I, am the BTAFH known as -= LiNuX-GOTH=- and this, is a chronical of the goings on of myself, and the other BTAFHs

I, am the BTAFH known as -=¶ LiNuX-GOTH¶=- and this, is a chronical of the goings on of myself, and the other BTAFHs. My compatriots are known only as Whizzer, Emachine, DeMize, and Forest. Let this record be a lesson to mankind, and its limitless stupidity.

~Amen~

day one - orientation at our brand new campus- ahh, our new home, even if the designers & contractors are entirely incompetant.

*we noted many fuckups the contractors made, that must have looked real good on paper, but, in reality, were very stupid mistakes, like,..the locating of braile signs on textured stucco walls, much too high for anyone shorter than 5'5" to reach, along with having located nearly every drinking fountain on the sunniest side of buildings. And, a library, that was two stories tall, but,....the upper level was all open space, containing a number of motorized skylights, that, will no doubt decide to get stuck open during a rainstorm.

although not much was accomplished today, it was, a turning point in the destinies of the BTAFH. We were given a private tour, (by our sysadminC) shown the impressive points of our new campus, (including the massive cisco routers, *2100*6000 etc. pictures to come.) the "fiber-room" where the T-1 voice & data lines come in, circuit breakers are housed, and school wide novell server lives. (about 8 9.1 gig hot swappable scsi hds, some,.. outrageous amount of ram, 256mb, dual 400 mhz pent II processor, (*actually two seperate machines, both running novell, (*sub note, the server is a compaq, for whatever thats worth.) an UPS that would run a normal family household of three for two days, or perform a public execution. Also in ths room, is a service ladder to the attic of the library, herin contained more pipes, wires, and such, to be explored further at a later date.

We then got to see the new computer labs,..(filled with the old 133s from the old lab, waiting to be unpacked, organised, and r00ted.) then, we are led on to a room, stacked with brand new gateway computers. (this "stacking" is about ten boxes long, ten wide, and five high.) We are told these are just part of the nearly 200 brand new computers that came as a packaged deal for the school. (each is a pent II 400 mhz. with a 4 gig hd, 128 megs ram, and a 40 spd cd rom. along with 17" monitors.) and, we are told the labs will have to be cleared out of the moving boxes, re-arranged, and some of the new computers moved in.m(sysadminC implored us to help, but we decided

we didnt want to start doing this today,..beings we had prior plans. but,soon, we told our sysadminC.)

much OOH'ing and AHH'ing at the realisation that all of this, would soon be...

ours.

day two - Several weeks later, (*but still before school is to start) we report in for duty, thinking were going to be setting up computers, and using our wonderful 100mb/s ethernet LAN and T-1 to download copies of "Episode one","the matrix" and "the blair witch project"...but, alas, we are sadly mistaken. We are instead made to do hard physical labour that our small, out of shape, paisly bodies are not made to do. (*but, we do it, to earn brownie points with SysadminC)

I suppose I need to include a bit more detail on our "labs"...(ill scan a map soon, I suppose)

the labs (three consecutive classroom buildings,... R1 to R3) are

unfortunitely located uncomfortably close to the administration...

"portable trailer,..", which means, keeping the music down below acceptable levels,..

*sigh.

FIGURE 1-- Building R-1-3

+---------------------------------------------------------+

|@ X | | X |

=|^ R-3 | R-2 | R-1 |

=|^ | | |

|@ | | |

+---------------------------------------------------------+

X represents trap door locations, = are the conduit leading out of the building, @ are the cisco switches, and ^ is the fiber connecting the two.

each room contains enough RJ-45 drops (connections for the 10/100 LAN to connect 45 computers,..even though there is only physically room to put about 36 computer desks in the room, including the teachers.

the rooms on the ends contain trap doors in the floor to the sub-basement,(we poked around here, too..leaving no stone unturned...) buildings sit on concrete posts, about two and a half feet off the ground. *note - contractors are slobs, and used our sub-basements to throw garbage in.

we found -

1. remains of one big mac, and the accompanying bag,....(game token was not a winner, "please play again"...

2. three foot section of steel rebar, obviously left over from foundation pouring. (it was nicely hidden away, should a use for it ever be found. *perhaps the persuasion of an uncooperative teacher or student.

3. numerous nail clips,...for pneumatic nail guns,..which, no doubt, will some day, come in handy.

each room contains four lockable cabinets, and the cabinets of room R-3 contain the massive cisco routers to uplink the 135 some odd computer workstations this wing will eventually contain.

*note - contractors stupidly left dual sets of keys in each of the locks, when, we knew, that each lock should contain only one key,..so, we rectified this error, finding it to be in everyones best interest.

Each room contains one infrared motion sensor,..(which we believe to be wired to a silent alarm that wakes up some lowly district lacky, who may or may not call the authorities.)

We hauled, and bitched and moaned, and, suprisingly,..got very little done between our frequent soda breaks, bullshitting, listening to loud obnoxious music, sucking up to sysadminC, and exploring of our new home,..trying to avoid the evil contractors who would yell at us for being behind the yellow "do not cross" tape that we never saw.

day three - more hauling and bitching and moaning, since we had lost time to make up for from the time before.

we move the special made computer desks into position, so that all monitors(save two....) may be seen by the administrator at all times.

As we unpack the pizza box gateways, the room is filled with the smell of freshly molded plastic, packing styrofoam and printing ink,......

so strong,.. we all became rather giddy and fritzed around all happylike.

The lovely intercom system which has been set up then crackeled, announcing a brief power outage for contractors to work safely.

The perfect opportunity to test out the UPS... we set it up with a computer, port replicator, and two monitors. as we finished, the power went out. The UPS began shrieking every 10 seconds.... it continued this annoying practice for well over thirty minutes, since we had unplugged it when the power went out, before finally giving out in a extremely long ear piercing shriek. we plugged it back in in the nick of time to continue messing with NT security. Amazing all the swiches

remembered everything, except the main one in the library.. DHCP went down.. fuckit, I can make up an ip....

Dumpsters soon begin to fill with those damn annoying cowboxes that gateway is so famous for, and the janitor now has nightmares of killer cows.

The first computer I set up was on the teachers desk, (*which has a very comfortable chair) and I am quite curious as to what pre-installed software the factory gave us.

Much to my surprise, I find that we have copies of office 2000, as well as frontpage 2000.

how,....nice.

We went through numerous boxes containing the supplies and gadgets and

widgets from the old lab. In the ones we have opened so far, we have

"liberated" the following,...

1. at least a hundred feet of CAT-5 cable, in about eight foot incriments,..

(*on average,..one is approx 15 feet)

2. one eight port plus uplink 10/100 hub,....to be used for quake II

deathmatches at a later date...

3. numerous cds containing expensive programs.

*several of the system restoration cds that came with the gateways

mysteriously disappeared today, and, we're still looking for the

perpetrators,....those bastards got a free copy of office and frontpage 2000!

Day 3 - more setting up and moving of cowbitch boxes in the new lab, and setting up of the old computers in the room next door.

Amazing how any and all computer cords become tangled like x-mas lights when stored for more than five minutes.

Many thousand tangles later, we take a break, and go play volleyball in our very large, and very brand new gym. making sure to scuff the floor for the janitors, (*we know how bored they get.)

Having jammed my finger when a ball was ripped from my grasp, we went

leisurely back to work.

Upon completly setting up the old lab, we realise we have an issue when it can no longer find the domain we had set up at the old school. (*computers set up for networks no like running when network no longer exists...) so, we mercilessly formatted them,..and amused ourselves by installing Linux on several of them.

Day 4 - We report in, but, there isnt too ever much to do, since, we've set

up all the comps, and, Emachine hasnt configured our network yet, (all

the machines fight over the same IP address, making a nasty error message pop up on about 30 machines at the same time,..... 95 is smart enough not to do that... 98 sux.

having nothing really to do, we ask if our new software has arrived...

We then are informed by sysadminC that said software has not arrived yet, so, we browse the now unlocked cabinets for something to occupy ourselves with. And, oh, by the way, they'll be testing the fire alarms later.

We find it in several bottles of compressed air,...which, when sprayed

upside down, produces a freezing stream that makes those annoying insects become inert in a matter of a few seconds.

After wasting several cans attempting to nail one fly while flying, we return to r-3, only to be greeted by the most ear-splitting shiek I have ever heard in my life. It makes the UPS sound like the horn on a datsun. Fire alarm works.

11:32-- Fire alarm set off.

11:33-- Everyone goes outside to escape high frequency squeal

11:34-- Everyone inside to avoid much louder horn outside.

11:35-- Begin thumbtacking mousepads over alarm.

11:36-- Add rag.

11:37-- more mousepads

11:40-- next room.

11:45-- next room.

11:54-- State fire marshal walks in, glances at alarm. double take.

11:54:01-- we freak.

11:54:03-- he smiles.

11:54:05-- relax.... more... little more.... okay....

11:55:10-- fire marshal leaves; loud noises back.

12-12:30-- fire alarms continue to go on and off randomly.

