gaarder@theory.tn.cornell.edu (Steve Gaarder) (10/25/90)
Some 15 or so years ago, a local farmer cut the main cable that carried toll calls out of Ithaca, N.Y. He was digging fence post holes, and when he hit the cable, he figured he'd found an old, abandoned cable, and proceeded to dig two more holes into the cable. A NY Tel spokesman was quoted as saying, "we really wish he'd stopped after the first one." The following is a story I heard once, and may be just another legend: A craft was splicing a cable outside in bad weather, and decided to do the job in comfort by running each end through opposite windows of his van, and sitting inside. It was, "they" say, cheaper to cut open the roof of the van than cut and re-splice the cable. Steve Gaarder, Cornell University, Ithaca, N.Y. gaarder@batcomputer.tn.cornell.edu
floyd@hayes.ims.alaska.edu (Floyd Davidson) (10/27/90)
In article <14040@accuvax.nwu.edu> Steve Gaarder <gaarder@theory. tn.cornell.eduwrites: > Some 15 or so years ago, a local farmer cut the main cable that > [ good story deleted ] >The following is a story I heard once, and may be just another legend: > [ even better story deleted ] The above reminded me of an old chuckle. At the risk of turning this into comp.humor.telecom, here is another story: Once upon a time my job location was in the same building, in fact in the same room, as the military owned and operated DMS-100 switch at Eielson AFB just south of Fairbanks. I don't work there anymore because of a few things I explained to a security cop one day, but thats not this story. The Inside Plant people had a Civil Serpent, a retired AF fellow who had been Inside Plant NCO In Charge there for several years before retiring, so he knew the place better than anyone they had. Darn nice guy too, though he was a bit *too* proud of his curly hair. One day they added a new 300 pair cable between a bay of jacks and the CDF, which this fellow proceeded to tie down on the frame blocks. But unknown to him the younger fellows had pulled back the end of the cable and replaced it with about six feet of stub that had been chopped off as excess. They carefully hid the end of it in the cable rack, and stripped the end of every single wire in that cable, wrapped them together and tied 'em to a 48 volt tap. 48 volts dc won't hurt you, but you *can* feel it if you work enough to perspire a bit and have nice wet salty hands. It's a very irritating tingle. He checked the other end of that cable about 50 times, and even split the binders and spread it out, before they told him he was tieing down the wrong cable. (The young fellows removed the wrong pairs and wired the whole thing.) (And that guy's hair is straighter now, too.) Floyd L. Davidson floyd@hayes.ims.alaska.edu floydd@chinet.chi.il.us Salcha, AK 99714 connected by paycheck to Alascom, Inc. When *I* speak for them, one of us will be *out* of business in a hurry.