Sc@-tt3r-ed Thoughts

Well I haven’t posted any updates in a couple of days, as I had not heard from my dad, and the reason was in his email. Apparently, going down to work (where he has the internet access) is useless, and a waste of money at this point, since gas prices are skyrocketting, and are starting to be available in low quantities. Fortunately, they are still safe, but economically, the situation is horrible, and as far as the war goes, check CNN and you will know about the details on that. Meanwhile, please read below for some details on what is happening wiht my family and their inside information about the situation.

You might have said where is Mich as I haven’t written for few days, but what happened is that I am not going down to Beirut for more one reason… first and main reason is that the fuel delivery is getting less and less, and we have to line up for about half an hour to fill 20 liters…  the second reason is that there is no business at all… the whole day passes without a single customer, besides, there is no electricity for almost half the day, and last thing, Milia is coming as she normally comes on foot, so we are keeping presence just in case.

On the other hand, and as you know, Aahed left about 2 weeks ago, and I have to do all the garden work, feeding and cleaning for the animals and birds, which needs at least 2 to 3 hours daily, plus a full 2 weekend days.

As for the war situation, I am sure you are following up the aggressiveness of both sides. And this Kanna massacre of about 57 civilians which were bombarded by the Israelis, but on the other hand, we hear from many sources that Hizbullah are not allowing the people to evacuate the South as they need them as a human shield, and they are hiding and launching their rockets from inside populated villages !! also they are hiding their rockets in the mosques and churches !!  so, both parties are not playing a fair game!! So far, there is no signs for a cease fire in the near future, and only God knows where we are going… 

Locally, there is a very large part of the Lebanese people who are against Hizbullah, where are there are some who are with him… so we always fear that clashes can start at any time especially that those refugees are challenging those who are taking care of them by putting the Hizbullah flags and the pictures of Hasan Nasrallah the leader of Hizbullah in the schools where they are living at present, and as you know, and especially in Christian areas, this is very irritating, and by the way, even the majority of the Sunnies and Druze are against Hizbullah.

I think we are living a terrible situation, and we do not  know how this disaster will end… so please keep praying for our situation…

I don’t know if “boring” is the correct word to describe this, but it’s starting to feel like this war in Lebanon is just not going anywhere, is it just me or does anyone share this feeling? it’s a bunch of destruction, and lives taken and a country being destroyed, and I’m afraid at the end of it, we’re going to end up at the same spot that we started with. I’ve been reading tayyar.org, and all I read is:

1- Bombing on so and so area
2- So and So talked with this and that person, and are discussing, or are “planning” to meet to discuss the situation in the middle.

**Meanwhile In the Middle East**
Houses are being bombed, civilians are dying, and officials are taking their sweet time to “discuss”.

Ok so now that my personal thoughts are out of the way, here are some facts from my dad’s email today.

[...] As for the situation here, it is sort of calm in our areas, and you can go and come without a problem. We still have fuel, but only the 98 octane (no 95) but still it is OK… you can still find almost everything you want from House Gas cylinders to vegetables (though more expensive due to high transportation costs), bread, meat, etc… but who will eat !! no appetite because you do not feel at ease though I am not looking to the TV any more because they are all a bunch of liars, and they never say what is really true!! In the south and Dahieh, the shelling and fights are still going on, but we can hardly hear them here in Achrafieh or Joura… the only concern we have is if they decide to bombard the Satellite station that we have near our home… I think nothing will happen to us personally, but we will not have any glass left in the house… other than that, all is good.

In Theopolis. Our church are taking refugees from Baalbek and the south and put them in the camp site and offer them food and whatever they need. The youth are cooking for them and offering assistance. Also, the BBS evangelical school in Mousaitbeh also opened their doors for refugees, and Dr. Riad is going there for medical assistance. I offered to volunteer with him in his mission, so if he needs me, I will go…

Camille my cousin and myself discussed the possibility of giving one of the houses in Bhamdoun to any of the refugees, so I told Ali that if he knows someone that needs to use this house, it is available for free…. [...]

Please come back for more updates.

