Getting there...slowly.

I'm so frustrated with the router lab. Two nights ago, I was doing one on disaster recovery where you have to copy the operating system from a router, erase it from the router and restore it and people disconnected my cable TWICE part way through the process. The router had been erased already so I had to restart the restore twice. The second time was going to run 45 minutes past the lab closing. Neither the lab instructor nor I wanted to stay so I found a piece of paper in recycle bin with blank side and tore it into three parts. The largest piece I left on the keyboard of the PC had "XMODEM IN PROGRESS DUE TO DISCONNECTED CABLE - NEEDS LINE SPEED SET TO 9600 AND CONFIG-REGISTER SET TO 0x2102" scribbled on it. I knew there was no way I'd be able to get up early enough in the morning to show up to finish it. This way they knew what had to be done to make it usable again.

The other two smaller pieces just said "XMODEM IN PROGRESS" and were taped to the connection bank for my PC and to the router.

Imagine my surprise when it was still sitting there like that when I arrived at lab at 7PM last night! I was able to finish the lab by resetting those things.

My lab partner sent me his "technical documentation" for our paper. I'd done a professional proposal type paper in plain English for non-techies with graphics and tables. Everything was organized the way the "deliverables" page said it needed to be done. My partner sent me exactly what we'd copied from the computer with blank lines added between the sections and turned the background of the text around the abbreviated commands dark green to make them stand out. It actually hid the black letters a bit.

He wanted to turn it in Tuesday night. I told him I wanted to do it in tables the way the "deliverables" said it should be done. He said it would be too much stuff to do it that way. So I told him it was important to me and I'd do it. I'm so glad my internship includes doing homework! I spent the entire day yesterday getting it done. As I read the "deliverables" one last time before stapling the whole thing together I noticed one sentence we'd both missed. Crap.

"Include a plan for monitoring security." I called Phil. We met at school and found a quiet place in the classroom attached to the lab to talk about what to say. I agreed get it done so we can turn it in tonight.

So now it's done. Maybe that part isn't in plain English, but it's close.

I was glad to see the activity level of the lab was back to normal. Maybe I'd get finished! But no. All the newer routers were in use so I got stuck using the older ones. I don't like using them because the cables have big pins that are always getting bent by people trying to put them on upside down. I was able to find two sets of good cables and got the first of the three last lab exercises finished. The second one needed the same configuration of two routers, so I detached the third one to free it up for whoever needed it. There was a flurry of disconnecting that happened because someone had wired up a bunch of routers and not disconnected them. I didn't realize it until later, but I'm sure that's when someone disconnected one of my routers and reconnected it... sort of. Because it had been working, all I checked were the labels on the cables to make sure I had the right end connected to the right place. It wasn't until there was only 30 minutes left in lab that I rechecked my connections. I always connect them securely. One end almost fell off in my hand. I looked at the pins. One was bent. This told me someone disconnected it, tried to put it on upside down (which bends that pin) and jammed it in right side up without checking it.

This happened just after the lab instructor told us we had to turn everything in that night because he wasn't coming back on campus until next week and didn't want to correct anything after this weekend. After several lab nights in a row of having my cables messed with and my labs not finished because of that, I was steamed. I told him he should have said something about it a week or so ago. Most of us have the impression we can turn things in up to the day of the final. He was being snarky about it. I think it was mostly because there are a few people who try to do all the quarter's labs in the last two weeks. Someone said they'd been working their ass off the last few weeks trying to get it all done. I said I'd been working my ass off all quarter and still wasn't finished. He repeated that everything was due. So I told him if he really wanted things turned in on time he needed to come up with a way to keep people from disconnecting other people's cables. That I'd be done long ago if people hadn't messed up my labs so many times. I told him it wasn't possible. I think he was seeing my anger and frustration because he admitted that people don't always get what they want and he was no exception. He'll mark them late and let the classroom instructor decide whether to mark us down or not. Whew! I started to relax a bit until I found that damaged cable.

After swapping it with a good one, my lab worked like a charm. If only I'd found it 30 minutes sooner, I'd be done and he'd have all my labs on time.

Oh! He said we had to take the lab practical final by yesterday, too. I refuse to take that until I finish my labs and HEY! Finals week is NEXT week! grumble. I'll finish that last lab today after work and take the lab practical after that. And the case study is finished. FINISHED. It's going in today.

That leaves memorizing all the facts I need for the Router final next Monday afternoon and finding the answers for the two take-home Windows finals.

THEN I can do my Christmas card! YEAH!

Next quarter I will have Velcro tabs with my name on them to put on all my router and switch cables. I'm quite done with this cable disconnection crap.

This is what I need for router lab!

Thanks to finickynarcane for finding this!

A computer geek's must-have

With that, I could fix those pesky bent pins AND save my files!

Wow, 25 years already?

People are posting about this being the 25th anniversary of John Lennon's death.

I was 8 years old when my sister and I planted ourselves in front of our black and white TV to watch them perform for the first time on US TV.

The day he was killed, I was shocked by the news. It rocked my world a bit. That day, I'd taken a day off from my job to spend it with a new boyfriend. He wanted me to see what his job was like, being a "plumber." It was a high and mighty title for someone who spent most of his time clearing drains. It was a stinky job. He did some simple plumbing on the job, changing washers and such and was learning the more advanced stuff on the side from a friend's father.

We were parked having a coffee break when the news came across the radio. I hadn't really liked John Lennon before that because I saw the cruelty in his face when he was a Beatle. I don't like cruel people. But after he died, I learned of how he'd changed and I was so very sorry I hadn't known about his gentler good side before he was gone. His music from his later years had always touched me.

How can that all be 25 years ago?