Finally the noise stops, and we can get on with our "work."

day-?- Ok, I must apologise, I have lost track of the timeline,

let us, for the sake of continuity, give each day a name

related to its goings on, until I figure out a better method

of organization.

Phone day - Today, Whizzer and m'self were fucking off in

the accounting lab (r3) while SysadminC taught a world

history class. Ahh, its nice to sit around and not have

anything to do, but read up on www.slashdot.org, and look up

symbols for our techie TA badges.

Alas, our solace did not last long. Emachine interrupted

class to tell us that he was running a new phone line in the

library from the fiber room across to a computer area, and

required assistance.

We begrudgingly abandoned our reading material, gathered our

tools, and accompanied E to the fiber room, wherein, we discovered

Mumbler, (E's somewhat underspoken counterpart and roomate...) and a laptop tapped into the cisco 6000, bypassing the other switches, and apparently running mIRC.

Upon our enterring, Mumbler uttered something completely untintellible

and pointed to a open pizza box containing 3/4 of an overly greasy pepperoni and cheese. Whizzer and I took this to mean he was offering us some.

I declined; while whizzer accepted.

"enjoying your expense account?" I implored of E, who works for the

district for far too little pay, having the position more for the experience and its many,..."frenge benefits."

"what expense account? that isnt a pizza, thats a replacement box of RJ-45 cable ends...cant you tell?"

"ahh, yes,..now that you mention it,..yes, it is a box of RJ-45 heads...

...but it smells awfully damn good"

*laughs all around.

"So, " I continue; " what's this big wiring job that required

four people?"

"Well,...c'mere, and I'll show you,..."

Whizzer and I followed him into the fiber room, and, he pointed to a line of

pipes in the floor, most 4", but, the one we had to run wires through was a 2" diameter pipe. With lots of cable already in it.

"contractors fucked up, didnt they?" Whizzer said.

"Yup... we say 'every telco pipe has to be a four incher,' they hear 'every _outside_ telco pipe has to be a four incher. fucking morons. anyway, we have to run a t-1 capable line, through that, to the other side of the library...approx 100 ' away, and those bastard contractors dropped the fucking pull string down the tube..." replied E,...with a look of distaste on his face.

Mumbler then produced a 100' spool of fiberglass fish tape, mumbling and pointing at said 2" pipe.

E then took one end, and proceeded to fish it down the tube....while I

held the spool and pulled it off the roll, Whizzer off to one side, telling me how to be a better tube un-roller. Feels like a transportation crew in here.

*about 98' into the job, fishtape hits 90 degree angle, and refuses to go any further.

*much bitching, swearing, and forcing of fishtape, to no avail.

I then try rotating the spool, thinking that it will make the head of the fishtape act as a sewer snake would, and bore through said blockage, (*perhaps some of the existing wires?)

several minutes later, and much more aggravated, we then try running said fishtape from other end of pipe, (*with an art class in the library, nonetheless)

making only about 3' of progress.

This brings work to something of a standstill for a few minutes while we assess the situation over several cabonated beverages.

A little while later, we decide to cut one of the existing t-1 lines, and use it as a fishline. (nevermind having to re-terminate it and all that mundane bullshit,..)

We take something of a break, whilst E terminates a piece of said T-1, and we nose around the "alarm closet", wherein contained the schoolwide pa system, (with dual cd changers, nonetheless) the controls for the sprinklers, some phone lines, and, the alarm system.

*note: it is hotter than hell in here, this room is constantly in the sun, with no air conditioning, and many heat producing devices; the only relief provided by a small electric fan a wiring technician set up for his own comfort.

Whizzer and myself discussed back and forth about the alarm system,

and we need to figure out if the alarms are primarily on, or, primarily off,....

if off, a simple set of wirecutters would silence the watchdog, if on,

a jumper would work just as well. Several days later we are afforded the opportunity to assess exactly how the alarms work. With the assistance of E's inductive tone probe, we discovered that the sensor emits a pulse down the alarm wire three times a second. It also has a harmonic distortion, which, in layman's terms, means if you cut it, the alarm goes off, and if you try to jump it, the wire will have a different continuity and the alarm will go off, so it's kinda tough to defeat.... well, though the wire, anyway..... Duct tape over the motion sensor looks the same color as the grey motion detector cover anyway.....

upon return to the server room, we give up on trying to fish the cable, and sit around blowing hot air like the other electronic equipment in the room.

At this point, I spy some sap outside the window using the payphone,

and, my mind sets to working.

I look over at the largeish section of exposed phone wiring, and I ask E the following...

"does that payphone wire come in here?"

*we all look at each other at the same time, with large grins.

*he replies...

"let me go get my handset..."

we then listened in on a conversation between said sap, and his mother whom had just been pulled over for a DUI, and could not pick him up this afternoon.

How,...

sad.

We now grin evilly anytime we walk by said sap, and he doesnt have the foggiest idea why.

"Ip freely" day:

Perhaps the most substantial "incident" since we first saw our new home.

It began as just a normal Block schedual day, wherin, I had periods 3, 5, and 7.

I had just settled into a nice quiet peaceful English class, and we were discussing the trivialties and subtleties of Beowulf, when SysadminC (with a cup of coffee) and Emachine knock and enter, and ask if they can borrow me for a while.

My teacher of course complies, believing of course that whatever it is must be important, to require my "tech" support.

I actually thought for a while it might be important as well, so,..once outside, I asked the following...

"So, what is it you need me for? must be important eh?"

(reply from sysadminC) "Nah,..not real important, thought you might like to get outta english, unless, youd rather go back to Beowulf...."

(my reply) "lemme go grab my Gerberman,..."

(Admin) "thats what I thought,...*smile slyly*....really and truely, E here needs your help wiring *P town...*"

{*P town- NOUN - nickname given to the section of portable buildings used as classrooms because district ran out of building funds.

*for reference, I believe I will make a map of P town...

FIGURE 2-- P-TOWN.

p8 p9 p10 p11 p12 p13 p14 ^

{} {} {} {} {} {} {} N

------- ------- ------- ------- ------- ------- -------

| | | | | | | | | | | | | |

|-+---|-|-+---|-|-+---|-|-+---|-|-+---|-|-+---|-|-+---|

| | | | | | | | | | | | | |

------- ------- ------- ------- ------- ------- -------

XXXXX[] XXXXX[] XXXXX[] XXXXX[] XXXXX[] XXXXX[] XXXXX[]

***(===)*** ***(===)*** ******(===)

[]XXXXX XXXXX[] []XXXXX XXXXX[] []XXXXX XXXXX[] []XXXXX

------- ------- ------- ------- ------- ------- -------

| | | | | | | | | | | | | |

|-+---|-|-+---|-|-+---|-|-+---|-|-+---|-|-+---|-|-+---|

| | | | | | | | | | | | | |

------- ------- ------- ------- ------- ------- ---+---

{} {} {} {} {} {} {}

p1 p2 p3 p4 p5 p6 p7

+ junction box

--- overhead conduit

XXXXX[] OR []XXXXX handicap access ramp to raised portable

{} air conditioning unit

(===) Drains, which are higher than the rest of the alley.

*** holes where additional drainage system will be installed and cement will be re-poured

(me again) "well, does this job need Whiz? after all, techies must always work in teams..."

(Admin) "sure, where's he at?"

(me) "physics, but knowing him, he's prolly enjoying playing with electricity and getting graded on it..."

(E) "wait a sec, whos classroom is it?"

(admin & me) "Chambers..."

(E) "Uhhhh,..you guys go ahead, Ill head over to the lab..."

(Admin) "He wants a Printer set up, doesnt he?"

(E) *nods*, and walks quicker,....towards lab.

We walk into the physics room, and the teacher immediately recognizes us as techs...

(teacher) "Boy, Im glad to see you, are you guys gonna set up my printer?"

(US) *quick nervous glance at each other*

(adminC) "Not right now, but soon, were working on a network problem, administration comes first, you know,..."

*I smile inwardly at Admins creativity...

I see Whiz, and wander over, seeing him hard at work doing some mathematical prediction curve or something with his TI-86...

(me) "wanna learn how to terminate some phones, Whiz?"

(Whiz) "I dont know,...do I?"

(ME) "of course you do, unless you like what your doing..."

(Whizz) "actually, I kinda have to do this to pass, so umm, can it wait till break?"

(me) *shake head* "sad case you are Whiz..."

*all the while, admin has been making small talk said teacher, wowing him with the latest news concerning our brand new network, and how overworked we all are, and how E would get to him as soon as he could...

I join Admin on a walk back over to the lab, to join E.

(Admin) "boy, I love prep in the morning,..." *brandishes coffee....

(me) "went for coffee, dint ya?"

(admin) "had to take big A with me,.." *grin,..

(me) "heheh,.."

*we arrive at lab, to find DeMize schmoosing the security guard with a donut. (*come to find out later, he had been ditching all morning, having slept in after going to bed at 4 am. Night shift is a bitch.)

(security guy) "Hey adminC, I hear you can do some spiffy stuff with your computers,...any way I can have you match a name to a face?"

*nervous glance between myself and Demize, raised eyebrow by admin.

