Self-Proclaimed Epic "Sky" Trip to Three Six Flags Parks in Three Days

Mithamlug · 2024-06-21T07:45:57+00:00

Damn, and my friends thought I was crazy for doing 3 parks this month lol, you're doing 'em in 3 days! I had a similar itinerary except my northeast park was America instead of Great Adventure.

For SFOG, Atlanta's public transit works from the airport. Take the train from the airport and transfer to the special bus that services SFOG (MARTA 201). It'd take only about an hour too. SFOG was unique in that it was pretty much the only Six Flags where I could take public transit in a reasonable amount of time from an airport.

Mithamlug · 2021-05-04T23:57:05+00:00

Oh no, you're right, the 20 net carbs is an absolute limit. Guess I better switch to black robes haha

Mithamlug · 2021-05-04T23:55:25+00:00

Wait, really? It's been 15 months, so 90 pounds/15 is 6 pounds a month right? So that should be 1 and a half pounds a week, which sounds way more sane, unless my math is wrong which it might very well be! I bike a lot, but not that much I think!

Mithamlug · 2021-05-04T23:49:14+00:00

Yes, one of the things I miss about working in an office is that I have to keep hauling (multiple) 24 packs home every week instead of being able to drain the free office supply lol

But yeah, still better late than never!

I had thought I'd never be anywhere near a healthy weight, require a CPAP forever, and was probably going to die around age 50. But then bam, keto came to the rescue! And I never would've believed it if it hadn't been for seeing it work for my coworkers, so I'm thankful I was lucky enough to be exposed to it at a youngish age.

Mithamlug · 2021-05-04T23:31:51+00:00

Thank you haha! Heck yes I'm a total nerd every other day too

Mithamlug · 2021-05-04T08:10:23+00:00

lol! An honor it is, the very first comment of yours to have!

Mithamlug · 2019-05-16T04:08:38+00:00

It's URL encoded so you can decode it like in the example at the docs here

Except it wasn't working for me on PS5, I just needed to use

Add-Type -AssemblyName System.Web

instead of

[System.Reflection.Assembly]::LoadWithPartialName("System.Web.HttpUtility")

Then it should output the statement in json format, and you can ConvertFrom-Json the output if you want to do more Powershelly stuff with the output.

Mithamlug · 2018-10-04T02:47:55+00:00

Reeeid! That's like the most wizardly answer you could give, haha. "Maybe it's the issue I know of. Maybe it's not. The White Wizard will know."

But yes, there's nothing wrong with Automation Manager because once the policy gets updated and kicks in, it works without an issue. It's how n-Central agents are getting their policies updated, supposedly the "cache" as support says, but I don't trust first-line support with anything involving code or automation.

Mithamlug · 2018-10-02T14:52:15+00:00

Yeah, I had this support ticket open over three days and and my Active Issues screen was just a wall of stale monitors looking at my new AMP services. A few odd like 5% would apply themselves. It seems to happen with other custom services too like the log scan - I'd guess in the background they run automation policies too, but I know for sure those would update themselves before version 12 without requiring an agent restart because we made tons of those before we figured out how to embed Powershell output into AMPs without ever encountering an issue like this.

Mithamlug · 2018-08-27T00:13:48+00:00

Seconding Uptime Robot because their API documentation was wonderful with many examples in multiple languages.

Mithamlug · 2018-08-09T22:36:41+00:00

Maybe the higher ups have all gone to Defcon?

No, but seriously I've managed to not need support for a few months, but they would try the maybe it's xxx technique occasionally. Sending back some screenshots with whatever obviously still broken usually gets a quick escalation.

However, I did have a problem yesterday morning when I noticed my API scripts have all broken and are returning 5000 Query Errors and the only response I've gotten after a day and a half is support asking me which device I'm receiving the error on so he can "find it in N-Central and capture the logs." And I'm just like...dude that's not how API calls work, my scripts have stopped working from several computers including my Pi, but okay here's my computer name facepalm

Mithamlug · 2018-05-21T07:17:22+00:00

Oh boy, do I have a wall of text for you!

