New York Update
Okay, so I've been here a little over 2 days now. Walked around a while Sunday evening and ended up eating at a place called Tonic in Times Square. Good Steak. I talked to the guy next to me at the bar for a while, he works for Morgan Stanley in Hong Kong. He seems Australian, but grew up in South Africa. Seemed pretty cool and it sounds like Morgan-Stanley is the place to be if you are looking for BIG income. One of the software developers under him got a $1m bonus on top of his significant salary. That's just NUTS! After that I walked back to my Hotel and crashed.
Monday morning I had breakfast in my room but I didn't really feel like eating all of it. Seemed like a waste. I got out the door and walked over to the store. It's about 4 blocks and I crossed Park Avenue, Madison Ave, and 5th Avenue on the way. Yes, that's 5th Avenue as in Saks 5th Avenue. Busy Busy. It was hot, already about 80 degrees in the morning and humid. Made it to Rockefeller in no time and after weaving my way through the crowd of people trying to get on TV at the Today show (which is filmed directly in front of the Nintendo World store I went to work. Work was pretty easy, I fixed up all the issues we had over the weekend with the AC system being down...
Apparently there was a pipe that was getting ready to burst in the building and the maintenance crew needed to shutdown all of the HVAC systems in the building. They brought in portable coolers and used dry ice evaporation to try and keep the building cool but it didn't work for us. Our computer room in the basement reached over 130 degrees ambient temperature which is WAY beyond the max temperature of electrical equipment. There were a bunch of servers that shutdown because of the temperature being high and some power units that had shut off for the same reason. The HVAC came back up Sunday afternoon after about a day and a half of being down and the room finally cooled back down. I got all that squared away and then went to work on actual projects. Had lunch at Pronto Pizza then headed back to my hotel after 5pm.
Monday evening I wandered around some more and ended up walking all the way to Central Park, then up to Trump Tower, back to Rockefeller and then found an Irish pub to have dinner. I had my camera with me so I got so pics on the way. The new Apple store is REALLY cool. The whole store is underground and the entrance itself is an all glass cube above ground. Glass elevator and glass stairs take you down into the store from inside the cube.
Today I got up, headed to Rockefeller and stopped by one of the 6 Starbucks on the way. Went to work right away when I got there fixing a few issues with Pokemon kiosks we have on the sales floor, then built some new servers for another project. Headed out about 7pm and after dropping my bag at the hotel walked back up to Rockefeller. Had dinner at the Rock Center Cafe which is underground in Rockefeller Plaza. My table actually sat where the Ice Rink would be if it was winter. If you've seen any of the many movies showing the Big Christmas Tree and skating in NYC you'll know where I was. Then it was back to my room to relax and finish up some work before bed.
But of course there was more to do. A network device in the store died which brought down all of the servers. We don't have a second one and it won't come back online so we have to get someone to come out in the morning (hopefully) to fix it. In the meantime, nothing in the NY store works. Aargh.. I spent a number of hours setting things to ignore the problems and stop paging messages to everyone, as well as sending emails to key people letting them know what happened. Now that that's done I'm watching HBO and getting ready to sleep.
Monday morning I had breakfast in my room but I didn't really feel like eating all of it. Seemed like a waste. I got out the door and walked over to the store. It's about 4 blocks and I crossed Park Avenue, Madison Ave, and 5th Avenue on the way. Yes, that's 5th Avenue as in Saks 5th Avenue. Busy Busy. It was hot, already about 80 degrees in the morning and humid. Made it to Rockefeller in no time and after weaving my way through the crowd of people trying to get on TV at the Today show (which is filmed directly in front of the Nintendo World store I went to work. Work was pretty easy, I fixed up all the issues we had over the weekend with the AC system being down...
Apparently there was a pipe that was getting ready to burst in the building and the maintenance crew needed to shutdown all of the HVAC systems in the building. They brought in portable coolers and used dry ice evaporation to try and keep the building cool but it didn't work for us. Our computer room in the basement reached over 130 degrees ambient temperature which is WAY beyond the max temperature of electrical equipment. There were a bunch of servers that shutdown because of the temperature being high and some power units that had shut off for the same reason. The HVAC came back up Sunday afternoon after about a day and a half of being down and the room finally cooled back down. I got all that squared away and then went to work on actual projects. Had lunch at Pronto Pizza then headed back to my hotel after 5pm.
Monday evening I wandered around some more and ended up walking all the way to Central Park, then up to Trump Tower, back to Rockefeller and then found an Irish pub to have dinner. I had my camera with me so I got so pics on the way. The new Apple store is REALLY cool. The whole store is underground and the entrance itself is an all glass cube above ground. Glass elevator and glass stairs take you down into the store from inside the cube.
Today I got up, headed to Rockefeller and stopped by one of the 6 Starbucks on the way. Went to work right away when I got there fixing a few issues with Pokemon kiosks we have on the sales floor, then built some new servers for another project. Headed out about 7pm and after dropping my bag at the hotel walked back up to Rockefeller. Had dinner at the Rock Center Cafe which is underground in Rockefeller Plaza. My table actually sat where the Ice Rink would be if it was winter. If you've seen any of the many movies showing the Big Christmas Tree and skating in NYC you'll know where I was. Then it was back to my room to relax and finish up some work before bed.
But of course there was more to do. A network device in the store died which brought down all of the servers. We don't have a second one and it won't come back online so we have to get someone to come out in the morning (hopefully) to fix it. In the meantime, nothing in the NY store works. Aargh.. I spent a number of hours setting things to ignore the problems and stop paging messages to everyone, as well as sending emails to key people letting them know what happened. Now that that's done I'm watching HBO and getting ready to sleep.