FreeLists / va_co_birding / [va_co_birding] Talk about bad timing... (VA county birding)

["C. Michael Stinson" <cms@xxxxxxxxx>]

Hi folks -
Wondering when we'd start the discussion rolling? Wondering when you'd get a 
response to that mail you'd sent? Wondering what the heck was going on with 
that new list that you thought you'd signed up for? Me too.

I have tried to log on to the FreeLists page for the past two days. Finally, a 
little while ago, I did so, only to find the following:

 /7/2003 
On the weekend of July 4th, the Indianapolis, IN area expierenced two days of 
severe thunderstorms. At some point during these storms, our data center lost 
power for several hours. When we finally regained power, we found a lot of 
damaged hardware (including UPS's). It is suspected that we took a direct 
lightning hit. 

The main FreeLists server is currently out of commission and we'e scrounging 
for replacements. The extent of data loss is currently unknown, but we'e hoping 
to not have lost any. Several other servers (name servers, file servers, etc.) 
are also apparently a total loss. 

Until replacement hardware can be put in place, both FreeLists and its sister 
service, MailandFiles.com, will be unavailable -- that includes all web and 
email services. I can be contacted at my work address, jmadden@xxxxxxxxxxx, if 
anyone can offer any assistance. We're currently in need of: 


a.. High-grade motherboards (dual or quad cpu, Xeon / P4) 
b.. CPU's to fit those motherboards 
c.. UPS's to replace our pile of burnt plastic. APC preferred, each at least 
1000 watts. 
d.. Storage: The state of our storage is unknown with no way of accessing it, 
but we're thinking it may be a total loss. SCSI, JBOD, 250+GB needed. 
e.. Money: it feels dirty, but we'll need to buy whatever we can't get in 
donations. This stuff costs several thousands of dollars. 
I'll keep this page updated whenever possible. 

-- John Madden, Avenir Technologies, LLC 

"Pile of burnt plastic?" Ouch. That sounds nasty. And obviously this applies to 
VA-BIRD and some other birding lists as well. 

For the time being I think I'll wait to see if FreeLists is resurrected. If 
not, I'll hunt for a replacement and sign you all on there. I have no way of 
knowing who might have tried to post to the list the past two days, so let me 
know if you did. In any case, I hope your holiday experience did not otherwise 
involve piles of burnt plastic. 

Talk to you soon -

Mike Stinson









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