pdf.js is great for parsing and manipulating pdfs.

I can't go into great detail as to how I've used it (Still under NDA), but it's rendering and manipulating of pdfs is pretty darn good.

As for converting office formats to pdf, your best bet is to use office automation. It can be built to scale up, but it needs a lot of work to do so.

Seriously, the more information you can document into runbooks, the easier his ramp-up will be. Don't be afraid to be verbose, and work with him to fill the knowledge gaps.

WSUS allows for you to track patches and installed software much easier. It works as a pretty good gatekeeper for that sort of stuff. I'd recommend it.

As for dealing with CAB boards, just use logic and reason to destroy them and crush their spirits.

From what I recall from the hunting laws, you had to have a 72-hour "cooling down" period after using a helicopter or aircraft to spot animals.

Honestly, we (my father and I) were more interested in terrain issues than we were the animals. You want to try to find the path of least resistance, and also making sure that we could actually cross specific rivers, and at what points they were broken open during the winter time. At some places the snow would be so deep that if you stepped wrong, you would be up to your neck almost instantly. That doesn't even count making sure that you weren't in a hunting route for a grizzly bear, which makes things even more difficult. Having something that is the size of a VW beetle running at you full-bore at around 40 MPH is not something I want to ever repeat. It was hard living. It was more a survival thing for us.

Every winter, there was a herd of about 400,000 caribou that would come within about 50 miles of town. Honestly, getting to the animals was the hard part. Getting one was as easy as taking a 200 yard shot with a high-powered rifle.

Keep in mind that where I lived, we were 500 miles away from any major city, and the only way in and out was by aircraft. We actually lived off of what we killed and made use of it. We weren't out there looking for the big racks. We were doing it for survival, and we also followed the rules.