Fred’s Blog

I’ve got a script that runs through the alert logs for all the Oracle databases I manage every 10 minutes or so and sends me a text message containing the error number if it finds an error. Sometimes, when the errors are of the more exotic variety, I am left scratching my head– Do I need to leap into the batmobile and race to the nearest terminal to avert the latest crisis? Or can I continue sunning myself on the roof of my Barcelona penthouse? It is always a dilemma.

I could look up the error on one of the scads of websites out there that list Oracle error messages using my Treo’s (painfully slow) Internet connection, but that is, as I believe I said, painfully slow.

Makes me wish there was a lightweight web page out there, without images or advertising, where I could look up the error and get a quick synopsis of it.

Well now, thanks to me, there is such a web page: http://phlonx.com/oerr

It contains all the currently-documented ORA, PLS, and RMAN errors. I could add more if I find I need to add them or if someone requests it.

One nice feature of this page is that it accepts alphabetic input from a Treo keyboard. For instance, to look up ORA-16005 you don’t have to toggle your keyboard to numeric input, you can just type eg00f and it gets automatically translated.

Ironically, the Oracle error messages reside in a MySQL database. Massaging the raw data into valid INSERT statements was a bit of a chore in the beginning because I was using as source material a file that comes installed with every (Unix, seems to be lacking from Windows) Oracle installation: $ORACLE_HOME/rdbms/mesg/oraus.msg. This file is rather sloppily maintained, making it difficult to parse out the different fields in a consistent way. Took me a lot of trial and error.

This file only contains the ORA- errors, so for the others I had to turn to the official Oracle documentation itself: http://download.oracle.com/docs/cd/B19306_01/server.102/b14219/toc.htm …and reformatting the raw data in those pages was a breeze using Textpad and regular expressions. This technique missed the fields that span multiple lines, but I didn’t worry about that since those are few and could be handled manually.

Saturday morning I was jogging down South Beach a little south of the Verrazanno Bridge when I came upon a stupefying sight: a huge sea turtle had crawled up on the beach and died. It was a little awe-inspiring, because the turtle’s great size implied great age. I measured it with my steps; it was 4′ 8″ from tail to beak. I stood there for a while, wondering why nobody else around seemed interested in this remarkable creature, then continued with my run.

After getting home I decided there must be someone who would be interested in such a thing. I called the Bronx Zoo but couldn’t get past the receptionist who insisted the zoo doesn’t make house calls and she said I should call the City to get it cleaned up.

That wasn’t quite what I had in mind, so next I called the New York Aquarium and was transferred to someone in “the lab”. The woman I spoke to seemed quite interested and took down whatever little information I could give her.

This afternoon Cancer-grrl and I went back to take a look. I was a little worried that I might have dreamt the whole thing. As we approached the spot on the beach the turtle was no longer where I had originally seen him, but he had come loose and was floating with the tide just a few yards offshore. He was being buffetted pretty badly by the waves and it will no doubt not be long before he starts to disintegrate. We were able to take these pictures. This was a majestic beast and it felt important to make some kind of record of its death.

I think it was a loggerhead turtle, which has been known to frequent Staten Island.

As I sat one recent afternoon in that glorious never-ending traffic nightmare where the BQE joins the Battery Tunnel discharge to form the Gowanus Expressway, I started musing about how such affairs might be resolved if we lived in a slightly less compassionate society.

Taxpayers, fed up with the traffic, might fund the maintenance of huge flying car-smashing machines that would arrive at the focal point of the snarled traffic and bulldoze all the idling cars off the roadway without concern for fault, life or limb.

I suppose there would be initial outrage from some quarters, but people would eventually grow used to this and begin to assume a fatalistic air.

“Did you hear, Aunt Selma had her car swept off the highway last week.”

“Oh my, that’s too bad.”

“Well it just serves her right for trying to get to the airport in the middle of rush hour.”

Perhaps this is how the once-civilized people of Baghdad are learning to cope with their new reality.

I am addicted to coffee.

When most people say this, they just mean they are a little cranky if they don’t get their morning cup. But for those of us with severe physiological addiction, withdrawal is a serious, debilitating process.

I used to be a major coffee abuser: I would generally have at least two 6-cup espresso pots to myself, often more, every day. My fondly-remembered ex-wife got me into this; her daily espresso consumption was nothing short of prodigious. Occasionally we would quit cold-turkey, fasting from coffee for 3 or more days in an attempt to get the poisonous crap out of our systems. It’s not the kind of thing you try to do by yourself; you really need a support network to keep you going during the fast. It’s not pretty. Espresso addiction is a big deal; wimps who spend their days sipping that weak watery piss from Starbucks simply have no idea.
More recently I started weaning myself slowly from it. I got myself down to about 200mL of espresso per day (that’s a little under two demi-tasses), and last Friday I decided I was ready to take the plunge and do a purge. I resolved to avoid caffeine for three days.

I have learned from years of experience with this particular addiction that the withdrawal symptoms run in a daily cycle, with periods of normalcy and periods of sheer horror. The cycle’s intensity lessens day by day until you are finally a regular person again. For me, the symptoms begin around 10:30 am with a dull throbbing headache at the base of the skull. In the past it would encompass the entire head but this time it wasn’t so bad. Aspirin, ibuprofen and acetaminophen have no effect on this headache. Presently it is accompanied by nausia and a metallic taste on the back of the tongue.

Worst of all is the lethargy. I used to think the lethargy was a natural by-product of the nausia and headache, but during this particular fast those symptoms were not so severe (and I had no headache or nausia at all by the second day) and still the lethargy was debilitating. Both Saturday and Sunday I got up early, went for a run and did a few chores, and then once the cycle starting kicking in I was flat on my back for the rest of the day.

Towards evening, the symptoms start to wear down. I regain my energy and normalcy returns. One symptom that doesn’t quite go away, though, are the deep-muscle aches. Rather like you get when you have the flu.

Well, needless to say I haven’t given up coffee altogether. This morning I decided enough was enough; my three days were up and it was time to rejoin the human race. That very first cup of espresso after a fast is always the best.

I wish I had something to say!