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blog-a-licious
So I'm a big faker - I don't really know how to "blog". But I just wanted to say that I'm out here in Cincinnati and just really happy to be helping out the Kerry campaign. John Kerry's a cool cat, and he's our guy.
Yesterday, Chris, Rebecca and I put the pedal down and motored the 700 miles to get here. We checked in with the campaign at Madison Road to see about phone banking, canvassing, poll monitoring...and jeez Lousie, NETWORKING. I told them I could help out with the computers. Was I high? I think so. Vowing to return at 9am this morning, we buzzed off to meet our volunteer host in Covington, KY, just across the Licking River from Cincy (I just started calling it that. I know it's gay - whatever.) We parked a few doors down from his place on a tree-lined street with 2-3 story gothic-style brick homes - a tad creepy at first, not really sure why. He's a lovely middle-aged gent who owns a landscaping business. He couldn't more gracious or hospitable. We dropped our stuff and headed out for pasta and wine, and then drinks and then bed.
So this morning I get up (thank you daylight savings), read the Hunter S. Thompson bit and the Kerry interview in Rolling Stone, and then sit down for eggs and Tim Russert. Nothing like listening to Giuliani lie his ass off for Bush. Joy. Brian is really ON it politically. He's got a strong head and reminds me of my Dad. Laid out on the dining room table, he's got a full week's archive of the NYTimes, and on the sideboard in neat stacks, 6 months of each of the following: The New Yorker, The Nation, Harper's and the New York Review of Books. Brian tells us that there are a bunch of Dems in KY who are coming over to help out in Ohio as KY is a lost cause for them. He also runs down the counties here in Ohio and how they usually vote, and why it's really important to get out the vote in Cincinnati.
All fired up, we jump in the car, and head to HQ. When we arrive, Chris and Rebecca work hard to get someone's attention to go canvassing, and I meet a guy named Rick who's supposed to be managing the tech coordination for the remote sites being set up for election day poll monitoring. Then a guy approaches me saying that he can't browse the web. I go pick up the network cheat sheet that the operations guy Richard has left for me from last night and run some tests. It's a mixed network - a hack job of wired and wireless; Win98 - XP; print servers of various flavors.... I'm a bit perplexed by the results I'm getting, and then a woman tells me the same thing is happening to her....
Well -- it's a fascinating story, lemme tell ya' (it always is), but the long and the short of it is that Rick from Stockton, CA and I become best friends as we discover that the network topology is scary and that the main router can't handle the load. We run out mid-afternoon for Mexican food, and go pick up a new router, wireless access point and cable. We return and I rip out and re-configure significant segments of the network, and get the thing humming finally by ~8pm. Everyone is now browsing and printing a decent speeds. Tomorrow should be better, but then there are those remotes sights. mm-hmm.
Chris and Rebecca return from canvassing (pre-empted by Halloween at the stroke of 6pm I'm told) and dinner at Big Boy's. After they phone bank for an hour or two and I finally extract myself from helping individuals with their tech troubles, we slide off to Covington, but not before I gets my chili from Gold Star - and ya' KNOW I love it 5-ways people.... 8^) Time for bed now. Buh-bye.
By ian on November 1, 2004 at 12:35am