Hard Water

Also received the annual "Drinking Water Quality Report" in the mail today. It tells me that the average Total Hardness of my drinking water is 241ppm. Google tells me that this falls well into the "Fairly Hard" category, which should not be a surprise to anyone who has ever frozen San Diego tap water and then melted the ice cubes...

Jury Summons

Received a Jury Summons in the mail today. According to this blog, I served on a trial a little less than two years ago. If you've served at any time in the last three years, you're exempt from reporting. Shouldn't the county keep better track of such things, and mail my summons to someone who isn't exempt? They're just wasting money. Plus, it cost me a stamp to mail it back to them.

Upcoming Roadtrip

As mentioned in my previous post, I'm going to be taking another road trip this summer. I should be saving my money to buy a house, but I can't be a cheapskate ALL the time and still stay sane. Also, I have lots and lots of vacation time that I have to either use or forfeit soon. Using it seemed to be the better option.

The details are still sketchy, and complicated by the fact that though my airfare and rental vehicle have been booked, lodging for the trip has not yet been secured. Though with how much the SUV and airfare cost, we might be sleeping in the car and/or some really borderline hotels.

Here's the general structure of the trip:

Saturday, August 22: Fly to Seattle. Arrive around 4:00 PM. Rent SUV. Act like tourists in Seattle.

Sometime after August 22: Drive to Vancouver, BC. Act like tourists. Maybe go salmon fishing. Maybe just stay on solid ground.

Sometime after that: Drive up to Whistler. Act like tourists. Try to find venues for 2010 Olympics. Maybe do some hiking or photography.

Once that is done: Drive back to Vancouver, then back to Seattle. Be tourists in Seattle.

Saturday, August 29: Return vehicle. Fly home.

Connections

I think I rather like having a family member who works for a car rental agency. She just saved me almost 50% (nearly $400) on a one-week SUV rental for my upcoming road trip. Plus, the rate comes with a free additional driver AND the collision damage waiver insurance. In other news, check out these rental car fee and tax rates at SeaTac Airport:

Surcharges:
Customer Facility Chg 5.00/day
Concession Recovery Fee 11.10 Pct
Vehicle License Recovery Fee .31/day

Taxes:
Rental Car Tax (9.70%)
Sales Tax (9.50%)

That comes out to a total of 30.3% over the base rental rate plus an extra $5.31 a day. Maybe this is not so bad on a single-day mid size rental paid for by your corporate office, but for a week long SUV booking going on someone's personal card, it gets real ugly real fast.

Experiment

Recently, I've been annoyed with my current eyeglasses. I don't have to wear them ALL the time, but I've started to notice when I do wear them that the frame itself is a little bit too narrow for my face. They are probably also a bit mis-adjusted, but that's not such a big deal. I compared the physical frame for my regular eyeglasses with my prescription sunglasses (which fit comfortably) and found that the eyeglass frames are a full 10mm narrower than the sunglass frames.

This got me to thinking about how I was going to get a new pair of glasses back around November, but never followed through with it because all those designer frames at the Optometrist, though partially covered by my insurance, would still cost me several hundred dollars out of pocket to get ones that don't completely suck. I'm cheap, and this cost was unacceptable, so I put the idea on indefinite hold.

While searching for frames back in November I came across a web site that promises to sell high quality, accurate prescription eyewear for a fraction of the cost of any traditional provider -- as low as $8 for frame+lenses, and another $5 shipping. At this cost, I can afford to try out new styles to see how I like them without sinking a large amount of money into the process. The worst-case scenario here would basically be that I end up with a marginal-quality pair of backup glasses that look ugly on me, so I figured it was worth a shot. (I don't currently have a backup pair of glasses that is even close to my current Rx.) How do they keep their prices so low, you ask? I suspect it has something to do with China's cheap manufacturing and blatant disregard for international copyright. I'm OK with that.

Thus, I bought a pair of cheap eyeglasses. I present to you:

Cheap Glasses! (Click image for full size)

Oh, did I mention that UV and anti-scratch coatings are included in their low, low price? In a moment of weakness, I decided to shell out the extra $5 for the anti-reflective coating as well. Probably just as well, since they'll probably get most of their use while I'm driving. I did not, however, fork over the extra $4 for a clip-on polarized 80% sunshade because I already have a pair of prescription polarized sunglasses that work quite nicely. For those of you keeping score at home, that's a grand total of $33.85 (Though stingy, I am also incredibly picky and ended up choosing pretty much the most expensive frames they carried) for a pair of prescription eyeglasses with UV, anti-scratch, and anti-reflective coatings as well as 180-degree spring hinges on the arms. They should arrive by July 15. I'm excited to see what I end up with.