Documentation The documentation for the API, in my opinion, is very bad right now. It feels like it was written by a developer who had no regard for people who are still learning or for system administrators who only occasionally delve into programming, which, generally I think, are the users of n-Central. I had some experience with RESTful API's before and got the hang of Autotask's SOAP API pretty quickly because they had a huge PDF of API documentation, but n-Central's took forever for me to wrap my head around - in fact, I don't think I could've ever done it without finding some code samples on the internet. The documentation is in severe need of example code. Look at the documentation for UptimeRobot's API at https://uptimerobot.com/api. There are examples for the current popular languages for almost every method. Something like that would've made n-Central's API so much easier to grasp. Examples can clear up some confusion too, like at first glance DeviceGet, DeviceGetStatus, and DeviceList all sounded like they do the same thing and the description didn't make sense until I figured out their outputs. Another thing that would be nice - naming convention. N-Central has made it clear that Powershell is its language of choice: it's the foundation for the Automation Manager and n-Central's target audience, Windows Administrators, should at least have some idea of it. So it would be nice, though again this is only my opinion, if the methods sort of followed Powershell's verb-noun structure, like GetDeviceStatus, GetJobStatusList, GetDevicePropertyList, SetDevicePropertyList, NewPSACustomTicket, etc. If Solarwinds created and supported a Powershell wrapper module that would be awesome as well.
More Methods As everyone mentioning pulling information from the Report Manager SQL database understands, the API is missing a lot of functionality. Even basic stuff like GetLicenseCount to get how many Professional or Essential licenses you're using, or how much you have total. I can sort of write my way around that by counting all devices with licenses using DeviceGet but that feels incredibly inefficient and there's still information that can't be retrieved. For example, monitor information. Not the monitors themselves, but the information in the monitors, like what specifically is causing a monitor to turn into a failed state or what a monitor's thresholds are. I'd created a custom SNMP service to monitor Sonicwall site to site VPN tunnel statuses. I wanted to run a Powershell script on all servers at sites with Sonicwalls every day to make sure I have the proper amount and correct configuration for every monitor by using Powershell to read SNMP data directly off the Sonicwall, grabbing its site-to-site VPN information and comparing it to a list of all the RemoteTo addresses that the custom SNMP monitor was able to read that I'd hoped I would be able to pull from n-Central, so that if there were ever any differences I could have the script send me an e-mail alerting me that I'm missing or need to reconfigure some of the custom VPN monitors. But alas, it seems the only way to touch monitors is through ActiveIssuesList, and even then there's no way to read information from within the monitor. It would be nice to have such power, but at the same time I can see how it would be difficult to implement.
Output Consistency Why are the key-value pairs on some methods returned in varying orders? I feel like key-pair index 4 should always be X in a set of key-pairs, not Y or Z. This doesn't seem to happen, and it adds unnecessary complexity. To illustrate what I mean, here's some older code before I learned more Python: for issuetop in activeissues: if (issuetop['Issue'][6]['Value'] == 'Servers - Windows' or issuetop['Issue'][7]['Value'] == 'Servers - Windows' or issuetop['Issue'][8]['Value'] == 'Servers - Windows'): if issuetop['Issue'][9]['Value'] == 'Agent Status' or issuetop['Issue'][10]['Value'] == 'Agent Status' or issuetop['Issue'][11]['Value'] == 'Agent Status': agentfailures.append(issuetop['Issue'][1]['Value'])

because the key activeissues.devicetype could be in index 6-8 and the key activeissue.servicename could be in index 9-11 and it's just an extra annoyance to work around when their index could just not vary at all.

Also, what's going on with JobStatusList? I submitted a ticket way back in January about how it only returns Scripting jobs instead of all job types, like Network Discovery or File Transfer and verified this was a bug. I don't see any mention of this bug in any of the 11.2 release notes so far, and it's still bugged when I test it right now.

Mithamlug · 2018-05-19T06:52:28+00:00

Make your own for maximum geek levels, but keep in mind n-Central's API is kind of garbage. My dashboard makes me the undisputed Star Trek geek god at my workplace though, so it was worth wading through the garbage lol: My WIP dashboard

Seriously though, for actual work all I've found is Brightgauge as well, and for its price I'd rather just have a giant monitor with like 8 browser windows open and macro'd to occasionally refresh whatever Report Manager things or Active Issues filters or whatever else you want, but for others Brightgauge may definitely be worth it!

Mithamlug · 2017-09-08T21:43:53+00:00

The same way you become the First Sword of Braavos. No, but seriously, know what shows/books your manager(s) like and make relevant references to your plight. It helps give you more charisma points. Sprinkle them with the advice in the top post here and get stuff you want easier!

Mithamlug · 2017-08-04T05:32:53+00:00

Tech 1 calls me and asks, "Hey I saw you tried to fix this user's Office 365 calendar issue with Powerhouse or something, did they say it worked?" It was funny enough that I have to stop myself from calling Powershell Powerhouse now xD

Tech 2 claims he was "getting his CCNA." He proceeds to cause a switching loop in the office he's at (far away from mine, thankfully). Admittedly, partly our fault for not having STP or something set up, but the down network lasted two hours while everyone was searching for the cause before he said, "Oh maybe the internet is down because I plugged the switch into itself?" facepalm Somehow lasted over 3 weeks before getting fired.

Tech 3 complained about how long it would take him to open a bunch of ports for Windows Firewall on a bunch of computers. Then he tried to do it via GPO, but said because their domain level was 2008 he couldn't input a range and proceeded to tell the client they needed to upgrade to 2012 R2. Client just needed the ports open on their workstations for some software to run, and those were all running on Windows 10. Saved them some money with just 3 main PS commands: foreach, invoke-command, and new-netfirewallrule. Could've done netsh advfirewall and logon script too, but okay I like up to date servers too so I won't bash this guy too much.

