Thursday, August 28, 2003
Okay. Now for the first chapter of my Long Island adventures. On wednesday, August 13th, in the early evening I get a call from my supervisor, who works in our Maryland office, that he wants me up in our Long Island office the next day and I'll be able to come back the next day. I immediately went online to make the travel plans. Since last-minute flights out of Pittsburgh are expensive, most people in my office drive down to the Baltimore airport and get really cheap and totally flexible flights on Southwest airlines. It's not too bad a drive for those who live close to the office, but I live alot closer to Pittsburgh and, if I'm driving alone on no sleep, it takes me five hours to make it to the airport. I got a flight on the 10am flight from BWI to Islip.
After work, I decided to go to Best Buy and buy something that I've been wanting to buy: a portable DVD player. I can watch it on the plane, in the hotel room, and, when I'm not traveling, I can use it as a dvd player in my bedroom. I immediately took it home to charge it as I packed for the trip.
Tiff came over to make sure I woke up earliest enough to get ready and leave early enough to make the drive to make the flight.
When I got to the airport, the dvd player had no picture. I figured I left the power button turned on during the drive to the airport and the battery was dead. So I just read a book before and during the flight and figured I would charge the dvd player at the hotel room that night.
That week was a bad week for me. I even remember telling someone at the Long Island office that I pity anyone around me cause I was having a bad week and anyone around me is in danger of getting caught up in the effects of my bad luck.
The funny thing is, I can't remember what specific events happened early in the week to make it a bad week for me.
When I got to the LI office, I had to wait until configuration management built the latest version of the software. I went into the computer lab and found out that they had been having electrical problems. If they had too many machines running at once, they all went down. So I had to wait till a computer became free before I could start up the ones I needed to work on. I finally got them started up the ones I needed to use and had walked out of the lab to get something. When I came back into the lab, the lights dimmed almost entirely and then went back up. I figured it was caused by the electical problems with the lab. A short while later, I was out of the lab and the same thing happened in the office space outside of the lab. Then the power went out entirely. We still thought it had something to do with the electrical problems we had been having. Then one of the guys from Long Island called his parents who owned a business nearby and found out that they had no power either. So we all figured that someone ran a car into a electrical pole. Then, as some of the people started listening to the radio and/or calling friends and relatives on cellphones, we became aware that the power outage was far more reaching.
My cellphone had been on all day so it wasn't fully charged, but I was able to get calls through. I left a message on my parents answering machine and sent a text message to Tiff.
We sat around the lobby of the office for a little bit when my supervisor (who was my ride to the hotel) and one other guy decided to leave. We made it through the red-light-challenged traffic to get to the hotel and checked in. The hotel couldn't program the room door locks so they had to have a hotel employee escort guests to their rooms to open the door with them.
We decided, with nothing better to do, to have a cookout. We stopped by a grocery store and picked up beer, keilbasa, buns, plates, and a cookout kit which contained charcoal, utensils and a small grill. We went back to our office, which was totally empty, and set up the grill in the parking lot. It took us a long time to get the charcoal lit. We were supposed to just light the bag with the charcoal in it, but the charcoal didn't go along with the instructions. We tore up all the paper we could find and finally got it lit. We ran out of beer and, since I was the most sober, I drove to find more. All the gas stations and small stores in the local area were totally dark so I went to the only public place with lights. That would be the Sheraton hotel that I had stayed at in the past but not this time. I walked in and was able to procure six bottles of beer for the reasonable (considering it was a bar and it had electricity) price of $3.00 a bottle. I came back and the keilbasa was finished. It was a great time considering the only light we had was from the rental car we had.
We made it back to the hotel and I got into my (hot-as-hell) room and, with no other distractions, I fell asleep with the moonlight coming through the window as the only light. I woke up at about 5am-ish and noticed the digital clock was blinking. It didn't sink in that that meant the power was on. It wasn't until I got up and noticed the hallway lights coming in under the door that I realized that the power was back on.
