Entries this day: phone_poetry uh_tour uh_wow zzz

phone poetry

4:51pm Saturday 13 October 2001

I have been waiting for the telephone repair guy to come repair our phone. Our line is crossed with Jennifer's next door. If you call her number, her phone rings and our phone rings. We can answer, but it's all echoey and messed up.

If someone calls our number, no phones ring, but it will go to our voice mail after 4 apparent rings.

If we call someone from our phone, the caller ID shows up as Jennifer's number, and after about a minute of echoey conversation, the phone is disconnected with a "phone has been left off the hook" signal.

The phone guy is supposed to be here by 5pm. I'm not sure that he's going to make it. Actually I believe the problem is supposed to be fixed by 5pm.

I called their repair line and when I enter our phone number, the voice says it's supposed to be fixed by October 13th, 2031 (twenty thirty one). When I examine our repair status online, it says it should be ready by 05:00 PM Monday October 13.

When I called earlier today to say, "hey the date is wrong on the website," the woman said that it shows up correctly on her screen. I bet one hundred dollars that she was just seeing the date and not the day (and not the year). I'm calling them again and am certainly going to try nicely to get someone out here right now.

I just consulted the calendar function of emacs. October 13th in year 2031 is on a Monday.

5:13pm

Boom. I was correct. Nicole is now aware of the problem and is seeing what she can do to get someone out here soooon. I haven't yelled at anyone. But I did say, "I'm reaaallly not happy."

- - - -

While waiting for the phone guy, I wrote a little auto-index thing in perl for Kim Sawyer's website. You can see the prototype here (2006 update: not!) (should open in a new window). I wrote these four sample poems.

Notice that the URL doesn't change when you click the different links. It's all using method=post behind the scenes. It's a more advanced technique than what I'm using for my journal entries, for which the URL changes to determine what journal entry to view.

I will make it 'prettier' and then move it to his website soon.

- - - -

5:23pm

I'm still on hold.

5:25pm

Now the hold music is gone, but no one is talking; just silence.

5:28pm

Okay, I just talked to "Mrs Black," who said they are trying to talk to their repair center and see if they can get someone out here tonight. She's going to call me back within about 30 minutes.

uh tour

11pm Saturday 13 October 2001

I'm at UH now; I arrived around 10:30 for Ultimate or Disc Golf. No one else showed up. No worries though; the ultimate field has several inches of standing water, as do the fairways for the first two disc golf holes.

So I'm taking a slow walking tour of UH, allowing the memories to float into my awareness. I've progressed across Lynn Eusan park, remembering SPB concerts including Snow (when he left in the middle of his set, and was proved to be lip syncing), and the two different 12 hour Perpetual Park Parties. Also when advertising-ridden college game tour things came through; they were quite fun. I still have one of those shirts. Actually Wende has it.

Now I'm in the UC, and there are well dressed people wandering around, presumably after homecoming.. that's what it looks like to me. I remember painting a poster for Homecoming in 1994.

1994.

I'm off to see the rest of UH now.

Oh, the computer on which I'm composing this entry is down by the Cougar Den. It's new.

uh wow

11:52pm Saturday 13 October 2001

Hahahhaa!! How ironic!

It wasn't Homecoming; it was a wedding that produced such well dressed people. I went upstairs to the beautifully remodeled Houston Room and saw one of the custodian guys chillin' on a couch. I went over to say HI and ask what was going on.

Wait-a-minute! You're no custodian guy, you're Mr Randy, from KTBZ 94.5 The Buzz!

While he's not on the Buzz morning show Tuesday and Thursdays, he's mild mannered Randy Wong, event decorator, owner of A Perfect Event. At this wedding he installed all the chair coverings.

We talked for basically the whole time since my previous entry, however long that was. How funny!

My tour continues...

zzz

3am Sunday 14 October 2001

What a grand experience! After writing the entry about Mr Randy, I headed toward the UC Underground, which is being remodeled after the storm. The entire Campus Activities, Student Program Board, Student Association, etc are all moved elsewhere. I didn't see any indication if they would be back after the construction is complete.

I did, however, look through the maze of rooms and marveled at how different was my memory compared to how the two small auditorium shaped rooms were. Somehow I thought they were larger. (One of them was the room where we watched Jeanine compete in the Academic Challenge.) Might have been that I discovered them from the back AV room, which has windows overlooking each room. This AV room was a new explorational experience for me.

