Work entertainment

[McGrandpa]

ahhh it is now well over a year later, and I got no business going on about that parts ordering fiasco.   Still burns me up though.   BUT, we all named the thing BadMoonRYZEN and he's zipping right along these days!  Yaaay!  :D

[M-Callahan]

When I build a computer, I usually get used parts that are in the United States from shops that rebuild or refurbish computers not only that it cost less, most time I get the part within three days to a week and usually come with a 30 to 90 day guarantee.  Most of the time I want computers that has plenty of memory with either 32 or 64 gigs of memory, for me speed is not important but the quality of the render is even though I am still learning more things about rendering. 

[McGrandpa]

Normally that is generally what I do, Mike.  There are just those rare times when *MORE!* is desired!   
I am in a great mood and feel up to sharing a little bit.  You game for a minute or two?  ;o)
13 years ago I got That Urge and built "King George XVI".  Affectionately named after a character in a good book I read long ago.  "Of Mice And Men".   The two central characters being George, a small guy that was also the brain of the duo, and Lenny, a big lumbering guy of slow mind.    This all got started when my son got home from the Marines.  My son and I had sat down together, with him now as a young adult, and we built a pair of PC's together to celebrate, like some rite of passage. Did it all on my coffee table.  It was fun, and it gave him needed experience that built his confidence in his own abilities.  Plus, it was great Father and Son time, yaknow?  Since I footed the bill for ALL the stuff, I gave ME a higher end machine.   Skip a decade or so, the old machine I'd built in 2007 was the 16th iteration of "George". So last year, I felt this new system needed its own name, brand new.  I also wanted decent hardware, decently matched.  I chose AMD this time, and was forced to use ASUS for the motherboard.  And yeah I did go 12 full years using the same old system.  It had been upgraded to the limits of the Main 3.  Motherboard, CPU and RAM.   Topped out, wore out!
The Gigabyte main boards I really wanted were unavailable.  I found ONE, I ordered, and it was not actually available.  BUT they actually had the audacity to sell me outright a product they did not have.  No no no NO!   You do NOT DO that, it is ILLEGAL!!!!   That is STEALING people!  They refunded my money about the time I walked into my bank and had them rescind that transaction, explaining what they had done.  I finally ordered from ASUS, as they had outlets here in the US that did have a few main boards I could use with the AMD RYZEN 7 3700X I  now had right in front of me.  I picked a good one, loaded to the gills!  Mainly because it has 8 SATA3 ports on it, 11 USB ports and both WiFi and Bluetooth.  I found later it has a lot more cool stuff too.  Man, what a JUMP!  From an old Intel Q9550 quadcore with no hyperthreading to the RYZEN7 8 core with 16 HyperThreads is great, then the old one had 8 gigs of DDR2 SDRam, this one 64 gigs DDR4 SDRam, expandable to 128 gigs.  I wanted to keep using Win 7 Pro 64 bits, but the mobo and CPU required Win 10,  so I bought Win 10 Pro 64 bits.  Thankfully, it does obey the CHOP CHOP hacks to kill forced auto update and a few other nasty things.  I'm happy!  ALL my software I love to use works great on it!   Yessir, I am happy.   I added other stuff afterwards, sure.   I always do.  Don't we all though?   More 2TB SSD's, a new video card, new keyboard...new 32" Monitor!  Yeah!   Ha ha ha! I am tickled pink, Mike! 

[McGrandpa]

You know, some folks refer to the current generation as the Age of Irresponsibility.    I think that fits, sadly.

[Jherrith]

Well, the screw up in the material for the Federal job was or is epic in proportions.

First and foremost was the cabinet for the equipment was to be deep enough for Gen10 servers. Didn't happen, yep got standard 22" deep cabinets instead of a minimum of 30+ inches, need room for the servers and the PDU at the back of it.

Which by the way no servers were delivered and neither were the PDU's.

So part one of the nonsense, followed rapidly by part two, one of the other people involved in the project questioned why the new equipment was being routed through the original core instead of having its own routers and transport all of the data within its own network instead of coming across the core.

So now in addition to no servers, they have now changed the layout of the install and now it requires four more routers on top of the ones already on hand. Well, talk about a major spanner in the works times 10 ^ 17,256

So that project has now come to a screeching halt. It was funny though as the project manager was trying to get me to still rack everything in the wrong cabinets and then when the new ones come into transfer them over and finish the cabling then. Fortunately the customer and my point of contact put a halt to that stupidity rapidly as well, stating "basically why do it twice and waste both his (my) time and effort".

