Found this happy fellow by our window.  A very pretty spider.  Don't kid yourself, it's bite is not going to feel good.

http://mdc.mo.gov/discover-nature/field-guide/black-and-yellow-garden-spider 

   Breaking ground on a horse pasture that hasn't been plowed in 26 years.

>

I finally found a plow for my Ford 4000 tractor, I'll take pictures once I have it hooked up and working...

EX Go 4x4

Some people like horses, my horse is made of iron (figuratively).  This thing is a lot of fun to drive around, goes about 30mph (on flat even ground) and seems to climb about anything.  18hp Honda, 2 cylinder, 4stroke engine, 75 hours on it, can tow 1500 pounds, has a receiver for a hitch on the front and back, I bought a winch at harbor freight for it.

Wow !

>

   The boyz are back in town !

1. EJ 3rd Grade
2. TJ 2nd Grade
3. AJ Kindergarten

Strength in Numbers.

This is the bugger that got into my trash.

Well a 2nd story deck without stairs is called a balcony.  We wanted a deck and so we started putting in stairs, nice wide ones, 4 feet wide at the top, going to a 4' x 5' landing, then turning, last set of stairs is 5' wide.

We are using "forever" wood.  I call it fake wood.  But I like it, I don't get splinters, I never have to nail pops, I have have to stain / seal it.  I've had one at my mother-in-laws house for about 5 years and it definetly is worth the extra cost.  I did not beleive in them, but the resuls are great.

Currently we only put the steps onto the deck, we will be rebuilding and widening the rest of the deck this fall.

Pictures:

changing the port number for a sql server cluster should be a pretty straight forward task.  Most Clustered sql servers will be mission critical, hence the clustering; this also means it will be properly secured behind a firewall.  This means you will need to run the SQL Server instance on a static port.  In some instances you can not choose the port that SQL chooses for you.  In these instances you will need to change the port number for SQL Server.

There are several resources out there on how to do this (why Microsoft didn't make choosing this as part of the install, or an option in cluster manager ), but all of them referenced using a command line program "Cluster Res", unfortunately this errors out on Windows 2008 R2 and SQL 2008 (r2 as well), with a "can not find the file specified".

For Windows 2008 R2 and SQL 2008 you need to run "Cluster . Resource" from the command line.

The basic directions are:

1.  Take the SQL Server instance off line.

2.  cluster . resource "SQL Server (<InstanceName>)" /removecheckpoints:"HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Microsoft SQL Server\MSSQL.x\MSSQLSERVER"

3.  Open SQL Server Configuration Manager (ensure to "Run as Administrator"), Make the appropriate changes.

4.  cluster . resource "SQL Server (<InstanceName>)" /addcheckpoints:"HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Microsoft SQL Server\MSSQL.x\MSSQLSERVER"

5.  Bring the SQL Server Instance back on line

6.  Verify in the sql server error log that the instance is using the correct port.

Easy stuff, that Microsoft should have made easier.

How to change SQL Server parameters in a clustered environment when SQL Server is not online (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/953504)

http://sqlserverpedia.com/blog/sql-server-bloggers/sql-server-configuration-time-bombs/

The sql server error log, starting with sql 2005 +, began giving us some very descriptive reasons for the login failure. This detailed reason was not always returned to the client for security reasons, but the SQL DBA could look in the error log and get more information on the error.

DBA's are never satisfied as the more information is enough to help, but not completely. Recently we started receiving the login state 16 on a TFS (Team Foundation Server) SQL Server. State 16 means that incoming user does not have permission to log into the target database. Damn, it'd be nice if the error message would tell you the target database it was trying to login to !

Out of desperation we promoted the login to a sysadmin. The login state 16 error continued.

This is when we clued in that the target database must just not exist. Sure enough a comparison with our other TFS SQL instances showed a missing database.

Once we restored that missing database, the error went away. Frustruating to troubleshoot this particular login state, when if the error message were more clear (by including the name of the target database) we could have fixed this in 10 minutes. The TFS administrator was clue-less, and was unable to determine that there was even an error happenning, or what service was generating the error. We never did resolve that. So remember state 16 may not just be permissions to a database, it may be a missing database.

Every few days I have a flock of Turkeys come through the property, usually they are pretty far back, but recently they have been really close, if they come this close to the house after Sept 15th, one or two of them will be in the freezer...