Ohio Trip 2009

From June 4 through June 9, 2009 Nicole and I took a trip to Ohio. Officially the purpose of the trip was to attend my cousin Mason's high school graduation party, but we also managed to see lots of family, friends, and places while we were there.

We flew into Cleveland on the 4th, got in (very) late, and headed to my Aunt's house in Bath (just outside of Akron) from the airport after renting a vehicle. We stayed there all day Friday, for the Graduation Party on Saturday, the actual Graduation on Sunday, and Sunday night. On Monday morning, we headed across the state to Jewell to see Grandma. Tuesday morning, we headed from there to Findlay for a whirlwind tour to see some friends and what was left of our old house. After that, we drive straight back to the Cleveland Airport and flew home. That's the trip in a nutshell.

Pictures Link: http://photos.panning.us/v3/2009_06_04_Ohio/

Grandma's Pond

Death Valley/Vegas Trip

Darrick and I went to Racetrack Playa in Death Valley and to Las Vegas recently. He has posted the photos, I have not done so yet. I'll get around to it eventually.

Darrick's Vacation Pictures

Darrick finally posted his version of the pictures from our September road trip. Specifically, everything from the Grand Canyon onward are ones I haven't gotten around to posting here yet. There are also others from earlier in the trip that aren't posted here, because I was far more ruthless in deleting photos that weren't so great. Plus, he posted all the panoramas. I haven't done that yet, either. One of these days I'll get to it... maybe... Anyhow, click here to see them.

Photos: Zion Narrows

Click below for the photo gallery from the Zion Narrows hike. Possibly the best pictures from the entire trip. I want to go back. As I've said before, the Panoramas will come later. (Though, most of the panoramas from this particular hike are of the vertical variety as opposed to the horizontal due to the landscape.)

The Virgin River near the Temple of Sinawava. Click for Gallery.

Photos: Hoover Dam

This is another small gallery. On our way out of Vegas, we made a stop at Hoover Dam to go on a tour of the power plant and the Dam itself. Click to open the gallery in a new window.


Hoover Dam

Photos: Las Vegas at Night

This is a small gallery, just a few photos from Las Vegas at night. Most of the photos that turned out from this night are parts of panoramas which will be posted later. Most of the rest just flat out didn't turn out.

After checking into the hotel room around 2:00 PM, we went straight to sleep... woke up... went to dinner... and got back out just before midnight to take these pictures. We were hoping for some of the water show at the Bellagio, but just as we were walking up, the last show of the night (midnight) was wrapping up.


Las Vegas at Night

Photos: Death Valley at Sunrise

The first photo gallery from the road trip: Death Valley at Sunrise. Only minor editing of these photos has occurred. Panoramas to come later.


Desert Sunrise (Opens in a new window)

Trip Photos!

... but not all of them. I know, the headline is evil and misleading. :-) I've been working on some post-processing of the pictures we took on the trip, which involves a bit of learning how to manipulate .CR2 files and bracketed images to correct exposure settings. Here's a teaser of what I've done so far. (Click on either picture to open a REALLY BIG version in a new window.)

Death Valley at Sunrise:


(This is a blended HDR image from three bracketed shots IMG_6887, IMG_6888, IMG_6889) on a tripod at various exposure levels.

Zion Narrows:



This is a modified single CR2 image with Fill Light added, the Black level tweaked slightly, and some other modifications in Aperture. I think it's a little bit too washed out still, so I may try working on this one some more. The original is a bit too dark, so... compromises, I guess.

Opinion Poll

I'm getting ready to get a new pair of glasses, and I'm trying to decide what to get. Here are two options that I have come across so far:
Option 1: Full Frame


Option 2: Rimless

Please tell me which of the two styles you like better. The Rimless style is shown in black -- I would probably get a different color, similar to the color of the full frame glasses in the first picture. Black frames do not match my skin or hair colors well, and I'm not a particular fan of pink or gold, either.

