There were actually two problems. (well, three, before I was done typing this)
first I believe server pronto had a networking issue at about 10:30 eastern time. they resolved that
after an hour, and we came back up very briefly. but shortly thereafter, they either dumped the server,
or it lost power for some other reason.
I do know that all process running on the server right now have a 12:20 start time, and I got an
email from them saying one of their techs was "looking at the server, not aware that the problem
was resolved".
when we came back up the second time, we had a corrupted table. that just took a little while
to get resolved.
I was in the middle of writing this when the whole thing crapped out again. (for th third time) this
one was another networking issue at our colocation provider. they are having a
really bad
day.
sorry, folks. we were really rocking when the first problem hit this morning.