One of those days
While not as odd as the last day I posted yesterday had it's own flavor:
I get up go the class TA for as normal come back into lab and get asked by one of the fellow grad students if I can retrieve some archived raw data that was we had to backup because the owners of the computer it was on was clearing out all the data. So I zip compressed it and stored the zip file on our secure data server (since I'm out lab's computer person and I am basically the only person with admin privileges besides our boss. We had to ZIP the files becuase we had 10GB of data and all our other options would have locked up the computer it was on for a few hours (which the owner didn't want). So we zipped it down to ~4GB (this was back in Jan). So the problem of this hits yesterday when I try and retrieve this data the archive is corrupted ... and after a few hours of trying to force it to open and hoping for a stroke of luck that somehow the original ZIP was not corrupted or deleted (it was deleted as was the original data) I found out that the problem was with the windows compression software if the ZIP created goes over 4GB which ours did by 100MB the ZIP file becomes corrupted with no error message from windows. My boss doesn't know yet so that's going to be fun.
But i'm not done yet ... Also this day is the drop day for the class I TA for so the coordinator is e-mailing the graders like myself to rush grade certain students to tell them their grade so they can decide to drop or not. I was originally planning on grading but the computer data thing got in the way. BTW the data was ~11 people's work for 1+ years on the computer so it's a major loss.
So after I get home relax a bit and then go out to a labmate's belated b-day celebration at Boltini Lounge (look it up if you want to see it). So we all get there 5 of us crowded around a small table designed for 4 close friends knowing that there is a 6th on the way but the place is packed as usual. Waitress comes takes our orders .. come back give us all our drinks and as she is pulling her hand out of the maze of beer and martini glasses she knocks one over ... oops ... right into my lap (and I'm wearing tan colored khakis at the time). So the bad news is the upper half of my pants are drenched in alcoholic beverage 5 minutes into the evening before I can find a nice girl to make eye contact with. Good news I end up with 2 free drinks and a free appetizer unasked or demanded. So I end up only paying for the dessert I ordered ($6.00 plus tip). Turns out the waitress was actually a manager there but she seemed a bit flustered most of the night. So i was surprised when I found out she was a manager.
I get up go the class TA for as normal come back into lab and get asked by one of the fellow grad students if I can retrieve some archived raw data that was we had to backup because the owners of the computer it was on was clearing out all the data. So I zip compressed it and stored the zip file on our secure data server (since I'm out lab's computer person and I am basically the only person with admin privileges besides our boss. We had to ZIP the files becuase we had 10GB of data and all our other options would have locked up the computer it was on for a few hours (which the owner didn't want). So we zipped it down to ~4GB (this was back in Jan). So the problem of this hits yesterday when I try and retrieve this data the archive is corrupted ... and after a few hours of trying to force it to open and hoping for a stroke of luck that somehow the original ZIP was not corrupted or deleted (it was deleted as was the original data) I found out that the problem was with the windows compression software if the ZIP created goes over 4GB which ours did by 100MB the ZIP file becomes corrupted with no error message from windows. My boss doesn't know yet so that's going to be fun.
But i'm not done yet ... Also this day is the drop day for the class I TA for so the coordinator is e-mailing the graders like myself to rush grade certain students to tell them their grade so they can decide to drop or not. I was originally planning on grading but the computer data thing got in the way. BTW the data was ~11 people's work for 1+ years on the computer so it's a major loss.
So after I get home relax a bit and then go out to a labmate's belated b-day celebration at Boltini Lounge (look it up if you want to see it). So we all get there 5 of us crowded around a small table designed for 4 close friends knowing that there is a 6th on the way but the place is packed as usual. Waitress comes takes our orders .. come back give us all our drinks and as she is pulling her hand out of the maze of beer and martini glasses she knocks one over ... oops ... right into my lap (and I'm wearing tan colored khakis at the time). So the bad news is the upper half of my pants are drenched in alcoholic beverage 5 minutes into the evening before I can find a nice girl to make eye contact with. Good news I end up with 2 free drinks and a free appetizer unasked or demanded. So I end up only paying for the dessert I ordered ($6.00 plus tip). Turns out the waitress was actually a manager there but she seemed a bit flustered most of the night. So i was surprised when I found out she was a manager.