I finally met Tupã

So, after two and a half years, I finally met Tupã.

Curiously, it was only after I left INPE. Arnaldo came to Cachoeira to visit us and I planned to show him the center, but I wasn't expecting to do the whole tour. When I began working there they only showed the public part, because Tupã was off-limits at that time, and I thought it still was since then. Well, me and everybody else that got into the group after me... We went on a small tour to see Tupã, the engines, no-breaks and all the electrical installation needed to support the building.

And it was AMAZING! I always liked more software than hardware, but it is awesome to see things that you just knew from a SSH session. I could see the tape library, disk arrays, the blinkenlights... It is in some ways the physical manifestation of your code, or at least you have a better notion of how many things are in motion when you execute something on the computer.

All in all, good times. It wasn't exactly what I expected at first, but I made some great friends there, I could bike to work everyday, and I learned (by trial and error) that you need to choose better who do you trust. So it goes.