Stay cool…

Good morning,

As you may have seen in the news, the situation in Lebanon is not getting any better. in fact, the bombing is getting closer and close to our area, and as you may see in the following email, my brother’n'law had to go and empty his clinic due to the close bombing around it. there is also an powerpoint presentation with some pictures of the situation there. BE WARNED!! IT IS VERY GRAPHIC! If you can’t take it, then please do not open the file: The Agressions against lebanon
Also, another graphic website: http://www.fromisraeltolebanon.info/ (again, please be warned about the graphical nature of the site… if you can’t see blood, dead people, etc … please don’t go there.

I have tried calling my parents this morning, but unfortunately, I am unable to get through, so I’m not really sure what is happening. My guess is that everyone is trying to contact their families in Lebanon that the phone lines are saturated. will update as soon as I have anything new.

UPDATE:

I just got hold of my parents over the phone. They seem to be at ease in their area. They are still able to find all resources (gas, food), though at sky rocketing prices. some of the gas is starting to be unavailable, but they are stocked up for a little while at least.
Some of my extended family have evacuated their houses to go to safer areas, as they are living on the outskirts of dangerous areas.
Other than that, everything is ok so far.

Following is the news from parents today:

As I promised, I am sending you a new description of our situation as of today…

As I said earlier, I did not come to Beirut yesterday because of the gasoline shortage, and there was no one coming to our office, so I thought I would stay home… in the afternoon, Pat received a phone call from the mall where his shop is that all the shop owners are emptying their shops including Mac Donald, the bank, and others because the shelling was very close (near Galerie Semman… just few 100 meters far) and part of the glass in the mall was broken, and the army from the casern in his area moved to the underground of that mall…  so, what we had to do is to rush there, and packed all his equipment, the eyeglasses and whatever we could carry, and brought them home… that reminded me of the old days when we used to rush, pack, load our goods and run away during the past 30 years of war!! You know, unfortunately I felt that I am becoming an expert in this job !!  As this operation was sort of dangerous, Micha was on the phone almost every 5 minutes just to check that we are still OK… once we came back home, and as she was so stressed, she collapsed with tears, and she started to breath heavily, so we were afraid that something wrong will happen to the baby… but thanks God, all went OK… attached you will see some photos of how we offloaded Pat’s goods in Aahed’s room !

This morning, while coming down, and just when I tipped down from the mountain side towards Beirut, the black smoke mixed with dust because of the shelling and the burning fuel tanks etc..  was filling the sky, the valleys up to the rim of the mountain… we could hardly see Beirut !!

Now, it is calm here in Beirut… I did not listen to the news this morning, but I assume there is no shelling on Dahyeh at this time…  I have forwarded to you some e-mails which I received from a friend in Holland that shows part of what is going on!!

This is all for today… and don’t expect any mails until Monday if we stay alive as I will not come to the office during the weekend…

Greetings to all at your side…..

 Here are some pictures from when my brother’n'law and my dad went to grab the equipment from the clinic:
    

 Below, is an excerpt that gives a quick history of Beirut up to the situation today, it’s an interesting reading…

Paradise Lost

Robert Fisk’s Elegy for Beirut

The Independent
July 19, 2006

Elegant buildings lie in ruins. The heady scent of gardenias gives way to the acrid stench of bombed-out oil installations. And everywhere terrified people are scrambling to get out of a city that seems tragically doomed to chaos and destruction. As Beirut – ‘the Paris of the East’ – is defiled yet again

In the year 551, the magnificent, wealthy city of Berytus – headquarters of the imperial East Mediterranean Roman fleet – was struck by a massive earthquake. In its aftermath, the sea withdrew several miles and the survivors – ancestors of the present-day Lebanese – walked out on the sands to loot the long-sunken merchant ships revealed in front of them.

That was when a tidal wall higher than a tsunami returned to swamp the city and kill them all. So savagely was the old Beirut damaged that the Emperor Justinian sent gold from Constantinople as compensation to every family left alive.

How does this happen to Beirut? For 30 years, I’ve watched this place die and then rise from the grave and then die again, its apartment blocks pitted with so many bullets they looked like Irish lace, its people massacring each other.

I lived here through 15 years of civil war that took 150,000 lives, and two Israeli invasions and years of Israeli bombardments that cost the lives of a further 20,000 of its people. I have seen them armless, legless, headless, knifed, bombed and splashed across the walls of houses. Yet they are a fine, educated, moral people whose generosity amazes every foreigner, whose gentleness puts any Westerner to shame, and whose suffering we almost always ignore.

