Tuesday, we're home again

content/blog/wk8day2.md

@@ -1,7 +1,69 @@
 ---
-title: "Week 8, Tuesday:"
+title: "Week 8, Tuesday: Quinn made us dinner"
 date: 2024-09-17T21:55:00+02:00
-draft: true
 ---
 
-{{< image frame="true" width="17em" float="right" src="/img/headline/todo.png" alt="Credit: " >}}
+{{< image frame="true" width="17em" float="right" src="/img/headline/9T9_DnB.png" alt="Credit: 9T9_DnB, YouTube" >}}
+
+Marina had a terrible night, it seems. She kept on waking up, then it was too warm, so she turned on
+the AC, which made a lot of noise. All in all, I did not manage to notice much of anything, as I
+slept through the whole night with only one quick bathroom break in the middle somewhere.
+
+At 09:30 we bounce from the hotelroom. I still think it's cool that you can get hotel rooms for
+budget prices, as I don't need all that fancy stuff that I don't use anyway. I'd personally rather
+pay &euro; 63,- for the room and _know_ that it'll be simple, than that I pay &euro; 350,- and feel
+I'm being ripped off all the way. This is my kind of place!
+
+The day was actually quite light on excitement. We drove from Nancy through the Elsace into Basel,
+and had a chuckle as a car in front of us was trying to weave their way into the 'shorter' of the
+two lanes at the border, while we decided to stay in our 'longer' lane and make a little chicane
+through the border crossing; but _they_ got flagged and had to have a chat with the popo, while
+there was nobody on the 'longer' lane. So once again: taking shortcuts is not always smart!
+
+In Basel we switched drivers just one more time, and I chauffeured us the last leg home, where we
+arrived at around 13:00 or so. Our driveway was blocked by some semi truck with a trailer and a
+*lot* of mud. It turns out, they're rebuilding/refurbishing the playground in the neighborhood
+behind ours, and it seemed easier (for them anyway) to use our street to gain access to it. But,
+Marina walked into the ground-zero and quickly emerged with a coffee drinking brother, who moved the
+truck so I could pull into our driveway. No harm, no foul!
+
+We unpacked our stuff, had some lunch, and then I went downstairs. First of all, to finish the
+journal entry for the day-before-yesterday (Yes, all this traveling is taking its toll on my
+timing!) but also to do a little bit of nerd-prep:
+
+*   I have these two nice _Checkpoint_ 48x25G + 8x100G switches, but they refuse to load the
+linux switchdev driver, so I spent a few hours messing around with `mfa2` and `mstflint` and
+`mlxfwmanager` and such. My buddy Vlad gave the correct tip: just download the flash from a working
+switch, and then burn it with `mstflint` while allowing the tool to change the PSID (== device SKU).
+Result: two new Debian running 48x25+8x100 in my stash. Yaay!
+*   Tomorrow I get to deploy IP-Max at the Stollen datacenter in Lucerne, and I still have a bunch
+of ASR9001s (including one that I took out for a spin a few weeks ago). They need to be staged,
+cables and things arranged, so that tomorrow morning I can shuttle it all to Lucerne for a smooth
+deploy.
+
+I spend the rest of the afternoon doing these things, and as well preparing the IPng equipment for
+the site: One VPP router (Dell R630, 2x25G, 4x10G, 2x1G); One Hypervisor (Dell R730, 2x10G, 2x1G,
+256GB memory and 3x3.84TB enterprise SAS); One Centec switch (8x1G RJ45, 8x1G SFP, 20x10G SFP+,
+8x25G QSFP); and One APU6 out-of-band with WiFi. That's my "standard issue" point of presence and
+it's going to be super fun to bring this all up. I boot the machines and give them their IPMI and
+management IPs in _IPng Site Local_, connect them together, and tidy up the configs. These should be
+'shoot and forget' tomorrow.
+
+By the time I'm done with these configs, so is Quinn. Such a sweetheart, he has promised to make us
+dinner tonight, to welcome us home! His dishes are a pasta with caramelized onions; and a lukewarm
+potato salad with vinaigrette. He aces it, and it is absolutely scrumptious. I take seconds and
+embellish a little bit with thirds: it's _that_ yummy, that I forgot to take pics!!
+
+After dinner, we hang out on the couch and watch one _Black Mirror_, and at 22:00 or so, I turn in
+for the night as I need to trek to Luzern tomorrow with a stack of computer and network gear with
+Fred. I can't wait!
+
+## Pictures of the Day
+
+{{< gallery-category >}}
+  {{< gallery-photo fn="2024-09-17/IMG_1357.JPG" caption="The totallu cute micro Pav&eacute; d'Affinois that Marina used for breakfast" >}}
+  {{< gallery-photo fn="2024-09-17/IMG_1359.JPG" caption="The very last picture of the car with IPng sticker - it's coming off before we hit the Swiss border!" >}}
+{{< /gallery-category >}}
+
+{{< gallery-modal >}}
+{{< gallery-script >}}