(admin) "depends, whats the name?"

(security guy) "*joe blow" *didnt bother to remember name...

(admin) "nope, never heard of him, might check with the resident sherriff on campus, he has that sort of software,..."

(security guy) "oh, well,..ok,..thanks anyway,..."

*sigh of relief between myself and Demize,...the heat always makes me nervous...

Mumbler shows up, and joins the party, saying something that sounded sort of like,.."wuthuyp"...?

I waved in reply, and waited uncomfortably for E to return....

E returns, and we begin our journey to P town, to wire phones and net.

on the way over, E and DeMize talk about expensive stereo equipment, bridging, ohms, gated amps, and a bunch of shit I know jack about, exept when they mentioned a bazooka tube, which, I knew, was a device that produced bass. other than asking "what kind" at the mention of said bazooka, I remained quiet, thoughtfull, and introspective like the good little BTAFH I am. (after all, cant go tipping my hand, can I?)

Upon arrival at P town, I see that the maintenance guys have once again cut up the asphault to install more drainage equipment.

Why they didnt do it right in the first place, is absolutely beyond me...

E then directs us to,..."*the nogo zone" to aquire supplies.

*no go zone -NOUN- located behind temporary chain link fence put in place by contractors to keep kids out of construction zone.

Upon arriving, we see an old journeyman taking a smoke.

(*Ive exchanged a few token words with him before, on some tech errand, though I dont recall exactly when) leaning against an air conditioning unit.

(me) "good morning, work going good?" I say, trying to appeal and be sympathetic, knowing the answer will be filled with complaints...

(journeyman)"aww, fuck nah, bitch, electricians fucked up, bitch, bitch, screwed up my order, bitch,..etc......ad nauseum..." add random hand gestures, and a long drag on aforesaid smoke at the end.

(me) "damn, sorry to hear that..." sympathetic nod, and established connection. (I have made a potential ally.)

(E) *looks at boxes that have been delivered, and realises he grossly over ordered....

"shit..."

(journeyman)uses intuition to asess situation. "always better to over order, than under..."

*all awed by wisdom of journeyman...

(E)"true,.." nod and smile to jorneyman... "ok, you guys, grab two boxes of the cat-5, and a box of the cat-3."

(Demize)*picks up one box... "awww,..this shits heavy,..."

(Me) "pussy,...." *picks up all three boxes, and walks back to P town.

*we walk into first portable, and, oh joy,...there's a class in session, (*a special ed class, nonetheless)

Its storytime when we walk in, and all the little special people stop listening to the story to watch us instead.

The teacher jumps on this opportunity...

(teach) "well, lets hold there and watch these nice men work..."

*all eyes on us, as E climbs upon a desk, and moves one of the fiberglass ceiling tiles, and proceeds to feed fishtape down conduit.

(teach)"well, this is interesting, how did you learn to do this sort of work?"

(E) *makes up some real ingenious answer.

*teacher then looks to me, and small beads of sweat begin to form on my brow and underarms.

(teach) "and you, sir?"

(me) "oh,..Ive still got a lot to learn, and Im learning right now, actually,.."

(teach) "well, boys and girls,...isnt that wonderful?"

*grumbles from special people, some have lost interest...

*his cell phone rings,..

(E) "can you get it off my toolbelt, and hold it?"

(me) "uuuh,..sure,..." -pick up cell phone, and set it to speaker...holding it up beside E while he works.

(E) "hullo?"

(BOSS) "E? where are you at?"

(E) "Im at foothill..."

(BOSS) "ahh,..0k,..still wiring those phones?"

(E) *rolls eyes.."yeah,.."

(BOSS) "ok, how long do you think its gonna take to finish up out there?"

(E) "at least another week,..maybe week and a half, just started today."

(BOSS) "I want it done by this friday {today is wednesday} think you can manage that?"

(E) -odd look- "not a chance, we havent got the men, or any supplies...!"

(BOSS) "well, we'll discuss it at the next meeting,...OH!,..by the way,..were going to start meeting at 7:30 every morning here at the district office,...sound good,..?"

(E) -rather distressed look- "what do we need a daily meeting for? "

(BOSS) "so I can stay appraised of the situation, I need to know what all you techs are running around doing,.."

(E) "how long are these meetings going to last?"

(BOSS) "say, an hour, maybe two,.."

(E) "it would be much better if I could just work during that time,...nobodys here to get in the way at 7:30,...hard to work around these classes full of kids, and I already give you a weekly update..."

(BOSS) "well, were having the meetings,..starting tomorrow...please be there...*click*"

*E is more than a little pissed off by that point...

(me) "middle management?"

(E) *nod*

(me) "figures,..."

*now, we continue to run the fishtape and wire the first five portables on the north side of the map...see above. (P8-P12)

We continue on in this manner for nearly twenty minutes, when, rather winded, I take a break outside P-8, Lucy the attendance lady comes a strolling up. Very quickly. Im standing near the first cement pouring.

(me) "hey lucy, whats goin?"

(Lucy) "not a lot, hey, have you seen Emachine? he isnt answering his cell phone.."

*quick thought passes my mind,..should I, or should I not tell her?

(me) "actually, yes, Im working with him right now,..hes in one of these portables,..."

*she begins looking in one, while I run to the one he is actually in, and I give him advanced notice shes pretty peeved...

(E)"shit,..what now?"

(ME) "I dunno,.but, shes a lookin for you,..dont say I told you,.."

He leaves to go find her, and I wait with Whiz inside one of the Ps with mumbler, and Demize, mumbler is terminating a phone.

a few minutes later, He returns in a rush,...

(E) "ok,..how many of you do I have?"

*I do a quick head count, theres, whiz, myself, Demize, and mumbler,...not counting E"

(E)"ok,..we have an IP conflict somewhere around this school, I want you each to take a wing, and check every screen...someone stole the servers IP address, and its shitting cinderblocks..."

we then head back towards the center of campus, and I notice Whiz has a worried expression on his face.

(me)"Ill bet its over in the lab,....any theories, bill?"

(WHIZ)"plausable deniability..."

(me)"wha?"

(WHIZ)"the old server,...is in the old lab, we were gounna fry it and use it as a fileserver for that video editing, it's got a dedicated ip that dhcp doesn't hand out... one of the server ips.. when we got the new site, the new server got the old server's ip. but, I didnt do it,... I've been with you guys." *directed to E* "When did it happen?"

E: "about fucking five minutes ago, that's when."

I kind of brush it off for now, not quite knowing how really deeply involved I was...

we check the C wing, starting with the unfinished asb room, where I plugged in the old asb computer, I thought perhaps it had stolen the ip,...guess again.

We found the room locked up tight, and by glancing through the window, found that it wasnt even on.

Next room, Mr. Eikie's room. Cool teacher, teaches world history, had him sophmore year, passed his class.

I knock, and enter, Whiz in tow.

(me) "Hey Mr. Eikie, have you gotten any error messages today on your computer?"

(Eikie) "Not today, but, hey, while your here, could you hook up my printer?"

(me) "uhhh,..Ill have to get back to you,..we have somewhat of a crisis..."

(Eikie) "ahh,..carry on then,.."

next room, some teacher I dont know, or, even addressed, the door was open, so, we strolled right in, and,..low and behold, an ip conflict error message was on the screen.

(whiz) "bingo,..that wasnt too hard... easy, even."

(Me)"almost too easy,....shall we check the rest of the c section?"

(whiz)"yup, then, we'll report to E..."

we check the rest of the section, and we dont find another IP conflict, but we are bombarded by about five teachers who want printers, and want them now, but cant have them because, "were working on a network problem."

we walk on over towards the libray, and see them hanging out near the computer labs. We hasten over.

(E) "any luck?"

(me)"yeah, we found an IP conflict,...over in c2"

(E) "happen to remember that IP?"

*whiz and I look at each other, and "dohs" are exchanged,..both of us knowing we shoulda written it down...

(E) "no matter, we'll just have to go back over,..."

We walk back over to c2, all in single file, looking all official like, right over to the computer, and E takes one look at the message,.."conflict over ***.***.***.42 IP address, cannot do such and such.." and says,.."thats not the one,.."

on the walk back over to the fiber room, whiz and I overhear snatches of conversation, in between furious typing at the server console..such as,.."server IP address got stolen, yadda yadda, ipcon shows... last nunber in server IP address is .9, yadda yadda, important stuff to take note of... *E* "fucking attendence is down.. councelling... fucking everything is frozen until we find the goddamn thing... you sure we checked everywhere?"

"not gym."

"Nor Library"

*e* "let's go."

Fortunately, the library was a short one meter hop from the server room. We look upon the librarian's screen, and walk really fast over there. We see an error message of some sort.

IP conflict.

*E* ".145! dammit!" he says loud enough for most of the library to hear. a succession of "sshs!" follows his outburst. The in-house lady, Ms Vasquez, hurries over to start handing out referrals for cussing. Little does she know the person she is about to start chewing out is the DO network guy.... this shall be interesting....

