The Neles Service department (where I work) has recently had a bit of a shake up. Here is how it is structured:

                            John Yanota (JY)
                            Service Manager
			           |
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      |               |                 |            |                   |           
  Kris Chao         Ed Lui          Gord Sipko     other             Dean Bennet
 Service Group     Service Group   Service Group  Service Group  Senior VIP Technical 
 Manager           Manager         Manager        Managers             God
                      |
                      |
                  Jake Hawkes - Programmer / Analyst
                      |
                  Alberto Prada - Programmer / Analyst
                      |
                  Anthony Glen - Programmer / Analyst
                      |
                  John Wardlaw - Programmer / Analyst

So it's a tree structure. Anyway, Ed Lui, my boss is new. He replaced Rene Aldana (the guy who hired me) who moved over to the engineering department.

The engineering department is where the basline code is taken, customised and/or extended for a particular customer. This means that every customer has a (slightly) different version of the product. Mostly the same, but different enough to make it really easy to break.

So, there you go. The things I'm doing regularily are dialing with customers. Customer generally want one of 3 things: the system to be recovered, the system to be extended, the system to be explained. To recover a system, you dial a into cutomers system to check why the system failed over, and bring back up the fialed box. Here is a brief explanation of what a SCADA (Supervisory Control And Data Aquisition) system works:

                                       +----Modem------- CMX1 --------- XIS1 --------+-------+----------+
                                       |                  ^             ^            |       |          |
                                       A    Server        |             |            |       |          |
                                       |                  v             v            |       |          |
  Devices in -----Serial Lines----Line Splitter     replication    replication      XOS1    XOS2  .... XOSn
  the field                            |                  ^             ^            |       |          |
                                       B                  |             |            |       |          |
                                       |                  v             v            |       |          |
                                       +----Modem------- CMX2 --------- XIS2 --------+-------+----------+
                                            Server

So the idea is that only one of the CMXs is "hot" at any time, and the other is "standby", now if a CMX fails, it "fails over" to the other CMX, and goes into "fail" state. A CMX will not fail over if there is not a "stdby" system available.

So it looks simple, right? Nope - you can also has configured, one of the above systems in an "offsite" location, so that if the main site goes up in smoke, or natural desastor, the pipeline remains under control.

So if a CMX or a XIS goes down, we normally dial in and see why, then restart it, monitor it, and apply any fixes if need be.

Rafting down the Elbow river My uncle's family, and a couple other families get together every yeay, and raft down the Elbow river. Now, this river is not like the brown crappy Murray. This is about 0.5 to 2 meters of crystal clear mountain water rushing over rocks (no white water) right through thie middle of town. (Well, actually, it skirts the outside of the CBD, a bit like the Torrens in Adelaide).

3 rafts, 4 freindly families, and a crazy Irish Auntie of mine, all adds up to: water fights. Flicking water gave way to water guns, gave way to splashing with the paddles, gave way to jumoing onto rafts and pushing people out. Unfortunately, it got cold, so the main objective toward the end was to get out of the water, and drink wine with at the Curtis's place.

Sports I borrowed a bike from my new friend Kassem. Its a good bike, with good brakes. So good in fact, that they threw me over the handle bars, flat on my back. I lost my water bottle in the long grass, but wasn't hurt too badly. Well, not at all actually except for my pride :).

So I've been riding, and I have a new climbing partner now. Anthony (Tony) Glen, one of the guys I work with. So now Lisa my cousin, doesn't have to hang around with "older cousin". Being only 18, I can imagine that she has better things to do than hang around with an "older cousin". Sheesh, its only 6 years. Hmmm, 6 years, thats quite a bit....

Thursday 30th August, 2000

Ed: "Jake, how willing are you to travel?"
Jake: "Very, I can travel at any time"
Ed: "How about next week?"
pause
Jake: Sure..... Where?
Ed: Well, its not definite yet, but we are looking for someone to go down to Venezuela for a while
Jake: Ok, Yeah! But, arn't there other people in the department better equiped to go?
Ed: Yes, but they are all busy with other things, and besides, we think you be the best person for the job
Jake: thinks: but you hardly know me...
Ed: Anyway, well know for certain later.
Jake: Ok.

Friday 1st September, 2000

From: Ed Lui
To: Jake Hawkes
Subject: Green Light. Lets go :-)
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Jake, please see me in my office.
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