Weekend Plans Post: The Week From Heck
Colorado Springs had a windstorm like you wouldn’t believe the other day. If you were outside even for a moment (not a good idea), your teeth would feel like you just got a mouthful of sand. Trees were being knocked down, shingles were being blown off, and power lines went down. It was like a jet stream decided to touch down for a couple of hours. We looked at one of the local flag poles and saw that the wind was blowing East by Southeast. We are used to it blowing North or blowing South. East by Southeast was *BAD*.
The loss of power covered, like, *BLOCKS*. This was really creepy driving to the house. There were entire blocks that were pitch black. No more Christmas lights to cheer you. Worse than that, the traffic lights were out. 90% of the folks knew to treat them like 4-way Stop signs, 10% said “I’ve got the right of way!” and, well, it’s lucky that the 90% of the folks were on board with sitting quietly.
What’s more awful is that this lasted at least all night. I had to do a quick run to the pharmacy to pick up some stuff and, yep, the lights were still down even though it was around 9AM the next morning. And, yeah, 10% of the drivers said “hey, this is *MY* road, *YOU* stop.”
This is the week where we did the work that was merely theorized last week. 10, 12, 13 hour days, morning spent writing procedures and doing paperwork and evenings spent applying procedures and making redlines and staggering in through the front door and then falling into bed and waking up after fitful dreams full of writing procedures and doing paperwork but it’s in a fruit market, I guess? And there are rats and the rats keep jumping from fruit cart to fruit cart.
Anyway, this weekend will be spent working, looks like.
But Christmas break starts a week from today for me. Oh, I can’t wait.
So… what’s on your docket?
(Featured image is “Houndstooth”. Photo taken by Maribou.)
That windstorm blew through the Bay Area last weekend, with an amusing consequence.
I have a small office where I do a bunch of accounting and paperwork and write code. Maybe someday some of that code will go on to bigger things.
However, this week, the heat stopped working. The thermostat seemed ok, but no heat. I called the landlord, and they sent a guy out. The guy looked at the thermostat, then spent an hour on the roof, and came back all amused with a long shaggy dog story about first it was the the circuit board, then the igniter, then the valve, then all three. But he thought that didn’t seem right and poked around a bit more and realized, No Gas! So he figured sometimes PG&E (the gas provider) turns off the wrong meter so he’s going to go down there and mark it so they can get the right one turned back on, and still it didn’t seem right. So, it seems all the gas meters here have an earthquake shutoff. I nodded at this. This seems very reasonable. So he pushed the reset on the earthquake shutoff and even though it didn’t seem to do anything he went back up and lo, and behold, the gas was back on.
But why did it go off? There wasn’t an earthquake. This has only has happened to him a couple times in 20-30 years (I don’t remember which). There are bollards, so vehicles can’t bump them. But the wind. The wind could have set them off.
Yes. The wind triggered the earthquake shutoff in my gas meter and so my office was cold. Until it wasn’t.
Best wishes to you as you plow through the thing.Report
Fort Collins began burying its power lines, and requiring the telephone and cable companies to bury theirs, in 1948. The city reached 100% buried in 2006, but has backslid a bit due to annexation since then. Still, power distribution is >99% buried. There is a small area of the city in the NW corner that gets its power from Xcel Energy rather than the municipal power grid. Xcel buries its lines only when doing significant construction or upgrades, so has old aerial plant out there.
We got the same winds. 130 customers lost power due to blown-over trees and snapped power poles, all in that little corner served by Xcel. Our power didn’t even blink. We’ve lived here 14 months now and the power has not dipped enough to reset the clocks on the appliances even once.Report
Getting boosted later this morning, so I’ve issued myself a hall pass for the next 24 to 48 hours. I might do some Christmas shopping — the people who make Bunn coffee are selling tins of a tea mix that the Lincolns would have enjoyed. Seems like a fun gift, even if 19th century central Illinois tea is unlikely to be both authentic and good.Report
Good for you. I felt sluggish the day after the booster but it wasn’t quite as bad as shot #2. Good luck!Report
This week is the last chance to give your two-weeks’ notice if you’re planning on retiring at the end of the year. No one’s around for the next two weeks to properly hand off your work to, though. So every January for us is like the day after playing the Philadelphia Flyers: we see who’s left standing and figure out how to cobble together a team.Report
I’m sitting about 7 feet away from my boss and I told him this and he got really quiet and then laughed.
Maybe next year.Report
Are you in England? Because in the US, it’s an hour and a half minimum before the boss can laugh at that.Report
We both had our 80 in by Wednesday.Report
Or 10 days if you’re in North Korea.Report
(checking North Korean calendar) Oh, look at that, it’s 1951.Report
Definitely one of the more bizarre stories to come out of that bizarre land.
https://youtu.be/bNQXmbGGUnEReport