Underground

It gets cold at Penn State in the winter.

Yeah, I know that's an understatement and a lot of people wish they could forget about it and are a little angry that I should bring it up. But it's true. You know the chant: 'We are . . . Penn State!' Well, it started out as 'We are . . . frickin' cold!' When I was at State College back in the late 1870's, I discovered there was an alternative to walking outside and freezing my rear end off.

The tunnels.

Yes, many of the buildings at Penn State are connected by underground tunnels ( I guess that's redundant, isn't it? Are there 'overground' tunnels?) Regardless, I was saved from rain and snow by heading down into basements and finding my way around. How did I find them?

I try doors.

A closed door is a beacon for me. I'm dying to see what's on the other side. I have exasperated my family more often than I care to admit, but in this instance, it payed off. I found tunnels.

Not under Pattee, of course. People might swipe books.


So, last week, I was in downtown Philadelphia for our company conference. I was presenting about how 'green' my data center is. Of course, it was the hottest couple of days of the whole summer, so I decided to check out the Philly tunnels.

The conference was at the downtown Marriott, but spilled over into the Convention Center. You can easily get between the Marriott and the Convention Center without going outside, but I was parked in the Wanamaker Building across from City Hall. Could I do it? Oh, yes. Yes, I could!

From the parking garage of the Wanamaker, I could walk along the underground concourse right to the Convention Center and never see the light of day. And never actually SEE Philadelphia. Perfect! I could get in my car in my garage and never actually have to be 'outside' EVER! Rain? Snow?? Pfffffbbbbt! Remember that great line by Karen in Will and Grace? "Are we. . . outside?"

But it got me thinking, how far could you go underground in Philadelphia, so I checked it out. Look at this.


You can get all the way from Race Street all the way to Spruce, and from Eighth Street all the way to Eighteenth Street. Not quite river to river, but darn near. How about that? Sure, it smells like old, tired urine, but like anything else, you get used to it. It's the smell of Philadelphia! And it turns out that Philly had even bigger plans at one point but circumstances didn't let the dream come true.

Here's a different map that shows the actual open areas. There are stores and restaurants, even whole malls down there. You could live, work, eat and play . . . and never go outside.


I'll have to see if I can find something for underground Penn State. I'll bet there are tunnels I never found.

When we visited the Library of Congress recently, my daughter mentioned there was a tunnel for congress to use. Here's what that looks like.


I wonder if they smell like old, tired urine too?

 

 

2 comments:

Leah Kleylein said...

No, the tunnels for the Library of Congress do not smell like old, tired Philadelphian urine.

They smell like.....Secret Knowledge the General Public is Not Privy To.

And that's all I'm allowed to say.

August 16, 2009 at 8:52 PM

Dave said...

The X-Files live on!

August 17, 2009 at 12:38 PM

Data Center Rules

There are rules for everything.

Some of you gentle readers know that I run a great big data center for a great big multinational corporation and that we do great big data processing (all sorts) for hospitals and other healthcare entities. That's a tremendous burden. Why, sometimes it's like a lotus petal crushed under an elephant, how about that! And how do we take that pressure off? Hmmm? Drinking? Hiding?

No, we have rules!

And standards and regulations and audits and documentation and tools and. . . and. . . stuff. And we like them because beside having to do them, they also help. So I have rules about who is allowed in my building, how they do their work, what they're allowed to bring with them, all sorts of rules.

But think back to before there were any rules. It was like the wild west, anyone could do anything! So when we first started building the rules, they were a bit more primitive than today's sophisticated, well-documented, well-structured, bullet-proof, ultra-well-tested policies.

So at the risk of being too sharply focused for the masses, for historical purposes, here was the first pass at some data center rules.

DATA CENTER RULES

Rules and Regulations and Whatnot

1. The first rule of the data center is don’t talk about the data center.

2. Due to the close proximity of working areas and lack of adequate ventilation in the data center, please practice some sort of personal hygiene and grooming before entering the computer room floor.

3. Cell phone use is required at all times.

4. All photographs and videos must be taken using a dreamy, soft focus filter.

5. There is no Number 5.

6. All foods and beverages are allowed on the computer room floor, but Italian food is preferred.

7. Due to the lack of standards, all wires and cables should be managed in the ‘ninja-spaghetti’ style and should be spread out upon all working surfaces.

8. Only ones and zeros are allowed to be processed in the data center.

9. No ear protection is required, iPods are optional. This rule may be suspended if a soccer game breaks out or if Security is playing a Schwarzenegger action movie soundtrack over the loudspeakers.

