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Halfway [2016-05-06]

I have to admit, the garage full of monitors from Free Geek was a bit intimidating when we got home from vacation in late April.  Monitors are always an interesting challenge to pack – the odd shapes, the unique ways that the stands must be removed for packing.  Knives, pliers, screwdrivers, extra sets of hands – all are employed to get monitors into boxable form.  And then there are always little pockets of empty space in the boxes that have to be filled with *something* for secure shipment. 

Thus it was an amazing piece of good fortune to be joined by Katherine Yen for a day of packing.  Katherine is a marketing expert but clearly could have had a career in mathematical topology!  By week’s end there were eight boxes ready for pickup by our shipping service, Manila Box!  We have whittled down the monitor collection in the garage to about 40, and we’re looking forward to Katherine’s return to finish off the job.  The Free Geek donation is just a wonderful gift to the schools in the Philippines.  It is a constant struggle to deal with the schools’ ancient CRT monitors dying, so this helps us get ahead of the problem at last.  Free Geek is awash in 17” and 19” monitors that no one in America wants, so we hope to apply again soon for another load – it’s really a win-win to keep this equipment out of the landfill by providing it to schools that need it so desperately in the Philippines!

Neal’s big task over the last couple of weeks has been building the five server computers that we need for the September projects in Cebu.  He looks for sales and rebate offers so we can get what we need at a minimum cost, and he had already purchased most of the parts over the last few months.  Because the server is absolutely essential for all of the clients to work, it merits special care in part selection and assembly.  Neal gets enterprise-grade Western Digital hard disks for the server, and each server has both a main disk and a backup disk that is standing by in the event of a main disk failure.  He usually buys a more robust CPU cooler to counter the hotter temperatures in the Philippines, and case cooling is a major focus as well.  He spends a lot of time routing the cables internal to the case and using cable ties to secure them.  The Reneal IEO servers are definitely a work of art when he is finished! 

The moment of truth is when he turns on a new server for the first time.  We call it the “smoke test”, and after two weeks of effort, all five new servers have been smoke-tested!  While there is still testing to be done, it is nice to have that big chunk of assembly work finished.  As the clock counts down to our return to Cebu in September, we’ll be continuing to prepare for the excitement of installation!