They look like us, the people of Beirut. They have light-coloured skin and speak beautiful English and French. They travel the world. Their women are gorgeous and their food exquisite. But what are we saying of their fate today as the Israelis – in some of their cruellest attacks on this city and the surrounding countryside – tear them from their homes, bomb them on river bridges, cut them off from food and water and electricity? We say that they started this latest war, and we compare their appalling casualties – 240 in all of Lebanon by last night – with Israel’s 24 dead, as if the figures are the same.

And then, most disgraceful of all, we leave the Lebanese to their fate like a diseased people and spend our time evacuating our precious foreigners while tut-tutting about Israel’s “disproportionate” response to the capture of its soldiers by Hizbollah.

I walked through the deserted city centre of Beirut yesterday and it reminded more than ever of a film lot, a place of dreams too beautiful to last, a phoenix from the ashes of civil war whose plumage was so brightly coloured that it blinded its own people. This part of the city – once a Dresden of ruins – was rebuilt by Rafiq Hariri, the prime minister who was murdered scarcely a mile away on 14 February last year.

The wreckage of that bomb blast, an awful precursor to the present war in which his inheritance is being vandalised by the Israelis, still stands beside the Mediterranean, waiting for the last UN investigator to look for clues to the assassination – an investigator who has long ago abandoned this besieged city for the safety of Cyprus.

© 2006 Independent News and Media Limited

Please keep my family and the Lebanese people in your thoughts and prayers in this difficult time.
 

Ok, so you might wondering what’s up with the title.. well .. that’s one of the things that my mom was telling me about when I called her this morning. I would think, if they’re relaxed enough to be able to talk about what our puppy did on the carpet, then it must not be that bad in that area… well I thought right, things really aren’t bad. Reason being, that they don’t live anywhere near Huzbollah bases or people in general. Thank God for that.

They are however, suffering from what the whole rest of the country is suffering from:lack of resources (Gas, food, etc. … )
Another interesting tid-bit I learned this morning was that the IDF is targeting any and all trucks that they see driving on the road anywhere, as they are trying to avoid Huzbollah smuggling more weaponry in to Lebanon. They distributed more of their infamous flyers to warn against driving trucks on the roads. I believe, so far, about 6 trucks have been bombed while driving on Lebanese roads.

My sister was called by her work today and was advised not to come in, so I guess things aren’t too safe in her area. same with my brother’n'law’s shop, which is pretty close to some of the bombing as well. so now they’re both staying at home.

That’s pretty much all the news I have for today.
I have been following the http://www.tayyar.org website pretty closely. unfortunately, the interesting part of it with the minute by minute updates is only available in Arabic, it does have a lot of the up to date news articles that are available in English as well…  (you can look at those if you got tired of seeing, for the 100th time CNNs media-fied news

I got my daily email from my dad this morning, and it sounds that the  bombing is always concentrated in one area, and they are not really feeling much of the effects so far other than hearing the bombs hitting southern Beirut and other areas. 

The website that my dad refers to in the email is pretty informative as it has up to the minute information as to what’s happening. It is in arabic though… there is an English version of it, but not for the update news…

I guess you are expecting to hear something from me about the situation… in fact it started to become boring as no serious action or real changes are taking place on the ground… bombarding is almost continuous especially on the south, and on Dahyeh, and more damage is obvious… more people are being killed mainly those who are moving on the roads. We hear a lot of noises, but nothing serious is taking place in our areas. They bombed empty fuel tanks in Dora, and few trucks at Beirut port, but you can easily tell that they are trying to avoid the Christian areas so far !

We can still find almost ever thing until now though prices for certain items have raised especially food stuff that comes from the south and Becca due to the disconnected roads. Gas and Mazout are getting short, but we can still find benzene. Electricity cut off is better than before in our areas.

I guess this is a brief description of the situation. If you have time, and want to know more about hour by hour changes, you can visit the following website: www.tayyar.org

Today, i received a reassuring email from my dad. Things seem to be ok on their side, and at this time, there’s nothing to worry about, thought things seem to still be deteriorating pretty quickly, so their fine for now. Keep checking for more updates.