10. There are no cages to be opened, so there are no keys.

11. If you walk your robot dog, please clean up after it.

12. All visitors and robot dogs must be kept on a leash at all times.

13. The computer room floor has been designated as a cold war era fallout shelter.

14. In the event of an emergency, raise your hands above your head, run around screaming “Help me! Help me!” and pray to your chosen deity. If you have no chosen deity, you may borrow one from Security.

15. Any explosives and hazardous materials must be kept in your pockets.

16. Management discourages the unnecessary use of guns in the data center, but we don’t care how much you use them elsewhere. Actually, we recommend you carry a gun at all times.

17. There is no crying in the data center.

18. All drugs and alcohol brought into the data center must be shared with Security.

19. Everyone is allowed free access to the computer room floor except mimes.

20. If you must chew tobacco, use just a pinch between your cheek and your gum.

21. All fires should be contained to one room at a time.

22. Anyone working in a high noise area must mmmft blufft burble.

23. If someone falls into the sub-floor, allow them three minutes to escape before replacing the tile.

24. If the data center rats stampede, try to herd them away from the refrigerator.

25. This is just a filler item so the list will total a nice round 25 items.

4 comments:

Leah Kleylein said...

23 might be my favorite, but I also like 22 and 25! :-D

August 9, 2009 at 5:58 PM

Dave said...

It's so good to have you back!!

August 9, 2009 at 11:50 PM

Anonymous said...

You broke you first rule. Don't talk about the Data Center

September 21, 2009 at 3:39 PM

Mac Pherson said...

Wow! Thank you for sharing these pointers! People should keep this in mind when they decide to visit a data facility. Hahaha! But seriously, strict rules and procedures must be followed when entering this kind of place. It is sensitive to elements and the data inside is very important for companies and institutions.

April 11, 2013 at 6:57 PM

Bora! Bora! Bora!

OK, that was a weak reference to the movie Tora! Tora! Tora!

For our recent trip to French Polynesia, we definitely wanted to go to Bora Bora and when we started the planning we wanted to go there first and work our way back to Tahiti since that's where the international airport is. The travel agent said, "Noooo, Bora Bora should be last!" And that was a very wise recommendation.

Because Bora Bora is the BEST! Oh, my goodness, the best. Oh, yes, the best.

The central island is dominated by Mt. Otemanu and the lagoon surrounding the central island is protected by a ring of narrow islets called motus. The airport is on a motu. Our beautiful hotel, the Intercontinental Thalasso is on a motu. So you probably figured out that you get around by boat.

And when we went to dinner on the main island the restaurants provided cars to pick us up and take us back. It was all very convenient.

At the Intercontinental Thalasso, we stayed in what they called an over-the-water villa. That was ours on the second leg from the right, third villa from the end on the left.

The first thing that captures your attention when you arrive is Mt. Otemanu. In a way, it's like the Eiffel Tower in Paris, wherever you go, there it is. It would be pretty hard to get lost anyway, it's a small island.

One of the things that impressed Deb was that by the time we checked in and were driven to our place, the luggage was already there. Already there!

The first morning when we got up really early, we went out on our little personal dock and this is what we see.


We could have left right then and the whole thing would have been worth it. Look at that turquoise water and the moon (see the little bitty reflection?). Whoa!

The whole resort was spotless, it's only three years old and they're very proud of the fact that everything is air conditioned by pumping up cold seawater from thousands of feet down for use as a heat exchanger. Practically free air conditioning! Here's a shot from our deck toward the resort. Look at that water!


The temperature had some pretty dramatic variations. During the day it was 82 F. And at night it dipped down to 81 F. Whew! We didn't eat inside a closed room even ONCE the whole time we were in French Polynesia. Here's our living room.


Notice that the coffee table is actually a glass bottomed window down into the lagoon. The very first morning, Deb saw a sting ray swim past to welcome us.

Here's the view outside from the bedroom out past the foot of the bed.


And here's the view when you were at the bar. Yeah, everything was expensive because it had to be flown in - deal with it.


Here's what the outdoor bar looked like. Look at the crush of people! Even though this was high season, we were never crowded or delayed ever.


Here's the indoor bar but I never saw anyone go here. Why would anyone stay indoors??


Even though the hotel and the restaurants were spectacular, we had to check out the restaurants on the main island. We ate at the original Bloody Mary's (you remember. . . Bali Hai! Bali Hai!). But the best of them all was la Villa Mahana. We had the best table in the house and the best food on the whole trip. Gorgeous!


So, you ask, "Would you go back? You know, long flight. . . everything expensive?" I'll answer that with a photo of Deb. Does that answer your question?

2 comments:

Leah Kleylein said...

I'm SO going to go there!

August 5, 2009 at 9:22 PM

Dave said...

What a vacation!!!

August 6, 2009 at 2:13 PM

Running Off to Tahiti

How often have you heard that?

"I'm done with this crap, I'm running off to Tahiti."

