The end of an era

My former and sometimes boss sent me out on a project yesterday - to decommission the AS400 computer at Eanes School District (Westlake). That's what I do these days, play the role of Dr. Death and go administer final rites to machines I have worked on for years.

In the case of "Roger" at Eanes (named for a former Superintendent), I was there from the initial sales calls, the Board meeting that approved the purchase of the 1st version of Roger and many, many hours of work on all the Rogers over the years. The first Roger was a smallish cabinet - not much bigger than a 3-drawer file. Over the years successive Rogers grew into multiple racks of hardware, and then, like a little old lady with osteoporosis, shrank into a cabinet smaller than a 2-drawer file (but with many times the power of the largest hardware version).

Yesterday I cleaned off the disk drives and pulled the plug on the last Roger, turned off the lights and closed another chapter in the life and times of my career.

But before you shed a tear, just know that I walked away thinking, "Hey! This is easy work. Let's see - how many more of these machines are out there in need of last rites?"