I knew that you called, and are anxious to know how things are going here, though I am sure you are watching TV and seeing the disaster here, but non of the news are telling that the Khairallahs are all OK, and nothing wrong is going on in Achrafieh or Joura…. So, please be calm, and don’t worry as we are still feeling safe through this time, all airports, ports and road to Syria are closed, meaning, there is no way to get out of Lebanon.

Pat and Micha has a priority as they have French passports, and the embassy is offering helicopters for them to take them out… but they prefer to stay with us in Joura as it is still safe here. I don’t need to tell you how sever it is in Dahyeh as it became almost flat. They are shelling all major points from ports to bridges, to radars, to airports, to roads, to fuel reservoirs, to wheat stores, to electricity stations, so if they continue like this, we will have to get back on donkeys, and feed from the forests !! the good thing so far is that they are not hitting any Christian areas, though our areas are shaking because of the bombs and missiles. On the other hand, we can see that Hizbullah are hitting rockets into the heart of Israel as well which never happened before. They are shelling electricity stations and fuel stations, and train stations there, which I believe is making the Israelis more aggressive…. The news said that the Israelis are preparing for a commandos attacks which means they will come into face to face fights with Hezbollah, so God knows what will come next!!

I am staying at home for the weekend, and hope if things are still the same on Monday, I will try to go to Beirut as I cannot leave my Dad alone with Zalfa, and every time I call him, I feel mow much he needs me, so hopefully I’ll be down on Monday… and will write you more if there is any new situations…

This is all for now… Just pray for our safety!!

Today, i called my parents to see what the situation is, and to get the scoop on what’s happening. here’s the inside info…

First of all, they are all safe where they are, as Israel doesn’t seem to be going away from their targets. In fact, I thought it was interested that, before destroying a major target, a plan flies above the target, and drops flyers warning any civilians in the area to evacuate. Fortunately, the Israeli pilots are pretty accurate: My sister was telling me that the bridges that they hit are actually hit right in the middle of it. this is a little hopefuly as it will reduce the risk of civilian homes being destroyed. What I thought was funny, was that the flyers actually had some caricatures of the Huzballah leader, along with the warning of evacuation… we’re glad they have a sense of humor … 

That being said, Israel isn’t sparing a single target on their plan. so far, they destroyed about 62 bridges and freeways, and destroyed all of the harbors along the coast of Lebanon, in Sydon, Beirut and Tripoli, and I think they took out most of the cell phone towers as well.
Bread in the country is starting to lack, as well as some other necessities.

People from Tripoli are migrating towards Beirut, but they’re doing it walking, as all the roads are now destroyed, and no cars can go through.
 
France is sending boats to get its ambassadors and whatnot back to France, as well as the US. not sure if the 25000 are all going to be taken out of the country by helicopters, but that’s my understanding so far.

My parents seem to be doing fine for now. they said that everything is still far away from them, and apart from the roaring of the fighter planes, and the thumping of the rockets, they don’t really feel much else. The only thing they’re a little worried about is the one power plant by my sister’s house, as it is a stone’s throw away. my sister is still staying at my parents house. they opened all their doors and windows before they left, to avoid them blowing up if indeed the powerplant gets targeted.

At this point, it’s not looking like anything is getting any better. Fortunately, the phones still work though, so at least I can know how things are going on the other side. my dad is still not sure whether to go to work on Monday ….to me it’s a no brainer… I guess there’s still another day before monday, we’ll see what unfolds.

That’s all the news for now, if I find out anything else, I will post it here… keep checking…

So for the past 2 days, since the Huzballah kidnapping of the isareli soldiers, things have been very unstable in Lebanon. I have been hearing the breaking news at CNN, and communication with my parents has been flaky at best.

Apparently, cell phone towers have been bombed, and the one of the main power plants has been bombed. My parents told me this morning, that the whole country is without electricity.

I tried to call them over skype this morning, and I was only able to get about 5 seconds worth of talk before I got cut off. Apparently, incoming calls to Lebanon are virtually impossible at this time. They had to call me back in order for us to be able to talk.

Unfortunately, they are expecting things to get worse. I am unsure whether communication over landline, or email will be even possible over the next few days. People in Beirut, and my family are starting to evacuate the city, but since there’s no outlet outside of the country, everyone is moving up to the mountains, in case Israel decide to start bombing Beirut suburbs, which sort of started in a way:

The airport has been bombed 3 times now, and is now completely unusable, the road to damascus has also been bombed and blocked, and the Israeli naval forces are blocking all sea ports. currently, the only open road out of the country is up north to Syria. Expectations are that this road will also be bombed to get blocked.

