Some additional notes

March 12, 2008

Hanne and I did end up going climbing today, though she was feeling so unmotivated and lazy we almost didn’t.  I’m glad we did, though, as I managed to reach the top of another route (technically, an easier route than the other two I topped yesterday) and Hanne came every close to beating her White Whale.  So very close.  She couldn’t hold on, though, so I had to lower her from maybe ten feet from the top.

I also tried climbing my first “starting vertical from ground level” route, which had the same overall difficulty as the two I climbed yesterday, but the holds were awkwardly positioned and I ended up having to lean off the wall twice just to figure out what the hell I should do next.  I ended up just asking to be lowered the second time I leaned off, as my arms were getting tired.  I’m finding I have muscles I didn’t even know I had–and I need them to be stronger, stat.  At least I know if I’ve ever being chased by a bear I can make it a good ten feet off the ground before my arms give out or I lose footing.

Hanne won’t be home until 7 PM tomorrow, though, so no climbing for us.  I could always go and use the cardio machines or lift weights, but since I’m working the late shift at work tomorrow I think that I’m just going to go home.  Or grab food and go home, either way.  We have morning plans, though since neither of us have to be anywhere until later than usual–we’re going out to breakfast, and then I’m going to hop on a bus and head to work with a full belly.

I had the funniest thing happen this afternoon–three times, actually–than I can remember happening in awhile.  Around 2:30 this afternoon my phone rang as I was listening to music, and I didn’t recognize the number.  I went ahead against my best judgment and answered it, ,knwoing it was probably something I didn’t want to answer, and I was unsurprised to hear an automated voice on the other end.

“The time is…2:35 PM.  Condition critical.  Temperature is high.  82 degrees.”

BEEP

“The time is…”

What the…?  It sounded familiar, and it certainly wasn’t some sales call.  I Googled the number, and it turned out to be coming from the World Trade Center here in Portland.  Hold up.  Didn’t I used to work there or something?  Then I remembered why it was familiar.

Before I left my last firm, they had set up an automated system to call us in case of emergency.  I don’t know the exact scenarios for calls, but I knew power outages were one of them, and I guess the air conditioning unit failing was another.

I immediately emailed a friend of mine at the firm to find out if there was something going on over there, but she didn’t know of anything.  So I called the IT manager and left a message saying “Hey, I should probably be taken out of the database of numbers to call, and I hope this is just routine maintenance and your server room isn’t on fire.”  So I got another call.  And another.  I called the network administrator, but he didn’t answer his phone either.  Crazy.

Either they were replacing equipment over there today and the warning didn’t apply anymore, or they had a serious equipment failure.  Either way, my getting notified about it probably didn’t help things.  I called merely as a matter of courtesy, but I don’t expect to have my call returned saying “Thanks for calling, it was a glitch” or something to that extent.

And that is one reason why I’m not working there anymore.

Hanne’s AC adapter for her computer gave out, so I loaned her my MacBook until she can get the replacement she ordered off eBay.  Gateway wanted $100 for a replacement part, which is patently ridiculous.  Thank goodness for the aftermarket.  I went through something similar with my old Dell laptop so at least I was able to point her towards eBay, but I’m still out a laptop until hers is up an running again.  Well, not that it’s my primary machine.  Before I got the bright idea to just create a new user for her on my laptop, I brought home a spare laptop from work and threw Ubuntu Linux on it so she’d at least have something to use, but it was being all funky and so I sucked it up and handed over the good stuff.  I don’t use it that often, anyway.

So, we’re at Barley Mill.  Hanne’s taking notes on my laptop and I’m working on the Linux laptop.  It’s very…odd.  So’s this beer.  “Hemmerhoofd” it’s called, and they bill it as a Belgian-style Hammerhead ale.  Very odd, indeed.

Posted in Beer, Food, Geekery, Hanne, Work