A mini disaster

When I arrived at work this morning, I was puzzled to see a number of our administrative staff standing and talking outside in the lobby of our office building. Noting that that the hallway behind them was pitch dark except for light from the back door showing the silhouettes of our utility workers mopping up the floor that appeared to be wet, I immediately thought, not another brownout! So I went up to one of them and inquired what happened. Our secretary started relating something about a pipe bursting in one of the upper floors and office down in the first floor flooding.

It took sometime before I finally comprehended what she was talking about. Yesterday afternoon, a water pipe in one of the lab rooms in the second floor burst sending tons of water out into the lab room. Unfortunately for us, the water not only flooded the lab room there but also somehow seeped through the concrete floor then rained down onto the offices in the first floor. These rooms included the main office of our department, other smaller offices where some administrative staff had their desks and then our reading room! There all papers, documents, books, supplies and equipment (computers, printers, fax machines) got soaked. Some of the water had also seeped under doors and into the offices of some of our faculty members, including mine--but at least none of our things got wet except perhaps for things that were left on the floor like empty boxes and perhaps piles of paper to be recycled.

The damage would have been worse had not one of our junior instructors been working overtime at the office that Sunday afternoon. It was he who noticed water coming out from under the door of the main office and called security as well as our property custodian. (He even risked wading through the water and unplugging surge protectors--he could have been electrocuted because these were quickly going underwater--and equipment from the wall outlets.) They managed to shut down power to the entire building immediately but had difficulty cutting off the water supply to the burst pipe. It was more than two hours before they finally did so. But I still can't imagine what would have happened to all the offices in the first floor if the water had been allowed to flow until somebody showed up Monday morning!

Anyway, the aftermath of all this found us in the department mopping up floors, salvaging documents and equipment in the relative darkness. (The sky was overcast and gloomy all day and they didn't turned back the power on until a few hours later for fear that the electrical wirings were still wet and would cause a short circuit.) Some even joked that we might be able to apply for a calamity loan.

Quite honestly, we will need all the help we can to salvage all the damaged books, periodicals and theses that were kept in our library. The imported books will probably be saved: their glossy pages should be easy to separate once they have dried out. But it is the local books with their newsprint pages that I'm worried about. It will be probably close to impossible to separate the pages without getting them torn.

And then where will our poor students go for references? They who relied mainly on our reading room because the books at the main library are even more woefully outdated.

The battle of all battles

I didn't expect last night's Wimbledon finals between Federer and Nadal to be the epic battle that it turned out to be.

After seeing Federer fall way behind two sets to love, I thought all was lost come the third set and that the five-time champion would lose in straight sets. But I completely underestimated Federer's determination and tenacity. Having fallen asleep while waiting for the first rain delay to end, I woke up more than an hour later to find that the third set had been extended into a tie-break. And, lo and behold! Federer was up 5-2! When he took that set and then the fourth as well, that was the only time I sensed something extraordinary was happening. Aware that there would be no tiebreak in the deciding set, I felt the familiar nervousness creep into my veins: my hands grew cold and clammy and I even had to turn off the electric fan in my room even it was an unusually muggy evening. (It was also just as well that I turned of the fan; I could hear the tv better.)

Actually I found myself curiously calm throughout the first four sets. Although I was naturally rooting for him, I had no qualms about Federer losing this match. He had after all hauled in an incredible total of five Wimbledon crowns in straight years no less!--a super achievement in itself. (Personally, I'd dare Nadal to try and match that record. But I don't think so!) A sixth straight in my opinion would simply be icing on the cake, so to speak.

In any case, that last set was something. There are no words to describe it so I'm not even going to attempt to relate what unfolded during that decisive set.

As for the results I just had to feel sorry for Federer at the end. He did look so disappointed and close to tears; there was a slight droop at the corners of his mouth as he stood there on center courting during the trophy awarding ceremonies hugging his runner's-up trophy. But I felt proud of him more than ever, more than after any of his more impressive victories in the past. He refused to relinquish his crown meekly, never gave up and fought it out until the end, showing what a great champion he is despite this loss.

