A few weeks back I finalized the deal with the landlord for a new area for RC NUT

Basically it will allow the shop to be almost 5x as big, loads moire space with direct access from the car park (currently access is thru the inside corridor only) .. plus it will be big enough to have a nice Lounge Area, with TV / XBOX and Simulators .. good for chill-out .. people on the RC works do love to come to the shop and just chill .. this gives them an area to relax.

We will also have a proper office area and storage / packaging, on the other side of the shop we will have a proper workbench, with tools and chargers, to properly work on customer’s cars .. no more plunking it on top of the display counter

On the center of the shop will be the massive (when I say massive I mean probably 50+ feet) display and sales counter, these will be glass showing the models inside, in the back of it we will have the hopups and expensive small stuff, in the front .. the area where the customer is, we will have massive amounts of space for models, and large items.

Unfortunately this all costs loads of ££ .. so the plan with the landlord is for us to have it done by Christmas time .. we will do it in stages and then move when it’s done, this gives us loads of time to do it right (plus pay it as we do it) .. it will be great once it’s done .. the shop will be massive.

We are taking basically almost an entire side of the building, we will have our own car park and green area, on the green area in front of the shop I’m even contemplating building a small 1/18th Astro track (for electric) .. just for ambience and a bit of fun.

The only problem with all this is .. as those who have visited us recently have seen .. we are getting FULL, the shop is packed with stock .. I could use to have this done for next week .. but hey, one needs to be smart and not go crazy and get into debt, so I rather do it slower and pay it on the spot as we go.

Popularity: 78% [?]

So last night I am made aware that the RC NUT website was down, ok, I checked the webserver .. no response, so I sent out a e-mail to support and didn’t tough much of it .. surely it would be up in 5-10 minutes

30 minutes later and no show, I started to get annoyed, told support to get a grip on things and since it was very late, I went to bed.

This morning I woke up early, about 6:00 AM to check it out, site was up, but no DB connectivity .. I have my DB on a separate server (thats the proper way a H-Sphere install is done) .. so I ping the DB server .. no luck, I then checked the IP of the webserver and .. i’ll be dammed, I was on a US server, not a UK server, I ping the MySQL server by name, and sure enough, it was there, but also in the US.

I changed my config files and removed the old US ip, the site was fully up .. except the site was 13 days old !!

Now, for 99% of people out there, this is not a biggie, but for a online shop with sometimes dozens of orders in one day .. this is a catastrophe .. over 100 order records are lost and all since we do inventory by the website stock level, a messed up inventory as well.

Upon further investigation, I found out that Relio’s (webhost) server provider in the UK seems to have decided not to pay their bandwidth bill, and the bandwidth provided cut them off, in essence rendering companies like Relio’s UK servers .. dead (notice, it was not Relio that did not pay their bill, but their server provider, UK Easily)

So I called the bandwidth provider (Uk Grid … all those UK names, they confused the hell out of me today), explain to them our situation and after some negotiations, they agreed to open up traffic to the server for 3 hours to allow me (and others) to access and backup their data out, that was commendable .. those guys where true stars in doing that, after I got the database back, I restored it and the website was up to date … gosh was I relieved.

Why was my site 13 days old to start with ? .. well .. simple, Relio backups my data every day to another server, and every week or two they backup that server to another server in the US .. ok, at first glance, not a bad setup .. but this experience taught me .. not good enough, I need more.

So, since Relio’s UK servers where dead in the water .. and no access to the backup server was possible, they had to do an emergency recovery from the US backups.

I will give Relio credit, to restore every UK account in the US servers, move DNS, remap ip’s, etc .. etc in less than 6 hours .. thats not bad, they did a good job, but it goes to show, no matter how good your first Tier is .. somebody up the ladder is bound to mess it up !!.

Thats the problem with the Web Hosting market these days, too many idiots working on it, we put out livelihoods in the hands of people who later turn around and mess it up for you .. and does not matter how big or small the company is, your are always at risk.

What is the solution ? well, nothing below 50K of hardware and a few K’s a month in fees, so sometimes .. you just have to pay up and shut up.

Thats what I am doing next, first I am going to hire a local hosting company (when I mean local, I mean 3 streets over), I feel the threat of a 300lbs+ guys walking into the office and breaking your nose is a good incentive to make sure they dont screw with you .. that can only happen if they are local, second, I am going VPS (Virtuozzo) .. my idea is to find a setup I can create a Virtuozzo Failover Cluster with a backup residing off-site.. third, I am setting up a mirror of all this on a VPS server in the US, with my DNS residing also offsite (easily re-routable) so if something happens to RIPE itself (The IP consortium of Europe) .. I can still be up, fourth … dont know fourth yet .. but it’s sure to pop up while we doing this.

Overboard, overblown, over-budget ? .. of course .. but piece of mind, i’ve been in this business for 10 years .. I have seen some huge companies working with a setup that would make anybody cringe, promises of redundancy are usually all hogwash, backups many times are simply not practical, yes, they will back your data, they just cant extract it back, customers are at huge risks all the time of loosing all their data, and for some, thats instant bankruptcy, I have try to give away control on how my data is stored and managed, but it’s proven once again, if I want it right, I have to do it myself.

