I’m back in Utica again…  On a weekend this time, and for more than just the one night.

I’ve got a server and seven workstation to set up tomorrow…  And I need to hang around until all the bugs are ironed out on Monday…  So I won’t be back home with my wife until sometime Monday night.

Needless to say, I’m not terribly happy about the situation.

Well, it’s Friday…  I should be thrilled, especially after a week like this.  Except, of course, for the fact that I’m not really getting any time off.

Tomorrow afternoon sometime I’m going to have to come in to work…  And we’re going to load up the van…  And then we’re going to drive for four hours…  And then I’m going to have to get up bright and early on Sunday morning and spend the whole day doing a server migration and installing seven workstations…

I won’t be back home until sometime on Monday.

Tuesday really wore me out…

It sounds strange to say that.  It isn’t like I was moving furniture or hauling equipment around or anything…  I drove four hours, waited around for most of the day, worked on some network stuff, and drove four more hours.

Doesn’t seem like that should be especially tiring.  But it was.

I overslept yesterday.  Got to work late.  Dragged through the day.  Couldn’t wait to get home and get back in bed.

This morning I actually made it up and in to work on time, but I really don’t want to be here.  I’m tired and I’m thinking very slowly.

Normally I’d be looking forward to this weekend…  Looking forward to a couple days off and lots of sleep…  But this weekend is the Utica trip, so there won’t be a whole lot of rest in store for me.

I knew today was going to be a long day…  I was at the office at 7:30, and I didn’t expect to be back home at 5:00.  It was a long drive, and I figured something would probably go wrong – it always does.

But I did not expect this.

I just got home.  I walked through my front door at 9:15 PM.

I arrived on-site at about 11:00 or so…  Got the ASA 5505 un-boxed and did some basic configuration to match their existing network setup.  Then I had to call their ISP to get the information for their new static IP…

That’s when things really started to fall apart.

Their ISP had absolutely no record of the request for a static IP address.  Adding one wouldn’t be a problem, but the box they had on-site couldn’t handle a static IP for some reason.  They had to send out a technician to swap out their box…  And the soonest they could get a technician on-site was Friday.

After a few phone calls and some grumbling about lost work-orders and misinformation, their ISP finally decided that they could get a technician on-site within an hour or so…

But an hour passed and no technician showed up.

More phone calls, more grumbling, and they assured us that they’d have a technician on-site soon.

Another hour passed with no technician.

More phone calls, more grumbling, and they finally got a technician to show up at 4:15 or so.  Unfortunately, business-class DSL did not appear to be his strong suit.  I got the distinct impression that he was typically dealing with phone systems, or maybe home-grade DSL installations.

He got the new box set up to route traffic, but he had no idea how to turn it into a simple bridge device.  So he had to call technical support and have them walk him through the settings to disable NAT/DHCP/WLAN/whatever and turn it into a simple bridge.

Once that was done it was a simple matter to plug the static IP address into the ASA and get their Internet up and running through the Cisco…  But it was 5:00 by then, and I certainly wasn’t going to hang around to configure their VPN.

So, even though I just put in a 13+ hour workday, the job isn’t done.  I’m going to have to remotely configure their VPN tomorrow.  I sincerely hope it goes more smoothly than today did…

Well, this week doesn’t look to be much fun.

I’ve got to go out to Adams, NY tomorrow to install an ASA and set up a VPN and stuff.  It’s about a three-hour drive.  I’m going to have to go in to work early, and I’ve got no idea when I’ll finally get home.  Hopefully it won’t be too late…

And then I’m headed back to Utica this weekend.  I’ve got a server, a NAS, a Gb switch, and a pile of workstations to install…  Which means I’m going to be there a good chunk of the weekend.  I won’t be home until sometime Sunday evening.

Yuck.