Monday, November 27, 2006

Seredipitish

I got up this morning and went to work. I hated to do that, especially after four days off, but I felt that it was something I really should do. I got to the parking lot, shut the car off, and grabbed for my cooler, my cell phone and my iPod on the passenger seat. I juggled those and my keys most of the way from the car to my office, amazingly managing not to actually drop anything. I got to my desk and set down my cooler, my keys, my phone, my iPod, ... and my head lamp? No, not a car-type headlamp, but the kind I use (on my head, natch) while camping so I can keep my hands free for other stuff and still see at night. I wondered about how it got there as I pocketed my keys.

Then I remembered. I had put the light in the car when I went to the 12 Hour Race back in October. I knew I'd need it to get to my car after the race was over near midnight (ain't no light out there but whut you brung yerself). I guess I just forgot to take it back out again.

So there it was, sitting there on my desk next to my lunch cooler. Uselessly so, I figured. But then...

I went to a meeting at 11 am. At 11:30am, the power in our part of the complex went out. Let me tell you, it was pitch black in that conference room. Luckily, someone had a (weak) pen light on their keychain, which Lee used to go back to his office and grab a more powerful flashlight. We went ahead and finished our meeting with that as our light source, wrapping up at about noon.

My office doesn't have a window. My old one did, but I'm going to be moving again in about another week or so, so I'm not complaining. Without use of my computer (and of course I lost the email I was working on before I went to the meeting), all I had to work on was several documents to review. Most of the other people in my group had to step outside in the breeze to see their work. Not me. Somehow I had my head lamp with me today.

If only I'd had it in the conference room during the meeting.

Post Scriptum: The power did eventually get turned back on at around 3:15 pm or so.

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