Well, I was done with this crap, so I ran off to Tahiti - and Moorea and Bora Bora. It turns out that all the things we've heard about exotic, faraway French Polynesia were all true. All of it. Exotic. Really far away. And stunningly, heartstoppingly beautiful.

I mean REALLY. It even sounds exotic, doesn't it? Moorea (pronounced Mo-orea, you gotta get that little stutter-step in there). Bora Bora - sounds like there might be cannibals, right? Oh, no, quite civilized, actually.

My wife, Deb and I left from Philadelphia. Once we discovered there were no non-stop or direct flights from Philadelphia to Tahiti (Geez!) we decided to break the long trip up a little by stopping off in Los Angeles for a night before continuing on. That really made a lot of difference because we weren't all grouchy and poopy when we arrived. We remembered how tired we were the first couple of days in China and 'tired' is no fun.

Take a look on the map, French Polynesia is between South America and Australia, but it isn't really NEAR anything. It's in the South Pacific. As in South Pacific! As in Bali Hai. As in Mitzi Gaynor and Rossano Brazzi who may have been related to Luca Brasi famous for telling the Godfather "And may their first child be a masculine child." And when you see Mount Otemanu on Bora Bora, that Bali Hai song keeps popping into your head.

We didn't spend much time on Tahiti itself, it's become a little TOO popular. Modern, a lot of traffic, certainly still gorgeous, but we wanted to get off to the other islands. I mean, look at this photograph, how long could you stay in this squalor?

That's Moorea, off on the horizon, by the way, described by some as the most beautiful place EVER. I don't know if it's the MOST beautiful, but it's sure up there in the rankings. It only takes a few minutes to fly to Moorea from Tahiti, there are ferrys as well, but once you're in Polynesia, all the security crap is suspended, you just get on the plane. What a relief, it was just like the old days before those imbecilic morons made us go through a bunch of useless security checks. Someone should add up all the wasted time and energy and charge them for it. "Hey, doofus, about those oil reserves. . ."

Doofus - definition: Someone without a clue, living in total ignorance of the world, fashion, personal hygiene and social skills. From German doof meaning a stupid, jugheaded fool.

But I digress.

As you can see from the map to the right, this batch of islands are part of the Society Islands. Betcha didn't know that! Perhaps they should have named them the Eyewateringly Beautiful Islands, that would have made more sense.

In Moorea, we stayed at the Sofitel, which was very nice, but the highlight of this island was one of those happy accidents. We had intended to take a bus tour of the island and see all the highpoints and OOO and AHH, but there were so few people there even though this was high season, that they canceled the bus for lack of riders.

So, we rented a car and drove ourselves. THAT was great, we could stop whenever and wherever we wanted to, stay as long as we wanted. . . we should have thought of that ourselves.

Here's the Sofitel, which we found out later was the hotel Mel Gibson stayed in when they were filming The Bounty there. Marlon Brando also filmed his Mutiny on the Bounty at Moorea, but I don't know where he stayed. He didn't tell me.

Here's Cook's Bay, presumably where Captain Cook landed (not Captain Hook, that's a different guy).


This is just across from the fields that Warren Beatty and Annette Benning ran across near the end of Love Affair. That was where he met her by the way.


Here's Deb on the top of the mountain, with Cook's Bay behind her. Notice she has a flower in her hair. She had a flower in her hair pretty much the whole time we were there. I stuck one into my ear, but it kept falling out.



All of this was merely a prelude, however, because we were going on - on to Bora Bora.

 

 

2 comments:

Dave said...

What a beautiful area of the world this looks to be!

July 26, 2009 at 11:38 PM

Anonymous said...

the native girl has a cute body.

June 18, 2018 at 10:25 PM

Keeping Up

I know, I haven't been keeping up with my blog.

I'm sorry.

My mental image is of Elise McKenna from the movie Somewhere in Time.

I'm sure you know the movie. I was recently reminded by a friend of how beautiful Jane Seymour was before she lit out for the territories and became Dr. Quinn Medicine Woman.

Recall that Jane is standing across the scene upstage and she screams "Riicccccccccchhhhhhaarrrddddddddddddd" at Superman.

Anyway, Jane is hollering at me because I have let work and vacation setup and other such crap get in the way of what is really important: This blog.

What? You're not buying it? You're saying that you have to prioritize those things in your life that you can do with your limited time? You're saying that 'a man has to do what a man has to do', like all the cowboys and John Cleese have said?

Well, maybe so. I don't know.

Perhaps I'm just pooped because of being in some pretty intense contract negotiations recently. Perhaps I just need a vacation. Perhaps I'll go on one. But vacation or not, contracts or not, I miss the writing and I'm sure you remember what Scarlett said when she tried to eat that damned raw turnip.

