The Inner Circle

Wow…. what a past two weeks.

Well two weeks ago today I had my last day at Macrovision, the next day I moved up to Lancaster. It’s been a hell of a two weeks. I’m now living with Ali and John for a few months while I get settled, it’s fun.

I was planning to keep a work diary, however it never got finished in time. Not to mention work as been so busy.

On my first day I reported to the departments office, shown about and handled various pieces of paper work. When I got to the networking office I was given a laptop and told to set it up how I liked, so I did. It now runs FreeBSD 5.3 and Gnome 2.12.

My second day was very much the same as the second, I sat and played with the laptop until it behaved how it should. I spent the day with members of staff in the office.

My third day was much of a blur, I spent much of the day trying to aquire passwords for the various systems in the univesity. I was also temporarly given a desk to set up my desktop on.

However it’s not a small desktop, it’s a nice 3.4Ghz Dell box with 2Gb of ram, and 2 x 20″ TFT monitors. This too now runs Freebsd 5.3, Gnome 2.12 with widescreens. That evening a switch was plugged into the university which started a chain reaction.

Thursday morning hit and a lot of networking (including myself) were in early, some how the plugging in of the switch the night before caused the Cisco edge switches to start using VTP and subsequently started removing and adding different vlans on their own.

This had the effect of cutting off many computers and servers, including our managment domain. This ment for the first few hours of the day we were required to run about campus reprogramming the switches and insuring that VTP was set to transparent.

This went on until 10am when the switch that was currently set as VTP MASTER was found, and we were able to reintroduce all the vlans automatically to the campus. The remainder of the day was spent cleaning my desktop and adding more programs.

On Friday we still had some VTP fall out to clear up, so I was given a list of 50 Cisco switches on campus that needed their settings checked. At the end of the day another member of staff moved desk which would enable me to move.

The weekend came and passed very quickly with a trip to see the parents and then one to Ikea.

Monday morning I began to start moving my desk, however I was interrupted by something else that was going on and I was asked to work on something. The rest of the day I set up my desk properly.

Tuesday morning was primarly to do with the network at risk period that we have when we can break things. We reprogrammed many switched and upgraded firmware, one of these failed so I had to swap out a different switch.

Wednesday was entirely eaten up with a training session with Agilent for their N2X product, which can be used for bandwidth testing (and QOS, which is something I will be involved with).

Thursday I was drafted in to assist with the creation of a test resnet system so that we could try the dynamic vlan system that was prototyped. We spent much of the day setting up the network, arranging vlans, etc. During the day the VOIP system had failed, a service tech had arrived from our hardware support vender, and we stayed in the machine room attempting to fix the routers until 8:30pm.

Finally today, we continued the resnet work, with HP and Cisco equipment and tested all variaties that we have on the network. All tests have been successful. This evening and tomorrow the resnet switches will be reprogrammed to use this functionality.

And now I’m tired, I feel like bed :).

Ahh the fun.

Resigning is a very odd feeling, it’s ending a period of work and while I know I have another job to go to, it’s still odd to be leaving somewhere that’s fairly comfortable.

But it’s done, and in one month I will no longer be employed by Macrovision, two days after I leave (ie a weekend) I will be starting as a Network Specalist at Lancaster University.

There will be a lot going on that last week, I’m off to Silverstone with Sara, I’m gonna be moving up to Lancs, it’s gonne be a hellish week really. So I guess I really do need to find an appartment to live in now.

So that shall be the remainder of the weeks task, that and sorting out finances so I can move happily. Should be interesting, but it’s all change now.

Cheers,

D.

Some of you may recognise the term dynamic scenery from Flight Simulator and X-Plane, it refers to generic things that happen around you while you taxi on the ground or you fly through the skies seeing hot air balloons.

I was driving to Lancaster on Wednesday, and there was an unusual amount of dynamic scenery. Things moving in fields as I went up, I raced along side a train as I went up the M6 past Preston, then another one when I came off the M6 at Lancaster.

People doing things about the place, etc. Maybe I’ve just never traveled during the day to Lancs to notice all the details, maybe I just haven’t been mentally aware of what has been going on.

Other things happened too, I drove up to Lancs, and got to Sara’s then drove to University. Once I parked there my speedo was on 99.9 miles, there have been other things that have gone well and have been noticably more conveniant.