Thank the stars at last a customer that appreciates not only my work but does not desire to have me waste time doing things twice. Thought the day would never come when I would see such a thing.

[Jherrith]

Well, since I am no longer doing any work at the Federal site, I wound up doing the work of the junior office lady who has decided to go on vacation.

Must be nice to take a week off at a time.

Well, it started off awkward as I had tasks that are part of my job description that had to be completed first. Not that I am complaining as we all know just exactly what I think of her work ethic.

However the interesting part is that once I was done with my normal duties, and then started on her tasks things got really crazy. Why, well let us say that not only did I get all of the radios brought in for repair processed and on the shelf, but I also posted parts to repair tickets and pulled said parts for them and put them back on the shelf to be completed. Then did the same for returns from depot so they could get the final checks prior to delivery. And to really rub it in I processed all of the repairs ready for delivery back to the customer by end of day.

Oh by the way delivered to one of the city Fire Departments on the way home Friday.

Now the real crazy bit was the senior office lady telling me to slow down and save something for next week.

Seriously ... why ... there will be more coming in so why wait till the number gets to an unmanageable amount. Besides I have at least one install to do next week and then there is still another that is still "pending"

To make things interesting both myself and the senior tech are to learn about a new recording solution for another commercial customer.

How cute

[Jherrith]

Oh and the other interesting bits are that yes, the junior bench tech has been moved to the county system tech level and is now on call and no longer working in the office but is at the county shop.

Oh and yes my first week of being on call just ended also had only one call and that was on Friday morning, turned out to be a Captains Fire truck was in maintenance mode and since it was during business hours. I was able to get the actual installer of the radio in the Captains truck to check out the problem. Easily solved by him, apparently the circuit breaker was tripped.

I would have probably been there for hours ...

[M-Callahan]

Hi Mc G,

  That was pretty cool in your post with building your computers with your son.  I always preferred AMD over intel for computer processor and work station I do like Xeons.  My first 4 core was an AMD however, I use a regular computer to surf the web with and light work. Mostly I get used because it is affordable for me.   I use the workstation to do rendering and programing with, since it is built to do heavy work.  This Z400 has been going strong over 10 years now.  I have two backup workstations that are older ones an hp 8400 with Windows 7 Pro and I just upgraded a Dell 755 bios to UFEI and will upgrade to Windows 10 Pro.  It had Window Vista Pro in it. 
  I am starting to look at the 1st generation AMD Threadrippers they are getting very affordable now.  These processors may not have as much as the current ones but at the price new I think the 1st generation would make an interesting computer that I can afford.   Hopefully the inflation rate will not jump too high, that is why I am waiting to do another build to see where the inflation will level out at since I take my time and get all the parts at the best price I can.  Hopefully I can start this in 2022 or 23.   

[Jherrith]

So basically survived the first week of being on call and only had one call and it was at the end of the week and it was a mobile which as mentioned it was during the day and I was able to have the actual mobile installer look it over.

Finally got the last of the equipment shipped out on Friday for the Nitro project at last, took a frelling week to get FedEx to figure out what Express delivery means.

Man I tell you sometimes it really is crazy as to how our days play out ... and the part I despise the most is the bending over backwards of the boss whenever the customer is the one who ups.

Yet according to the boss we are to be "flexible" and ready to shift gears at a moments notice .. all I keep feeling is a desire to rearrange his body parts in patterns that typically do not work for a bipedal humanoid

I guess it would not be to bad if it was work that was in the shop that I shifted between, however a large portion of my work is in the field which requires loading up, driving to, parking, unloading, doing the actual install and optimization, hauling off the excess and so forth and once one is in the middle of any of those steps shifting gears is or rather becomes annoying as in level.

[M-Callahan]

Oh and the other interesting bits are that yes, the junior bench tech has been moved to the county system tech level and is now on call and no longer working in the office but is at the county shop.

Oh and yes my first week of being on call just ended also had only one call and that was on Friday morning, turned out to be a Captains Fire truck was in maintenance mode and since it was during business hours. I was able to get the actual installer of the radio in the Captains truck to check out the problem. Easily solved by him, apparently the circuit breaker was tripped.

I would have probably been there for hours ...

Looks like that was a very smart move on your part to get the original installer.