Ah Delhi
January 31st, 2007
It’s good to be back. Nice to see activity at night.
Archive
Archive for January, 2007
Delayed in Kolkata
January 31st, 2007
Well I’m sitting here in Kolkata waiting to bored my flight to Delhi. It’s only been delayed by an hour and a half so far so I am doing pretty well.
I went and brought a couple of books on arrival in Kolkata airport as the women selling coke didn’t have enough change for my 500Rs note.. That reminds me I also got some Lidnt chocolate maybe it’s time to eat it. Anyway I went through security nice and early to identify my bad and try and find a power point for my flat mobile battery. It only took about 30 minutes to do so. Another 5 minutes to id my bag and now an hour of sitting and waiting. I don’t mind though.
The problem though with Indian airports is the lack of stuff on the secure side of the airport. Oh well, you get that. I am feeling pretty tired now so I might go now.
Leaving Dimapur
January 31st, 2007
I am now sitting in Dimapur waiting to leave for Kolkata and then Delhi. I am feeling very sad about leaving but really looking forward to Delhi, my holiday and returning home.
Systems are Good to Go
January 29th, 2007
48 hours until I leave and I finally have moved everyone to using the production live systems.
It is a load balanced and auto-failover system which gives it all added cool.
Must get back to work. Have to sort out backup systems and monitoring before I go.
Safety First
January 27th, 2007
I was booked to go to Delhi through Guwahti in Assam but Assam has had a recent explosion of violence over the past few weeks. The Indian military is now cracking down heavily on a group called the ULFA. The ULFA is responding with yet more violence against civilians, primary people from Bihar.
So with situation dodgy there, I am flying direct to Kolkota and then to Delhi. It is much more expensive but much safer.
Republic Day
January 27th, 2007
Yesterday was Republic Day in India, as well as Australia Day back home. The project team celebrated the founding of the Indian Republic by trying to work hard.
In the morning Tushar(the IT Manager) and myself managed to setup the servers and other equipment in the rack. At about noon we had everything running and working in the rack and then the power went out. We did not worry though because we had a nice big UPS. We went and had some lunch and then moved up to the site office.
Everything was going fine for about 30 minutes and then the servers stopped responding to our laptops. I went down to investigate and found that our big UPS had gone flat.
We waited for the power to come up and it didn’t come back up. I was offered the use of the generator and decided that yes I wanted to use it. So they went to try and start it. The first obstacle was fuel, they managed to take some from one of the contractors. Then once they had the fuel they tried to start the generator only to discover that the battery was flat. So we tried to jump start the generator by linking it to a bob cat(front end loader, JVC or whatever you want to call it) and tried the generator again. With the power we tried starting to run the generator but it didn’t work. We had a “magnetic prick failure” after that point I gave up and went back to sit in the office and wait to go home.
The power was not restored whilst we were at the site, and we ended up leaving at 4pm which is about 3 hours earlier then normal.
Moral to the story, only work half days on public holidays.
Countdowns
January 20th, 2007
10 more days until I leave Dimapur
24 more days until I leave Delhi
1 Month and 6 days until I am home
Bye Wes
January 20th, 2007
Wes just left Dimapur. Feeling a bit sad now. It’s going to be odd not living and working with Wes. So much shared experience in India together. I think I’m going to miss all his story telling.
It’s funny he kept on suggesting I should go and visit him in the States where he will be volunteering with MCC for the next few years. Maybe I should at least it’s East Coast.
Productivity in Nagaland
January 17th, 2007
Well yesterday was pretty bad productivity wise, in fact I ended up going home at 2.30pm in disgust over the lack of power at the site, but I did at least have a keyboard
Today was a lot better I slept in and called the site and found out there was no power. So I felt pretty good about that decision. I waited until there was power at the site before going in and I managed to have power for a lot of the day and the Internet and a keyboard.
Today I managed to guide my replacement through some basic setting up two of the four servers.
For want of a keyboard
January 15th, 2007
I can’t do any more work on the servers until I get a USB keyboard. We sent someone to find one this morning it is now after 4pm and they are not back yet. I have heard though that after going to many shops they found one.
In related news I managed to break a connector on one of the servers. Very sad. Thankfully it is user replaceable and shouldn’t be too expensive.
Isn’t My Money Good Enough For You??
January 15th, 2007
With my Australian credit cards I can’t purchase many things from Indian companies. For example 4 out of 5 airlines won’t accept my international credit card, nor will Airtel my phone company. It is rather frustrating.
The Servers Came!!
January 15th, 2007
I have the servers now and the network switches.
All very nice and very expensive equipment.
So much work to do now. I’ll post some photos later on this week.
Dear George W Bush
January 12th, 2007
Dear George W Bush,
I read in the Sydney Morning Herald today that you shed tears at the death of a soldier. Please stop the death, it’s so easy you have the power. The soldier who jumped on the grenade made a sacrifice to save his fellow soldiers. You too need to make a sacrifice, you need to give up your pride and pull your troops out, not send in more.
You have no business being in Iraq, leave!!
Instead of raiding the offices of Iran in Iraq which may or may not be under consular status, like I read herethis morning why not try and make friends with them.
If you want to know what the biggest barrier to peace in the world at the moment is, take a quick look in the mirror. While you are at it why not shed a tear for the tens of thousands of people your actions have caused to be killed in Iraq, Afghanistan and God knows where else.
God bless America,
David.
User Poll
January 11th, 2007
I ordered my IBM servers back in October for the Hospital. They were meant to take about 6 weeks to be delivered to me here in Dimapur. I’ve been waiting patiently since then being given all kinds of asssurances. First by Christmas, then by end of 2006, and most recently that they would arrive yesterday. They did not arrive, and are not even in Guhwati yet.
So my poll for you my readers is this, when do you they will come:
a) This week
b) Next week
c) 2 weeks time
d) The day that I leave.
e) After I get home.
f) Never.