E Source Forum 2010
This week is "Forum", an annual conference hosted by my company that brings together many of our clients and movers-and-shakers of the energy fields. Tia and I arrived yesterday afternoon with the setup crew. It was my responsibility to bring all the needed computers, projectors, and supporting peripherals. It was a lot to plan! We have five concurrent sessions each with a laptop and projector, plus two web-test stations, plus two download stations, plus registration and other info stations. It was kind of nerve-wracking to get ready for. We are a full hour from Boulder, so it's not like I can easily just run back to the office if I forgot something. Thankfully, even tho this is my first time here, many people have done this before and were able to help me plan.
So we got to the office yesterday around noon, packed up and shipped all the stuff down here in cars. Of course, there is a lot more going on than just my realm, so there as a LOT of stuff. Tia was invited to help out through today and is getting paid for it, so she is here and it is really wonderful to have her to talk to and even just to see around. She is having a reasonably good time here. It is at times tedious, then hectic, and she really doesn't have the connection I have with the company, but she enjoys dressing up in her rarely-use business casual attire and helping out, so it is all working out OK.
Yesterday I actually made it to the office around 10:30 to be sure I was ready, but I wasn't there a half hour before we lost internet. It turns out one of my older UPS's died right then and there and took down the routers and switches. Several of my machines did not suffer that lightly, and it took a bit of rebooting and coaxing to get them all back online. Fortunately I had just recently virtualized and retired a triple-redundant power-supplied monster of an ancient Compaq server and so was able to pull the power capacity it had been using for all the network equipment.
It was fairly scary! If that had happened in the middle of this week, we would have had a real problem. I am far more worried about things tanking on my back at the office than I am of any issues here. If we have an issue here, I feel confident I can deal with it or work around it, but if stuff tanks back there... well, we shall just play it day by day. This has given me a reality check on my confidence of various components of my networks, and that gives me some ideas on things I can be working on moving forward.
Today has gone quite smoothly so far. All the equipment is working well and nothing has caught fire. I had one issue where someone had a strangely encoded homemade DVD I had to get audio for, but was able to make that work with a quick install of MPC. There isn't much that won't play in MPC. So it is good to have had an issue that only I could fix, but even better that it wasn't really a big deal.
Tia is going back to Boulder tonite, but we won't be missing much since it looks like most of the time I am going to be working pretty late getting things ready for the next day, so we aren't missing any opportunities to pretend we are on some kind of vacation. Since I do so rarely, staying in a hotel for a couple of days is appealing to me. The bed is large and luxurious. The buffets are well stocked. If we ever do quit before I am ready for bed, I might even get to go out on 16th street a bit. Or the pool! We shall see.
Tomorrow is the Big Day, with five concurrent sessions as well as the "plenary" session in which I have to run the video and sound effects. I sure hope I don't screw it up!