Travels, Return to Hawaii, 2009

Click on any of the little pictures to see it at normal size. Click on the '=0=' after the picture to see it in giant size (about 2 minutes to download on dialup connection and larger than screen size). This could be useful if you wanted to really look at one part of the picture or to make a print.

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When I was laid off from CDI, the status of the corporate housing was unclear; if they continued to lease it for Carl to stay in then it would be most convenient for me to just stay there until my return flight on July 15. However, Carl was traveling and there wasn't any word as to his status until he return on Monday, June 15. While Carl was certainly at risk of being laid off, it turns out Michael decided to keep him on (though at a reduced salary). On Tuesday, the 16th, I checked Craig's list for available rooms and visited. When I got the word on the 17th that I would need to move out of the corporate housing I moved into the Marco Polo, a luxury condomenium shown above, close to Waikiki and the University of Hawaii. There is a realtor, Carol, shown here who lives there and has about five units there which she often sub-leases to students and such. Those units are mostly empty now so I have one room mate in a two bedroom though more people could move in over the coming month.	=0=
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Above is a view from the apartment I am staying at and next to that is a view of the Marco Polo lobby. It is a really nice building, though a little old. They just redid the elevators, for example. There is also a high percentage of elderly people here as well. Here is another picture of Carol.	=0=
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My roommate is Mike and another apartment just down the hall has Bob, shown here. Bob had bid on and been accepted on a job to fix some DSL problems that they were having at the Waikiki Sheraton. The battery on my camera was dead, so I used my phone to take this picture and the pictures below from their communications room. The Waikiki Sheraton is across the canal behind the Marco Polo and closer to bridge. I didn't really see the Sheraton on the way in (Bob was driving and went straight into the parking garage). I took the above pictures from the Marco Polo side of the canal hoping to recognize the Sheraton (31 floors), but it is closer to the shore (not shown). I used google and found the pictures below on photoBucket.com of the of the Waikiki Sheraton. The right has the street view which I was able to recognize.	=0=
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Above on the left is the 'block 66' or phone patch panel where we were trying to isolate the problems. Next to that are the Cisco DSL modem racks (LRE) where the problem actually was. There was a loose power connector which brought down 18 lines. The hotel seems to have been built with telephone wiring to each room and so internet access was added using the existing lines and with DSL modems. Here is a picture of me checking the DSL modem which they use to test the signal into the Block 66 patch panel. Once we had fixed the problem with the LRE, we went upstairs to insure that the rooms had good DSL signals.
Here and below are pictures of Bob as he tested the DSL connection and then spoke with the NOC team to verify that all was good.