Photo galleries back online

After three weeks and $550, the computer which hosts my web site has been returned from the shop. Except that when they put it back together, the genius who hooked all the cables back up neglected to fully connect the SAS connector that pigtails off for all my internal SATA drive bays. This, of course, led to several drive bays not working properly until I tore the thing apart to make sure all the cords were connected.

Anyhow, this is a bit of a long-winded way of saying that all my old photo galleries are now back online. It also means that I can start the process of uploading the stuff from my most recent vacation. Look for it soon(ish.)

Notes From the Road, Day 3

We kicked off today at 5:30 AM, when some "strange noises" coming from the room next door woke me up. You know what I'm talking about... enough said. Later in the morning, I had the pleasure of discovering that the plumbing in our hotel room is terrible, both on the supply side (majorly inconsistent water pressure) and the drain side (our shower more or less doesn't drain.)

With the issues of the morning out of the way, we made our way two blocks down the street to the Springdale Loop shuttle stop to catch the free shuttle that goes to the visitor's center at Zion National Park. From there, we paid our entrance fee ($12 per person or $25 per vehicle) and walked through the park gate and over to the Canyon Shuttle stop. We rode the Canyon Shuttle to the end of the line and hiked for a mile on the paved river walk trail to get to the start of the Zion Narrows hike.

For those of you unfamiliar with the Zion Narrows, it's essentially a hike through the Virgin River (upstream in our case to start, downstream on the way back) where water shoes and a walking stick are required. More than 90% of the hike is through the river itself -- we were frequently wading in knee-high water. In a couple of places, it got up to my mid-thigh. We hiked upstream for about 2 hours and 15 minutes when our pre-set alarm went off and told us it was time to head back. The return trip took a bit over an hour because we didn't stop for pictures and because going with the current downstream is significantly easier than going against it. Courtesy of Darrick, here's a panorama of one of the less-wet portions of the day. That would be me standing there holding our hiking sticks.

The Narrows; Click image for larger size.

After returning to the trailhead for the paved trail, we stopped for a bit to dry off our feet and change back into our hiking boots (which thankfully hadn't been stolen, since we left them there with other people's shoes instead of taking them in the river with us) and walked back down to the shuttle stop. After that, we returned to Springdale and had dinner at a Mexican Cafe. Now, we've returned to our room to look at our pictures for the day. They look good.

Notes From the Road, Day 2

I'm writing this entry from the passenger seat of the rental car. We're on our way out of Vegas at the moment, headed toward Zion National Park. Darrick is driving.

Today, we stuck to the plan: check out of the hotel at 11am, and then head to Hoover Dam. We arrived at the Dam at about 1:00 PM and went on the Dam Tour at 2:30. We left Hoover Dam at 4:00 PM, and pit-stopped in Las Vegas for fuel at about 5:00 PM. We're now headed toward Zion, and expect to get there around 9:30 PM local time (factoring in the loss of a time zone and stopping for dinner.)

Update: We got in at about 9:30 PM. Funny how that works, isn't it?

Notes From the Road, Day 1

Our road trip began in San Diego. We departed from my apartment at about 9:30 PM, headed toward Racetrack Playa in Death Valley National Park.

Just before midnight, we stopped in Hesperia to top off the gas tank and grab a bite to eat prior to getting on US-395. Though the food at In-N-Out is quite normal at midnight, the same can't be said of some of their customers. There was one man in the store who appeared to order two items -- a strawberry shake, and a water cup. He proceeded to fill the water cup about 1/3 full... with ketchup from the ketchup pump. Remember... he didn't have any food. Just a strawberry shake. We left before seeing what became of the ketchup.

At 3:30 AM, we encountered our first major problem of the trip: Neither of us checked to make sure that the roads we intended to traverse were passable. This isn't a problem when all the roads are open and in good working order, but when coming across a "Road Closed" sign on an unmaintained desert road that goes over a mountain in the middle of the night... that's a problem. We spent 25 minutes debating what to do, and ultimately decided to modify our route, attempt morning photography at the Sand Dunes near Furnace Creek since it was close enough to be reachable by sunrise.

