Monday: Order confusion, unforseen problems, and a late night

Not that I had time to use it this trip, but I don't like hotels that don't have internet access. :P

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Oh, where to begin.. Monday morning, I suppose. Got about three hours of sleep, got ready, drove to the airport, arrived in a comfortably timely fashion. Flew out to Memphis on a small commuter jet--room for maybe 50 people, no more than 20 actually riding, low enough clearance that I had to duck under the aisle exit sign, even lower in the lavatory--and arrived a little late, around 1030. My nose led me to Einstein Brothers Bagels, so I had lunch right then. Picked up a Chevy Impala from Hertz--much more agreeable than the Buick Century, not quite as sporty as the Mazda 6--and called the customer, then drove to the site by about 1130.

Then the fun began. After unpacking the parts, and comparing them to the order worksheets and to what the customer had to say, there was ambiguity and faulty logic. I called Rob, who patched in an install coordinator and a sales guy, and we decided that I'd do the upgrade as it made sense, and let the customer decide how to handle the rest. So, I installed four more tape drives--tweve total--which necessitated removing two 6-tape magazines and moving the tapes. I then had to fix the partition so it saw all the drives and all the tape slots, since it wanted to lose 12 of the latter. Also, there was an intermittent error from one of the controller cards. (It was not, incidentally, the problem it appeared to be.)

But the worst part, see, was that the backup software somehow lost the ability to pull inventory data from the library. Without that information, it can't run backups. As the afternoon wore on, I tried changing a few settings and reloading some firmware, Ray (the backup guy) tried changing all kinds of settings, restarting various services and servers, and even totally removing and reinstalling the software, all to no avail. The software saw all of the drives and connections, but still no inventory.

Around midnight, in a mostly empty office, with pizza that one of his coworkers ordered for us, I suggested he call our tech support line. And we waited for a callback. And waited, and waited. At 0200, we left. 5-15 minutes later, we each got a call; I knew the guy who was calling me, explained as best I could, figured we could defer to a third-party contractor to replace that controller card I mentoned, and continued to the hotel. Ray, however, turned around and headed back to work; I believe the NCR guy showed up around 0400.

Tuesday morning: Hotel, change of plans: back to work, and success

The hotel was an odd mix of glamour and suck. Large, showy, banquet halls and a three-story atrium and ivy and pavilions and fountains and soft lighting and whatnot. However, the room felt kind of damp, the A/C unit was leaking onto the table, the fridge was out of place.. under other circumstances I might've requested a change, but it was late and I was very tired.

Come morning I overslept a bit, waking up around 0715 for my 0830 flight--not a problem, as the airport was literally down the street, which also meant planes overhead at all hours. (Did you know Memphis is the largest FedEx hub in the world?) However, before I left my room, I got a call from a tech desk guy, saying they still weren't working--in fact, it was worse than when I left--and they needed me to go back. (Outside the hotel, I called Rob, who told me I shouldn't have even called the tech desk or gotten NCR involved, but instead called a tech specialist.) So I went back, arriving again around 08. Turns out the NCR guy had replaced the part, which resulted in the library not starting at all, so he swapped it back out, at which point it would start up, but never complete its boot, meaning no boot log or explanation.

So -then-, I got to hack into the system per the specialist's instructions, run some commands, delete some files, and successfully bring the machine back up. Thus, we were back where we were when I left at 0200. Over the next few hours, I discovered that the controller card error was apparently caused by a label slightly out of place--but the inventory, still wonky. So I watched one of the inventories, and discovered that it properly scanned 48 of the 50 magazines.. and then wandered elsewhere in the library, well outside the partition, for the other two. This shouldn't happen. So I killed the partition and recreated it, making sure everything was where it was supposed to be, and poof! The backup software no longer said "Cannot initialize robot", but instead inventoried properly. A few more software settings and whatnot later, I was good to go, around noon.

Tuesday afternoon&evening: Walking in Memphis, add'l delay, and return flight

Thus, I headed back toward the airport. However, I knew that if I couldn't get a flight until hours later, I didn't want to give up the car. So, I called the travel desk, got a spot on the next flight--at 1740--and bypassed the airport in favor of downtown Memphis and Riverside Drive. Once on Riverside I found the visitor's center, complete with giant bronze statues of Elvis and B.B. King, and presented one of the women at the counter with, "So, I have three hours in Memphis. What should I do?" She proceeded to mark up one of the tourist maps with a variety of interesting attractions in the immediate area, and off I went. (I would've taken the trolley, but only had $0.42 in change, not $0.60.) I drove down to Beale Street, near the FedEx Forum Field and Peabody Place, parked, and started to wander.