I found some bathrooms that had no walls, but all the plumbing was fully in place, and I must say quite confusing, with circular routes, whose purpose I couldn't determine. I really wanted to have a camera to capture that interesting scene.

I progressed back toward where SPB had been, and found some open doors where normally we find them locked.

So..

slowly..

cautiously..

creeping...

through this new room, with heavy motors spinning loudly, maybe pumping steam through the steam tunnels. I watched my barefoot steps quite carefully, made sure I didn't touch anything, and kept close watch and listen for any approaching people.

I made it as far back as I could without crawling through 1/2 inch deep water. Got to a fan for one of the air vents.

Carefully counted my paces backwards to the steps that lead out of the UC Underground, and retraced them forward above ground to see where I had been. I had made it as far as "Lover's Leap," which is the name that Marcel and I gave the air vent that is located in the sidewalk interesection between the UC Underground, the Library, the power plant, and the UC Village.

"The UC Village???? What the heck are you talking about, Rob?"

The UC Village is the name given to a bunch of not-so-temporary temporary buildings that are in the middle of what used to be a big field between Melcher (business school) and the power plant. According to a map on the buildings, they are for art students. There's one building that has about 20 Dell workstations, each with a flat screen monitor. That room was locked.

Actually all the rooms in the UC Village were locked except for the restrooms. (Okay, I didn't actually try all the doors.)

- - -

I did, however, enter the Engineering building and check out the concrete boat named Sea Mint before descending the steps to the lower level of the Engineering building. I thought I had never been down them before, but when I exited by way of outdoor steps, I remembered that I had.

3:30am

Uh oh, I'm getting tired as I type this.

I next explored through the Architecture building, and found a set of desks on the top floor that each seemed to have different types of scales (balances) built within their space. I resisted touching any of them. Good job me; they were quite tempting.

Walked over to the Satellite, and found a door propped open down by the main entrance. I walked through there, and chose not to walk in toward the steam tunnels in the back of the Satellite. (I chose not to on both sides: 1) where the back of the restaurants were, and 2) where it apparently connects to SR1 and SR2.

Very strange to walk through the Satellite through a whole empty space of nothing but concrete columns holding up the ceiling, and an occasional firehose thing hanging from its high pressure pipe from the ceiling.

I visualized where the gameroom had been, the store where I bought snacks (lots of trail mix and Gatorade), and the wide screen TV that often showed Soap Operas. I never understood why so many people watched.

No one was watching now, since there was nothing to watch but some old plumbing in the old wall-less restrooms. I walked passed my chance to go visit SR1, and found that the back entrance to the Satellite was wide wide wide open. I used it as my exit.

Made a quick tour through Social Work to check out the computer lab, and see if I could squeeze in a journal entry. The signage didn't indicate that I'd have much luck, so I didn't even ask.

Remember back in the day when people would be on multiple terminals doing the MUDs? Now there are multiple people on PCs doing networked 3D shootem-up games. Technology progresses while students do not.

But the coolest thing in Social Work is the amazing mosaic that greets visitors who enter the building from Agnes Arnold. I greeted the mosaic from "behind" so it took me a moment to discover its full expanse. Really super great mosaic!

- - - -

I'm falling asleep again. Just 3 more things:

1) I visited PGH. Much to my dismay, the second floor of PGH is entirely rebuilt. The halls are all tiny small, as if for graduate students only; it looks like some of the top floors. Now only 3rd floor has the great open halls with the curved classrooms in the center of the building and large halls on each end. Room 209 and 210 as we knew them are gone. I cried a bit.

2) I seemed to get over that loss and progress to the 6th floor, where I discovered Dr Bao's office in its rightful spot, so I swiped two pieces of paper from the recycling bin, found a red sharpie in the math department office, and wrote him a two page letter giving him an update on life. Gave him my, Fred's, and Maggie's email addresses.

3) Exited PGH and went to check out the big Cullen water fountain. It's empty!! The only water in it is a couple puddles from the rain. It looked *so much* like it did 8 or so years ago when I first started at UH, when we played frisbee in the bottom of the fountain. Leaves were collected in the corners; some of the underwater lights were toppled (and not underwater). The bottom is painted black this time though, instead of blue as it was 8 years ago. That's a pretty big difference.

4) There is water in the shallow wading pool between Eziekiel Cullen building and the Student Services building. The landscaping is different in that they planted a bunch of shrubs and flowers in the area. I think it will look quite good when they bloom this summer.

3:44am

Good night!