Rui CarmoSince there isn't a specific Murphy's Law for technical training, I'll just say that the SS7 refresher course that these nice folks are providing me with here would be flawless if it weren't for the godawful timing - i.e., the impact it's having on my personal schedule. And yes, me, a staunch believer in TCP/IP's upcoming world domination in the telco world (and a former ATM missionary), have decided to get back in touch with what telco networks really look like and how they work for the single most valuable service we can render anywhere on the planet - voice.
Interesting things of note:
- During my train commute, I saw at least a couple of people wearing the unmistakable white headphones of the true believers in all things iPod. A bit wierd seeing that here. Maybe we're getting civilised.
- There were a lot of brand new phones in sight. A couple of spoiled kids on the trip back had what looked like the (earlier) 3G phones we launched.
- I felt chills when I realized I still remembered most of the stuff from my ISDN days.
- My mailbox filled up in a single day (this hasn't happened in a while, and just goes to show you how Murphy's Law has absolutely nothing to do with statistics).
- You can get extremely bored on a train. Entirely too much, in fact, to the point where you end up writing all sorts of silly things like this (with apologies to Julie Andrews) -
Point codes on gateways and packets on switches;
Bright phosphor screens and spanning on bridges;
Big servers sending all sorts of strings;
These are a few of my favorite things.
Green-colored routers and neat circuit endings;
Ringtones and photos and Java with lemmings;
Test phones that crash at the slightest of whims;
These are a few of my favorite things.
Signalling flows with multiple paths;
Link-rates being used in ATM maths;
Glorious mornings wasted in meetings;
These are a few of my favorite things.
When the link falls,
When the phone rings,
When I'm busy as hell
I simply remember my favorite things,
And then I don't feel so bad.