Popularity: 100% [?]

Today my Dad passed away.

Everything I am, good or bad, I owe to the man who’s life ended today, he was my biggest hero and my fiercest foe.

My Dad was not an easy man to deal with on his younger days, he was extremely stern and constantly working (and making sure I worked just as hard), this is a man who made me work on his restaurant washing dishes at the age of 6, so I could earn my movie ticket for Sunday .. nothing was a free pass when it came to him, if you want something in life .. you have to earn it!

The lessons I learn from him have been the biggest gift anybody has ever given me, he taught me to be ruthless in business, while being kind to even your most hated competitor, a contradiction it took me 30 years to understand, he was indeed the iron fist with the heart of gold, a pot of contradictions, who where summarized by one of the most loved people I ever known ..

I always found amazing, how someone who irritated me so much at times, was never the subject of a bad comment, everybody loved Joao .. he was a man’s man, and woman’s subject of affection.

I was always the subject of his focus, he pushed me harder than anybody else, of course it was not until adulthood I understood why he did it, and how much I meant to him, but the good thing is, I am a lucky person, I got to admire my father and even become good friends with him later in life, he in return got to see his son grow to everything he ever wanted (even so I think even if I ended up a deadbeat con, he would have still been proud of me).

There are no missing words between me and my dad, I just wish that there had been more time for him to enjoy life, 59 is too young for one to go, he will be missed by many, especially me.

Rest in peace Dad .. hopefully you are in a better place now.

Popularity: 70% [?]

My new wheels have finally arrived yesterday, it took me and Paul Harvey over 1 hour to mount them, because the car was on blocks, it was very hard to use those small jacks to prop it up, especially on the last wheel, it was too close to the curb to use the jack, so about 5-6 us us had to lift the car up and bounce it 1-2 foot to the right so a jack could fit

In the end, we got them all mounted, and they look great.

I have locking nuts on them now, I’m hoping this time they will stay safe .. I think they look real nice

Popularity: 75% [?]

Last Monday I went out for a drink .. or two .. or twenty, with Paul, Sue, Ben & Mrs Beanhead.

Anyway, I ended up wasted (so wasted I cannot still recollect what happen between 5:00PM & Tuesday Morning), but anyway, on Tuesday morning I realized I lost my glasses.

I asked the wife, she had no clue, so I tough .. I must have left them at the pub .. unfortunately for me, I’m told we went to 3 pubs .. I only remember two .. shit, wonder if I’m still allowed at the 3rd one .. anyway, since Tuesday, I have been blind with no glasses, I can see near, but far is all a blur .. quite a problem to drive, luckily my car is on blocks (ain’t that grand), so I’m not doing much driving these days.

Until tonight .. I’m about to go downstairs, when I look on top of the banister and .. there they are .. my glasses .. missing one of the lenses .. dang .. so thats what the girls where hiding from me earlier, they had been playing with them, and manage to loose one of the lens in the process.

So I told the wife, and she reply’s “hooo.. yes, I remember taking them off you on Monday night and putting them next to the radiator…“

Stupid woman … I could have used that info 4 days ago !!!

Well, I’m still blind .. but only on one eye .. tomorrow I’ll scour for the missing lens.

Popularity: 66% [?]

Yes, I got my TOMTOM Nicked a month or so back, Yes, I got my Wheels Nicked last week, but dammit, if I did not had bad luck, I would have no luck at all .. the new wheels arrived yesterday .. except I ordered white rims, and I got Black !!!

SOB .. They sent me the wrong damn wheels .. I sent them back today, the supplier promised they would ship the correct ones out today for delivery tomorrow .. I doubt it .. damn Van will be on blocks until the Second Coming …

Popularity: 57% [?]

A few weeks back I was trying to decide on a new paint scheme for the Summer Series, in the end I went with my regular yellow/red/blue with white accents scheme, just a little different design, this is the sketch I made of it:

Well, I then went ahead and got me a Aztek A470 airbrush, I decided to use my petrol powered air compressor to do the painting, that proved to be the wrong choice, the compressor is great for trackside when I need to remove dirt and stuff from the car, but it does not have a “smooth” air flow for an Airbrush (plus is a bit too powerful, even on the lowest setting) .. so when I was doing some of the detail, it did too much spatter .. thats ok, I’m going to buy a proper airbrush compressor for the next one.

I used masking tape and a custom made stencil for the RC NUT .. this is how it looked after it was all applied

Two weeks later, a few minutes here and there and it’s finally done, I love it, I do wish I had used a pearl white for the RC NUT instead of silver, but in the sun, the silver does whine nice.

It was fun, allot of work, but fun, not too sure on the Faskmask liquid mask I used .. it felt rubbery at times, the Pactra colors on the other hand are beautiful, I backed it all with some Tamiya rattle can silver, just to protect the Pactra paint from Nitro Fuel, I do have some sealant from Pactra, but lets see how this works.

Popularity: 75% [?]