Unneccessary Obstacles

As if it were not enough that we couldn't seem to get the demo system working quite right all the way up to the time when we had to ship it, we had to make the delivery of said demo a challenge as well. It was like flying from Sydney to San Francisco and then not being able to find the airport once you got there, or dribbling coast to coast and making the last defender fall down from your wicked cross-over and then missing the wide-open layup. That's almost how it went down for us.

The set-up was difficult to say the least. We had new features that we were trying to run on older hardware. We had no components to hook up that we discovered weren't quite compatible. We had a helluva time getting something to work in a non-pressure situation in the office. We worked on this for a week and even came in on a Sunday to get it done. Close to done, that is. We ended up shipping everything BUT the offending piece of equipment. We left that one behind with the understanding that I would hand-carry it to the trade show in Philly.

The plan called for me to go by the office and pack the machine in a hard covered suitcase that we had in the lab for just such an occasion. My trip last week to Canada got pushed back by a day so I wasn't back in time to go by the office at the end of the work week. I dropped by the office late on Saturday night to gather the gear and the suitcase. It was then that I discovered the combination lock on this big red Samsonite rolling suitcase. I was too tired to worry much about it at the time so I just put the empty suitcase in my car along with the server that it was to transport. On Sunday I sent an email asking if anybody in the office knew the combination. I got no response until late that evening.

Unfortunately,the email that I got did not contain the correct combination. So, here I sit at my computer, shaking my head, sighing loudly and ready to throw my hands up. I've already packed my clothes and checked in for my Monday morning flight, yet I cannot rest easy because of this one loose end. I'm going to try not to think about it, but I'll have to work this out in the morning before I get on my way to the airport. As if I needed one more obstacle to deal with for this demo....