The Shape of Things

I’ll be the first to admit that I am not a connoisseur when it comes to liquor, but I do occasionally enjoy a concoction or two.

I recently discovered Hendrick’s Gin at a small off-the-beaten-path Greek place downtown.  The bartender recommended it, so I took a chance, but I was a little surprised when it came with a cucumber rather than a lime.  Since I was at a Greek bar, I just figured it was a Greek thing and left it at that.  In fact I had a Hendrick’s gin and tonic at the Garage in Capitol hill and it came with a lime, so that reinforced the "Greek" line of thought.

Just today I went to the liquor store for some rum (Kelly was making toffee) and I spotted a bottle of Hendrick’s.  It piqued my interest, so when I got home I did some research.  Turns out that the producer of Hendrick’s actually recommends that it be served with a cucumber since it is infused with rose petals and cucumbers – I guess it brings out the flavor.  Whatever is happening, the end result is quite pleasant.  I know what you men out there are thinking – rose petals and cucumbers?  May sound foofy, but don’t knock it until you try it.

The last two nights I have averaged 13 mph commuting from Bellevue to Seattle. I don’t know why it has been wearing on me so much lately… really all you are doing is sitting down and from time to time moving your hand a bit to guide the car down the road. It could be that I haven’t seen the Sun outside of work in a while. Friday the sun rises at 7:54am and sets at 4:19pm. Darkness… rain… long commutes…

Would it be better to take the bus to work?? I know it will take longer and I have to transfer but at least I will be able to read or listen to a podcast or two. I have been thinking about cutting down on the cost of gas and just in general being more “green” by taking the bus 3 days a week. That would lower my commuting costs by 60%… hmmm not to bad!! In fact, yeah… I think I will take the bus tomorrow. We’ll see how that goes.

Alright folks… now I want some feedback from you. How is your commute? Do you drive? Bus? Bike? Walk??

My wife is an architect and is into “green” design which I whole-heartedly support. Today she sent me a blog post titled: Server Rooms and the Future of Humanism. It piqued my interested quite a bit mainly due to the fact that one, I am a human… and two that I implement and maintain servers for a living.

The purpose of the article is to raise awareness that servers are bad for the environment due to their stringent cooling requirements. The author (Geoff Manaugh) went so far as to say that a single server can do as much damage to the environment as an SUV. However, of the many remedies that Manaugh purposed, he (hopefully not knowingly) didn’t talk about “server virtualization” at all.

Since Manaugh didn’t raise the awareness of server virtualization, please allow me.

Wikipedia defines server virtualization as: “a method of partitioning a physical server computer into multiple servers that each has the appearance and capabilities of running on its own dedicated machine”.

So think of it like this: typically we think of SUVs as a bad thing for the environment. However SUVs would be at least somewhat better if they were always used to their maximum potential. In that I mean, whenever they are driven there are 8-9 people seated in them. Server virtualization is the same thing. Typically a physical server only uses 10%- 20% of its resources, so you could use a product like VMWare to setup 5-10 “virtual” servers to run on one “physical” server.

I know that I am a total computer geek, but I am really excited by VMWare and I want people to understand that computer software can be “green” too!!