Annoyances...

Friday night the ReadyNAS started misbehaving. It bogged down to the point that the web interface wasn't accepting commands and the file sharing interface wasn't responding. I had to hard-boot the unit. It took a few reboots, file system checks and RAID resyncs before the system came back up without any errors. This afternoon it finally came back fully and I could continue with the installation process on the 5100c.

It's still misbehaving a little. One of the drives is running very hot (particularly during RAID resyncs). Still, it's responding normally. I'm going to have to look into sending the drive in for warranty replacement.

Even with the problems, I'm still happy with the device. No data was lost, just some time fiddling with the unit to get it back up and running. The automatic backups to an attached USB drive worked beautifully.

The 5100c is almost reinstalled. It doesn't have Corel installed yet, but just about everything else we use is back on it.

I'm experimenting with a few new tricks for managing my media library. I like storing my music on the ReadyNAS because I can stream it to other machines easily (and I like the redundancy and backup capability). I don't like storing my music on the ReadyNAS because it slows down iTunes and my library tools. Since the 5100c has a bucket of storage now, I'm setting up SyncToy to keep the library in both places. Yeah, I could use rsync. Well, I tried, and there's a chance that some of the things I tried with rsync may have been what triggered the failure on the ReadyNAS.

Non-annoyances

So one of the things we did while I was waiting for the ReadyNAS to reboot, fsck and resync was to go to yesterday's St. George Spirits open house.

The price has been going up. It's still worth it.

We bought the $30 registration, the $10 add-on for the premium brandies and the $10 add-on for the Agua Azul tasting. We also had reservations for the first (1:30 pm) tasting lecture with Jorg Rupf, master distiller and founder of St. George Spirits.

The lecture didn't cost anything extra, and it was totally worth it. It even included Agua Azul tastings (so we gave our Agua Azul tickets to friends who hadn't bought any).

So the new releases?

The Pear Spice Vodka is really nice. It's complex and flavorful.

The Agua Azul, in "Cristal" (blanco or silver), Reposado and Añejo, are all superb. They join only one or two tequilas that we're willing to drink neat, much less at room temp. The Cristal is my new preference for top-shelf margaritas.