A Journal of My Mid-Life Crisis

28 March 1999 - Like Working in a Hitchcock Movie

Updates may be slightly irregular for a little while as the AC adapter on my laptop has decided to go from being flaky to being dead. Someone at work suggests a power surge may well have done me in (the adapters supposedly have surge suppressors built in, but you are supposed to replace a surge suppressor after a surge as I understand it) as my clock radio went insane at the same time. The stereo, TV and VCR are on a surge suppressor full time so were unaffected. Maybe that is also why I blew 3 reasonably new lightbulbs in the chandelier at once?

The upshot of this is that I am writing from work, not home. So if I can't fix my problem by just buying a new AC adapter, it may mean Friday or Monday updates, instead of Sunday nights, for a while.

In other power problems, I finally bought a new answering machine. When I got home, I discovered that I couldn't actually set it up without putting in a 9 volt battery for the backup. Is it just me or would it have been reasonable to indicate this on the outside of the box so I could have bought a battery while buying the machine? I did buy a battery later in the day, but it was an annoyance.

As for this week's real subject, let's just say my work life has gotten a tad more surreal. My boss has sparrows pecking at his window all day, making meetings there slightly bizarre. Large black birds (crows, maybe? I know nothing about birds) slam into my window at full speed every now and then, sometimes with enough impact that people come running from 2 offices away to see what happened. And then Monday I got this email (names and phone numbers deleted to protect the innocent). It is probably helpful for context to know that my office is physically located on an Air Force Base.

Hello Everyone,
At the present time, birds have slipped their way into the ceiling area of [the building I work in] and on occasion, they find their way into our offices. CE [Civil Engineering] has been called and they are taking care of the situation. In the meantime, if you hear anything "moving around" in your ceiling area or if a bird has actually found its way into your office, please stay calm, put down the shotgun, and contact me, [Senior Airman in front office], or anyone at [the admin office] and we will take appropriate action. Thank you.
[Staff Sergeant in front office]

The story behind this is that the colonel came in Monday morning to find a bird on his desk and there were 2 dead birds in his secretary's office.

Aside from jokes about trained Serbian carrier pigeons on suicide missions, I don't think I'm going to venture into the showers at the base fitness center!