The Narrative of Kurt & Becky

Sunday Sunday. I’m blogging on Sunday to get y’all caught up my week. As you might have not noticed, I haven’t blogged since Tuesday. I’ve been busy. And lazy.

At work, this is the last week before school starts. That means students are moving into the dorms, classes are getting ready to start back up, and all the departments that deal directly with students (financial aid, student accounts, student services, etc.) are getting really busy. That means that we are very busy making sure everyone else is up and running.

Well, this year has been even crazier because last Friday (12 Aug) the administration let us know that eleven of the classrooms will be renovated into ‘smart’ classrooms and will network connectivity and computers.

Fantastic.

So, Mike steps up and gets on the phone will Dell and starts discussing what it’ll take to get these computers in the classrooms by the time classes start on Wednesday (24 Aug). In the mean while, Matt is busy preparing the lab computers for the placement testing that will take place during NSO on Monday (22 Aug). Stephen was preparing for registration that will take place in the gym. That’s set up for Saturday (20 Aug) so the new students can all come to one place and meet will all the departments they need to get started, and not run around campus from department to department. I was troubleshooting a problem with the dorm internet connection (remember the gateway we set up? Some couldn’t access our network since then) and was working on getting all the new classrooms wired.

Well, on Thursday of this week (18 Aug), there was a company-wide meeting that we were all required to attend. It was scheduled to last from 15:00 to 17:00. It got out at about 17:25. There went an afternoon of work that we can’t get back.

By Friday (19 Aug) I had fixed the problem with the dorm internet access, and was planning to work on the wiring. Well Stephen had a pre-planned vacation day, so he wasn’t in. Matt continued to work on the placement testing in the library. I did a quick walk-through of the classrooms and discovered a problem.

Well, all but two of the classrooms being renovated already have two network ports each, so there were only two new runs, but I wanted to check them all. The whole wing of the building is pretty much made entirely of cinder-block. No drop-ceiling, no drywall. I don’t even know how these classrooms were wired in the first place.

The problem was that with the renovation, the changed the configuration of some of the classrooms. What used to be the front of the class is now the back of class. Network ports don’t do much good in the back of class.

I went back to the office and reported to Mike. He told me to not worry about it right now because: 1) Stephen didn’t get a change to finish the laptops for registration and 2) The computers for the classrooms won’t be in until early next week any way.

I started working on the laptops for registration. We had five to get ready, so I cleared off Natalie’s desk (she works from home most days of the week) and set up all five laptops on the desk together so I can install them all together.

Kevin and I do a walkthrough of the gym to see what we’re up against. First of all, let me say that the gym has a total of four network ports, and they are located at the scoreboard table, courtside. They wanted the five laptops to be on tables that were spattered around the entire area. Hmmm.

Mike called in a favor and brought in a wireless access point. The laptops already had wireless built-in, so that would be perfect. I configured the AP and set it up to test it in the gym. Half of the laptops wouldn’t connect.

Arrgghhh.

Worked on them a bit more and got ‘em all working by 16:30. Went home. Went to sleep.

That was my week.

This entry was posted on Sunday, August 21st, 2005 at 20:38 and is filed under Daily. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.