I fully intend to write up some of my notes from the workshop (so many cool things!), but recent events (on a water theme) have overtaken and require reporting.
The trouble started when the tornado sirens went off during the closing discussions this evening. There we have a bunch of out-of-towners, most of which haven’t a clue what to do in such a situation, in a room with big plate glass windows, going “Huh?”. The sirens stopped almost immediately, but a bunch of people hopped on-line to check weather sites (geeks + laptops + wireless networking = way nerdly behaviors) and discovered that there was a nasty line of thunderstorms headed our way. The paranoid among us (including me) headed to a windowless classroom downstairs, where we waited things out, while the rest stayed upstairs gabbing away next to all the plate glass. There were some high winds, heavy rain, and hail, but happily no twisters.
After all the excitement was over, Ellery and I went out to dinner with Lee Spector and Christian Jacob at a Korean restaurant (The Seoul House?) where we all had Bee Bim Bop. I’ve never really liked the kim chee end of Korean food (not a fan of cabbage), but I totally dug the Bee Bim bop - that was nummy stuff.
The rain held off as we went to dinner, but on the long-ish walk back to the car it opened up pretty good. I had my nifty raincoat, but Ellery had none and got pretty soaked.
In retribution, however, the bathroom flooded on me when we got back to the hotel. I flushed, and water kept running from the tank to the bowl, and over the sides and into the bathroom. I eventually stopped it by holding up the float, threw every towel in the room down on the floor, and hollered at Ellery to call the front desk and get some help pronto! So there I stood in my boxers, barefoot in the freezing water, holding up the float and waiting for the cavalry.
The maintenance guy showed up very promptly and was able to turn off the water so I could stop holding the float and get out of the small pond, which by now had turned the nearby carpet into a nice squishy, squelchy swamp.
The maintenance guy was great and deserves medals and employee of the month kind of honors. (I just wish I’d gotten his name - I’m terrible at that sort of thing and sometimes it sucks.) He immediately called for back up and took the time to thank me for holding the float. Once he’d stopped the continued flooding, he called the front desk and told them we’d need a new room without our having to ask (and we had definitely thought about it). When the desk told him to have us come down and get new keys, he made it clear that they would need to bring the keys to us. He then helped us move into our new room (which was conveniently right next door).
Like I said, he rocked and deserves a major “I understand that this is a service industry” award. Many thanks to him and all the people at the Holiday Inn North Campus.
I’ve now had a shower and am going to bed. It’s been a long, but good, if slightly damp, day.
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