When I woke up for good, I decided to turn the dvd player on. I discovered that the dvd player did have a full battery and I couldn't have watched it during the blackout. The reason why there was no picture was that the A/V switch was set to Input instead of Output. Oh well. No big loss.
I'll continue the details of my Long Island adventures soon.
After work, I decided to go to Best Buy and buy something that I've been wanting to buy: a portable DVD player. I can watch it on the plane, in the hotel room, and, when I'm not traveling, I can use it as a dvd player in my bedroom. I immediately took it home to charge it as I packed for the trip.
Tiff came over to make sure I woke up earliest enough to get ready and leave early enough to make the drive to make the flight.
When I got to the airport, the dvd player had no picture. I figured I left the power button turned on during the drive to the airport and the battery was dead. So I just read a book before and during the flight and figured I would charge the dvd player at the hotel room that night.
That week was a bad week for me. I even remember telling someone at the Long Island office that I pity anyone around me cause I was having a bad week and anyone around me is in danger of getting caught up in the effects of my bad luck.
The funny thing is, I can't remember what specific events happened early in the week to make it a bad week for me.
When I got to the LI office, I had to wait until configuration management built the latest version of the software. I went into the computer lab and found out that they had been having electrical problems. If they had too many machines running at once, they all went down. So I had to wait till a computer became free before I could start up the ones I needed to work on. I finally got them started up the ones I needed to use and had walked out of the lab to get something. When I came back into the lab, the lights dimmed almost entirely and then went back up. I figured it was caused by the electical problems with the lab. A short while later, I was out of the lab and the same thing happened in the office space outside of the lab. Then the power went out entirely. We still thought it had something to do with the electrical problems we had been having. Then one of the guys from Long Island called his parents who owned a business nearby and found out that they had no power either. So we all figured that someone ran a car into a electrical pole. Then, as some of the people started listening to the radio and/or calling friends and relatives on cellphones, we became aware that the power outage was far more reaching.
My cellphone had been on all day so it wasn't fully charged, but I was able to get calls through. I left a message on my parents answering machine and sent a text message to Tiff.
We sat around the lobby of the office for a little bit when my supervisor (who was my ride to the hotel) and one other guy decided to leave. We made it through the red-light-challenged traffic to get to the hotel and checked in. The hotel couldn't program the room door locks so they had to have a hotel employee escort guests to their rooms to open the door with them.
We decided, with nothing better to do, to have a cookout. We stopped by a grocery store and picked up beer, keilbasa, buns, plates, and a cookout kit which contained charcoal, utensils and a small grill. We went back to our office, which was totally empty, and set up the grill in the parking lot. It took us a long time to get the charcoal lit. We were supposed to just light the bag with the charcoal in it, but the charcoal didn't go along with the instructions. We tore up all the paper we could find and finally got it lit. We ran out of beer and, since I was the most sober, I drove to find more. All the gas stations and small stores in the local area were totally dark so I went to the only public place with lights. That would be the Sheraton hotel that I had stayed at in the past but not this time. I walked in and was able to procure six bottles of beer for the reasonable (considering it was a bar and it had electricity) price of $3.00 a bottle. I came back and the keilbasa was finished. It was a great time considering the only light we had was from the rental car we had.
We made it back to the hotel and I got into my (hot-as-hell) room and, with no other distractions, I fell asleep with the moonlight coming through the window as the only light. I woke up at about 5am-ish and noticed the digital clock was blinking. It didn't sink in that that meant the power was on. It wasn't until I got up and noticed the hallway lights coming in under the door that I realized that the power was back on.
When I woke up for good, I decided to turn the dvd player on. I discovered that the dvd player did have a full battery and I couldn't have watched it during the blackout. The reason why there was no picture was that the A/V switch was set to Input instead of Output. Oh well. No big loss.
I'll continue the details of my Long Island adventures soon.
Comments:
Post a Comment