One slightly embarrassed and very nastily mooded vasquez later, we continue to stand in the lobby of the library, brainstorming about different possible areas the offending ip could be. Mumbler goes off to check the lab again. E goes back in the server room. Leaving myself and -=¶ LiNuX-GOTH¶=- to go to...

"the gym!" we both say aloud. Vasquez, now in an evil mood, begins her movements toward us, saying (VERY loudly) you have to be quiet in here or I'll----

the rest of her comments are cut off as the door slams between us. We begin walking briskly over to the gym but in mid stride, we are intruppted...

"-=¶ LiNuX-GOTH¶=-! Whiz! Get over here NOW!" screams sysadminC across two hundred feet of asphault. That little guy has a voice, lemmie tell you. We promptly change direction and begin walking towards him.

"Now!" he screams yet again. We hasten our pace to damn near jogging and cut across the grass. Ten seconds later, we stand before him, abieit slightly winded, and the begining of sweat pouring from out bodies.

"What do you guys know about the old server?" sysadminC demands, as Ahhk adds "what's this extra computer doing in here?"

"It still has NT on it, like I told you earlier, we are gounna blast it and install 95 and linux on it... try out some shell accounts, have a file server to store... umm.. downloads... video editing stuff... things like that." I explain.

"When did you guys set it up? Why is it connected to the net?" admin continues to ask.

"We set it up like, yesterday, or the day before. We never connected it to the net. We have no patch cords, Emachine has them all." Whiz says

"Umm, well, that's not exactly true... we have the old stuff from the old lab... but that's all in boxes somewhere, unless someone got it out." Adds -=¶ LiNuX-GOTH¶=-.

Emachine shows up from the library, and goes in to look at the NT machine, knowing it doesn't have an error message because that's just the way things go. Meanwhile the rest of us stand outside discussing ways it could have been pulgged into the net. Eventually, after many theories are presented, it is assumed some kid in third period did it. It seems the most likely answer.

E curses loudly from the inside, indicating the theif of the ip has been apprehended. The offending PC is disconected from the net and the server resumes normal operations. We resume wiring P-town, this time working on some cat5 and some 25 pair telco cable.

BIGASS FIGURE 3-- AREA SUROUNDING P-TOWN

$$$$$$$ Propane Tank Cooling Tower

$ ----------- |--------------| |--| |-------

$ =========== | Heat/AC | |--| |Maint.

$ ----------- |--------------| [-] |-------

=====$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$==============================================

----- $ Maintinance Road

=======| |=========$ |=======================================

----- $$$ | P8 P9 P10

******* $ | | []

* * $ | | -||---- ------- ----

******* $ | | SPACE RESERVED |# | | | |

+-+----------------+$ | | FOR FUTURE | | | | |

|%| @ |$ | | PORTABLE |-+---|-|-+---|-|-+-

+-+ |$ | | EXPANSION | | | | |

| |$ | | | | | | |

| S-22 |$ | | ------- ------- ----

| |$ | | XXXXX[] XXXXX[] XXXX

| |$ | - -----------------------

| |$ | [ ] ***(===)*** **

| |$ | - -----------------------

|------------------|$ | | []XXXXX XXXXX[] []XX

| |$ | | ------- ------- ----

| |$ | | | | | | |

| S-23 |$ | | DITTO. |-+---|-|-+---|-|-+-

| |$ | | | | | | |

| |$ | | | | |# | |

| |$ | | ^ ------- -||---- ----

+------------------+$ | | | []

$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$ | | N P1 P2 P3

# simple 24 port 10baseT hub, telco patch panel, cat5 patch cables rescued from the lab at the old school site, mod-tap cable termination system, all weather cat5 (big around as your thumb) and all weather 25 pair telco cable running to...

|| conduit. Goes through the wall at the top of the celing, into a junction box. Conduit continues down wall to meet up with another junction box at ground level, with alarm and fire patch panels in it. Wire continues into another conduit which goes to pull box #2, on to pull box #1, next to christy box #1. The wire then goes through conduit from pull box number one into pull can in room S22, whereupon the wire traverses the rafters to a cisco 3600 switch.

Incidentally, the S building is still under construction, and as such, has no power running to it, including the cisco switch. oops. This was temperaroiy rectified with a fifty foot extention cord running to some temperarory power just south of the building.

Minor problem #1: construction workers run 10 amp behemoth electric drills on the same circut as extremly delicate five thousand dollar switch.

Solution #1: use spare UPS to filter the power delivered to the switch.

Problem #2: spare UPS uses 20 amp 110v connection, temp. power only supplies 15 amp 110v. Plug design physically different; can't use UPS.

Solution #2: fuck it. get 20amp connection to 15amp connection converter, plug it in, turn it on.

Rationalization: UPS will only pull 20 amps if fully loaded and just recovering from severe battery drain, using the inverter to both keep equipment running and fully charge battery. With one switch, full load will never happen, so it's save to use on a 15amp circut. Besides, the worst that can happen is it overheats the insulation on the extention cord, burning it out, or possibly popping the 15 amp circut breaker on the temp. power. Oh well.

$ No Go border. Made up of modular chain link fence with wooden slats in the links, to limit visibility. Any students in this area immediately receives a referral.

[-] Small pull box. Single concrete or metal cover, between 10 and 30 pounds.

[] Junction box, usually screwed to the side of a building.

[ ] Medium size pull box. Single concrete cover, weighing in near 80 pounds.

-----

| | Mother of all pull boxes. (About 4X6X3'). Two seperate concrete

----- covers, because one would weigh too much to lift

*******

* *

******* Above ground christy box, containing power, alarm, telco, wiring, etc... about five feet high, four long, and three wide. Big, metal, and forrest green.

% A pull can.. big area between walls with a lot of conduit in it, for cable TV, phone, alarm, electrical, fire, and network.

NOTE: I'm just gounna cover several days worth of wiring in this day, since it was so long ago I've lost a lot of detail... oops. And actually, when I remember the good parts, it's not really in chrono order, but, oh fucking well.

The next several hours resulted in a SHITLOAD of work. The btafhs' worked up more sweat in this period than any time before. however, they were learning many techniques that could be applied to a future career of network technician, or, alternatively, CIA agent.

In the end, cableing was run from many different areas, essensially wiring all of P-town, except for the last two portables on each side, because the additional six wires could not fit through the conduit that was set up for them. Idiots. The A/C room was also wired with net and phone, along with mantinance. The S building also got some network wiring in the floor for a CAD class that would eventually occupy the space. Trunk cables were laid from P2 and P8 respectivally, to the medium sized pull box in the middle of the street. Each side had net cable, and a phone cable, totalling four rather thick cables which ran to the MOAPB (Mother of all pull boxes) From there the two data cables went through a tiny 3/4 conduit into S-22's pull can. Getting those pairs of cat five cable to go 30 feet required two hours of work, six men, 1.5 cans of superlube (a blue gel substance which will never evaporate and is more greasy than a plate of pork rinds), and several band aids. Finally, the wires ended up inside the box with the swich in it, and we realized we had pulled about fifteen feet more than needed. We pulled out the savage blue sheers of death and mercilessly delved into the cable, bisecting it quite neatly.

The telco cable went up into the green christy box with no problem, thanks to another contractor fuck-up: the conduit diameter was supposed to be 1.5 inches, they made it 4. Piece of cake :)

more wire and phone went from the MOAPB to the box in the middle of the street, and on to a box between the cooling tower and maintance shed, and finally on to a small conduit in maintaniance, where another small telco patch panel was installed, eventually another 24 port hub would go here as well.

Meanwhile, during class, many different people (wizzer, linuxgoth, mublmer, e, demize, and segfault) have been walking in and out of classrooms, carring boxes of cat5 cable, cat3 telco wiring, fishtape, and running messages back and forth between portables. Finally, with all the rough wiring done, bundles of exra wiring, to be terminated later, had to be taken care of. At the moment, each side of portables has about 30 feet of fifteen different wires hanging down from the conduit and along the floor of the classroom, begging to be tripped on. This had to be untangled, and folded in such a way as to minimise future tanglings. This was then ziptied above peple's heads, resembling a large ball of greyish spegetti, or perhaps a pinyata. Someone PLEASE SPELL CHECK THIS! Jesus, I would piss off so many editors... anyway,

With all the major work done, until more things could be purchased at North Valley Computers (mod tap connectors, "nipples," conduit for the last two portables, junction boxes, boxes for phone and data jacks to be mounted on, raceways to hide the cable behind, and assorted other goods...) E was on his way back to the server room to pack up, and decided to check his voicemail messages.

(PBX) You have fourteen new messages.

(E) Shit! *play

(BOSS) Hey E! When you get a chance, call me. And by the way, change that voicemail message, it's not in keeping with the image the IT department is trying to project. Talk to you soon!

(PBX) Message received 9:48 AM

(E) *rolls eyes... *next

(BOSS)Hey E! Call me as soon as you can, and change that voicemail soon.

(PBX) Message received 10:28 AM

(E) *exaspirated look... *next

(BOSS) E! Gimme a call!

(PBX) Message received 12:28 PM

(E) You think I won't once I check? Use my pager for Christs sake! *next

(BOSS) E-- *next

(BOSS) E! CALL ME AND CHANGE YOUR VOICE MESSAGE!

