Category Archives: work

work

Another Bomb Threat

This time the threat caused an evac of my office on Palomar College… and just when I was getting ready to post a “ho-hum” nothing going on post.

“At approximately 10 a.m., the college received a call saying that a bomb had been placed in the area of the cafeteria. As a precaution, emergency measures are being taken. The cafeteria, Student Union, and Library are being evacuated and are off limits until further notice. Students in that area are being notified to the best of the college’s ability. People in other areas of the campus can remain where they are.”

From what I’m told the bomb-sniffing dog from San Diego Harbor Transit Authority is currently inspecting the buildings, although I don’t know if the dog is Polly, Shazaam, or Oscar.

Information handling is much better this time around…

work

Bomb, Redux.

Once again, a bomb threat was called in to campus. This week it’s in the “O” building, which is the gymnasium and other P.E. environs.

Once again, the way our department found out was by students asking the lab personnel if our lab would be closing due to the threat.

The San Diego Harbor Patrol bomb-sniffing dog is en route though… oh joy.

rant, work

Bomb?

Well, things are “interesting” (as in the Chinese proverb) right now on campus at Palomar College. There was a bomb threat called in, as reported by our campus newspaper. (Because of truly bad page design, you have to scroll down the page to see the article.)

Of course, much of the information in that article is incorrect. For example, campus has NOT been evacuated; rather some students were herded to evacuation points (while others in the building where I work, the Library) were not. Even those students were told, at alternate times that they could not leave, that they must leave (but as some parking lots were closed they couldn’t take their cars), and that they were free to leave but may not be allowed back on campus.

In all of this, the campus is not officially closed, and classes are not cancelled. (Some students and faculty were unable to attend, but… no, no, the class isn’t cancelled.) As a staff member, I was told NOT to leave – even for lunch – which has just made my day… great.

And, mind you, most of this information was discovered by either asking passing police officers and searching the Internet. Very little information has been officially released to employees by the college.

Oh, and can you guess just how much work is getting done in this environment? Yeah…

work

Easy Server Install

So, we’re adding an additional application server to the production Blackboard system at work. Physically installed the server in the rack today, and it went in like a dream.

The PowerEdge 2950, a 2U Dell server, was not too heavy to carry alone (although I did have someone else to help me mount the dang thing on the rails). Once in the rack, he set up the wire management… while I ran back to the office. The PE2950 does NOT have PS2 ports, which our KVM requires, so I had to rustle up a PS2-to-USB adapter.

So far, so good. Now comes the fun part: configuration.