The Warm Glow of the Sun
Last week I received an email from Sun asking if I had seen a previous email. The previous email was attached. It almost ended up in the same place the previous email did - my spam bucket. The subject was “CONGRADULATIONS: Open Performance Contest WINNER - Dave Hall Consulting - TBWEBI_<random numbers>”, which looked pretty spammy to me, just like the various bogus sweepstakes and the other 419 messages I get all too regularly.
As usual I am straying off topic. Back to the main reason for my post. The message from Sun contained the following text
It has been some time since you entered the Open Performance Contest and although you were not the winner for period XX your entry was included in period YY and has been selected. We wish to congratulate and inform you that you’ve been selected as a potential winner of our Open Performance Contest! Your entry was well written, complete, and highly applicable. To proceed, we first need to verify your eligibility. To aid us in this process, please complete the attached Affidavit of Eligibility/Liability & Publicity Release, and email it to: <someone>@sun.com within 5 business days.
If Noah wasn’t asleep I think I would have cranked up some Infected Mushroom and had a big happy dance. I had to be more restrained and just look extremely happy. Then I printed, signed, scanned and emailed the paperwork back to Sun.
The server that Sun is in the process of arranging to ship to me is a Sun Fire T2000, with a list price of over 21,000 USD (or almost 25kAUD). My entry in the Open Performance Contest has yet to be published along with the other winners on sun’s site, but I am not holding my breath.
I am still a bit shocked about my win. I am enjoying the warm glow from the Sun 🙂 I was already convinced that I would be settling for an ubuntu t-shirt (thanks Canonical, even though it makes me look like I have put on 10kgs) and some “Cool Threads” temporary tattoos (which last 2-3 weeks) and be able to say that I had a T2000 for a couple of months or so.
I am now stuck with a dilemma, what to do with the box. Putting the box straight on ebay or Grays Online would be pretty rude. At the same time, the money from selling the box would be make up a significant part of a house deposit.
I would welcome any suggestions for what I can do with a noisy, high end SPARC box.
Update: Sun rang today to apologize for the delay in shipping the box and to advise me that it should arrive Thursday (or Friday at the very latest).