20 Hours of Aggravation
Frankly, the past 20 hours have been aggravating beyond relief. Here’s what happened:
5:00 PM - Crew Alumni Event.
So, I went to a crew team alumni event for my alma mater on Boat House Row. I wasn’t too excited with this event to begin with but some other alumni that I haven’t seen in a while called me up to tell me they were coming so I started to look forward to it.
When I go to the event, none of my old team mates came, either they had sent in regrets at the last minute or in some cases, they just didn’t show up. Of the people who did come, it was all either older alumni who predated the team (anyone who graduated before 1980) or younger alumni (graduating after 1980) who just wasn’t on the team.
I was the only alumni rower who showed up. Which is just beyond belief.
Finally, members of the current team showed up but it was only three rowers (but they had all rowed with me). Although, such small numbers is not surprising when I was told that the team only had 16 members last semester and it was 8 male rowers and 8 female rowers, all rowing in 8s.
Then I was told the teams record.
Yeah, the new coach and assistant coach that they introduced better turn the team around soon because the team can’t get much worse. (We went from placing in Dad Vails when I was on the team to not even bothering to go. Oy!).
9:00 PM - The Read or Die Wiki
A small hobby of mine recently has been doing the Read or Die Wiki (www.Readordie.us). It’s a fund project but the wikifarm host, elwiki has been basically dropped out of the world. The server is usually up but the site went down for a few hours last night, an unfortunately not too uncommon occurrence. I was contacted by another wiki admin recently about moving the wiki to another site. I’d be able to keep the material intact through the move but I’d lose the user information, so everyone would have to sign up again.
I have to give this some consideration and then bring it to my co-admin to see whether we should do it. Hopefully, things will improve with elwiki but frankly, it seems like they’ve just dropped out of sight altogether and I should probably move the content before there servers go down as well.
8:30 AM - Sleeping and Illness
I didn’t sleep well last night, mostly because I’ve been sick for the last week. I’m getting better but I’m still far from 100%. This led to me oversleeping, which wouldn’t have been so bad, if not for what came next.
9:30 AM - The PA Turnpike
So, I’m supposed to meet-up with some chemists from another group who’ve asked for my help on a project I’m synthesizing some smart plastic for them and I’m supposed to meet them at 9:30 AM in my lab. Unfortunately, because I overslept, at 9:30 AM, I’m still about a half mile from the King of Prussia exit on the turnpike. It’s not that bad except that when I finally get to the exit, it’s CLOSED!!!
Yeah, that’s right, the exist been closed for construction so I can’t get off and I have to drive to the next exit. Which is a half hour drive because once you’re 20 miles west of Philadelphia, there really isn’t all that much until you hit Pittsburgh.
So, I have to drive to the next exit and fortunately, the PA turnpike has realized what was happening so I was able to head back of King of Prussia heading east, which I was told had the exit open and I wasn’t charged for the toll at the turn around point (although, I still had to spend 5 dollars in gas due to all the extra driving).
So, I’m an hour late when I finally get in.
11:00 AM - The Reaction
I start up the reaction I’m supposed to show the other chemists. I’d normally wait for them to show up (they all went back to their building when they heard how late I’d be and still haven’t come back at 11) to start but I have a meeting at 1 pm. According to the calculations, the reaction should take about 2 to 3 hours, so I think that if I’m lucky, I should be done by the time I have to be at my meeting.
Nope, not with my luck today. I have no idea what the hell happened but the reaction kinetics are not occurring as they should and instead, I’m running the reaction through the meeting because it now seems like the reaction will take 6 hours.
It's also 95 degrees in the building, which makes doing any work extremely uncomfortable.
Hopefully, this will be the last annoyance in the string of annoyances. I can’t deal with anything else.
5:00 PM - Crew Alumni Event.
So, I went to a crew team alumni event for my alma mater on Boat House Row. I wasn’t too excited with this event to begin with but some other alumni that I haven’t seen in a while called me up to tell me they were coming so I started to look forward to it.
When I go to the event, none of my old team mates came, either they had sent in regrets at the last minute or in some cases, they just didn’t show up. Of the people who did come, it was all either older alumni who predated the team (anyone who graduated before 1980) or younger alumni (graduating after 1980) who just wasn’t on the team.
I was the only alumni rower who showed up. Which is just beyond belief.
Finally, members of the current team showed up but it was only three rowers (but they had all rowed with me). Although, such small numbers is not surprising when I was told that the team only had 16 members last semester and it was 8 male rowers and 8 female rowers, all rowing in 8s.
Then I was told the teams record.
Yeah, the new coach and assistant coach that they introduced better turn the team around soon because the team can’t get much worse. (We went from placing in Dad Vails when I was on the team to not even bothering to go. Oy!).
9:00 PM - The Read or Die Wiki
A small hobby of mine recently has been doing the Read or Die Wiki (www.Readordie.us). It’s a fund project but the wikifarm host, elwiki has been basically dropped out of the world. The server is usually up but the site went down for a few hours last night, an unfortunately not too uncommon occurrence. I was contacted by another wiki admin recently about moving the wiki to another site. I’d be able to keep the material intact through the move but I’d lose the user information, so everyone would have to sign up again.
I have to give this some consideration and then bring it to my co-admin to see whether we should do it. Hopefully, things will improve with elwiki but frankly, it seems like they’ve just dropped out of sight altogether and I should probably move the content before there servers go down as well.
8:30 AM - Sleeping and Illness
I didn’t sleep well last night, mostly because I’ve been sick for the last week. I’m getting better but I’m still far from 100%. This led to me oversleeping, which wouldn’t have been so bad, if not for what came next.
9:30 AM - The PA Turnpike
So, I’m supposed to meet-up with some chemists from another group who’ve asked for my help on a project I’m synthesizing some smart plastic for them and I’m supposed to meet them at 9:30 AM in my lab. Unfortunately, because I overslept, at 9:30 AM, I’m still about a half mile from the King of Prussia exit on the turnpike. It’s not that bad except that when I finally get to the exit, it’s CLOSED!!!
Yeah, that’s right, the exist been closed for construction so I can’t get off and I have to drive to the next exit. Which is a half hour drive because once you’re 20 miles west of Philadelphia, there really isn’t all that much until you hit Pittsburgh.
So, I have to drive to the next exit and fortunately, the PA turnpike has realized what was happening so I was able to head back of King of Prussia heading east, which I was told had the exit open and I wasn’t charged for the toll at the turn around point (although, I still had to spend 5 dollars in gas due to all the extra driving).
So, I’m an hour late when I finally get in.
11:00 AM - The Reaction
I start up the reaction I’m supposed to show the other chemists. I’d normally wait for them to show up (they all went back to their building when they heard how late I’d be and still haven’t come back at 11) to start but I have a meeting at 1 pm. According to the calculations, the reaction should take about 2 to 3 hours, so I think that if I’m lucky, I should be done by the time I have to be at my meeting.
Nope, not with my luck today. I have no idea what the hell happened but the reaction kinetics are not occurring as they should and instead, I’m running the reaction through the meeting because it now seems like the reaction will take 6 hours.
It's also 95 degrees in the building, which makes doing any work extremely uncomfortable.
Hopefully, this will be the last annoyance in the string of annoyances. I can’t deal with anything else.