(PBX) Message received 4:42 PM

(E) Fuck! Why the fuck did you have to repeat that twleve fucking times? You think I can't get it with one? are you fucking stupid? Shit! You fucking spent the entire day telling me shit I don't need to hear. My contract says nothing about half the shit I'm doing. Fuck you. *next

(Mumbeler) Hey, E, apparently the cell isn't working in the hellhole... so ignore this, I'll find ya.

(PBX) Message received 4:50 PM

(E) That's more like it. *next

(MOM) Hey hon! I know you're busy but your sis really wants to talk to you about something, so if you have a chance call or stop by after work. Remember to make an appointment to get your car fixed. Be careful and I love you!

(PBX) Message received 5:32 PM

(E) Jesus, nineteen years old and she's still reminding me about stuff I already know... *next

(PBX) You have no more new messages.

(E) Thanks. *dials boss*

(BOSS) Hi! You've reached Eric- *click

(E) Fucking voicemail.... *dials*

(BOSS) Eric Moron, can I help you?

(E) Okay, I called. Whaddya want?

(BOSS)Hey! SASI shits whenever I set up a printer, why?

(E) Is it at FHS?

(BOSS) Yeah.

(E) FHS doesn't have a print server yet. We do that next week.

(BOSS) Oh. Okay. How's it coming?

(E) Most of the cable is laid, but we still have to set up the switch, terminate everything, completely do four portables with new conduit, set up raceways, and program the pbx to use the new phones, then set up their computers and printers... at least another week, prolly closer to two.

(BOSS) I need it all done by Friday so you guys can go work at Slick and put in their network.

(E) Push it back a week, there's no way we'll be done here.

(BOSS) We'll talk about it later. Talk to you later.

(E) Bye. *click* Shithead.

E slams his cellphone into it's holder, and begins walking briskly towards the library. We continue to the fiber room and pack up for the day, locking everything up with a quarter. (Locksmith hasn't done interior doors yet, so you can open and close them with any small flat instrument... quarter, regular screwdriver, pocketknife, etc...

Terminator ~936, almost one thousand day.

As the title implies, this is termination day. A day of punch down tools and not much else. At least, for the most part. Around 2 PM, E gets a call from maintinance: the conduit on the north side is ready. Translated, this means that the last two portables on the north side of P-town can be wired this afternoon.

First, however, a few more minor wiring projects would have to be done, back in the computer labs. The internal arrangement has two computers and a networked printer with access only to two data ports. Three devices, only room for two. However, just a few feet away, across an asile, there is an empty data port. Unfortunately, to plug a patch cord in would be to risk some kid tripping on it and suing. Solution: use punchouts in the junction boxes below the floor and run the patch cable under the floor, to avoid tripping feet, like so.

FIGURE 4-- Floor of R-2

TO COMPUTERS DITTO

# # #

TO PRINTER # # #

# ----------- # FLOOR ------------ #

######## ###### ########

------/ # |<# /-----------------------------/ |<## / ^

| # / ASILE | / |

####### / ######>| / THIS

# |--------/ # |--------/ END

# # UP

##########################################

CAT 5 PATCH CABLE

The second project had to do with the switches in room R-3. When they tested the power a long time ago, the switches forgot their programming. Since then they were reprogrammed, and E thinks it'll stay, but, just to be sure, he wants to stick a UPS up there to keep the switches going. Besides, we have a spare.

FIGURE 5 Celing of R-3

EXTENTION CORD

==================================================

---||-------------------------------------------------||----

| || | |[UPS] |

|--||---| |--||---|

| ***** | | ***** |

| * @ * | | * @ * |

| ***** | | ***** |

@ Switch.

With these simple projects done, we had one wiring project left- a 3/4" conduit between room C-22 and the MOAPB needs a 25 pair cat3 in it. so, we stuck the fishtape down this conduit, presuming to reach the MOAPB in about thrity feet.

One hundred feet later, we admit to ourselves, this conduit probably isn't the one we were hoping for. So we begin pulling the tape out and rolling it up, until we hit a slight snag.

Rather, a slight snag hits us, and the fishtape won't budge. Still a good fifty feet in, and all the pulling in the world doesn't release it. We assume it must have gone somewhere 50 feet away, and started sticking it's head out, much as a cobra does for a snake charmer. When we pulled it back down, the head got caught on the conduit edge, so somwhere, there is a head of fishtape sticking out of a conduit. We resolve to look for it later.

We resume wiring P-town, now untangling the pinyata of wires we had hung up the previous day, and throwing them over the suspended celing panals to get to the corner of the room where the hub was newly installed. The excess wires, about 10 feet of which, were cut off, still leaving enough to make a 5 foot service loop, and be terminated too. Unfortunately, the poor soul who cut those wires, newcomer Sarcboy, had not noticed the labels carefully affixed to the wires, indicating where each came from, to aid in termination.

A few curses later, E handed linuxgoth and myself a tone generator, indicating that we should plug it into the phone jack down at the other end of the portable. After we did so, E used his inductive tone generator to determine the proper set of wires to terminate to the patch panel. E then said go to the next door down and do it. We then repeat this for the remaining 3 portables.

Since the north side conduit was complete, we decided to run the wires through it. however, having no fish tape, as ours was stuck in a conduit somewhere in S country, we would have to find alternate methods of getting the six wires through the conduit.

A brief search through the mantinance shed revealed an air compressor which could be used to send a bag full of air attached to a pull string through the conduit. Additional examination, however, determined the air compresor rather lacking in horsepower, air volume, and pressure, so we nixed that idea.

Luckily, one of the maintiance guys was there and loaned us their 200' metal fishtape, which had been lubed with graphite to decrease friction. They had broken the caseing it was in and replaced it quite ingeniously with a hunk of flexible 3/4" conduit. We sent the tape down the conduit and was almost there when it refused to budge past a 90 degree turn the pipe made up to the junction box. For the second time that day, we abandoned a fishtape to work in other areas.

School is now out, and we spend a few moments working on the novell server, it refuses to install the printer administration module. Mumbeller has been at shasta all day, and we await him before working on the north side of P-town. Eventually, after a very fustrating hour of work, we allow a novell guy on our server to fix it. We watched his every move through about three different monitoring programs, even including watching the disk lights to make sure he isn't doing massive work without telling us.

Half an hour later, printers are able to be installed remotely. Our last task on the server is complete. Mumbeller shows up, and immediately begins bitching about how stupid all the teachers at Shasta are. E answers in kind about those from Enterprise, each trading horror stories back and forth, with myself as an amazed listener.

We head out to p-town, and begin terminating jacks on the south side, since we hadn't done the patch panel for telco over there yet. E uses his 110 blade punch down tool like a madman as mumbeler and myself atempt to punch out a puch out. The junction box will eventually have 15 wires hanging through this one inch hole, so we gotta get all the metal fragments out of the way. But first, the larger task is simply removing the punch out, which seems to be welded into place; it is so difficult to get out. Eventually, with the aid of a large mallet, chisil, file, and hacksaw, not to mention several screwdrivers to use as leverage, the entire junction box falls; we had ripped the nails from the wood beam.

Several screws later (no! not like that! bad!) the junction box was back in it's proper place with a nipple over the punch out (nipple-- little plastic thing to keep the cable from snagging on rough metal edges. It was now near six pm on a friday night, and here we were; three nerds (the rest had gone home) with no social life, trying to beat an impossible deadline. There was only one answer to this: Dinner.

Having a reliable means of transportation, I drew the tab, and the $20, for getting the pizza, pepporoni and cheese with sausage and pinapple... kinda unusual, but, hey, not like I care. E and mumbeler go to their apartment to get some tools to open up that conduit and extract the metal fishtape, also to pick up more nipples and an extention cord. I hightail it to the local pizza joint, and put in a order to go for one large one. While it is cooking, I drive back to my house, to inform mommy I'll be at skool for awhile longer. She said be back by 10 pm. bitch.

On the return I pick up the pizza and return to P-2, where everyone had been before my departure. Sadly, they wern't there then. I found them by the server room, lifting the spare UPS off the ground and throwing it into Mumbeller's Ford POS. E and myself climb onto the hood, holding on to dear life as the car accellerates down the quad. As it rounds the bend to P-town, E's cell phone rings, causing us all to bust up laughing. As the car stops, E answers:

(E) Yeah?

(MOM) Hey, whatcha doing?

(E) Working out at Foothill, have to run cables for two portables and set up a UPS.

(MOM)Oh, well your sis...

I lose interest in the conversation, and watch as mumbeler attempts to lift the extreamly heavy UPS. I go over to help him out.

Much grumbeling and cursing later, we sit the UPS on the floor of C-22, to filter the temperarory power to the switch. E had finshed up his conversation with mom, and we all went to P2 to enjoy dinner.

