Moving the work servers to Grand Rapids

Okay, So my main job was to take pictures of the move... At least that's how it started out. So before we did anything, I grabbed some shots of the server room in Muskegon. Basically, I took a zillion shots of computers and a big mess of wires and stuff. As much of that likely isn't interesting to you, I'm going to cut a lot of them out, and focus on the pictures that embarass my co-workers. Good? good.

Yeah, there were a lot of machines and parts and wires and bags and boxes.. yada yada yada. It was kinda a mess in there.

Here's the first of about a zillion shots of the computers. Long story short, there were a lot of computers, and a lot more wires running everywhere. It all seems kewl until you have to start plugging and unplugging them all over the place.

More machines.. And there are them cabinet doors... they turned out to be a problem later... just like just about everything else.

So yeah.. 7 cabinets with stuff like this.

See that orange wire there? Yeah. from what I understand, that connected us to the Internet. That seems kinda... frightening(?) to me.

Yeah, here's more wires and boxes. Yada.

So here are the cabinets, and BDF, Brian, Andy, and Dave.

Here's BDF, doing something or other...

Okay, so see that blue wire? Now that wire is connecting everything we got to the Internet. What could possibly go wrong?

More wires and so forth. Now remember that I took a bunch of pictures out, and you start to get an idea of just how many pictures I took....

This thing here is really expensive.

Here's all the cabinets. It's still before we've started anything.

Joel was officially declared the Task Manager for the evening. I noted that he ought to have a badge, and thus I was put in charge of making said badge. And here we are: The Task Manager Badge. (just wait... it gets better)

I told you it got better. Here we are in my cube, and Joel has put on his Task Manager uniform: Badge, Whistle, and Mask. All that's missing is his six-shooters.

Here's Sherrill & BCP working on a machine... maybe it's Ur? I dunno.

Here's BDF working with wires. He was thrilled that I was taking all these pictures.... You'll see.

Bubble wrap. Ever seen Dude, Where's My Car??... Yeah.. We shoulda made bubble suits.

Here's Joel with his six-shooters. We are easily entertained.

Here's BDF and Ed. I think we're getting ready to go out to eat.

We all headed off to dinner at Bonicki's. They've got good food there.

Here we are, enjoying some quality food.

Andy is a funny, funny guy. Left to right: Me, Andy, BDF, Dave.

Here's Brian (BCP). Note the Sergeant Slaughter-esque jawline on him.

Here's Joel, He's explaining that he has girly wrists... Not one to be outdone, I showed off my girlier wrists. He seemed impressed and horrified, as did everyone.

BCP did not finish his meal. He did a bang-up job of dumping the leftovers into the box, though... and by bang-up I mean lousy, obviously.

And off we go, to get started...

Here's the todo list that Joel, the Task Manager, followed... or at least, what we tried to follow for a little while.

Here's Dave. We needed a new emergency voicemail message for while we moved the servers. So I wrote one up, and we elected Dave to read it. So here he is, practicing.

Here's the message he was practicing.

Here's BCP in his cube.

Remember that wire I was talking about. This is it, here.

Here's Dave. We were working on taking the cabinet doors off, so we could change the locks.

Here's BDF again. He's got this problem, you see...

Here we've got some of the doors off.

Here Joel and Andy are comparing lists... at least they were a few seconds earlier.. then I made them pose for this shot cause I had to wait for the flash dealie to power up.

Here is Joel with his whistle.

Here we are in the copy room. We're trying to get a modem connection. Yeah... it isn't a good sign, eh?

You see that look there? That's the look you're hoping your boss with flash at you when you're working on a major undertaking.

After failing to get a hold of my roommates, Joel tried getting a hold of Adam.

I just barely missed Dave trying on the stethoscope.

Here is Dave.

Now we're gathering tools and dividing them up into people's cars.

"Oh Captain, My Captain."

