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April 30, 2004

The Derby, Oaks, Windows Servers, and other fun stuff

There's almost too much going on at once at work. I really hate this time of year. Everyone has a short temper, they're worn out, and definately ready for a vacation. I sure know that I am.

Now that Derby is almost under wraps, I have elections to deal with in the next few days. Thankfully its mostly an Indiana election that I really don't have to deal with. We won't be doing the special setup that we normally do ... just need to make sure that we have the important stuff up and running (i.e. Leader and graphics). In addition, there's a special training session that I need to get ready for on Wednesday ... as if I wasn't busy enough I have to get this thing figured out as well.

Even though I knew that I had tons of crap still ahead of me, I still made a trip down to Churchill around 10 this morning, stayed for a few hours and placed a few bets, and came back with Neal and Bill. I got to see some of the houses that Neal has bough and is now fixing up and renting out. I was really impressed with the first one that he showed me, and when we left I joke with him about not seeing him as a slum lord anymore. Heh, I'm funny.

When I got back, I discovered that Kyle opted not to head down to the track, which was good news as far as I was concerned. If he wanted to go, I definately wasn't going to stop him ... but once I heard that he was around I decided that it would be a good idea to work on a few things since everyone else was going to be out of the building early. We were able to get quite a bit done too ... moving the remaining Dell server to its space in the rack and joining it to the domain, moved all of the Dell servers to the UPS units (which was a breeze thanks to redundant power supplies), hooking up the Crusade server and joining it to the domain, and working on tape backups. Since there was NO ONE there to bother us, we were able to get a shitload of work done ... amazing what happens when you're not being pulled in 100 different directions.

We've come a long way in our little time at WHAS. I reflected back on the changes that we've made in the past year and a half, and the list is rather extensive:

- Changed out the network infrastructure, going from hubs to switches
- Created a brand new server room out of a junk room
- Replaced a 30 year old UNIX phone system with a modern Linux system
- Replaced all "workstation" servers with REAL rack mounted Xeon servers
- With the renovation of the 2nd floor, put in cable trays and CAT6 cabling and a new server closet
- Replaced 80% of the PCs in the building (there's only a few Win98 machines left now)

And its not only the physical changes that have made a big difference. I was also reflecting wtih Kyle the other day how much perception makes such a dramatic difference in our jobs on a day to day basis. We've gotten the respect of people that were weary of us at first. We've proven to many people that we're not a flash in the pan operation ... and that we actually care about what we're doing and how it affects the rest of the building. As a result, people are much more willing to work with us, and we don't feel like we're the 3rd leg of an operation anymore. It's really a nice feeling to have when you sit back and think about it.

Anyhow... enough reflection for one day. I'm heading off to bed. Night!

Posted by ed at 09:44 PM | Comments (0)