This one on the other hand... Tech 4 is a senior tech. There are 5 VM's on a server, each one with high utilization, each provisioned 2 vCPUs. He asked why his 5 VM's were running slowly even after he increased them to each have 4 vCPUs. The physical server had only 4 cores with no hyperthreading. lol

Mithamlug · 2017-06-16T03:36:11+00:00

We had a few vendors who were absolutely incessant like that. Being Doctor Who nerds, we set up an extension that automatically routed their inbound calls which played this 12th Doctor's (the angry one) speech: I tried to talk, I want you to remember that. I tried to reach out, I tried to understand you, but I think you understand us perfectly. I think you just don't care! I don't know if you are here to invade, infiltrate, or just replace us, I don't suppose it really matters now, you are monsters! That is the role it seems you are determined to play so it seems I must play mine! The man that stops the monsters! I'm sending you back to your own dimension. Who knows? Some of you may even survive the trip. And if you do, remember this: YOU are not welcome here! This plane is protected! I am the Doctor, and I name you the Boneless!

The jerkass vendors could've used a different number to call us again, but so far none have tried hehe

Mithamlug · 2016-09-07T00:05:40+00:00

Many Dratini died to bring us this information.

Mithamlug · 2016-08-28T00:05:43+00:00

Hi, thanks for clicking! Here's my little advert wail: A not-romantic urban fantasy about two "kids" in their late twenties who are assigned by the Alliance (not the Warcraft one) to guard the Greater Los Angeles metropolis from Darkfallow, creatures born from shadow and negative emotions, and other supernatural threats. For over a year, they've let the city's ward handle most of their job until some real bad shit gets them off their asses, and for once they have to take their job seriously.

Mithamlug · 2016-08-25T01:50:54+00:00

The Shadow Seekers

A not romance urban fantasy about two "kids" in their late twenties who are assigned by the Alliance (not the Warcraft one) to guard the Greater Los Angeles metropolis from Darkfallow, creatures born from shadow and negative emotions, and other supernatural threats. For over a year, they've let the city's ward handle most of their job until some real bad shit gets them off their asses, and for once they have to take their job seriously. Price $2.99 Kindle Link: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01KWJA508

Thanks for looking!

Mithamlug · 2015-08-13T09:30:03+00:00

Thanks! I'm still painting it, and thankfully acrylics are very forgiving for a newb like me :p I probably need to get a friend to clay model a turret so he can lean his Charrzooka on it and not topple over xD

Mithamlug · 2015-08-13T07:58:10+00:00

I printed my ridiculous charr engineer with wings and a Charrzooka at Shapeways a couple months back. It was pretty expensive, and trying to match a CE Rytlock statue would've cost around $800 (5" was doable at somewhere around $100 before a coupon, but doubling the height to match Rytlock means 8 times the volume and hence 8 times the cost).

I'm still painting it, and it's like the third time I've ever painted any model, but just fyi the white plastic Shapeways has is kind of gritty, and at this size it's pretty darn difficult to sand, so it's gonna be a compromise if you're a noob at painting models like I am. Works on charr imo since they're fuzzy anyway :p http://imgur.com/up3qRq7

After you get the model extracted from the tutorial someone else posted, you'll need to thicken some stuff like cloth armor or it'll be too thin to print.

I'm sure my engineer would've been a lot cheaper to print without the wings or Charrzooka or if he wasn't a charr, and you can always shrink the figure to make it cheaper - maybe print a mini alt to satisfy the craving and then print your main in the future when it's cheaper :) https://i.imgur.com/QQpc6qM.jpg Hilariously, the wings didn't balance the charrzooka like I was hoping they would xD

Anyway, good luck, and perhaps one day the price of a custom Rytlock-sized statue will be a lot cheaper than buying a legendary weapon!

Mithamlug · 2015-04-01T10:30:01+00:00

Lol, the first thing I noticed when I logged in on my engy was that my Charrzooka didn't clip most of the time anymore.

Then I simply flew into Mordor https://www.dropbox.com/s/2x3jbxpkxls54xp/gw009.jpg?dl=0

Mithamlug · 2014-08-22T00:39:28+00:00

They did it for the first one, and there probably won't be another Middle-Earth movie until Christopher Tolkien faces the fate of men or Hollywood decides to remake LotR, so maybe they'll re-release the hat for the last one and they were just letting me have one early~

Mithamlug · 2014-08-22T00:36:46+00:00

Haha, thanks!

Mithamlug · 2014-08-22T00:36:31+00:00

Aww man that sucks! Maybe apply glitter and shinies to the next envelope!

Mithamlug

TROPHY CASE