Good gig

That was the best gig I’ve done in quite a while.

We went from a steaming pile of hardware, plus chaos and demoralized users on Wed … to an in-place evangelist with radically improved code maxing out the cluster I built, and boss-man asking how my company structures “longer term” consulting relationships. Things were broken, and now they’re not. I’ve heard the words before, but things like “I’ve never met anyone with quite as broad an expertise as you,” and “you did in three days what we failed to do in a year,” still tickle. A lot.

I’m exhausted, but I feel like I finally got to do whatever it is that I’m good at. My brain feels tired in the same way that my muscles do after a solid workout. I got to use not only technical skill, but also an iota of social and political know-how to get stuff done. Not only did we leave with success, but we left happy.

The project even supports some sw33t science! The Calypso project is measuring the “energy budget” of the earth. They have four instruments on two satellites, measuring inbound and outbound energy from the earth and sun, with a pixel size around 100 square km, and an accuracy of around 1%. They have nearly 30 sensor-years of data, and this cluster is to store and re-analyze it in context with other geophysical datasets. This is the sort of thing I live for: building a kick-ass computational tool for people who will use it (a) well (b) in pursuit of a higher good. The only down side is that the 256TB SAN isn’t quite online yet. I was sorely tempted to step in there, but nobody would have benefitted.

In other news, the NY Times had a well balanced editorial page today.

This piece describes a plane ride shared with a Marine honor guard for a fallen soldier in Iraq:

I went to my car and drove to work with no ambition for the day other than to be worthy.

While Krugman says that “Centrism is for suckers.”

The fact is that in 1994, the year when radical Republicans took control both of Congress and of their own party, things fell apart, and the center did not hold. Now we’re living in an age of one-letter politics, in which a politician’s partisan affiliation is almost always far more important than his or her personal beliefs. And those who refuse to recognize this reality end up being useful idiots for those, like President Bush, who have been consistently ruthless in their partisanship.

Woot. Time to go get on a plane.