·:[ Jason On A Shtick ]:·
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OMG the sheer number of young men at this school that do not wash their hands after using the restroom is outrageous!  It is to the point that I am leery of touching anything and I’m stocking hand sanitizer like it is the end times!  Worse still, a couple of my female coworkers tell me it is the same with the young ladies!!  What is wrong with these kids??  Where have we failed them??  I have to go vomit now…

We often keep one of our work-study students around during the summer to have an extra pair of hands for various jobs.  Last summer, our faithful work-study installed a 1GB stick of memory into a bunch of our older lab computers that only had 512MB.

Fast forward to holiday break and we were looking at our inventory for one reason or another.  We noticed that many of the lab machines still reported as having 512MB of memory.  Upon checking on a few of them, we discovered that our work-study had put the memory stick in the slot but did not push it down all the way to click it into place.  I’m surprised that we didn’t have machines behaving strangely or having some issues with a memory DIMM halfway touching the contacts.

There’s nothing like an afternoon of re-seating memory sticks!

One of our vendors is a distributor for APC, the company that makes backup power supplies, cooling devices, environmental monitors and all sorts of neat tools to help you manage a server room.  They let us know that the APC truck was in town and that they would stop by to see us.  The APC truck is a big moving truck all decked out with APC gear.  You step up into the truck to see a small mock server room and a bunch of APC gear in action.

The truck arrived on a wet and gray morning.  A few of the gang and I went out to have a look and get our geek on.  It was dark in the back of the truck even though there were lights on the ceiling.  We boarded, looked at each other and then at the APC guy.  He explained that they had blown a fuse and somehow drained the battery that runs most of the stuff in the back of the truck, so we were going to just hear him talk about the gear in the dark.  Mind you, APC is best known for making uninterruptible power supplies, the very important gadgets that power your machines when the electricity goes off.

We laughed, broke out a flashlight and let the guy do his demo.

Even without power, I was still impressed by the NetBotz and I want one!

Now that I’ve settled into the role of IT Director at my college alma mater, it is time that I started writing about the adventures that my staff and I encounter.  Some of these stories are hilarious; others just make me cry.  One thing is for sure: there is never a shortage of material.

One of my favorite Kentucky inventions!  Is it a trailer?  Yes!  Is it a truck?  Yes!  It’s a trailer-truck-trailer!