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ah the memories /shudder/

For a while I worked in a 30 story bank-owned building in Portland where the old pneumatic tube system had been abandoned and appropriated on an ad-hoc basis for fiber by the outfit I went to work for.

My most satisfying fiber experience was around '92 when trying to connect 2 buildings downtown here. We were looking at a pretty cheezy rooftop 2Mbps wireless solution (based on Arcnet cards, IIRC) but then were informed that it would violate code (the uglier of the 2 buildings was on the margin of a historic area).

When it looked like we were stumped, an enterprising contractor spotted a chopped 50-pair cable in the basement of the ugly building and followed it into a conduit under a bridge/overpass. It looked like it was ancient, from the days when AT&T fielded a standing army, launched a fleet of ships, conducted its own atmospheric testing, and put conduit wherever it felt like.

We started to ask around about that conduit, but then realized that asking around was a completely stupid approach. So we all stayed very late one evening, that contractor got into a couple J boxes, and fixed up the 50-pair as a pull string and -- voila! Five times better than what we'd hoped. Still in use today I'm told.
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Jim


'Tis the exceptional fellow who lies awake at night thinking of his successes.