Calgary, Alberta

Calgary

I got to Calgary the day of a Rod Stewart concert in the Saddledome Arena.
Really couldn't get too much done... It was crazy with riggers, stagehands, electricians and roadies all rushing to outfit the arena for the concert.
To add insult to injury, there was a Meatloaf concert scheduled for the next night.

The server rack and the other equipment was going to live up on the catwalk directly above the center scoreboard in the middle of the arena.

At least, that was Plan A.
The IT guys, Richard & Paul and Gerry the Telephone Guy were very agreeable to the plan and they moved heaven and earth to get cables in place for the installation. (A great crew to work with...)

Then the building operations manager came in and shot us down.

Looking at the load-in for the concert I see why he was concerned...

As the roadies and riggers were hanging all the aluminum trusses, lift motors, light arrays and speaker clusters, the actual load on the high steel was staggering...

"And... just think, it might be snowing outside..."


This might be a problem.
Aside from looking for all the world like a giant Maxi Pad, you'd think the Saddledome would have a tendancy to collect a seriously heavy snowpack in the crotch of the roof...

So... a couple tons of snow, 18,000 lbs of scoreboard and video wall, controllers, lift motors, and on concert night, 60,000 lbs of motors, chainhoists, truss, speakers and lights...
I wouldn't want to be in that building if I didn't have to be.

We worked it out, though. Our server cabinet is pretty light- and even fully loaded if probably won't top out above 800 lbs. A drop in the proverbial bucket.

Onward to Detroit...
One pic from the trip to the airport.

I need to quit being so analytical...



Beerland is under new management...
Is it because the old management didn't aggressively market to the local student population?

TBG, out-



Or not...

As I sat in the airport in Calgary, I got an SMS message from JR.
JR:You sitting down?
TBG:Yeah
JR: I better call you. You're gonna freak.

Lovely.

Detroit, who has been giving us a handwave every time we talk to them,
"Oh yeah, everything is ready" is not ready.
At all.
Not one cable has been run, nothing has been planned, no space allocated.

Oh shit.

So... I'm headed there, wearing my hob-nailed boots, a two-iron in one hand and a whip made of network cable (CAT5 o'-9-tails?) and I'm gonna head to Joe Lewis Arena and knock some skulls around.

It's a mixed blessing:
With nothing to do, I'll have 2 free days on my schedule... Could it be that I'll get to go home?
Maybe go see the PC's soccer game on Saturday morning?

Stay tuned...

TBG - Famous!