"As God is my witness, I will make blog entries when this crappy period is over." Or something like that.

 

 

 

 

 

2 comments:

Leah Kleylein said...

2 words: wordless wednesday. you make blog entries but don't have to write anything! what could be more perfect????

July 1, 2009 at 8:20 PM

Dave said...

Lit out for the territories? Excellent!

July 1, 2009 at 11:21 PM

Nature, Nurture, Whatever

Nature or nurture, genetics or care - which is it?

My hobby is genealogy and as a result, I know something about my ancestors. Most lines, excluding the presidents and governors and such were just good solid farming stock. They worked hard, they had no Social Security and they lived a gooood long time. Many lived into their upper nineties. Shown here is Nimrod Harrison, Jr. and his wife Sarah C. Watkins Harrison, my great grandfather and great grandmother. In this photo in 1910, he was 71 and she was 65. He lived on for another ten years and she for twenty. And they were the slackers of the family fading away so young.

Here's their whole family in that shot, my grandfather is here, Peter Kleylein, my grandmother Hallie Harrison Kleylein, my father Leon Kleylein and my uncles Stanford Wheeler Kleylein and Nimrod Harrison Kleylein. Families got big in those days.


On my mother's side, outside of one German line, all of her folks came from Posen, Poland. Here's my grandfather Roman Damos Pawlak and grandmother Wanda Marie Pokornoski Pawlak in 1963 when he was 82 and she was 76. They still worked their dairy farm right up until the end. The man standing behind them is my uncle Edwin Pawlak, I've written about him in this blog before. My point in all this is to discuss how long I'm going to be writing this thing. I'm sure you'll be sick and tired of it if you aren't already.

My company had a kind of 'health day' at work last week. They bring in some healthcare workers to do some simple tests to warn you if you're dying, I guess. And once more I was reminded that I'd better save my money or I'll end up eating cat food because I've outlasted the cash. And, yes, my daughter has kindly told me that she won't allow me to get into the state of eating cat food but I still have this nagging doubt. It nags at me. I got it from my mother, I think.

My mother grew up during the Depression, you know, the other really bad one. And her family was poor enough already, I bet the Depression didn't help any. I can clearly remember her swiping sugar packets if we were ever in a place that had them. I guess folks had to do that if they were going to survive. But my lines DID survive, lousy healthcare, no healthcare, whatever - they had the ability to survive. And part of that, at least, can be attributed to good genes. Good strong, Depression-era-fighting genes.

So, I went to the 'health day' thing with a pretty good notion that things would turn out OK. Part of that good feeling can be attributed to the three or four full-scale, all-day physicals I've had at John Hopkins in Baltimore. In my business, you come to know which hospitals can be really trusted to give you the straight skinny. And when the Chief of Medicine at Johns Hopkins tells you you're good, then head right out and have a big greasy cheeseburger. If you're going to have a physician tell you something about your life, then have an A-student physician from a top-rated hospital do it. You know?

So once again, my blood sugar was fine, pulse 58, BP 120/82. The Nurse asked me if I had any stress in my job. OOOh NOoooo. Apparently if I didn't have the stress, I'd die of low blood pressure. The real killer, of course, is cholesterol. Mine continued it's decline and is now 148.

But that doesn't tell the whole story because my HDL, the 'good' cholesterol, is very high, out of the normal range leaving me with very low LDL (the 'bad' cholesterol). So the Nurse checked my carotid arteries to discover if they were open or not (they were), gave me a box of Krispy Kreme glazed doughnuts and sent me on my way to the next spot.

At the next station, they were able to analyze the condition and age of my circulatory system. No, Bones McCoy didn't wave a whirling knob around me but that must be next because this was also non-invasive. So now I know (supposedly) that I have the circulatory system of a man twenty years younger than me. I'm not sure how he's able to get along without it, but nobody grabbed me and told me I had to give it back, so I just kept moving.

They told me my skin is bad. I know my skin is bad. I spent too much time in the sun in Miami and I'm sorry. Every time I see someone at work come in after too much sun exposure, I just want to slap some sense into them. You can't take the damage back. There it is to stare you in the face forever.

And yeah, I go to the gym, but not enough - the job interferes a bit. But gym or no gym, as long as my wife doesn't kill me, I've got a pretty good chance of living forever. Just gotta make the cash last.

 

 

2 comments:

Leah Kleylein said...

once again, I PROMISE, you will not be sitting around eating cat food in your old age.
Although, as healthy as you are, I guess it's likely I'll keel over way before you, in which case, you will inherit all my gold bars and jewels and furs, so you'll be fine anyway.

June 16, 2009 at 8:30 AM

Dave said...

Good thing you’ve got a hobby with that lifeline!

June 17, 2009 at 2:03 PM