{"id":1215,"date":"2011-04-28T19:07:18","date_gmt":"2011-04-28T23:07:18","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/bitpost.com\/blog\/?p=1215"},"modified":"2011-04-28T19:07:18","modified_gmt":"2011-04-28T23:07:18","slug":"kramden-institute-volunteer-day","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bitpost.com\/blog\/2011\/kramden-institute-volunteer-day\/","title":{"rendered":"Kramden Institute volunteer day"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>How could I pass up a chance to build computers?  What a perfect volunteering job this was for me.  Progress Energy set everything up, organizing the event and giving us all t-shirts.  They have a great program where they give full-time employees paid time off to volunteer a couple days a year.<br \/>\nThe place was a kind of geek nirvana, reminded me of my brother&#8217;s storage space that I helped him organize.  Bins of every possible computer component, with memory sorted by type, hard drives clearly marked if they had been properly wiped, etc.<br \/>\nThe work is organized into four stages:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Triage<\/li>\n<li>Cleanup<\/li>\n<li>OS load<\/li>\n<li>Final test<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Triage seemed like the most fun so I jumped in there.  Step 1: blast the dirty incoming PC&#8217;s!  They have a compressor in the back that provides endless high-pressure blasts to eliminate dust buildup from case and cpu fans and everything else in the case.  Then we stripped everything extraneous from the case &#8211; video cards, sata cables, etc.  Then we stocked them with parts to bring each up to the standard configuration: 4 256-MB sticks of memory and a 40GB hard drive.  Once BIOS posted, they provided an ISOLINUX variant boot CD that could run a host of tests.  We ran quick memtest386 and hard drive tests, and used BIOS to set the correct date and time.  After the paperwork was complete and the PC was labeled, we moved them over to the cleaning station!<br \/>\nOf course we ran into all the usual problems.  I put in four separate pairs of DDR2 memory and they all posted bad.  I was sure I had a bad motherboard or memory socket so I put the PC aside, only to get the same result from the next PC.  I methodically tested each stick and found that one of each of the four pairs was bad.  What are the odds!  But it felt good to weed out all the rotten stuff.  :>  Larry, next to me, had a bad power supply that fried a CDROM drive, but he persisted until he got his BIOS post.  It&#8217;s no fun if it&#8217;s not a challenge!<br \/>\nIt was seriously so much fun that the time flew by and I was totally disappointed that we were done.  They have open nights every Wednesday, I might just have to go back and give this another shot.  :><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>How could I pass up a chance to build computers? What a perfect volunteering job this was for me. Progress Energy set everything up, organizing the event and giving us all t-shirts. They have a great program where they give full-time employees paid time off to volunteer a couple days a year. The place was &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/bitpost.com\/blog\/2011\/kramden-institute-volunteer-day\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">Kramden Institute volunteer day<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[2,17],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1215","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-daily-life","category-global-issues"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p9M0Zg-jB","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":1673,"url":"https:\/\/bitpost.com\/blog\/2012\/christmas-time-at-kramden-institute\/","url_meta":{"origin":1215,"position":0},"title":"Christmas time at Kramden Institute","author":"m","date":"December 27, 2012","format":false,"excerpt":"The girls and I recently went to Kramden Institute to volunteer. Old computers are donated, often en masse when corporations upgrade their PC fleet, and the volunteers then clean them up and refurbish them for redistribution to kids that can't read real good - err, I mean kids that have\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Daily Life&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Daily Life","link":"https:\/\/bitpost.com\/blog\/category\/daily-life\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":698,"url":"https:\/\/bitpost.com\/blog\/2010\/time-to-clean-up-the-lungs\/","url_meta":{"origin":1215,"position":1},"title":"Time to clean up the lungs","author":"m","date":"February 20, 2010","format":false,"excerpt":"Jan 18th 2010: Scan today showed a lung tumor 'the size of an apricot pit'. Getting it cut out in mid-February. Have no fear, we're on it... UPDATE Feb 20th 2010: I'm sitting in the hospital bed with only two tubes left stuck in me, feeling fit as a fiddle.\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Daily Life&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Daily Life","link":"https:\/\/bitpost.com\/blog\/category\/daily-life\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":901,"url":"https:\/\/bitpost.com\/blog\/2010\/adventure-racing-beyond-my-limits\/","url_meta":{"origin":1215,"position":2},"title":"Adventure Racing beyond my limits","author":"m","date":"August 7, 2010","format":false,"excerpt":"Thank you Gary! He played it perfectly, casually inviting me to a friendly \"geocaching-kind-of\" race, well ahead of time, so I could get it on the calendar, gently convincing Andrea how important it was for us to get out and do things... and then hitting me with a full-on panic\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;All My Rowdy Friends&quot;","block_context":{"text":"All My Rowdy Friends","link":"https:\/\/bitpost.com\/blog\/category\/all-my-rowdy-friends\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":2526,"url":"https:\/\/bitpost.com\/blog\/2018\/chicago-birthday-party-with-cara\/","url_meta":{"origin":1215,"position":3},"title":"Chicago birthday party with Cara","author":"m","date":"May 8, 2018","format":false,"excerpt":"Big break time!\u00a0 I took the weekend in Chicago for my birthday, a nice long Friday through Tuesday weekend.\u00a0\u00a0On the plane ride out I saw the biggest tablet I've ever seen.\u00a0 Envy.... Christian and I had so much fun creating and destroying universes in the Universe Simulator, shooting planets at\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;All My Rowdy Friends&quot;","block_context":{"text":"All My Rowdy Friends","link":"https:\/\/bitpost.com\/blog\/category\/all-my-rowdy-friends\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/bitpost.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/08\/806006222_361371444198561534853689-75x100.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":176,"url":"https:\/\/bitpost.com\/blog\/2006\/captured-biking\/","url_meta":{"origin":1215,"position":4},"title":"Captured Biking","author":"m","date":"July 11, 2006","format":false,"excerpt":"Jim Brown caught up to me on the way in to work today, and took this video... I didn't know he was grabbing it or I could have done some wheelies or something... cest la vie, maybe next time... don't blame me for the music, turn it down if kids\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;All My Rowdy Friends&quot;","block_context":{"text":"All My Rowdy Friends","link":"https:\/\/bitpost.com\/blog\/category\/all-my-rowdy-friends\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":111,"url":"https:\/\/bitpost.com\/blog\/2004\/time-flies\/","url_meta":{"origin":1215,"position":5},"title":"&#8220;Let me explain. No, there is too much. Lemme sum up&#8230;&#8221;","author":"m","date":"June 11, 2004","format":false,"excerpt":"Must... blog... more... often... Reiley turns 8 - now quit growing up so fast! Andrea turns 36 - I mean 29! Happy birthday, boo! Reiley has sleepover - all-night-craziness ensues... Wren and Reiley perform in a dance recital at Raleigh's Opera House, 2 1\/2 hours of cuteness and beauty, from\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Daily Life&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Daily Life","link":"https:\/\/bitpost.com\/blog\/category\/daily-life\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bitpost.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1215","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bitpost.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bitpost.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bitpost.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bitpost.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1215"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/bitpost.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1215\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1216,"href":"https:\/\/bitpost.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1215\/revisions\/1216"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bitpost.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1215"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bitpost.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1215"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bitpost.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1215"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}