I have a decided love-hate relationship with my racks. I love
having the stuff organized, but the process sucks.
Recently I racked up a bunch of 4U machines in my upstairs office
and removed one bay, a process that was accomplished using the
tried-and-true technique of holding screws in my mouth while using
my left shoulder and arm to hold the machines in place and my right
hand to position and drive the rack screws. The worst part was
de-racking an HP front-loading nine-track drive and having it get
hung up on one of its rails. Fortunately Jen is still maneuverable
at nine months pregnant and was able to coax the offending slide
into behaving while I cursed and wondered if I was going to end up
dropping the pig.
I generally look for help when it comes to racking minicomputers.
I've managed to rack and derack DG gear solo, but nothing bigger
than a jumbo chassis and always with bloodletting and bent backplane
pins as a consequence. Recently I've taken to blending hobbies;
substantial quantities of homebrew usually yields a body or two to
help move stuff around.
I need to re-rack John's old PR1ME, but I'm waiting until he
returns to give me a hand. It scares me a bit. Fortunately it's
in the garage, where there's a bit more latitude when it comes
to being a tool-using ape...
--
Chris Kennedy
chris_at_mainecoon.com
http://www.mainecoon.com
PGP fingerprint: 4E99 10B6 7253 B048 6685 6CBC 55E1 20A3 108D AB97
Received on Mon Nov 12 2001 - 14:53:39 GMT