Over dinner, mumberler enlightened us as to his work at the other campuses today. The majority of the conversation was lost on my humble ears, though I did catch several referances to "fucking fucked up computers." and "fuck you man" E's reply indicated that all the other campuses in the district are full of evil teachers who make them do stupid shit. Except, of course, this one. E=MC^2

With our appitites satiated, and darkness presant, we began work on the fishtape we had abandoned in the conduit in P-town. We removed the junction box and got the end of the fishtape, added the six wires, taped them on, and pulled it back with little difficulty.

We then grabbed three of the wires and ran them down to the last portable though the conduit with only the wash of florecent light from a couple portables and a small flashlight to guide our actions.

I therefore wasn't two surprised when mumbeler said "There is two cat 3 in here, and only one cat5. we fucked up." he had a "well, here's to more overtime!" grin on his face as he downed his pepsi.

E, on the other hand, was rather pissed. "We can't see shit out here, why the fuck didn't you notice that in the other portable when you had three cat5?

(M) "I thought we were running all cat5"

(E) Have we run all cat5 anywhere else? Fuck no! phones are cat3, net is cat 5, and I'm pucking fissed. Fucking pissed. *to me* get the fishtape, we'll do it again.

We did so, triple checking to make sure all wires were correct. After attaching the conduit and junction boxes togeather again, we terminate the ends and call it a night. It is just past 10.

Fuck.

Mortoni Strikes back

...Several weeks go by, and nothing worth noting happens.

One morning, (a monday, nonetheless) I have just arrived to publishing on the web, taught by our one and only sysadminC.

several people log in, and, they suddenly realise that "my computer" does not contain an A:\ drive,...

A few puzzled looks are passed among sysadmin, myself, and Demize,..wherein I say...

(me)Was Moron working on the network this weekend?

(admin) I have a phonecall to make,...

*note: AdminC purchased a powerfull cordless, and placed it in R-3, so as to make talking, walking and working much easier.

I listen as he dials and leaves a message on Eric Morons' voicemail,...

(admin) Hi, this is AdminC, and, A few of my students have logged in, and the network wont let them have A: drives, and its really pissing me off because its making it hard to teach my class...

call me as soon as you can...*click*

five minutes later, the phone rings.

Come to find out, he was working on the network, and, whoops, he fucked up.

Until he can fix it properly, we figure out a contingency.

start-run-a:

now, if they were even the least bit concerned, they would have dissalowed run to everyone but teachers and techs. But, they arent that smart.

However, it was promised a long time ago, that every one of the 1600 some odd students would have both private server space, and a whatever@suhsd.net e-mail address...even if about 9/10ths of the students could either care less, or wonder why the t.v. has a typewriter attached to it....

Mr. Moron could not figure out a logical way to mass produce accounts, so, someone suggested doing it by student ID number, and using the last four digits of social security numbers as passwords.

Yeah fucking right.

He proceeds to do so, but, for some reason we dont have all the information on, those accounts refuse to work...

Big surprise, when you have an incompetant moron trying to do something even a BTAFH might have a slight problem with...to find out, the server shits if the password has a null in it, and many soc. # have a zero, which moron's password import tool treats as null. WTF?

contingency?

HA! hmm... let's make the password 1234!

Each of the following days, adminC asks about the accounts, to which mr. moron says,..."I'm working on it...

The following week, we finish up P-town, along with several other little projects which were deffered because of Moron. He suddenly decides that if the phones work, that's good enough. We don't mention that there are still two portables left. Besides, it's not our fault. The conduit isn't finished yet. honest.

Instead, we move our work to the Office, a building made up of several portables... guess I have to draw an ASCII map again... :)

FIGURE 6: Main Office

**************** ************************************************

* |X ! | | @ *

* C1 |X ! #################################@ *

* |X ! # | | *

* ! CS # | RS | HC *

*------------|X ! # | | *

* X- ---#------------------------------ *

* C2 |X # *

* |X X-------#----------------------------------*

*------------|X X| AP3 # | *

* X| #######| *

* C3 |X _____________| *

* |X C4 | ------------*

*------------|X |-------------| ! S | *

* ! | BB *

* AP1 |- -------- ! | *

* | AP2 | ! SK | *

*************************************** *************************

Ahh... I feel better.... Okay, the @ is the switch, a simple cisco babe, not as complex as the others, but it has to support SASI, so it's not as crappy as the stuff we stuck in P-town. The other @ is the phone patch panel.

Umm, C means councelor, S means secratary, and BB is the Big Boss, the principal. AP is assistant principal RS is registrar, and HC is health clerk. No further questions allowed.

Okay, okay. X are file cabnits (there are more; those are the ones I could remember) and # is the conduit route we used to put phone & net in to AP3

not to scale.

Anyway, that little wiring job was real fun. Yeah. Climbing around in the middle of kids complaining about their schedule, kids puking around you, and the lady in the next office bitching about how her celing tile is coming up... of course it's fucking coming up, we're running wires over it! can't you see the guy in your office with the punch down tool?

Of course we wouldn't terminate it right.

Several diagnotics later, and cursing at mumbeller, since he is the one who always screws up, we assume it must be the cable itself that is bad. Fuck, we gotta do all this again? One more thing to check first....

... For once E screwed up... he actually made a mistake. I can't beleive it. He is no longer a demi god... he's human afterall. Reversed the wires on the patch panel. Oops. Fatigue gets to ya in this job.

Just before leaving the office, he askes Doris, the secretary, exactly what they were planning to do with a portable trailer which was recently installed near the office. They reply that it'll be the ASB student store and also the staff copy room.

E askes if it'll need phones and data ports.

Yup.

Shit. Fine, tell maintinance to run a conduit from the christy box up under the middle of it when they do power. I'll get around to it when Moron tells me to.

We finish off the day with a small network printer job in the registrars office, hooked up a jetdirect to her old HP Laserjet. After printing out the needed IP and configration information for the printer, we go off to enjoy some well earned rest.

School is long since out, so we go to the library to install two more net connections that they wanted. Previously, it was put off due to lack of data jacks, but we found two in the Chem & Phy wing, so all is well. Cept for chem and phy, but they wern't using them... and they were the wrong form factor for anyway.

We grab the fishtape and run the cable through easily. Terminate the hack and go into the server room (aka MBF) to terminate the other end. We zip tie the cables in with the others, adding a service loop just behind the patch panel to make repair and replacement of the lines easy. As we finish punching down the last cable, E's cellphone rings. It is a secrataery from EHS saying that SASI won't print. SASI is the grading and attendance program for the district, and, as such, has the highest "drop everything and fix this NOW!" priority. Even when it's after school and all of the councelors and attendance people have gone home.

E goes over to his laptop and brings up the status of eh-fs1, the EHS main fileserver. He sees that the print server has shit itself over a queue of about 568 files, 560 of which are identical. Secrataries are stupid.

E tells her to wait a few while he restarts the print server on novell remotely. Sadly, SASI chooses this time to realize the printer isn't working. This generates a priority message that gets sent to about everywhere, and makes it very difficult to work on the server when all of the traffic is flying all over the network. SASI shits. The entire program subsystem of the server shits. The T-1 line shits. (This is because the router shit when the server shit because of sasi shitting) DAMN SNMP TRAPS!

As the T-1 resyncs and looses it at regular intervals, E tries to keep a telnet session running, rather difficult when the connection drops out every few minutes for a few minutes. The mighty power of ping makes that slightly easier; Destination net unreachable, Destination net unreachable, Destination net unreachable, Replay from X.... then the sudden announcement of "It's up!!" by whoever noticed it first. Finally E tells the server to shut down completely and restart. Server replies with "235 files open on /prog/SASI. Continue? [Y|N]

E replies with "Shit! the fucking councellors left their computers logged on!" He then calls up the bimbo of a secratary and tells her to go into their offices and log out of SASI, then go back and log out herself.

"But I'll loose my print job!"

"If you don't you'll loose the entire student records database for enterprise. now go log out." to himself "besides, you already lost your print job," mutters even lower; "bitch."

Technically, you wouldn't really loose the whole database, but there is a very small chance that you could. Nevermind the backups.... besides, that's more work than logging out.

Several minutes later the computers are logged out, the server reports 0 files open, and is promptly restarted.

First time I've ever seen a crash averted by telnet.

With that ruckus behind us, we go over to sysadminC's room and talk for awhile, during which time Demize walks in. Apparently it's back to school night in.... 45 minutes. Hmm... didn't notice. This means kids. This means we wanna be done and gone before they start hanging around....

But there is stuill work left to do, in this case meaning patch cables for the portables. We has set up the hub and terminated the patch panel, but had no patch cables to connect the two. E askes for our cat5 heads and our crimper.

I ask how long the cable has to be.

"Not long." he replies. "Maybe 14 inches tops, why?"

"Got keys to R-1?"

"Yeah."

"Come with me"

We locate in a box in R-1 16 patch cables, of the requisite length, which were leftover from our old school's lab.

"Great. Well, we still need 8 more."

"Okay. Still have the crimpers, right?"

"yeah. cable is in P-8. Let's go before everyone shows up."

We proceed to P-8 and begin crimping cat5, putting a head on each end to form a patch cable. Demize is amazed at the speed of E at this process.

"What do you expect? I've done over a thousand. How many you done?"

