Topher, your air conditioning comment reminded me about the homemade air conditioning contraption we built to put in the door of our server room. That way when the air conditioning units on the roof froze (generally in the summer), we could wheel in the door air conditioner to keep the servers at what I’m sure was an optimal temperature. And thank you for the coon’s age reference.

How could I forget Dolly at Big Apple, or Tiny Cube? That’s good stuff. And while I don’t remember you deleting the members database passwords, I do remember doing an accidental `rm -rf /usr` on what was at the time our single mail and FTP server (a.k.a. jericho). Turns out that can do considerable damage, even with Ctrl-c swooping in only moments later.

Paul, I have no recollection of the three Brians singing “O Holy Night”. I have no idea what you’re talking about, and I have no pictures documenting the event. At least that’s my story. Just awful …

Brent, I remember CVO saying that very thing. I, too, still pull it out on occasions. I really should thank him for that.

Thanks for taking time to share, everyone!

Awe_some.

p

The “Dolly Special”. To those that weren’t there, this was a bagel prepared only as Dolly at Big Apple Bagels could; she’d ignore the handy automatic bagel slicer and have at the poor pastry with a knife and her keen, aged eyes for detail. The knife worked great, the eyes not so much. One day I brought my bagel back to show you in your cube (this was probably 8:30am, so you’d been working for almost 2 hours already), silently held up my mutilated breakfast, and you just said “Dolly special, eh?”.

The “Tiny Cube“. One of the only days Ron and I beat you in to work was when some other parties had spent the prior evening reconfiguring your cubicle to be about 3 feet by 4 feet. We wanted to be there for the reaction. Naturally, you took it in stride and worked from the cube as it was for the rest of the day.

It was a tradition at Gospelcom that first days on the job had to be memorable somehow. Mine was no exception–on my first day Rich DeVos choppered in, landed on the lawn in his Airwolf helicopter, and we had a catered lunch outside. It was also one of the only days I wore anything but jeans to work.

I remember the sinking feeling I had when I, with one keystroke, managed to wipe out all member passwords in the database. I also remember being amazed at how quickly the much smarter people I worked with were able to fix my error (thanks Alan, pcg, bcp!).

I vividly remember receiving an email inviting all technical staff to a donor banquet, the next day, where a suit was appropriate dress. I remember the impromptu huddle at your cubicle five minutes later as your staff tried to figure out what to do since they did not own suits.

I remember some area regulars: Old Man with a Bat; Foot-Dragging Scooter Guy; and of course the aforementioned flock of wild geese.

I remember having a great time at conferences hanging out with ministry folks, enjoying a few in the hotel bars, and talking and listening about whatever. I loved seeing familiar faces every year.

The epic Muskegon -> Grand Rapids server move is one of my most vivid memories; I was made the ‘Task Manager’ for some reason, and I remember the contrast between our extremely orderly start to the evening and the harried end to things much, much later, when none of us had any energy left at all.

I appreciate, especially in hindsight, Gospelcom putting their full confidence in me (for some unknown reason) to be a primary support person and to even get up in front of people and speak.

And, of course, the people at Gospelcom made working there a ton of fun, even when some non-fun things were going on.

I remember playing pcg’s Hendrix cd way too many times.

I remember getting a new air conditioner on the roof, and then Smitty surreptitously turning the air all the way on, making it freezing in there.

I remember Johnny V putting a projector on his machine and getting Winamp to play cool stuff on the wall while we turned the lights out and cranked the tunes. Then he stood there with nothing to do because his machine was busy.

I remember bcp being flabbergasted that he had a baileywick.

I haven’t thought about this stuff in a coon’s age.

Good times.

* Follow Thru: The Kolbe A Index! I’m still surprised how much that changed the way I view and interact with other people, both personally and professionally. I’m rather proud of my 7 8 2 3, for those keeping score at home.

* As for the Tim O’Reilly pic, I don’t remember anything awkward about that moment. Ahem. Just keep in mind, Chip, I have a picture of you trying to iron while on that same trip, so I’m not too worried about any details leaking.

* The toast fire! I just found some good pics of the incident: truck arriving #1, truck arriving #2, truck leaving, and Smokey’s follow-up visit.

* I un-earthed a few more classic Gospelcom pics.

* The Y2K Party was great, and I well remember the Matrix showing. If memory serves, only the devo-daily.pl script thought we had entered year 100.

* Anyone have a picture of the forest-mural wallpaper? That’s too good to not be documented.

* I stand corrected regarding The Smiths. You even made the distinction for me not so long ago. Thanks for the attention to detail, pcg. History must be recorded accurately.

Thanks for all the additional memories!

Topher taught me how to get going in reverse on the ice and pull the emergency brake in the Gospelcom parking lot.

I remember not only playing Frisbee in the back, but occasionally having to keep our eyes open for golf balls, as the creative team practiced their golf swing across our field!

Let’s see… what about the forest-mural wallpaper in the break room? That was pretty special.

Also, picayune detail: it was The Smiths, not Morrissey (who *was* the lead singer for The Smiths), that we used to play in the wee hours of the morning.

All in all, a great post about a pretty great place to work. As always, you’re the one who’s able to bring out all of the fun(ny) things about working at a place that was pretty bizarre and frustrating at times.