Dr Evil & his Underlords

All of the Winter Games venues just went through a giant learning curve. We had a week (okay 3 days) of Dr. Evil and his many Underlords creating havoc at our venue. It was called "TR2" probably because they had a TR1 already! The underlords just went around turning things off, unplugging fibre and T1 lines and just making a giant nuisance of themselves. I suggested that we just consider them all as "Level 1" security risks! That way, I could tackle them and put them out of commission! I never did of course, but some of the other guys were talking about watching them enter the "Port-o-potty" and parking their vehicles in front of the door to lock them in so we could just catch up to all the work they were creating for us! We all seriously considered it when we were told that "something was wrong with your network! Now go out and find it!" Our network here contains about 3,000 drops where each drop is attached to a TV, phone, computer or phone going to a computer. We have thousands of meters of cat 5 cable, coaxial cable and glass fibre cable. Never mind all the rest of the hardware at the other side of the cable! I have to say, looking for that trouble was like looking for a needle, not in a haystack but the whole barn, dung heaps included! It was alot of fun though because we had to simulate "Games" time! It was funny to watch people come in and role play as delegates/athletes of different countries that were having problems with anything from computers, cellphones, radios, faxes or TVs. The funniest was when somebody came in as a Spanish reporter. Our help desk attendant, who is fluent in Spanish was asked to deal with this person. It turned out that our attendant only had to utter a few words in Spanish to have this evil underlord say "Oh, never mind! Speak english already!" There was always a meeting afterwards so that made for long days! The nice thing about all this is that we will be treated to a lunch by the Olympic Athletes cooking staff. I can't remember if I posted a picture of the "Dining Tent" but three or four hockey rinks would fit inside it side by side. Let's just say three hockey rinks because all you guys know how much I like to exagerate. The back of house includes freezers, meal prep and dish wash areas and seating for
all WVL (Whistler Athlete's Village) workers. This area would fit into the first hockey rink where most of the space is split between seating and freezers. The middle hockey rink includes a full sized McDonalds and the buffet cooking area. The last hockey rink is split between seating for athletes and small cooking kiosks where athletes can order specialty meals (similar to Marche). We were told to come hungry!

Talking about food, I was invited to eat with Werner and Donna twice for dinner. This all came about because Werner was shadowing me during our TR2 workout. Werner advised us that Donna likes to cook! Let's just say that I gained all the weight I had lost after two meals at her condo. Maybe if I go back to bread and water for a while!