The first place my wandering took me was right across the street to the Gibson guitar factory which, as it happens, had its last tour of the day at 1400, a few minutes after I arrived. So I went on a walking tour through the live factory floor, seeing gorgeous guitars in all stages of production, and learning about the history of the company, its products, and the artists who've used them. (Many of the classic/custom/replica guitars available for purchase in their shop retailed for about $3,600, in addition to the more run-of-the-mill $400 variety.) After that, wandered past a little park with some live blues being played on a little stage, so I set for a spell. Chatted with a nice homeless guy who directed me toward a great rib place before panhandling; never found the rib place, but I suppose that's all right. However, I wasn't about to leave Memphis without having some BBQ, so I checked several menus before heading into Pig on Beale, where I had great food, and got some sweet potato pie to go. I was parked right behind that building, so I was shortly on my way to the airport, though signage back to the rental return was a bit lacking from that direction. (I also stopped by Graceland on the way to the airport--how could I not?--but it didn't look there was anything I could see without paying to take a tour (though the woman at the visitor center said otherwise), and the mansion is closed on Tuesdays during the winter anyway, so I headed to the airport.)

I got to the ticket counter right around 1710, 30 minutes before Scheduled Departure, and explained my plight and consequent change of plans. The man behind the counter was quite agreeable, made no mention of the $100 change fee which I knew was a possibility, and printed out my pass. I high-tailed it to the gate--in the same concourse; I don't think Memphis Int'l Airport is actually that large--to find few people and a closed gate. However, I quickly learned that I hadn't missed the flight; in fact, the plane hadn't arrived yet, and was delayed until about 1900. (This wasn't as bad as the next gate over, bound for Chicago--their flight was delayed three hours!) I called home and talked to my dad for a while; apparently the whole DC area was suffering from low visibility, slowing traffic into and out of all three area airports.

The jet was another small one, room for maybe 50 passengers, with perhaps 10 actually on board. Not a bad situation--pick your own seat, and be assured of an empty seat beside you. :)

I love flying over populated areas, particularly large cities, at night. Memphis in particular was very nice, flying out. :)

Later:
+ Warm and not raining when we stepped out of the plane.
- Pouring rain by the time I got out of the airport again.
- Two or three buses each for each of the lots I didn't park in before a Gold bus arrived.
+ Gold 19, where I parked, was the first stop.

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I caught up on some of my comics before falling asleep in my clothes last night; now I've caught up on comics, am about 270 entries behind on my friends page (in the last 48 hours or so), and need to figure out where it is I'm supposed to be at 0900 for a little bit of work. :P

Links and other such jollity

Sure, it took most of the day, but I'm caught up on LJ! And here are the choice links and quotes of the last few days:

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Christmas meme via kadooshka: Santa-hat your friends' usericons!

Wow.. check out the Children's Lit LJ Mood Theme. (Via jazzfish)

Via kitiara: Instant Snow! Actual product. Curious!

Apparently over 99.8% of all TV indecency complaints to the FCC come from one group of activists. How about you let parents decide for themselves, hey?

Via iriantuu: How the Grinch Stole Marriage

Via alpha_phi_omega: "If you shop at Borders or Waldenbooks on Dec 10-11, you can get 10% off your purchase, and they'll donate 10% of the purchase to Big Brothers Big Sisters of America!" (Download coupon here.)

Well, I'm glad their priorities regarding teen confidentiality are in their pocketbooks. (Via skamille)

Via idoru: What Corporate America Can't Build: A Sentence.
"E-mail has just erupted like a weed, and instead of considering what to say when they write, people now just let thoughts drool out onto the screen," Dr. Hogan said. "It has companies at their wits' end."

Aggh painful: Seasonal pun.

Oh good god. Customized Classics, where you can get you and your loved ones incorporated into Shakespeare, Sherlock Holmes, or the Wizard of Oz? Didn't like that unhappy ending in R&J? This is the company for you! This company needs to stop. It needs to stop right now. (via shariperkins)

Latest news on the Dodge Tomahawk, the motorcycle sporting a Viper V10 engine. Shiny!

covielle: Is there any thing more uneasy-making than accidentally falling asleep during the full brightness of afternoon, and waking up, hours later, in the dark?

I mean, other than waking up as, say, a giant insect. Literary precedent suggests that that might be worse.

Have you ever wondered what color photographs from the 1900s and 1910s might've looked like? Check out The Empire That Was Russia: The Prokudin-Gorskii Photographic Record Recreated. (via subbes)

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In crappy news, I'm obligated to join a daily teleconference with a few customers and vendors regarding some upcoming installs, wherein I expect to have very little of value to add to the discussion, but I have to set aside 1700-1800 every weekday from now through at least the 17th--date of first install--and possibly longer. Bleah.

Y'know, I think all I've had to eat today was the leftovers from Old Dominion a few nights ago.