Web Log Entry #0071, Friday, May 30, 2003: Day 193

Anchorage Sunrise: 4:40am Sunset: 11:16pm High Temp: 61° Low Temp: 49° Even though this was a short week, I'm exhausted. Two red-eye flights over the weekend have tuckered me out, so I've hardly done anything interesting all week. There are a couple car-related events of note: Thursday morning, in preparation for his weekend trip back to Washington, Stan turns on the dryer, then the dishwasher. He takes two steps, and Boom! the lights go out. Being technically-oriented guys, we check the circuit breakers. Naturally, the box is in my room, which has black plastic taped over the window, and is now dark as a cave. Stan eventually finds a flashlight, with batteries as weak as the economic justification of tax cuts for the rich. In the event of an actual emergency, we would have been eaten. Still, all the breakers are fine. This causes us to THINK for a moment and realize: 1) the dryer and dishwasher wouldn't even BE on the same circuit, and 2) even if they were, the lights would still be on a DIFFERENT circuit. The power's out in the entire condo complex. Unfortunately, this includes the garage. Where my car is. Behind the big, electric-garage-door-opener-controlled garage door. Stan gave me a ride to work. In exchange, I didn't tell people that the loss of power across Anchorage's eastside today happened because Stan ran the dryer and dishwasher at the same time. Although I eventually recovered my car from the garage, I may lose it soon. I've been using one of the client's fleet cars, as it's much cheaper for them than having me rent a car. Yet for some reason, this annoys the Fleet Services person. First, he said we couldn't schedule a car for six months, we had to request it a month at a time. For example, at the beginning of December, I could ask for a car in January. Then he decided we couldn't request a month in advance. At the end of January, I could ask for a car in February, and so on. Now he's upset that I'm asking for a car EVERY MONTH. But wasn't this what he TOLD me to do? Now he's decided that Stan and I can only have one car between us. I made the mistake of admitting that it was POSSIBLE for us to share a car, but neither he nor the IT department admin (who, naturally, I have to go through for these negotiations, because I'm obviously not qualified to talk to a Fleet Services person on my own), asked if it was convenient. Ah well. On Monday I can bump this up to the IT manager, and maybe she can talk some sense into these people. If not, I'll get a bus pass.

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© 2003 Evan M. Nichols