Adventitious Randomosity

Another day of fun and games:

Blinded-by-the-light Dept: It's 25 degrees, breezy, and the sun is now peeking under the western edge of the clouds. It's the first sunlight we've seen in three days.

No-tenemos-gasolina Dept: I trust that Air Force One is safely back in the air & headed for points west, so that Government Hill and downtown will get back to normal. I know that at least one local TV station carried his speech to the troops live, but I was busier than normal & didn't spend much time at the PC.

Just-another-brick-in-the-wall Dept: We had a power flicker (I think that's the technical term) this morning, which managed to do two things: it tripped the firewall on our server & blocked me from receiving anything from the cortex. I could connect - and send - but nothing else. Very strange.

Secondly, it managed to trip a breaker which turn off half the lights in the public restrooms. The breaker which tripped wasn't identified on the building plans as being associated with those lights, so it was tricky to diagnose. I went over the 'as-builts' with a magnifying glass, and ran back and forth from my office to the electrical room, while the electrician was up and down a ladder, checking connections, ballasts, and assorted connections.

Just-doin'-my-job Dept: I helped a new tenant diagnose the purpose of some unidentified wires in a wall. The contractor cut a large hole for a receptionist window, and there were more cable runs and electrical conduits in that opening than we expected. Some were marked, some were easy to identify without markings, but others were not. Drawing on equal parts of experience, knowledge, and dumb luck, I managed to figure out what the stray wires were, before anyone else did.

And finally, the Slip-slidin'-away Dept: Yesterday's quick dump of 3 inches of wet snow, followed by rising temps, 60 mph winds, then a 20-degree night, left all the roads slick and glazed. Amazingly, traffic was moving at a reasonable-and-proper pace both this morning and afternoon. It's the first time in 7 winters that someone hasn't rolled a new pickup truck upside down into the median within a half-block of the Tudor Road overpass. Why always in that location? Merging traffic? Varying speeds of traffic? Operator malfunction? My guess is the latter, but who knows. The curious thing is that it's always a pickup, and always within 150 feet of that overpass. Strange.

So that's my day. I hope it didn't bore you; thanks for stopping by.