Winches
SETI@home, despite being the world's biggest distributed computing endeavor by several metrics, was - even at its peak - a pretty scrappy project. We barely had salary money for our skeleton crew (about five people including me), and we were all making a fraction what we could "in industry" and even then most of us were working part time. And the budget for hardware was zero. We relied on donations from various silicon valley companies and inside people for whatever metal we required.
One such insider had all kinds of test servers he'd plop into our lab every so often. We'd accept them all without question as to not offend him and his generosity. But 50% of these giant computers were DOA, 30% worked for about six months and would then croak in some peculiar fashion, and the rest ended up being quirky but useful. Since he stowed these in his garage some actually came into our possession with raccoon footprints on the chassis. And so to this day my colleagues and I refer to questionable donations of unpredictable utility as "raccoon boxes."
Many companies loved donating old equipment they were just gonna throw away anyway. One of these was Rambus, and we got the word that they were getting rid of not one but two 950-pound Quantum P2000 DLT tape libraries (that fit ~200 DLTs inside each). Basically they were giant data tape jukeboxes. Me and fellow system administrator Court were tasked with acquiring these white whales from silicon valley.
I drove the two of us down the hill from the Space Sciences Lab to a truck rental place on San Pablo way up in Richmond. I parked nearby as Court dealt with the paperwork. Annoying delays as the first credit card wasn't accepted for some reason. Then we were driven to the truck lot where they actually keep some rentals - three of us crammed in the cab of a pickup to get there.
Turns out the truck they assigned to us had a tiny liftgate and was an open flatbed, like the kind of truck you'd see hauling a bunch of chickens in cages. This would not work, so we asked for a different one. The dude drove us back to the main building and we redid the paperwork and got a closed truck like we originally wanted. And then we were off, Court driving the giant vehicle to Los Altos.
The ride to the south bay was the only easy part of the day. Court and I shot the shit about music the entire trip. Way back when he was a true LA professional musician. So we exchanged disparate gig war stories and whatnot. Around 1:00pm we pulled up into the Rambus building lot and pulled around back to the tiny loading dock.
I had to take a wicked piss. Court went to find somebody to direct us where to go and was gone for 20 minutes. I had to watch the truck, parked in a red zone, in case it needed to be moved. My bladder throbbed. Finally he reappeared with the main person coordinating this exchange and some other guy who was the muscle. The loading dock, oddly enough, was built on a slanting road, so that wouldn't work - we pulled around to the front entrance which was flatter.
I finally got a chance to urinate. Phew. Back at the truck Court and I lowered the liftgate - but it wouldn't go all the way to the ground. Something wrong with the way it was mounted so that, at its lowest, the platform hovered an inch above the pavement. Great.
Immediately the two Rambus guys appeared with the first ginormous monster. They enlisted a couple other techies who happened to be around to help, and all four were clearly rushing to get this task over with and force the damn jukebox onto the truck.
They were pushing the thing as hard as possible, struggling to get it up onto the floating liftgate. Slamming it with all their force got the wheels up onto the platform but then it started to fall back off and tilt over. I couldn't help but reach in to prevent it crushing one of the nerds. This heroic act immediately torqued my shoulder really bad. Ouch!
So the tape library was now dangerously swimming around on the liftgate. By the way, the wheels on the these things didn't lock. The four Rambus guys balanced it while I raised the platform. And turns out its highest position remained two inches below the truck bed. Fuckin' c'mon! So we grabbed some handcarts to pry the thing in the most precarious fashion onto the truck. Push! Bam! Smash! Oof! It was now on board. And yet we still had another one to go.
The second was easier as somebody else from Rambus came by to more or less take my place. Lord knows the way they were slamming these machines onto the liftgate and again onto the truck they are probably totally broken now. Court suddenly appeared. Wait.. where was he this whole time? Oh - he went to get the last two winches they had for sale at Sears down the street. Ah - good thinking, given the hills we'd have to ascend.
So the guys from Rambus said "good luck" and fled as fast as possible now that the giant racks were no longer their stupid problem. It took Court and I 20 minutes to figure out how the winches worked and get them strapped in. It was now 2:15pm - a bit behind schedule, but we're on our way home.
Court got in the driver's seat and we hit the road. On the main street en route to the highway we kept hitting red lights. At each pause the cheap winches loosened more and more until the P2000s were basically roaming free in the back, slamming into walls as we stopped. God dammit! We kept our eyes peeled and I saw a True Value just before the highway entrance. We pulled into the lot and Court purchased a couple industrial-strength winches.
While he was in the store I discovered the Sears ones he got were rated for 300 pounds. No wonder they sucked. Thanks, Sears. The winches he returned with were rated for 1000 pounds. These did the trick, but it took another 20 minutes to figure out how to hook up these new straps and pulleys and tighten them properly, etc. What a pain! We hit the highway around 3:00pm. Running super late now, but everything stayed put in the back.
We got up 237 but when we hit 880 it was going to be dead stop traffic all the way up to Oakland. Court was talking about stopping at the Great Mall to get a bite to eat and call our colleague Jeff to warn him we would be late. This brought to light two things: First, if we don't get back by 5:00 it's very likely nobody would be around to help us unload this shit. Second, I haven't eaten anything all day so I was famished but I had a rehearsal tonight so to hell with stopping and eating. Court sensed my stress and agitation and gracefully withdrew his suggestion.
The traffic sucked ass, but Court - a silicon valley commuter in days of yore, knew all the short cuts. We had to get off the highway anyway to re-cinch the winches, and then embarked on the most random set of sidestreets that took forever to traverse but at least we were moving. I was running out of conversation as the afternoon wore on. Just the two of us, both low on blood sugar, stewing in our seats.
We feared the final push up the hill to the lab, but the racks didn't budge. Phew. At last we returned at 5:15pm. By this time my torqued shoulder and elbow were screaming, I was dizzy from starvation, and pretty pissed off. But Jeff was still around. He observed the situation. Yep. We probably shouldn't unload this stuff now with just the three of us.
I ran upstairs to check my e-mail/messages. Turns out rehearsal was cancelled this evening. Still, I just wanted to get my ass home. Meanwhile, Jeff talked to our building manager and got his permission to park the truck overnight. So the good news was I wouldn't have to deal with the deadly unloading of this bullshit. Yay. But my car was still in Richmond.
So Court drove me (completely out of his way). I felt bad for him, having to partake in this obnoxious boondoggle and weather my bad attitude, but I was thankful and psyched to get to my car and head on home. I blasted Meshuggah as I shlepped all the way to Oakland down San Pablo. Extreme metal helps with pain.
I gladly avoided all future dealings with these giant jukeboxes, including unloading and getting them into my lab. And I'm fairly sure nobody at any point turned them on, because we had other fish to fry. After taking up precious space in our lab for a couple years we got rid of them.