In fact, I find some articles about the match curiously worded. The title of one reads "Nadal steals Federer's Wimbledon crown." The use of the word "steals" seems to imply that Nadal was a thief, that he took by force what did not or does not belong to him, that Federer is actually the rightful owner of the Wimbledon crown. I wonder if the wording was deliberate, chosen by a reporter who is secretly a Federer fan. And then there is the use of the cliche "third time lucky". In a way, Nadal was lucky. It was difficult to say who would eventually triumph or deserved the title more. Both played superbly well but as matches have to go, somebody has to gain and then win championship point. Although lady luck sided with Nadal this time around, I must say that there were no losers this time around.

Theo Jansen's Strandbeests

It's Labor Day here and what better way to honor the day than to see the results of more than 16 years of labor of one Theo Jansen, a Dutch artist and engineer. He is a modern day Leonardo da Vinci, having created amazing "kinetic sculptures" meant to "live their own lives" on beaches, their movement relying on nothing but wind and water. These lifelike strandbeests remind me so much of people's creations over at Sodaplay but in three dimensions.

I know that this is an old video (ca. 2007) but I for one will always be amazed every time I watch it.

Computer language

Have I mentioned that I can hear my PC at the office communicating with the network and other devices? Strange but true.

It all started several months ago when I had our technician check some wiring in my PC's CPU casing because my PC would start up and then mysteriously shut down after a few seconds. He tinkered with a few things, moving one card to another slot and that seemed to solve the problem because my PC started up fine after that.

But then I began to notice spurts of static noise coming out of my PC speakers every time I print something or whenever my web browser is busy such as while downloading a webpage. It is especially prominent in the latter case when one of the webpages that I have up contains some dynamic content. (It's amusing to hear how often some dynamic content is being refreshed even while I'm not currently viewing the webpage.) I figured that it must be some kind of interference caused by some wiring next to the sound card where I plug in my PC speakers .

At first I found the noise annoying and was about to ask the technician to do something about it. Eventually however I realized that at least I can now tell when my PC is busy or has successfully sent a printing job over to my printer.

A last minute meeting

Late yesterday afternoon while I was relaxing eating a cup of yogurt, I received a frantic phone call from a professor from another department who said that I was wanted at the ongoing meeting among the university's top officials. Our college dean who was attending the meeting had at the last minute decided that she wasn't prepared to present our department's curricular proposals and wanted me to be the one instead to do it. Talk about not doing one's homework!

Naturally I had no choice but to "obey orders". So after depositing my cup of yogurt in the fridge, I retired to my room to wash up and get dressed. Within twenty minutes I was driving to the meeting, fuming mad all the way about my rudely interrupted weekend.

My mood didn't improve when I arrived at the meeting and found out that it wasn't even my turn yet to present our curricular proposals. There were in fact four more items in the agenda to be taken up.

In the end, I had to wait until around 9pm--a good four hours after I arrived--before my turn finally came. Luckily for everybody there I had sufficiently calmed down by then having been appeased by uncommonly good iced lemon tea, free dinner (although the beef was appallingly tough!) and a morbid pleasure in seeing other more ill-prepared and poorly written curricular proposals being shot down by sharp critics in the panel. Better still, my own presentation went smoothly with nary a question nor objection from the panel.

I only realized later as I got back in to my car how much this unexpected call stressed me when I felt my hyperacidity--which had began bothering me earlier in the week--kick in once again. Oh well. One or two Tums should take care of things.

A loooong work day

I literally had a long day at work today. Our director, another colleague and I were supposed to attend a meeting to present our department's curricular proposals and were instructed to wait until it was our turn to present.

Having experienced this last year where I waited until the late afternoon for our turn to present our curricular proposals then, I felt free to go about my work as usual in the morning. Sure enough just before lunchtime, a call came in saying that our proposal would be taken up about 2:30pm. So I had my lunch, met a few students afterwards and attended to a few more things before running off to the venue of the meeting (a five minute walk).

When I entered the room, our college secretary right away saw me and came over to tell me that it took unexpectedly longer than usual to discuss other proposals before ours on the agenda. So could we come back about 4 or 5pm? Back to the office I went. Funnily enough, I met our director back at our department and he himself had just gotten back after being told that it wasn't our turn yet.

