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stoutfellowSince I don't have classes on Friday and Monday the 16th was a holiday, I took a four-day weekend. Yesterday, as I returned to work, was an interesting day.
Item: As I was waiting for the bus to work, a shuttle bus pulled up in front of me. (These are in addition to the regular Madison County Transit buses; they typically run between, say, an old folk's home and Shop'n'Save or another store.) The door opened, and the driver called out to me: "Are you Professor :name:?" I admitted I was; he replied, "I took a course in combinatorics and graph theory from you back in the '80s. I enjoyed that course!" "Well, thank you!" "No, thank you!" And he drove off. I spent much of the next hour grinning to myself.
Item: When I left the office Thursday evening, I shut off the heater. (Yes, each office in the Science Building has its own heater/cooler. In cold weather, it's necessary to turn the heater on and off at intervals; the temperature oscillates between chilly and overwarm.) When I returned on Tuesday, the heat was absolutely blasting, and I quickly shut it off again. Apparently, the heater in the office next door had been malfunctioning, and Facilities had come through to make sure they were all working properly.
Item: For security reasons, whenever a campus computer is shut off or goes into hibernation, reawakening it requires pressing Ctl-Alt-Del and then entering one's username and password. When I attempted to do this with my computer, C-A-D had no effect. I tried pressing other combinations (there are two each of the three buttons) without success. I went and complained to the department secretary; she suggested that the Facilities people might have jostled something, and that I ought to check the connections. Grumbling, I went back; the connections were secure. So... "When in doubt, reboot." Fortunately, this worked.
Item: With the computer up and running, I buckled down to resume writing up my current paper - and could not find one of the references I needed. After much searching, I remembered that I had taken it to California with me, and realized that it was probably still in my suitcase. (I'm not very good at unpacking, y'see....)
Item (not specific to yesterday): My satellite box seems to have gone flaky. On a typical day, I'll come home from work and turn on the TV, only to be confronted with the "What's New on DISH?" channel. I will be unable to access any channels but the basic ones; the box appears to have forgotten my full subscription. (Sometimes, it varies things by informing me that the currently installed smartcard is not valid for this receiver.) The only solution I've found is to unplug the box, plug it back in, and let it go through the whole satellite-acquisition sequence. I'll have to call DISH sometime in the near future.
Buster is pawing at my elbow, so I'd better see what he wants.
Item: As I was waiting for the bus to work, a shuttle bus pulled up in front of me. (These are in addition to the regular Madison County Transit buses; they typically run between, say, an old folk's home and Shop'n'Save or another store.) The door opened, and the driver called out to me: "Are you Professor :name:?" I admitted I was; he replied, "I took a course in combinatorics and graph theory from you back in the '80s. I enjoyed that course!" "Well, thank you!" "No, thank you!" And he drove off. I spent much of the next hour grinning to myself.
Item: When I left the office Thursday evening, I shut off the heater. (Yes, each office in the Science Building has its own heater/cooler. In cold weather, it's necessary to turn the heater on and off at intervals; the temperature oscillates between chilly and overwarm.) When I returned on Tuesday, the heat was absolutely blasting, and I quickly shut it off again. Apparently, the heater in the office next door had been malfunctioning, and Facilities had come through to make sure they were all working properly.
Item: For security reasons, whenever a campus computer is shut off or goes into hibernation, reawakening it requires pressing Ctl-Alt-Del and then entering one's username and password. When I attempted to do this with my computer, C-A-D had no effect. I tried pressing other combinations (there are two each of the three buttons) without success. I went and complained to the department secretary; she suggested that the Facilities people might have jostled something, and that I ought to check the connections. Grumbling, I went back; the connections were secure. So... "When in doubt, reboot." Fortunately, this worked.
Item: With the computer up and running, I buckled down to resume writing up my current paper - and could not find one of the references I needed. After much searching, I remembered that I had taken it to California with me, and realized that it was probably still in my suitcase. (I'm not very good at unpacking, y'see....)
Item (not specific to yesterday): My satellite box seems to have gone flaky. On a typical day, I'll come home from work and turn on the TV, only to be confronted with the "What's New on DISH?" channel. I will be unable to access any channels but the basic ones; the box appears to have forgotten my full subscription. (Sometimes, it varies things by informing me that the currently installed smartcard is not valid for this receiver.) The only solution I've found is to unplug the box, plug it back in, and let it go through the whole satellite-acquisition sequence. I'll have to call DISH sometime in the near future.
Buster is pawing at my elbow, so I'd better see what he wants.
