This entry sounds techy, but really it's not about that. Just last week I had to help migrating one of my clients, who'd been acquired, over to their new mega-corp network... speaking with one of their former employees this morning
<Lukas> hey, I heard you had fun at $INITECH recently
<Myke> yeah
<Lukas> you had to teach them about routing, etc
<Myke> no no
<Myke> I didn't teach them
<Myke> I schooled them.
<Lukas> LOL
<Myke> yeah, it was worse dorkery than when we were dealing with that Cool Dude from Magma last year
<Myke> guy in Texas didn't know the difference between NAT, Routing and Firewall rules.
<Lukas> LOL
<Lukas> and that is a HUGE billion dollar company
<Lukas> they love M$
<Myke> techs weren't allowed to change DNS
<Myke> the guy couldn't understand the VLANs
<Lukas> yeah, we had a nice little setup there and they just ripped it all out
<Myke> and when I found the config entry that caused us 3 hours of debugging
<Myke> he got really quiet.
<Lukas> ha ha
Replace my fantastic setup... you know what it took to get it running?!
But really - this is just an excuse to talk about the Cool Dude from Magma.
The story is about a year old, the day Samsam was born actually; These guys had moved to a new office and contracted me to help set them up with a new router and get the overall network going. New office came pre-connected to Magma... but we needed a few things reconfigured. We called Magma, had a difficult first call, whereby the agent basically just said he'd call us back. With nothing to do, we went to lunch.
"... so I can give you the latest update on the matter!" (Emphasis his.)
Back at the office, the 5 of us crowd around the speaker phone - hoping they can make these changes today so we can enjoy the rest of the day, but it's really not sounding like it...
(audio is unedited, transcript is below, Lukas and the Rep are in the recording)
"that would be so sweet from you" "you and myke, are good guys man"
I'm not sure if this guy loves his job, us, or just gets that enthusiastic about everything... but damn, that was funny.
I've been working on a project to bring Fiber To The Home out in Perth Ontario, actually putting the fiber up on the poles and trenching underground and whatnot... Today didn't go so well:
<Chris> hey
<Myke> Oh Hai
<Chris> how did perth go today
<Myke> Ben called to wake me up at 10 to 8
<Myke> Met at Sheridan at 8:30
<Myke> grabbed brekky, showed him your fantastic wall which looks awesome.
<Myke> hit Canadian Tire & Home Hardware for some heatshrink tubing
<Myke> went out to Sheridan
<Myke> Fired up the truck
<Myke> Put the outriggers down
<Myke> and the bucket/boom wouldn't move.
<Myke> ... neither would the outriggers
<Myke> No lights on the control panel for the PTO/Accessory system
<Myke> Found a blown/broken circuit breaker
<Myke> went back to CTC to get a replacement
<Myke> that didn't work
<Myke> Found another blown/broken circuit breaker
<Myke> went back to CTC to get a replacement
<Myke> Found another blown fuse
<Myke> went back to CTC to get a replacement
<Myke> Still wouldn't work
<Myke> Found another blown/broken circuit breaker
<Myke> went back to CTC to get a replacement, but they didn't have any
<Myke> went to Evan's work (trucking company) but the one they had didn't fit
<Myke> went to a junkyard, they didn't have anything that would fit, but helped us build a rig to hack/test
<Chris> thats a lot
<Myke> ... still no luck with the truck
<Chris> sounds like
<Myke> Finally gave up
<Chris> the electrical is shot
<Myke> Called a 24/7 truck guy
<Myke> He couldn't find the problem, just confirmed everything I'd found
<Myke> He hotwired the control for the PTO
<Myke> so we got it running, raised the outriggers
<Myke> and called it a day for the truck
<Chris> What time
<Chris> was that at ?
<Myke> then we finished installing & splicing the MultiLink StarFighter for $CUSTOMER
<Myke> and called it a day at about 1915.
<Chris> the electrical is gone on the truck
<Myke> We sent the truck off at around 6
<Myke> huh?
<Myke> Please don't insult my 6 hours of diagnosing by jumping to a conclusion over MSN.
<Myke> actually, it was close to 8 hours of working on that truck today.
<Chris> Hopefully there wont be a hydraulics issues also
<Myke> Stop assuming
<Myke> it's annoying.
<Myke> The hydraulics are fine
<Myke> it looks like the accessory relay isn't being triggered
<Chris> how many fusses went ?
<Myke> the question is if it's blown or if whatever controls it is shot.
<Myke> 1 fuse blew, and we smoked the lightbar controller as result or as cause of it
<Myke> 1 breaker was completely broken
<Myke> 1 breaker was for the air-conditioner... there is no air-conditioner
<Myke> 1 breaker is for the cigarette lighter, which we didn't think there was one anywhere, but I did eventually find it
<Myke> so we likely replaced a bunch of breakers for things that weren't getting used.
<Myke> the electrical is not "gone" on the truck
<Myke> the alt is fine, all the regular, Ford F750 part of the truck works perfectly fine
<Chris> what was the end result ?
<Myke> It's the Accessories that aren't being triggered
<Myke> the end result is that I'm going to go to Ben's house this week and rewire the entire accessory system.
<Myke> It'll probably take me 2-3 days.
<Chris> for the truck ?
<Myke> 1.5-2 days of reverse engineering
<Chris> do you know how to do that ?
<Myke> 1 day of work
<Myke> hell, you know how to do it
<Myke> it's not HARD, just tedious
<Myke> there's only a few things you need to know beyond basic Electrical theory
<Chris> well ist not an old Chevy
<Chris> i would think it was a little more involved in this vehicle
<Myke> it's an old ford
<Myke> it doesn't have a computer
<Myke> and I don't need to touch the original wiring, except to interface the accessories
<Myke> everything else is aftermarket
<Myke> ie: not OEM
<Chris> i hope it works out for you
<Myke> I'm not really looking forward to it right now, just because I'm so tired and annoyed
<Myke> but
<Myke> it could've been worse
<Myke> hell - I could've been up IN the bucket when it blew
<Myke> instead, it happened just BEFORE I did.
<Chris> thats good too
<Myke> You know me
<Myke> I'll want to do it up all nice and pretty.
<Myke> frankly, there's no point in Ben paying some mechanic $110/hr to do this
<Myke> The tough part right now is that we don't know the root cause.
<Myke> And BTW: the first breaker wasn't broken, it was just corroded on the terminals, it tested okay once I checked it again.
<Chris> what did the on site mechanic actually do ?
<Chris> reroute the wiring
<Chris> ?
<Myke> checked my diagnosis, traced things (which I didn't do very much of)
<Myke> no
<Myke> he hotwired the Accessories/PTO control panel
<Chris> got it
<Myke> because we checked and the Hydraulic Pump Clutch (which hangs off the PTO) seems to be fine
<Myke> hence why I know hydraulics isn't the problem
<Chris> isn't there a backup system or something to get the hydraulics and the feet up in case of this type of problem ?
<Myke> nope
<Myke> at least
<Myke> if there is, it wasn't apparent.
<Myke> There's emergency controls for the boom
<Myke> not for the outriggers.
<Chris> that was it