Around 4:45 AM, we see an FJ Cruiser in a turnout with its hazard blinkers on, and a man with a head lamp on waving his arms as we drove by. Since this was the only vehicle we had seen in hours and it just seemed like maybe the guy was in some sort of trouble, I turned around to make sure he was OK. He wasn't. At about 10:00 PM as he was taking a curve to the right in the road, the entire front passenger wheel came completely off his vehicle. By some sort of miracle, he skidded directly into a turnout where he came to a stop, instead of going the other way off the cliff. Five of the six lug bolts on his axle had completely sheared off, rendering his vehicle completely immobile.

Apparently, we were the 9th car to pass by in the almost 7 hours he was stranded there, and the first to so much as slow down. We collected an assortment of information from him (his roadside assistance number, name, VIN, exact GPS location, and the closest mile marker) and called CHP and a tow truck for him as soon as we got to a pay phone, which we found at a park entrance station about 20 miles down the road.

The delays we encountered for doing our good deed put our arrival time at the sand dunes about 10 minutes before sunrise. Unfortunately, this eliminated our planned "nap time" as well as impacted the volume of photography we were able to do... and forced us to rush things just a bit. We'll have to make another attempt at sunrise photography later in the trip. While we were there, we decided to go play around on the dunes a bit to get the blood flowing, and then got back in the car at about 7am, planning to get to Las Vegas as soon as possible. We needed sleep.

We arrived at our hotel in Vegas at about 11:00 AM, and "pre-registered" for our room. We were told to come back after 1:00 PM, because our room would not be ready until then. With three hours to kill and both of us being exhausted and hungry, we went to the brunch buffet at Paris. Honestly, I was so tired I didn't care what the food tasted like -- but I'm pretty sure it was delicious. I had a large plate of "breakfast" food followed by a large plate of "lunch" food, followed by a plate of desserts. We finished eating with even more time to spare... and being the geeks we are, we went to Fry's Electronics to kill the rest of the time. I bought some blank CDs to burn MP3's on (Our 4Runner has an MP3-CD capable stereo, but the AUX jack for an iPod sucks) and some cough drops. Darrick bought a Slinky.

We got keys to our hotel room at 2:30, and immediately went to sleep. We went to dinner at a Chinese restaurant recommended by Walter's mom around 8:30, and took a stroll around the strip just after midnight.

Epic Failure: Road Closed.

Here is the modified trip map. (EDIT: The map is wrong. I need to fix it.) Marker "B" is where we encountered the closed road and had to turn back. Marker "C" is approximately where we stopped for sunrise and took some time to go climb on a bunch of sand dunes.

MacWorld 2009

Last night, I registered for MacWorld 2009. It's going to be held January 6-9, 2009 in San Francisco.

At this particular juncture in time, I am not 100% certain that will be able to attend. I plan to go, but there may be outside circumstances that prevent me from attending. I'm already pretty busy at the beginning of the year, so we'll see. If I can make it work though, I do plan to be in the Bay Area in early January. Just as a heads-up for anyone who cares.

Road Trip Update

With just days left before departing on the road trip mentioned in a prior post, a few updates:

(1) After careful deliberation, it was decided that the cost-benefit analysis for the question of "What type of car should we rent?" had tilted to favor a "Standard SUV" instead of a Prius. As the economy has faltered and the price of gas has risen, the cost of renting an SUV has fallen dramatically -- to the point where renting the SUV and paying for the additional gas it will consume on our voyage is virtually identical to the higher rental cost (but lower fuel cost) of the Prius. The added benefits of the larger vehicle include more cargo space, more "nap" space, and 4-wheel drive... which enables us to trek on some of the higher clearance, less-traveled roads that have in the past provided some of the most breathtaking views we've seen.

(2) Sushi has been moved from Mr. Sushi in Encinitas to Nobu in Solana Beach. I've never been there before, but hear it's delicious.

(3) The final night of the trip is still up in the air. Once we depart from the Grand Canyon, we have several options on how to return to San Diego. The original plan calls for spending a night in Phoenix, but we still have not booked a hotel room there yet as a means of keeping our options open. There are four different "major" routes we can take to get back to San Diego from the Grand Canyon -- only two of which go through Phoenix or the surrounding area. Option 1 takes us directly from the Grand Canyon to Barstow on I-40, where we meet up with I-15. Option 2 takes us on US-40 to US-95 and some State Highways to I-10 near Joshua Tree and through Riverside County, where we'd meet up with I-15. Option 3 takes us East on I-40 to I-17 and down to Phoenix, where we would meet up with I-10. Option 4 takes us on the same route, but further South from Phoenix, where we meet up with I-8 and head back to San Diego along the Mexican border. Addtionally, there are a number of State and US highways as well as Forest Service roads we may try to navigate, now that we have a larger vehicle in which to do so. Picking a route may prove to be difficult -- all of the options are "new" to us. We planned originally to stop in Julian on our way back to San Diego, but depending on the route we take and the time of day we're near the area, the Pie shops may not be open. We'd just have to make a quick trek out there the next morning. :-)

