Friday, September 19, 2003
Arrrg! It be fun with Instant Messenging
Session Start (MSN - Rob E.: Cyndi): Fri Sep 19 10:28:09 2003
Cyndi: still alive?
Rob E.: aye, matee
Cyndi: you still have power at least, I guess the hurricane didn't do too much to you
Rob E.: nay, we be doing fine.
Cyndi: did you get anything?
Cyndi: are you getting ben pudding sanders today?
Rob E.: Aye, the winds, they are blowing somethin fierce last night, but we come through it a'right.
Rob E.: The scurvy curr is here, a-restin from 'is travels.
Cyndi: did you take your weird pill today?
Cyndi: or you forgot to take your pill today?
Rob E.: Nay, matey, tis talk a pirate day. you should be a-knowin that.
Rob E.: http://www.talklikeapirate.com/
Rob E.: http://www.thomasscott.net/yarr/
Cyndi: i'm not sure how you always know about the stupid stuff like that
Cyndi: well it's been a long days work for me, time to go
Cyndi: i'll talk to you next week
Cyndi: hopefully the pirate day will be over
Rob E.: good travels to ye, and watch the weather.
Cyndi: bye
Rob E.: Arrr
Session Close (Cyndi): Fri Sep 19 10:34:15 2003
posted 6:17 PM
Monday, September 08, 2003
I feel your pain
Except, you know, mine is in my gut from laughing too much
Sometimes I am forced to admit that I'm just not always a really nice person. A member of our staff was injured and the whole building had to sweat out two days without AC during the hottest week of the summer. Maybe I shouldn't be laughing. Maybe it's not funny at all. Maybe I am an ass. Oh well, so be it. Without further ado I bring you two e-mails sent out to the staff by one our associate directors:
Fire Alarm Overnight Assoc. Dir. 8/27/2003 10:10 AM Staff About 3 a.m., the building experienced a fire alarm due to an overheated motor on a pump in the sub-basement of the building. The sprinkler went off in that area, which shorted out the motor, causing smoke and causing a fire alarm to sound. When a fire alarm sounds, all chiller and air movement systems immediately shut down in case there is a real fire to prevent spread of smoke and fire. With one pump down, our HVAC capacity is at half, but Facilities is working to get another chiller online so we will have adequate cooling today. We will keep you apprised if we will not be able to get the other chiller back on the loop, but Facilities is making every effort. Thanks.
Already it's starting to sound like a Rube Goldberg machine, except you probably wouldn't create a machine just for the purpose of overheating the building, but later that day we got the follow up message...
NOTICE: Status of HVAC Assoc. Dir. 8/27/2003 3:14 PM Staff Staff, The chiller/HVAC pump with the burnt-out motor remains down; however, a new one has been ordered and should arrive by noon tomorrow for installation. A Facilities person, trying to get the other pump back on line, fell off a ladder injuring himself. He was taken to the hospital. When he fell, he apparently broke the backflow preventer on the other chiller/HVAC pump, meaning that pump is down also. A backflow preventer has been ordered and will hopefully be installed at the same time tomorrow.
The bottom line is this -- it is going to get hotter before it gets cooler, as we have effectively lost most of our HVAC capacity, and we have no real way to tap into the chiller loop to get much air moving around. It will hopefully go back up around noon, but it will take a while to cool the building back down. So, use fans and dress appropriately for the warmer conditions.
I'll update you again as soon as I know something.
That's it. That's the whole story. We never got any further updates, which is too bad because I feel like we really got the ball rolling and we would eventually hear about how the overheating motor is responsible for more and larger disasters, ending, of course, when the earth crashes into the sun. It reminds me of a little story in a joke book I had when I was a kid:Unfortunately, once upon a time a man fell out of an airplane.
Fortunately, there was a haystack below him.
Unfortunately, there was a pitchfork in the haystack.
Fortunately, he missed the pitchfork.
Unfortunately, he missed the haystack.Except we don't seem to have many "fortunately's" in our story...
posted 4:01 PM