So on Wednesday I attened my first interview session, this involved taking a test which concentrated very much on networking and basic problem solving rather then pure Windows directory technologies which I expected it to. So the interviews went well, the technical services meeting was good with Ian Norton (Systems) and Mark Jameson (Head of Networking). I was asked the question of which job I would take if I got offered both, I said networking.

Well, next day I was sat with Sara drinking coffee in GZ coffee bar, I got a call from John “The Director” Gallagher and was offered the first post, I told him I’d think about it and that I’d like to attend the second one that day.

So at 14:20 I went to Computing, got a nice tour of the network facilities and server room. Got a grilling by the networking team, and I think I was able to handle all of their questions nicely.

Went up to the main interview, couldn’t answer a stupidly simple question due to a mental block, on which I felt very silly. But otherwise it went well. I was worried I wasn’t gonna get the job, as in the long run I guess that’s the job I wanted most of all.

Oddly I had gone out for a curry with Sara, Kimball, Graham, Rich and Paul (from networking and systems respectivly), Rich had said it was a good sign going out for curry as he did the same thing the day before being offered the job.

But just as I was about to leave Lancaster I checked my mobile phone and found I had missed a call, I rang it back and it was John offering me the network job. So I told him I’d think about it over night and get back to him as soon as possible.

So this morning I rang him and told him I’d like to accept the Networking position. He said I’d probably be disapointing the head of systems who was looking forward to having an OSS influence, but he understood what direction I really wanted to head into.

So at 10:30 I was called into my bosses office and asked how things went and I told him that I had been offered both jobs. He then suprisingly explained that it was going to be able to offer me a position in consulting for the FlexNET product range, it would be significantly more money then the Lancs position but it would involve a lot of travel, a great way to see the world.

It took me aback a bit, I didn’t expect that kind of offer being made from them. It would be an excellent opertunity, not to mention a huge pay rise. But I’m not sure I really want to do it.

Consulting essentially means that you never settle down for the next few years of your life, you go to a location to do work, you stay in a hotel. You aren’t home, you don’t have your belongings surrounding you.

Thinking about all my personal projects, I’m not sure I’d really be able to keep doing all of them if I had to move about all the time, there certainly wouldn’t be internet access constantly. I’m not really sure I want to abandon my life that I have so far in favour for that.

So I think that I’m deciding that while it’s vastly less money, the networking position would do more for me. I would be able to learn about networking, something I’m interested in anyway, and settle down for a year or so. After three years networking I should be in a position to move onto a higher paid job if I need to be.

However I don’t believe that what lancs are offering me for the networking position is a small amount, especially considering the only formal qualification I have in networking is as part of my degree.

I’m not sure that money brings happyness, sure it helps us live, but if I have enough doing the networking job, staying in lancs all the time, with friends. That should be enough, what’s the point of having all the extra money if you arnt about all the time to enjoy what you’ve used it for.

So I guess I have decided, it’s going to be the networking position. But about the light hearted start of this blog, it’s interesting the way things have coincided.

TTFN,

D.

In 20 minutes I’m gonna head up to Lancaster for the next two days to attend my interviews for jobs as ISS. It feels a little odd, but I’ve been counting down the hours.

Waking up tomorrow and going in for it is going to seem very strange. The day after will seem normal but not to bad.

Kinda nervious now…

We shall see,

D.

Well, I got an email on Friday saying that I had an interview for the Network Specalist position at Lancaster Uni, it’s the position that I really really want. It sounds interesting, and vastly varied, very different to what I do now at work.

I’ve been thinking about current work a lot, if I do get the job it will be a shame to go and I will be putting my boss in a tricky position. It’s not something I really want to do, but as when I was talking to Phil, you have to think about number one.

I was woundering early what have I made of my life so far, and I guess I’ve been thinking not much. I’ve been to university, and it’s enriched my life, it lead onto the path I’m on now. Sure things happened to me at university that I didn’t plan on, and would have prefered didn’t. But if they hadn’t I guess I wouldn’t be here.

I think that once I move out of home, I’m gonna feel I’ve made a leap into my life, no longer under anyones protection. It’s me vs the world… it’s a little bit unsettling actually.

As well, I guess I should do something productive with my free time. I’ve decided to rewrite our homepage system. So I’ve spawned the project “Horizon”, it’s basically a large data agregator and XHTML output engine, but it’ll make nice web pages.

Well I think I need a cup of tea,

D.