GTI EDS Chicago District 5

("the Project Team")

Switch had been over and I had been out in the wilderness (Glenview) for a few weeks when the call came inviting me back to work with the Project Team.  The end of the massive Switch endeavor left a team of project support technicians, and plenty of projects. 

My first project back with the bank was the 1BOP Restack.

1 Bank One Plaza (1BOP)

1BOP, the legacy corporate headquarters for Bank One, has been in need of rennovation.  The merger with JP Morgan Chase and the subsequent need to relocate employees around the city and country gave the bank good opportunity to do some remodeling.  The purpose of the 1BOP Restack Project was to move employees between 1BOP and other buildings, freeing up floors for rennovation.    My role in this project was oversee logistics for the movement of client ID's, shared data, and network printers.  I also coordinated technical support during and immediately after the move.  At the time of this writing I still had a desk at 1BOP (on Lower Level 3, which is four stories beneath the lobby) but I never used it.  My phone there was disconnected around the time I finaly left the project team in February 2005.

Next was the Network Transformation Project (NTP) Cleanup at 300 South Riverside Plaza.  The NTP was a project to upgrade the network transmission protocol across the WAN from token ring to ethernet, and to replace outdated network infrastructure. 

300 South Riverside

300 South Riverside is a special building.  Well, I've always thought so anyway.  Built directly above the railroad tracks leading into Union Station, this building has no basement--and doesn't even really have a sub-floor.  The rumbling of trains can be felt from as high up as the 16th floor, and even the smell of diesel fumes is detectable in parts of the lobby and near the north bank of elevators.   I've heard that 300 was originally intended to be the bank's data center, but that idea was abandoned when it was determined that the flimsy floors could never support the weight of heavy computers.

There are plenty of other things I could say about this building,... but I'll leave those tales for another day.

We never were able to identify and move off the old infrastructure every network resource (old legacy servers, hidden Macintoshes, etc.) attached to it, but were able to accomplish quite a bit, thanks in large part to the hardworking union electricians at Gibson Electronics.

At the time of this writing I was working on a move project into 300 South Riverside from a nearby facility.  My responsibilities were pretty much the same as I had during the 1BOP Restack. 

Saturday Move "War Room"

I like spending time in 300 South Riverside.  I get a warm feeling whenever I walk through the lobby or near the north bank of elevators.

With only a couple of weeks remaining as a contractor, there was nowhere for me to go but... really, really far away:  to Elgin.

Here's the view of rural America, as seen from the Bank One parking lot in Elgin. 

I didn't take any more photograhs because there isn't anything else to see.