Oh, so the dog doesn’t really need to check our building… the Campus Police visually inspected and didn’t see anything.
(Presumably there weren’t any large alarm-clocks hooked to dynamite or anything of the sort. Sheesh…)
Back to the office…
Oh… Nevermind… Almost.
Well, the bomb dog did his sniffing in every building except the Library.
No bomb found yet… but since my office is in the Library I’m still in limbo.
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…
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.
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…
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.
Second Verse
…same as the first, a little bit louder, a little bit worse.
Had a power outage at work yesterday, when I was thankfully not working. (My shift runs Wednesday through Saturday 6 am to 5pm, usually.) This is not too atypical, being in San Diego County where SDG&E both overcharges for power and has insufficient power distribution installed. However, yesterday the issue was due to an aged and insufficiently powerful transformer on campus. (Apparently when they added the new, three story, multi-million dollar building they opted not to upgrade the already old and over-stressed transformer.)
Now everyone is behaving as if we’ve never had such an occurance before, even though we average one a year.
Yes, no one had any idea how to find flashlights, no one knew who to contact for assistance (when elevators shut down mid-floor) or who to contact to find out if the campus was closing or not. But no one EVER knows these things.
Every time we have a power outage there is this flurry of emails, announcements, and resolutions to do better next time… And every time the “next time” rolls around, it’s all a little bit louder, a little bit worse.
Personally, I not only have a rechargeable flashlight plugged in right next to my desk, but… I “know where my towel is.” If only we could reach that level of preparedness on an institutional level… ah well, back to my lunch break.
Pride in Workmanship
Yesterday a cable installer from Time Warner did finally show up, to hook up two cable boxes in my home. He did a great job, both in the work done and in the manner he conducted himself.
Not only did the guy call when he arrived outside my house, he was immediately ready to work. (I compare this with the twenty minute prep time the first cable installer needed, and, of course, the lack of arrival of the appointment last week.) However, he took one look at the cable that was already installed for my cable modem and decried the work done as highly unprofessional.
Nice to hear my opinion confirmed, I guess.
This installer hooked up two new cable connections, one at either end of my house; and he firmly and cleanly tacked down all the cable. All this in less than half the time the original connection needed.
More importantly to me, he had a really good attitude while doing this, in spite of the triple-digit temperature outside and my four-year-old wanting to keep “helping” and asking questions about his tatoo. (Actually that part was cute… I doubt the guy expected my wife to come down on the side of “yeah, he can have a tatoo some day if he really wants one.”)
Anyway, I’ve got cable again, after over four years without. I wonder how long it will take before it dominates home life?
(Un)Professionals
I’d finally decided to re-join the cable TV-watching society with Time Warner Cable, after having been without cable (or any other form of TV broadcast) for over four years. The install was requested, scheduled, and confirmed online, and I was the proud possessor of a confirmed installation 1-4 p.m. yesterday. Yeah, right.
I’d finally gotten through all the red tape in the purchasing department, and my request for a Dell (really Motion Computing, but Dell re-sells to us at a better price than the manufacturer will) Tablet PC. The request hit the Dell site July 28, but I didn’t sweat it; it would get here when it got here, and Dell is usually quick. Not this time, boyo… the estimated delivery date is now advancing to the current date each morning.
Why are businesses so okay now with the idea of failing to serve the customer?
Time Warner could have contacted me (email or phone) to say that the installation workload was too high that day, or that someone called in sick, or just plain “sorry, we can’t make it today”. Instead three phone calls, a cumulative hour and a quarter on hold, and quite a bit of frustration latter, I hear the installers knock off at 7 p.m. (and this being 7:30), so could I reschedule for tomorrow? They didn’t know, by the time my “confirmed time window” expired, what the workload looked like?!?
Dell could have done some contacting of their own, but at least the progression on the computer “assembly” is documented on their website. They do provide a link there for “why is my order taking so long?” which points to a blog post from nearly a month ago saying that there are production delays on certain models of laptop – none of which are the model of tablet I was ordering. C’mon guys… if you’re going to make up a reason for the delay, at least make it context sensitive.
There’s nothing wrong with telling your customers the truth! I would prefer to hear “sorry, can’t make it” than be left in service limbo. Maybe I can find some professionals who are willing to be.
I Love My Car
Back in late May I started payments on a new car, and for the first time in my life we’ve finally got two cars in the household. After quite a bit of research online, and a previous visit to a dealership, I’d decided on a 2007 Toyota Yaris.
I got the two door hatchback, and I had some doubts. I’m 6’4″ tall, and tip the scales around 290 lbs., so a “little butt-bucket” (as my Grandfather would have called it) seemed like a questionable choice. But when I visited the dealership and got to sit in the car, I thought… “this could work.”
It did.
I’ve had the thing for three months now, and put in over 3800 miles in it (and with about two-and-a-half hours of commute time four days a week, that’s actually below my average for a summer) I’d like to think I’ve got the hang of it. And, I am quite comfortable, to my own amazement.
On one occasion I’ve had to haul some luggage, about a weeks worth for one person, and had to flip down the back seats, but that ended up giving me way more room in the back than I needed. I’ve also had my four-year-old son in a booster seat in the back before, and there was more than ample space for me to twist in through the passenger door and buckle him in.
I also love one feature that intrigued me on first viewing this car’s configuration: the driver-side glovebox. There are actually three glove boxes, two on the passenger side, and one behind the steering wheel where the spedometer (and etc.) usually are. The instruments are mounted above and centered in the dashboard area, and once I got over the initial feeling of “wrong-ness” about having a blank panel behind the steering wheel, I found myself loving the new configuration.
Now, when I go back to driving our other car, the speedometer feels totally out of place, and I lament having my own space for storage.
Of course, it doesn’t hurt that my Yaris gets around 37 mpg, which is what drew it to my attention in the first place. (And I still value that point, even if the cost of gas has dropped back to what feels reasonable again… until it goes up again, that is.)
So… hooray for my car.