded with different objects. Some wasteful fool had thrown away brand new 10 foot sections of that white wire closet shelving. The store tags were still on it. Soon, it will become shelves on my garage walls. (I restrained myself before I took a perfectly good set of wrought iron lawn furniture that needed a coat of paint.)

To celebrate, we went to the beach, probably for the last time this year since it closes tomorrow for the season.