Now we're sending Ed off with Ur, to serve pages while we move the servers. We're offline at this point.

There goes Ed.

We're moving the Tape machine into my car now.

By the way, it was really really cold outside.

Ok. We're just shutting the machines down now.

Here is Faeren working on a machine. Faeren just started with us. Everyone say "hi". Thanks.

Here we are shutting down.

Now we're taking all the ethernet wire down.

Yes.. that is a machine on my head.

Joel is reading off which machine should go down next. It was kinda a kewl chaotic mess of shouting and machines going up and down. It was an experience, to say the least.

Here's a quick video of Joel reading off a machine name, and BCP shutting it down.

The moving trucks arrive.

And here are the movers.

BCP is drawing me a map to Iserv.

Here's all that wire, on the top of the cabinets.

We're close to the end of the shutdowns now.

All the lights are off, and all the machines are silent.

Here we go. Everything that is supposed to go in someone's car has been put there.

Heh.. Joel is a Huge Nerd.

And the switch is pretty much unplugged.

Here's Joel at the helm. Be afraid.

We've got almost all the ethernet wire disconnected now... and are almost ready to take the ladder of wire down.

And here's all that's left of our connection.

And now we're taking the ladder down.

More ladder going down

And the ladder is down. That's a lot of wire.

Trying to untangle the mess. Yeah, it ain't gonna happen.

BDF and Joel took off in BDF's Jeep.

And now the moving guys are taking the cabinets out.

The moving guys wrapped the cabinets in blankets, then taped them up, then put them on the trucks.

Here's Blaine. He showed up to wish us well, and grab some books.

Here the movers are in motion.

More moving men stuff.

And here is the room, pretty much empty.

yeah. That's all that's left.

Here they all are, wrapped up and ready to go.

Here's the back of the truck.

Loading the stuff up.

Here's Dave, Sherrill, and BCP, watching the action.

BCP and Sherrill are taking off now.

Now the trucks are leaving.

Here's my car, and the tape machine. Yeah... Dave had to sit in the back.

Here we are on the road. Let me tell you, the drive SUCKED. It was snowing, and cold, and slippery, and slow, and horrible. The only thing that made it bearable was BCP calling me up every once in a while to tell me to change my radio station (First it was for Tom's Diner, then I'll Be There for You (the Theme to Friends)), or to make fun of something or other. I decided to just focus on driving from this point on.

This laptop here was serving all of our traffic for a while. The link light was going crazy.

Here's the splash screen that was displayed while we were moving.

And now they start unloading here at Iserv.

They had some really snazzy machines there.

Here's where our machines would be going.

so the moving guys unwrapped the machines. (Note the healthy scratch they put in the floor there)

Here's Joel, hard at work, playing gameboy advance. At this point, there was nothing left for us to do for a while. So I cleared the place out of all their tootsie rolls.

Here Dave ponders the joys of being Dave.

Here the machines are all getting put in place.

Ed loves his E-commerce machines.

Okay, everything is in place. Time to get connecting.

We attached another ladder, so it was twice as long.

And here it is, on top.

But we had to move the feet to make it work.

And now we're adding wire.

And now we're trying to start up.

Doesn't he look happy, folks?

The wires were all labeled... Okay, most of them were, anyway.. But some of them were labeled wrong.. That was really, really annoying.

so here's how it'd work. One person in the back would attach a machine, and read off the wire label (e.g. R7-3). Then someone in the front would attach that wire to the switch. Simple enough, yes? Yeah, well keep in mind that it was really, really loud in that room, what with a zillion high powered machines and fans running, and people shouting, etc.. We got through it, though... obviously.

Here's nappy-time Ed.

BDf's trying to figure out why things aren't working right.

Here's Ed after a visit from Mr. Sandman.

Now he's just plain sleeping.

Remember that thing about labeling wires wrong? Yeah... Here Joel and I are trying to trace a wire from the switch back to it's machine.