Our sys admin _IS_ hiking in Brazil for the last week, and the next two. But before he took off, he made sure to brief a group of us on the machines he takes care of, what they do, who can be contact for support on each machine in case it goes down, and how to get admin access on each machine if we really needed to.

If Lance Davis has a history of going off-list for extended periods, this is probably just an extreme case of that. If not - then something is seriously up ...