More on Las Vegas trip

[kragen@pobox.com (Kragen Sitaker)]

Well, I worked the rest of the day on Wednesday, hauling computers
around and setting them up.

Stout, the machine we were hoping to use for processing at the base,
was poorly packed.  The inside of the machine was filled with styrofoam
peanuts; the back of the machine was badly bent from impacts during
shipment, to the point that the PCI video cards had been pulled out of
their slots on the PCI riser card.  The machine wouldn't even turn on
to the point of getting the power supply fans to run.

The machine Doug and I packed on Thursday of last week arrived with no
visible damage, and sometimes it worked reliably.  It occasionally
failed to boot up, but it seemed to work OK.  We set it up in a motor
home rented for the occasion, running off a generator.  (We later
decided this might be a bad idea, given that generators are notoriously
noisy power sources.)  Didn't test it very heavily.

A little computer place called Compufix thought they might be able to
help with Stout.  Then we brought the machine in, and they expressed
despair.  They were kind enough to let us use their phones and Internet
connections, though, so we managed to get in touch with Intergraph tech
support and discuss the machine with them.

As it happened, the Compufix place was in the back of a pack-and-mail
outfit ("Mail and More"); the chief packing person expressed disgust
with the folks who had packed the machine so poorly.

Doug spent a long time getting the runaround from Intergraph tech
support; eventually we found out there were four Intergraph dealiers in
Las Vegas, but none of them did service.  But there was a service guy
in California who could come out for a minimum $600 charge.

Doug expressed disgust later, too, but at the Intergraph tech support
people who had given him the runaround.  "A young BLACK woman," he
said; "What would they know about computers?"  He imitated  her accent
and choice of words: "I gots to axk you . . .".

Now I guess I know why everybody at ERIM Dayton is white.

There was a meeting at 20:00 that night.   A couple of the guys had
driven about 180 miles out to an airstrip where they were going to put
calibration panels.  Turns out the airstrip belonged to a brothel; the
brothel proprietor gave the guys permission to put out the cal panels
every day for free.  (The guys went in and chatted with the folks who
worked there.  They said they had made sure they were wearing their
wedding rings so the brothel folks wouldn't get the wrong idea.)

At the meeting, we reported how Stout was dead.  We recounted the
tech-support nightmare.  It was decided that we should bring the
machine we had intended to use in the motor home back to the base and
run it there.

Las Vegas is a place unlike any other.  Chevy dealerships have gigantic
TV screens outside on their billboards, playing constant ads.  (The
ubiquitous casinos have much larger screens, usually occupied mostly by
the same long strings of zeroes that fill most of the highway
billboards.)  The air force base has a smaller version; it displays the
letters "WELCOME", expanding from points to full size one at a time.
The post office is open 24 hours.

The buildings (except for the spectacular pyramids, towers, and roller
coasters that populate the strip) are generally one or two stories
high.  The vegetation in the frequent vacant lots consists mostly of
sagebrush and creosote.  The backdrop for everything is enormous
mountains that sit upon the horizon in every direction.

The temperature outside ranges from 90 degrees to 115 degrees
Fahrenheit.  110 starts to get uncomfortable, particularly when you're
carrying 70-pound monitors.  (It's about like 85 or 90 degrees in
Dayton, because it's relatively dry here.  The skies really are not
cloudy all day.)

The houses are many of them poor; the people are mostly hispanic.

Palm trees that everywhere tower over the buildings.

More alter.

-- 
<kragen@pobox.com>       Kragen Sitaker     <http://www.pobox.com/~kragen/>
Tue Aug 24 1999
76 days until the Internet stock bubble bursts on Monday, 1999-11-08.
<URL:http://www.pobox.com/~kragen/bubble.html>