Demize replies with "This makes one!" He plugs it into the circut tester and it replies with "open"

E says "Yup. Looks like it." He inspects the ends and says "cut this end off and try again."

Demize does so and is treated to another error; "reverse."

"Shit!" he shouts, throwing the cable down. "You try." he says, handing the cable and scissors to me. I make a cable. reply is open. I look carefully and see one wire didn't get nailed by the copper nail when I crimped it. I replaced the head and the reply was "closed." Demize just cursed at me.

Shortly thereafter, the cable was all done, the hub was on, and we could surf the net. One of these days we'll get around to doing the rest.... But now, we must go away, as the bell just rang, and hundreds of children and parents are roaming the campus. We pack up and call it a day.

The following day E and his new cohort sarcboy were working on the science labs. The teachers have been screaming since the begining of the school year for IT to install their programs on the 32 computer workstations divided amound 4 classrooms. Finally, nearly two months into the school year, we get around to it.

"NT Server?! What the fuck?!" E announces as he reads the requirements for a honors biology tutor. "Database? Track student scores? Fuck that! I'm not putting an NT server on the network so some Science kid can crash it." E throws the box to the far end of the table and picks another.

Six hours later, after working nonstop to get 24 seperate programs working off the network, seperate logins for the science labs, and cursing constantly at the stupid programmers who used every devlopment enviroment known to man to make their stuff with. Some of these programs date back to DOS 5.0, which is always fun to configure when you don't wanna go to DOS mode. Eventually his image file is ready, minus one program that simply wouldn't work. Besides, who'd wanna PRETEND to cut a fetal pig open, anyway?

Whilst waiting for Demize to get back with the blast disk (for some reason, he had it) we set up the teacher's gateway. The Chemistry and Physics teachers choose to purchase Dell Laptops, to "Take their Quake home with them" as the Physics teacher put it. One wonders if he meant earthquake....

After seting up the net connection, we surf the "friendly local FTP site," a place with a large selection of copyrighted material. We fill the desktop of the computer with MP3s. and listen to them on two tinny LCS-150 Labtec speakers. We then begin discussing various tactics to convince the programs that they are all being run from a local CD-ROM, as opposed to a CD Tower 300 feet away on a 100 mb/s network.

Eventually the question comes up as to where the fuck demize is. Apparently, by this time, the answer is home. well shit. Guess we can't do anything else today, eh? :)

The following day, after screaming at Demize the requizite amount, we finished the lab images. With that lengthy task complete, we go to the the chemisty & physics wing to install their software, which comes on a total of three 1.44 MB disks. God, I love it when that happens.

We don't even bother to make an image, we simply install the software and restart the computers. Piece of cake. Speaking of which, we ajourn to sysadminC's room to drink pepsi and discuss mirroring the website.

Several days later, word comes to E that the conduit on the south side of the portables is complete. The last two can be wired with phone and net, finally. We begin just after the begining of lunch on a block day, meaning that there is no seventh period, and sixth is twice as long. We have additional help from Ttam and Forest with this run. The most difficult part was where the six cables had to go through a half inch conduit with cat5 and telco already in it, though the conduit itself is about 6 feet long. This was forever referred to as "the greaseast six feet" with three people working on it, one greasing the wires as they go in, one pushing the wires just before they got greased, and the third pulling. Only took fifteen minutes, which ain't bad at all, thanks to using an entire can of superlube (well, the remainder of a can...)

With P-town complete, we don't see E for a very long time, except for brief visits without much to do. The BTAFH's get a new member: Forest. Young and nieve, yet with a ready supply of puns, he enlivens the day. Most of their time is spent working on TA badges and assorted small jobs for other teachers. Until the next time E calls upon our assistance.

During lunch I happen to see E driving into the school in his spiffy nissian sports car, (it's mid eighties, just so you can picture it) black, of course, with about six thousand dollars worth of stereo in it. He works too much :)

I walk over to him as he opens the passenger door and grabs huis laptop, toolbelt, and toolkit. You have to consider that E is fairly short of stature, say, 5'5", and has about forty pounds worth of stuff in his hands. I take the toolkit off his hands.

"So, what brings you to the finest school of the district?" I enquire.

"Heh, well, apparently your fine school has a switch which seems to be defective. Hopefully I can fix it."

"Really? I haven't heard, and usually they complain to me when the net doesn't work. You turn the net off overnight or something?"

"Net? Off?" laughs E. "Those teachers have been smoking crack again."

"I'll say."

"Yeah, actually, it's the ASB room that clued me in."

"Ah, that wing. Yeah, I guess they are the only ones that use the net. Don't suppose drama, band, or special ed does."

"Yeah, prolly not. Let's dump this stuff off in the MBF."

We swing on over to the library and get rid of the gear, keeping only the laptop and terminal cable to plug directly into a cisco switch. We go to the special ed room first, to check conectivity there. Kids constantly bang on the door (It's lunch, aferall) asking to come in and "play." Since there is no teacher, we have to kick them out (tougher than it sounds, beleive me). We head on over to the band room, where the switch is located, and E begins his diagnostics by opening up the swinging box the switch is housed in and checking the connections in the patch panel. He heads over to a gateway computer and logs on to the switch through some sort of cisco site, apparently changing the configuration of the switch that way. Very interesting....

With that out of the way, E and myself head over to sysadminC's room and talk about setting up the old NT server as an FTP site. He suggests limiting maxx download speed to 50k/s, and maxx users to two. This'll keep the moron (his boss) from noticeing anything during "after hours." Boy, it's good to have the district tech as your friend :) It's even better when his boss got live ip addresses for everyone!

As E gets in his car, he casually mentions that he should be getting a "slight" pay raise. Apparently some sort of upgrade to his job is going through, and after christmas his yearly income will approximately double. He says it's his excuse to go get a DVD player. For his car.

A week or so later, E comes back to do a fairly major wiring project. The ASB/Copy room wants phones and data. This "room" is really a crappy trailer that the school stole from ROP. E just curses at it.

Wizzer and -=¶ LiNuX-GOTH¶=- draw the job to help out. The first order of business is to open up the nearest MOAPB, right in front of a christy box. Ohh! Ohh! Map time! :)

FIGURE 7: Wiring of Canary Row

| R-9 |

| |

----------------------

1 {-}[][ ]----------------------------{-}[] 2

---------------- |---------------------------|

| | | | |

---------------- |---------------------------|

Okay, the swich is in R-9, we have to run to car 5 there. The telco patch panel is in christy box 1 (the (-)[] thing ( the (-) part is actually a power distibution node, little humming box which is grey, whilst the green christy box is indicated by the [] part)). The long --- line is the telco and data going from the trailer over to christy box 2, into a conduit which goes to the MOAPB (the [ ] thing) and that's were data diverges to R-1. Telco continues into the christy box.

This was the easy part.

the conduit indicated by the || goes into the subfloor of R-9 and abruptly ends. There is a pull sting tied off there which leads up the pull can of that building into the space above the suspended celing. Map time.

BIGASS FIGURE 8: Room R-9

**************************************************************

* @ cuboards and teacher stuff *

*------------------------------------------------------------*

- *

* *

* ---- *

* |xx| *

* ---- 0 0 0*

* 0 0 0*

*****************************************************||*******

Okay the 0 indicate all the condit to choose from, most of which are full of stuff. the xx in there is the trap door in the floow, which you can open with a screwdriver. way over there in the corner is the switch we gotta get to. The room is ringed with lights and cooling systems, which make getting to that side of the room very tough, in addition to the class full of kids watching a french movie. But somehow we do it. Finally, we are at the switch, and E gets ready to terminate the ends of the cat5 cables. The switch is mounted in an upper cabinet, and we send Demize (who showed up in the middle of things) and -=¶ LiNuX-GOTH¶=- to get a ladder, whilst E stands on the back of a chair and I stand on the seat to balance things out.

The switch is actually mounted inside a cabinit, in a rack and pinion deal where you can remove two pins on either side, and the other two pins act as hinges. You can choose which side to open, depending on where you need to work. At least, that's the theory...

E removes two of the pins and begins to swing the switch around, when the forty pound behemoth suddenly falls out of the top pin and begins to fall forward. E and myself lunge for the $14,000 of computer hardware falling towards us and catch it, both screaming "shit!" quite loud. We push it back upright, nearly looseing our own percarious balance on the chair. I steady the thing as E grabs two zip ties and puts those through the holes to keep it up, cursing all the while. Pardon our french.

-=¶ LiNuX-GOTH¶=- and Demize come back with the ladder, and we inspect the damage, starting with the FDDI tray. This is where the fiber optic wires come into the switch, and we check carefully for any broken lines. Looks good, thank god.

Further inspection shows that the contractors (of course) used half inch lag screws to hold the switch bracket to the wall, but forgot to screw the lag screws into, say, a STUD. Instead, the screws were just in particle board, which, when under stress, bends, causing the bottom part of the switch bracket to progressively get lower, so less and less of the pins were holding the switch in at the top. Remove the wrong one, and wham! like so.