Later, I received a message on my cellphone from the college secretary that they weren't done yet with the other proposals and that they might start on ours around 7pm yet. Okay, I thought, nothing new there. I decided to just go on with my work, called home to tell my parents that I would be eating dinner out (to save time and gasoline from going back and forth), drove my car out to the building where the meeting was and walked from there to the fastfood restaurants just outside campus.

I finished dinner a good 20 minutes before 7pm and decided to wait in my car in the meantime. Then just before 7pm, I went up to the meeting room only to find that they were still a good five items away from taking up our proposals. Anyway, I was told to just come on in and wait inside. Our director joined me several minutes after that. As it was almost 8pm and my other colleague had not showed up yet, I sent a test message to him inquiring if he was coming. To my chagrin, he said he was unavailable because he was having dinner at some restaurant. I told this to our director who said that it was alright and that we could take care of answering questions. Although our director didn't mind that setback, I was a little peeved with my colleague because I thought it was his responsibility to defend the proposal which he authored and that therefore this should have priority over social activities that he might have for the evening.

Anyway, we waited and we waited and we waited. I could see that our director was getting impatient at times and was getting tired because he sometimes would close his eyes and lay his head down on the table. Meanwhile I was divided between being irritated and being amused by the remarks of the committee members who seemed rather nit-picky this time around. I also mentally prepared myself to answer to similar comments in case those were likewise brought up when it was our turn to present our proposal.

Finally, at past 10:30pm, it was our turn (we were the last to present) and I took my seat near the laptop which was attached to the LCD projector at the opposite end of the room. The presentation went relatively smoothly; either our proposal was well written (ahem!) or the committee members too were getting tired and couldn't wait to get it all over and done with. At long last, we were done around 11:05pm to everyone's great relief. (So much for taking four or five hours to prepare my slide presentation!) The secretary of the committee joyfully called out the time of adjournment the moment everyone seconded the motion to endorse our curricular proposals and within minutes nearly everyone had left the room.

I stayed behind a little while longer to make a few more clarifications about suggestions made by the committee then gathered my things and went down to my car to drive home. Since I had to give the chair of the committee a ride home--instead of having her call someone to come pick her up--I had to take short detour to drop her off at her house before finally heading home.

And so ended what was probably my longest day at work. (Of course, not counting the other evenings I have spent working at home grading papers, preparing lecture notes, documents, etc.)

A humble practice

I accompanied my father to the vet clinic this afternoon to pick up our pet cat who died during the night while being confined. I thought I'd note here what I found out during the visit because I was very much impressed by the vet's dedication despite her limited resources.

When we arrived there, I wasn't surprised to find it very much different from the spacious veterinary hospital in campus. The clinic itself is rather tiny: barely 7 feet by 12 feet. Across from the glass door entrance is a small desk where the vet talks to her client's owners. To the left of the glass door is a short wooden bench which seats two or three people. Near the desk is a small refrigerator. There are two laminated tables that serve as exam tables next to one of which is a set of plastic drawers which I suppose serves as storage for supplies and some medicines. Next to set of drawers is a metal sink. At the end of the room is a curtained off area where most probably an operating table stands.

The clinic is run by a high schoolmate of mine who apparently loves her job of curing people's pets, having been inspired to become a veterinarian by the famous veterinarian-turned-bestselling author James Herriot. And it is evident in the concern and unselfish care she shows for her patients, not to mention the effort that she puts into her work without the help of an assistant. (She barely got any sleep the night before because she had to watch over our cat and another pet who also was confined, a beagle puppy who was having seizures.)

I could tell that she probably wasn't making much money from her practice based on what I could see in the clinic. It was quite obvious also that she probably couldn't afford to pay another to be her assistant. In fact she only charged us a total of Php1150 (much less than US$30 by today's exchange rate) which is surprisingly cheap considering that that our cat was on intravenous drip and was given some antibiotics. We were even more dismayed when, upon getting back home, we found out that she had not charged us any consultation fee at all nor did she charge us for the blood chemistry analysis she had done at some other clinic in town.

We're now thinking of buying something from Goldilocks to give to her in lieu of at least the consultation fee that she did not charge us.