My parents have been stocking up on food, gas for the generators and some other reserves in case they get stuck with no resources.

I will try to keep this blog updated as I hear more from my parents. I know things are on CNN, but I might have some more details on things that are not in the news, when I hear directly from my parents.

Meanwhile,  here’s an email I received from my dad this morning, as a personal account of what they’re going through….

[...] 

As for the situation today, it is getting worse than yesterday especially in Dahyeh where they bombarded all the main road and bridges that lead there, and they are telling all the people to leave their homes who live near the Hizbullah offices, and I am afraid they will be bombing those offices. They already threatened Hassan Nasrallah the Hizbullah leader that they want his head dead or alive!!… they also bombarded the roads leading to Bekaa and the south including the new bridge in Sowfar and Mdayrej. They also bombed the remaining parts of the runway of the airport, and the fuel tanks there… and now they started bombing all cell phone antennas… you can hear the roaring of the aircrafts all day !!

In east side of Beirut, it is very calm so far, but people are in line at the gas stations and bakeries as it was the situation during the war… Micha and Pat are still staying with us as they are afraid that they might come to bomb Bsalim power station which is very close to their home…

[...]… but you should see the tourists yesterday running away towards Syria as the airport was bombarded, and Israel threatened to bombard the Damascus road (which they did this morning), , and most of the Arabs have their cars with them… about 12000 tourists left in one day and the hotels which was books by 108% two days ago became totally empty today !!

Finally, now the Israelis started throwing leaflets that they will soon bombard the bridges of Barbir and Charles Helou (which leads the way to Hamra)… so it seems it is getting closer to Achrafieh!!

I should close now as I have to go down to Zalfa and probably I should be going home as things might get more serious…

I have been looking around for some package that would allow me to monitor my home network, without having to spend a month trying to learn how to use it …  Nagios was one of the first packages I looked at, but for monitoring about 5 servers only, I didn’t really feel like learning Nagios from the ground up to get it to work. Granted, it’s a good a software package to know for an excellent open source monitoring software. as an alternative, I looked at my need for monitoring, and found that all I need is really ICMP monitoring, and monitoring some ports for some of the main services, and to make sure that my mail servers are up and running, and receiving mail.

Ok, so it looks like my requirements aren’t too bad, so I started looking around for some open source product that would do that for me.

I did end up finding this application from BixData (http://www.bixdata.com)
It’s a little weird with this product, when I first looked at it, I thought, man it looks very robust with a lot of features, which it does in a way, but when looking at it more closely, it’s a little bit limited with what it can do. it’s by no means Nagios, but i can definitely say that it’s more user friendly, easier to manage and setup on both windows and linux clients (mac clients are also available, but I don’t have those in my network, so I wouldn’t know).

I’m not sure about the company history, but from looking at their product, I would think that in the future they’ll be making a lot of development to their product. Currently, they have a version of the software that is open source, that supports up to 30 servers, which is perfect for someone trying to monitor their home network. for production environments, they have a version of the software that supports up to 1000 hosts. I have not asked them about pricing or anything, and they don’t have that posted on their site either. so if you’re interested in that, you’ll have to ask.

Some of the cool features I found in BixData that are probably in Nagios, but are for sure very easy to configure in BixData, are the reporting and data collection of different  performance items. it’s as easy as choosing what server, or “tagged” group of servers you want to run a report on, and choose a report, which will create a very nice graph on the item, for the past 12 hours, day, week, weeks, year , etc ….

It has natively built in, monitoring for http, mail, ping and a couple other basic services, and also has the capability to run scripts locally or remotely on hosts, which, if written wisely, I guess you can do anything with them.

 One last thing that I really found useful, is the fact that it can do a network scan for you, with the option of adding the hosts to a network topology design which will show how your hosts are interconnected. pretty cool to see what your network looks like.

 This is BixData in a nutshell. their support in their forums is pretty quick, and they seem to always try to solve your problems pretty quick. So far I haven’t seen very much activity in the forums, but I was able to get answers pretty quick.

 Give it a shot if you’re looking for a similar product, it might be just the right one for you.