We prop up the bracket with a 2X4 and hunk of cardboard, keeping it level from the bottom of the cabinit until it can be fixed my maintinance. We finish the cat5 termination and head over to the ASB store trailer (hereafter referred to "canary row")

Inside, we pull the cabe up to the attic and terminate the phones easily. Net was slightly more difficult, because we decided to be lazy. Stealing a hub from maintinance (dinky 4 port 10 mb/s with uplink) we took the all weather cat5 and crimped a head on it, stuck that in the uplink port, and threw the whole thing in the attic, leaving only the telco, data, and power cord hanging down behind a file cabinet. Looks crappy, but, hey, it's a crappy trailer.

While terminating the phones in the chirsty box, we all gathered around E as his worked. E, being short, can't exactly be seen over the box, but the four people (Demize, Whizzer, -=¶ LiNuX-GOTH¶=-, and Forest) standing around an open box was more evident. Moron himself happened to be walking by and saw this large gathering around "his" network infastructure. He immediately ran over, screaming bloody murder. Well, actually, screaming get away from that! I'll have you all expelled for vandamism! He reached for his cellphone to call security when E said "Eric, calm the fuck down, they're working with me."

"Oh." Moron replied. "Well, how's it going?"

"The fucking switch fell on me."

"Ah. Nice day for it."

E just rolls his eyes and resumes punching down the wiring.

"Well, I'll be going now..."

"bye."

Once moron was safely out of earshot, E stated "That fuckhead better learn quick before everyone get's pissed at him."

"Too late" Four people reply instantly.

"True enough" E says, smiling. "Let's go test the phones."

We do so, finding that one had a bad pair in it, and was re terminated on a different set of wires. Also, we fixed a phone which was in the library, which someone had broken the wire too. We simply put a new RJ-11 patch cord on it and it workes fine now. We pack everything up and watch E drive off into the sunset.

I work on our new FTP server during lunch and Mr. Evans comes in, asking if we could hook up his CAD lab. We reply that Moron hasn't given any local students any special privlidges (such as setting up printers, clent software, or blasting computers, or even simply setting up contextless logons.) (because moron is a moron) and so, sysadminC uses the "help desk" to send a request to set up his labs posthaste.

Shortly thereafter, E comes strolling up with his laptop bag in one hand and an enormous power suppy in the other, which I recognize from the Cisco 6000 switch in the library.

Hmm...

"Hey there E" I say "whatcha got there?"

"Oh hey man. Just gotta program that new switch in CAD country and put this *he hefts the power supply* back in the beast."

"Broke, eh?"

"Yeah, it's a damn good thing that I convinced Moron to have some redundency for key components, otherwise you guys would have no network. It's been gone for about a week"

"Yeah, that would really piss some teachers off. Lead on"

We go to the library and he sets the power supply in the rack, slides it in, screws it down, plugs it in, and flips the lever to "run"

"Piece of cake. Oh, shit!" he exclaims as he realizes that there is a note he left for himself about a broken phone. "I forgot all about that!" Heh, no time to do it like the present.

E and myself make our way over to maintaniance to fix aforesaid phone, and then go to the "Senior Life Skills" (AKA Home Economics) to install their phone.

We then move on to the CAD lab, which happens to be right next door, where I see Mimi hard at work on some drafting thing or another. E sets up his console connection and begins typing in commands as mimi says to me;

"When you guys gounna hook up the computers?"

"Well, it's on the list, just gotta do all the other "immediate priority" things first."

"Ah, well then. carry on!" and he goes back to his work.

By this time E has finished, and is conducting much the same conversation with the teacher, Mr. Evans.

"It's just that I want my kids to be able to do their work as soon as possible"

"Yeah, I'll talk to eric about moving you guys up. Don't worry, we'll get to you. Now if you'll excuse me, I have another switch to set up."

"Tell me again why you can't do it now?"

"Moron says that SASI, network inferstructure, and phones are top priority, in that order. After that, it's whoever sent the e-mail first.

"Ah. Okay then. Carry on!"

deja vu, I think to myself.

E goes back to his car and grabs a cisco switch to replace the one in the band room which has been giving us trouble off and on for a few months now. E thinks it's an IOS thing, while I say it's just configuration. (Note; turns out it was hardware, so at least we were equally wrong)

After setting that beast up, we went to Mr. Weisenthal's room to set up his printers. By this time school has gotten out and sarcboy has shown up from shasta.

E says to sarc "Go into the MBF and grab a net cable. Shit... does anyone know where I can find a regular printer cable?

I reply "got keys to R-1?"

He tosses his master set to me and I walk over to R-1, rummaging through our boxes and boxes of serial auto switches, straight cables, and printer cables. Finally I locate one new enough to work well. I was back about the same time sarcboy shows up with net cable in his hands.

We set up the teacher's laser printer, and try to do contextless logons, but apparently the nearest switch doesn't like that much. We find that there is a computer hooked into the network without a red patch cord. The only ones allowed on the net are those with red. We check it out and realize client32 hasn't been installed on it. Anyone with the requisite knowledge could crash the server. Heh, boy is that teacher gounna be surprised when he can't get onto his computer's control panel anymore :)

After setting up client32, we also set up the printer. We tell it to restart, then realize we never did a test page. We log on as fhlab (the generic account; what everyone uses since moron hasn't figured out user accounts YET) and quickly print some stuff. sadly, a netware broadcast message comes up; no space on printer drive.

sarcboy says "Is this one of those error messages that only happen in your nightmares, E?"

*E "Yeah, it is, actually. But I think I have a more plausable explination than two RAID drives failing."

*sarcboy "Let's hear it."

*E "as soon as we get back to the library to test my theory"

We hightail it on over to the server room and see that the drives are all perfectly fine. E logs on the network with his profile admin tool and sees that, by authorization "moron" all "guest" account members cannot print. This includes the user ID "fhlab."

*e "That fucking idiot. Someone better give that guy some management classes before I kill him."

*sarcboy "Human management, or network management?"

*e (setting the profile) Both. Jesus, did I tell you what he said today? He says I can't do anything unless it's on his list. Well, fuck him, if it needs to be done, and I can do it there and then, all the better. Besides, the shit on his list doesn't cover everything. People say the send it to the helpdesk, and it never appears on the list. Moron is a moron."

E begins to download stuff from microsoft.com, to update his laptop.

"What the hell? 41.0 K/s? There's no one here! I should have 150+!"

"Yeah, the net sucks this week."

"heh, I bet the routers are acting up again. See? this isn't on my list, but I'm sure people have complained. So I'll fix it." E goes into telnet, telnets into the router, and excutes the restart command.

"See? Took me two minutes. Fixed it. Better than coming back out here after the net hasn't worked for a week and doing it. Fucking moron."

E's cellphone rings.

"Shit. Speak of the devil" he says as he looks at the number on callerID. "Yeah?"

"Hey E, it's Eric..."

"Yeah, I know. What do you want?"

"The teacher in c-18 has been complaining that all of their incoming calls have been redirected into R-1. go check it out." *click*

"What the fuck?! That's impossible!" E walks over to the schmatic of the school taped to the wall. "The only place where that could happen is either in the switch or the main patch panel."

"No, he said just incoming calls, so it couldn't be the patch panel" sarcboy says

"Yeah, like I trust a word he says. I'll check the switch."

E hooks his laptop up to the Fujitsu F-9600 phone PBX and checks the programming. "Looks fine to me" he says. He hands me a admin phone. "When I call you, hit transfer and whatever extention I give to you. k?"

"hang up after?"

"yeah. sarcboy, you go over to r-1, I'l go to c-18. We'll test this out."

Of course, it works fine. We assume the teacher's have just been smoking crack again. We pack up and head on home.

*****************************************************

*Gateway sucks. You call 1mbps good?! Where's the keyboard?! (all that bubba stuff)

*BTAFH enjoys B&N Reading material part A (include breakdown and circut city fun)

*adminC kicks kids out (I know nothing. almost)

*BTAFH enjoys B&N Reading material part B

*BTAFH enjoy DVD player :)

*btafh enjoy video editing surprises

*btafh eat pizza, laugh at local pizza joint.

*DVD fun continued....

*elijah and his roomie have a bitchy neighbor...

*btafh win awards, appaluse, fellow techs get credit

*btafh party over lunch

*btafh go crazy over antz, Eli's DVD

*btafh go to B&N again, including morphius (maxx)

*****

Call to power

It was decided on monday of november first, that the btafh shall make it a practice to have a weekly meeting.

This meeting shall be held at a local bookstore, whereupon, large sums of money will be spent on overpriced coffee, and, discussions will be held over books we cant afford to buy, but can also not affored to go without reading... IE, novel administrator handbook, groupwise supervisor handbook, 2600,..etc

This first meeting was really a spur of the moment idea, and, was thrown together at the last minute. Whiz, myself (Linux) and demize were in attendance.

observations were made about the surroundings in the bookstore.

afterwards, we go window shopping at circuit city for toys...

then, we are told on Wednesday, sysadminC will be taking us to see a video editing lab to frame our own around.

lab blows us away, as well as elijahs taste for expensive, and unnecessary toys, like a car stereo dvd player...