So it has been several months since my last blog entry. And this one is going to ramble a bit after a long day of vigilantly overseeing many SQL Servers come back up after a hard shutdown in the middle of the night when UPSs and generators failed when one uncontrollable SPF (single point of failure) actually failed.

I moved this weekend in Pensacola, Florida. I moved 3 miles up the road. All of our belongings were placed load by load in an open trailer and carted to the new place. We were done before the rain of Hurricane Gustav hit. I watched as the house we were in emptied two years worth of accumulation.  I also had to stop several times at the new house to deal with disk space issues because I also had the fortune of being on call due to...well...that is another rambling blog entry.  

During the move, I kept stopping to watch our spider. I say it is "our" spider, but since I was the only one who did not want to kill it violently, I should call it my spider. It was and at the time of this writing still is an orb weaver or the argiope variety. It looks exactly like the pictures in the following link and is just as ominous. I am sure it could take down a wily raccoon.

http://home.att.net/~larvalbugrex/argiope.html

This particular spider had laid two eggs in the two weeks prior to the move. Again, like large Southern pecans, just like the pictures. It built a brand new large web every evening. I would check it out every morning with amazement. I had hoped against all odds that the spiderlings would hatch just before our departure or shortly thereafter. I do not know why. I just could not bring myself to kill something so beautiful that posed no direct harm. It is kind of like snakes...but again...another blog.

So, in my mind, knowing that all of my servers came back online with only 1 suspect DB out of 1400, I am thinking that this spiders eggs after two days have hatched and have spun their kiting webs to flutter off by the thousands to new places in the woods out back.

Hope.....

I know that will not be the case. I know that the landlord will most likely blow torch them all. I know that a BB gun or target archery set would be required to extinguish this beast and its prodigy. But I also knew, while waiting for the servers to come back online today (the SAN to fire up clean and SQL recovery of each individual database) that we would be dealing with corruption, suspect databases, backups that were incomplete, stress, "DB HELL". But that did not happen. All was good. Everything was fine.

So I will check the web tomorrow, the long-lived yellow bodied survivor with its two large eggs, before my landlord arrives with a blow torch to see if the hurricane wind has blown them to safe haven.