Participants in the North American Network Operators Group email discussion list -- the primary shop talk forum for telecom and ISP engineers -- have been bandying about ideas for a new T-shirt.
The backhoe is the usual suspect. And this week the U.S. government is launching its Y2K awareness campaign. Texas network facilities are still drying out. None of which I really want to think about at the moment (my brain is fried on appletalk and who cares about CLNS). But does anyone have predictions for next year's Rodent Of the Year? A couple of years ago it was a wayward Stanford rat which blacked out a bit of the net in San Francisco. Although some conspiricy theoriests claim the rat was made a scapegoat. The rat did get a T-Shirt. I think this year's winner was a hungry gopher which gnawed through some fiber optic in New Mexico. Do sharks still like to chew on trans-oceanic cables? LessonsLearned: Did you know standby generator makers have a universal key for the maintenance hatches on your generator sitting outside your building. All 'authorized' service people all over the country have it. How many folks knew there was a black market for generator starting batteries? How many folks have ever gone outside to their generator and found the battery gone? When was the last time you checked? How many folks have tamper switches on their generator panels? How many folks just picked up the phone to have their facilities people install some? -- Sean Donelan, Data Research Associates, Inc, St. Louis, MO Affiliation given for identification not representation