Photo Galleries Unavailable

The computer responsible for hosting all of my photo galleries failed spectacularly this afternoon. The problem is most likely some form of massive hardware failure. Things may be unavailable for the next week or so.

Summer 2008 Road Trip

Today, Darrick and I finally were both home at the same time long enough to discuss our anticipated September road trip and actually commit to an itinerary. Here is the map.

The itinerary, as it now stands:

Day 0: Saturday, September 20
1:20 PM: Darrick's flight arrives in San Diego from Portland.

2:00 PM: Pick up rental car.

6:00 PM: Sushi
10:00 PM: Depart San Diego, CA headed toward Racetrack Playa, Death Valley, CA.

Day 1: Sunday, September 21

5:00 AM: Estimated arrival at Racetrack Playa.

6:01 AM: Dawn photography at Racetrack Playa.

6:40 AM: Sunrise photography at Racetrack Playa.
7:30 AM: Depart for Las Vegas, NV.
1:30 PM: Anticipated arrival in Las Vegas, NV. Nap time.

Evening: Las Vegas, NV.

Hotel: Imperial Palace Hotel and Casino; Las Vegas, NV.

Day 2: Monday, September 22

Morning: Hoover Dam

Afternoon: Drive to Zion National Park.

Hotel: Terrace Brook Lodge at Zion National Park; Springdale, UT.

Day 3: Tuesday, September 23

Day: Zion National Park. (Tentative plan: hike the Zion Narrows.)

Hotel: Terrace Brook Lodge at Zion National Park; Springdale, UT.

Day 4: Wednesday, September 24

Morning: Zion National Park

Afternoon: Drive to Grand Canyon, AZ.

Hotel: Grand Canyon Red Feather Lodge, Grand Canyon, AZ.

Day 5: Thursday, September 25

Day: Grand Canyon National Park

Hotel: Grand Canyon Red Feather Lodge, Grand Canyon, AZ.

Day 6: Friday, September 26

Morning: Grand Canyon National Park

Afternoon: Drive to Phoenix, AZ.

Hotel: (not yet booked)

Day 7: Saturday, September 27

11:00 AM: Depart for Julian, CA.

4:00 PM: Arrive in Julian, CA. Purchase pies.

6:00 PM: Depart for San Diego, CA.

Night: My Apartment.

Day 8: Sunday, September 28

1:00 PM: Return rental car.

New Tires

A couple of weeks ago, I bought new tires for my car and had them installed. Because of the type of rims my car came with, I of course have to buy the super expensive low profile tire variety. A set of four cost me about $700 out the door. Here's what I bought:

Michelin Primacy MXV4

These tires replaced the Bridgestone Potenzas that came with my car. I opted to go for the Michelins because the Bridgestones cost significantly more *and* come with horrible reviews on the internet. Personally, I never had a problem with the other tires, but after 4.5 years and 31,000 miles, the sidewalls were cracking pretty badly. The Michelins came with a cheaper price tag, better reviews, and a substantially longer warranty. They're considered all season "Luxury Performance Touring" tires, which basically means they're designed to be quiet and comfortable while delivering decent grip in all road conditions. In limited drive testing, they seem to have much better grip than the old tires, and handled remarkably well on dry pavement considering that the installer's balancing machine was mis-calibrated when they were installed. With that problem fixed, I can now drive on the freeway without the car feeling like it's going to shake apart.

Door Viewer

Today, I made my first serious (a.k.a. permanent) modification to my new apartment. You may be asking, "Why would you do this?" to which I would respond, "Because being forced to open your front door to see who is standing at it is potentially unsafe, and also annoying." I would, of course, be correct.

