I think I mentioned that Younger Son started a new job last November with a small company that designs, builds, and installs storage network systems, specializing in the media and entertainment industry. Companies like Netflix and HBO have huge storage needs. (One or both of those may even be clients. I don't remember.)
He has progressed from being the tech flunkie to doing solo installs around the US, lately in both LA and DC. Proud mom here.
Anyway.
Back when he was a wee young thing helping Smokey fix our cars or install the wiring in our addition, he had no interest in the aethetics of the operation. Smoke tried to impress upon him the value of tidy wiring: easier to troubleshoot if there is a problem, easier to upgrade if necessary, and generally just all-around better. YS was having none of it. Just get 'er done was his motto.
Some of that fatherly advice may have embedded itself in the youthful brain, however, because in recent years YS has demonstrated his belief in tidy wiring. There was the time he installed the magical electronic thingie wall-mount patch panel to clean up our internet router nook. And the time he cleaned up the cables in the server room at his old job.
Observe the progression.
Why, yes, he DID send me photos of the whole process.
On a visit a couple months ago he told us how cable management has become a bit of an obsession with him. Beyond just tidying up the cables, he has been researching new and improved ways of doing it.
The cable in the photos above are secured with cable ties, a modern invention. Back in the day cables were held in bundles with a particular kind of waxed string. When YS found out that Smokey had nearly an entire humungous spool of it left over from his days in the Navy as an electronics technician, he was in awe, especially when Smokey let his have nearly the entire spool.
This is the small spool he wound off to leave with his dad.
Did you know there are two schools of cable lacing, using either the Chicago stitch or the Kansas City stitch? Did you know Wikipedia has an entry on cable lacing?
He is fully aware that cable management as an obsession is laughable, and he laughs at himself for obsessing about it. But that does not dampen his enthusiasm for it.
I told you all that to tell you about what I got him for his birthday.
After he got it he sent us this photo of his latest creation.
Success!
