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According to Wikipedia, the precise origin of the phrase, “There are no atheists in foxholes” is unknown. Although conventional belief says that it originated during World War II, it may have also originated from DBAs working late on Sunday nights, having 6-year-old database servers rebooted because they… Get This… Have been UP AND RUNNING for too long. There was a lot of praying going on in the office. And everything came back up, just like it should.

Special Thanks to Super Sun SysAdmin Jodey “D’Lo” Hogeland, who came in to the office tonight to bounce the server.

Last week I was in Philadelphia for our annual Disaster Recovery Testing. It’s pretty much a marathon session of restoring systems. It went well, but after about 48 hours of sleep deprivation, you reach a point where anything that anyone else says is funny. So last week’s humor revolved around Celebrity Jeopardy Videos, The Barry Gibbs Talk Show, and lots of videos from YouTube. But by far, the funniest thing was not shared until this morning.

The day before our testing started, I toured Independence Hall with a couple of other guys. That’s a really inspirational place to go. If you ever have a chance to see the place where the most important documents in our nation’s history were signed, do it! Here’s a photo of our tour guide:

After that, we toured the Liberty Bell.

Now, I saw the Liberty Bell last year. However, we were rushing through to see it before the museum closed. This year we had more time, and I really got to explore the exhibits. One of the neatest things to see was the casting of the inscription on the Liberty Bell. Because they prevent people from touching the bell, they made a casting of the words, making it much easier to read, and giving you the chance to touch it as well. I thought it would be really cool to get a closeup of me touching the words, ‘Proclaim Liberty’. So I took this photo:

If you’re easily offended, then please skip the rest of this post.

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During our Disaster Recovery downtimes, there was some time to surf the web. I found one of my favorite SNL clips:

The quality’s pretty bad, but who can pass on Jesse Jackson reading Green Eggs and Ham?

Compared to my co-worker Kevin’s experience, my trip to Philly has been a breeze.

If you see this, I’ve successfully blogged from an airplane in Atlanta.

Kevin Eats The Jalapeno Remix – It’s a smaller file (only 4MB), and with some background music.

A few weeks ago, co-worker Kelvin introduced us to an ‘off-the-menu’ item at a local Mexican restaurant – The “chile-toreales” (or something like that – translated, it supposedly means “Hair of the Bull”) is a simple dish – a grilled jalapeno pepper. After watching co-worker Jodey have 2 near-death experiences, and Kelvin break into an sweat the moment it entered his mouth, I tried it myself.

I have never eaten anything hotter, in my life. Period.

Fast-forward to yesterday. One of my co-workers, Scott, bet another one, Kevin, that if he ate one, he’d buy his lunch. Kevin accepted, and I brought my digital camera along for documentation.

Warning: These video files are LARGE. Don’t even try to view them on dial-up.

Video 1 – Before the meal, Kevin was very confident.

Video 2 – Kevin meets the bull.

Go to your local mexican restaurant , and try it for yourself.

(Originally posted by my co-worker, Jodey)

Just when I though the trip was looking up ( I only had one night left) I was foolish enough to think nothing else could possibly happen.

After getting out of class yesterday afternoon I rounded the corner to where my hotel is and to my suprise found my self in the middle of a gang fight. Now who am I to argue about such wonderful seats to one of Atlanta’s most prized attractions? If you were thinking of taking your family to Six Flags or White Water, YOU ARE MISSING OUT!

To my left; about 50 people all in red ball caps and red bandanas…..
To my right; about 50 people all in blue hats and blue bandanas……

If I had to pick I would say the red teams uniforms looked better…. So I picked them to win…

They were all shouting words that seemed foreign to me, then I realized it was because our local schools systems have not started the ebonics language courses as of yet. So I immediately called Brian and Scott to aid in interpretation….

This was all “goin’ down yo’ ” right in front of my hotel’s front door so I couldn’t even get in. I also managed to take a couple of shots with my cell camera and will probably be up for some kind of journalists award this year.

Despite the best efforts of both sides the “Bad boyz” aka ATLPD came bustin’ in and put da’ smack down on da’ showdown!

All in all — another great day in ATL — west side!! possie up!!!

(Brian’s Note: This was posted by my co-worker, Jodey.)

Did you say Atlanta??? I think you meant “Hellanta”. I am in a hotel right smack in the middle of the Atlanta Underground (aka in da’ ghetto)… if you have never been here (this is my first time) it is aweful!!! There are bums lying all
over the sidewalks right outside my hotel and along the streets.

It costs me $11 a day to park and the air in my hotel room doesn’t work.

To make things even more grand, I was stuck in the hotel elevator for 30 mins
yesterday and this morning I saw a homeless man with dementia get in a fight with the ATL PD.

Here is a quick list of my happenings:

1. I got here Sunday night around 11pm local. Let’s just say midnight in the southwest portion of downtown Atlanta is not nice. (note: do not stop for red
lights, take the risk of ticket). Plus the asian kid on the street corner IS NOT selling fortune cookies.

2. Upon arrival in the $11 a day parking deck I one shoe came off do to sticking to the floor of the elevator (probably due to the extreme amount of human waste and spilled booze on the floor).

3. Hotel has no internet access. Tried to move to Nicer hotel for a cheaper rate and the HoJo said that they would charge me $600 for cancelling a weeks
booking. So I had to stay in the ghetto and my mother cried.

4. They are doing midnight construction work on a MARTA facility right outside my room from 12am-4am. Jackhammers and dump trucks included. However,
Jimmy Hoffas body relocation could be a possibility.

5. Stuck in HoJo elevator on 11th floor for 30mins. The alarm and call buttons did not work. We also could not get a cell reception to call anyone. When it finally went up the guy with me got off on 13 and I was going to 14. His statement to me was this, “stomp three times real loud if you don’t make it.”

6. Saw a bum dressed as captain kangaroo get in an argument with the ATL PD and the law one. He crossed the street in front of the “bad boyz” cruiser and they got out. Let’s just put it in Ralph’s words; the bum “Toted an a$$ whoopin”.

7. Watched a man bath in the public fountain using a gallon water jug as a shower head. I was wondering why the reflecting pools had that oil spill rainbow look, now I know.

8. There are approximately 4 million pigeons in Atlanta. Approximately 3.7 million live on the ledge outside my room window.

Oh yeah — There is also a guy in my class that invented Unix and has been in IT and Telecom since before I was born. Every major company in the US wants to hire him and he drives a volvo.

With that said — This guy is one the most anoying humans on the face of the planet.

Last week, a co-worker here decorated his cube for Christmas. This is the shot before he finished.

I’ll let you look at the finished project on his blog: CubeLights. Needless to say, it was impressive.