The solution to this problem: install a door viewer. Apparently, "door viewer" has fewer negative connotations than "peep hole" and is thus the preferred name for such things. Since this modification involves drilling a half-inch diameter hole through my front door (which is composed of aluminum and foam) I decided that I should (a) be careful and (b) match the finish of the rest of the door hardware. I also chose to (c) install the thing at a "standard" height that most people can use instead of where I'd prefer it to be.

So, I bought something very similar to this:

Satin Nickel Door Viewer

They look pretty horrible when they're not actually installed in a door. But as it turns out, once you install the thing it looks decent. Installation was pretty quick and painless, too. Literally all you have to do is measure, drill, and then screw the thing into the hole.

UPDATE: Several other apartments in my building have requested the Maintenance folks to install one of these in their doors. From walking around, it looks to me as if all the ones installed by the complex are Stainless Steel (which does not match the Satin Nickel door hardware) but are otherwise identical to mine. The two varieties even cost the same from Home Depot. Mine is better!

SAN Nightmare, Part 8

Note: This is part 8 of an 8 part series. Read them in order, it'll make more sense. Part 0 | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8

SAN Nightmare: Conclusions

In summary, xSan 2.0 sucks. Here's my general list of complaints:

- Undocumented steps in the upgrade process from 1.4.2 to 2.0 cause confusion and panic when users can't get their volumes to mount properly.

- Upgrade process introduced errors on one of our volumes that led to its eventual failure.

- Under 2.0, fsm process crashes randomly and far too often when folders on SAN volumes are re-shared over AFP/SMB and/or backed up with Retrospect.

- Under 2.1, fsm process segfaults in a similar manner to the crashes in 2.0. This can be easily reproduced by setting ACLs on an AFP/SMB shared volume and propagating permissions to all folders/subfolders under the top level of the share. Every time I try this, it crashes within 3 minutes.

- Under all versions, you cannot copy .mpkg files to an xSan volume over AFP. The volume crashes.

- Some programs do not allow you to open files directly on the server and edit them. Notable examples are EndNote and several Adobe apps. Instead, you have to copy the files to a local disk, edit them, and then copy them back to the server. This is annoying for users who keep their files on the server for safekeeping.

- Once an xSan volume crashes or becomes unstable, a computer reboot is often required to clear the memory and start fresh. If the volumes are mounted uncleanly, the OS will still think files are open and try to close them before restarting. Since the volume is not mounted, it is unable to do this. This causes a hang on restart that prevents the system from being rebooted/shut down gracefully. A force reboot is required. Forcing a power cycle through the rack PDU works quite well, but is not good for the server.

- fsm crashes typically force reboots of the metadata controller and/or the client hosting them. When the client is the file server, this causes issues for connected clients. When the metadata controller is affected, all other volumes are forced to failover while the controller reboots.

- Retrospect takes an incredibly long time to scan volumes for files and to determine whether files have been changed or not. Similarly, the actual backups of files themselves are slow. This seems to be the case no matter how fast your metadata controller is, but is significantly more pronounced when using older/slower computers as the metadata controller.

- Retrospect is unable to define sub-volumes of an xSan volume as backup targets because of the way the filesystem handles directory ID information. This forces Retrospect to scan the entire volume for a backup. On a 1.6 TB volume with 1TB of used space and 500,000 files, this can routinely take up to 20 hours to scan. On a normal HFS+ volume, this process takes mere minutes. This problem is compounded by the 4,000,000 file "limit" for Retrospect backup sets. Files are often marked as changed when they weren't and are re-backed up. That problem, combined with normal change/modify operations, means that a backup set can approach the 4,000,000 file limit easily within the course of its normal incremental backups before tape rotation.

- File copy and general file operations that require access to filesystem metadata are noticeably slower under xSan 2.0 compared to 1.4.2.

- The xSan Admin GUI for 2.0 is completely different from 1.4.2, and takes some re-learning to get used to. In version 2.0 of the GUI, it is also impossible to change a computer's role in the SAN from a Controller to a Client or vice-versa. Whatever the computer is added to the SAN as is what it must remain. I hear they fixed this in 2.1, but still... this is a very common thing that people do and it somehow got overlooked.

- If you open the xSAN Admin GUI on more than one computer, you occasionally get differing/conflicting information. This is most notable in the actual name of the SAN (inconsequential) but also shows up in places it should never report false information -- like where it tells you which metadata controller is currently controlling a specific volume. The cvadmin command line utility is so much better for most tasks, it's not even funny.