I wasn’t born in time to see or meet Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. I say, with more than a little irony, that I am very happy of this fact. I’m happy because I never had to live in a world that did not know him and did not learn from him. I never had to live in a world where I doubted the equality of any wo/man. I never lived in that same world that saw him killed in 1968 by a foolish man who chose to express hatred instead of love.
I came from a very Swedish/Norwegian/German community in Northern Minnesota. Diversity up there is usually shown in the varietals of sauerkraut, but that doesn’t change the fact that I felt deeply about Martin Luther King Jr.’s life and how he changed the face of this world through the support of fellow civil rights activists. In my recollection of 7-year-old me, the good people of the world were listed chronologically as follows: Jesus, George Washington, Abraham Lincoln, Martin Luther King, Jr. That’s how it went for all the years I was in school, and I’ll never shake that list now.
Every time I look back at his final speech I imagine an impossible conversation. I imagine a dark room where a figure sits with Dr. King hours before his final address (below). The figure tells him in hushed tones what’s about to happen. And I imagine Dr. King saying “Well, thanks for sharing, Friend, but I’ve got to be at the Mason Temple in a few hours. Have a safe trip back to wherever you came from.”
I would give a lot to be able to meet Dr. King today, but I realize he’d be 83 and wouldn’t have much time for me. I hope his family enjoys remembering him on this day as much as I do, and I hope they’re as proud as possible to know that without him our world would be a much emptier place. Happy Martin Luther King, Jr. Day.
Yesterday, while walking around DC we decided to stop in and see what was happening with OccupyDC at Freedom Plaza. We thought the place was dead until we wandered around the tents to find an “assembly”. It was sort of like watching an interpretive form of Lord of the Flies: a bunch of children trying to figure out how to structure a government to just stay afloat.
Notably, one extremely, extremely drunk man approached me and asked if I wanted my picture taken with my camera. I ignored him, shot a few more and slowly moved away. Much to my amusement, the same man grabbed the microphone (see photos) and mumbled until members of the audience flashed the /\ sign.
The group was fairly harmless, and seemed to already be bogged down in the bureaucracy of making sure everyone has an equal voice. I’d like to go back and observe again. All I got out of this visit was further confirmation that these are just a bunch of hippies out of their own decade who don’t really have anything to protest about except that their persistent personification of “alternative” prevents them from ever getting a job outside of record and drug paraphernalia shops. I’m not bitter; I’m just not cool enough to sleep in a tent.
At 1:51 pm yesterday, August 23rd, a earthquake registering 5.8 struck .5 below the surface in Mineral, VA. I was over 100 miles away, on the 6th story of my office building when the quake shook our conference room. For those who are seeing the joke about the “earthquake devastation”, you would appreciate all of us who freaked out for 10 minutes only to realize nothing was really wrong. But don’t underestimate 5.8, I was more than “shaken”.
I was concerned about riding the metro home, so when a friend offered to drive me home I seized the opportunity (3:30pm). At 4:20pm (2.5 hours after the earthquake) we opened the door to the apartment; the forehead-smacking dissatisfaction on my face was probably visible from space as I watched gallons of water seeping through my ceiling. Please see following clip.
I talked with the management office and they said they had been turning off water valves in individual apartments, and were going to check to make sure my upstairs neighbor had his turned off after I reported the damage. As in many other apartments in the complex, the neighbor’s hot water unit had been shaken off balance and the pipes blew, shooting water into the living room. Response crews had to unlock the water unit doors and shut off the system in order to stop further damage. I believe this was done before I returned, but I can’t verify.
My roommate returned home and we began to survey the damage, walking from room to room with my cell phone “video camera” trying to account for what had been destroyed. The living room was decimated, but both bedrooms were only partially damaged and my bathroom had been drenched. Most of my clothing, books, computers and bed seemed uneffected in the bedroom. The largest loss was my couch (a favorite of mine and my guests). Early estimates put losses around $2-3k (really great news).
We packed emergency supplies up and loaded my roommate’s car before heading back to the front desk. At 5:15pm the office staff emailed everyone that the entire building’s water main had been shut down to prevent further damage at this time, effecting all residents. The insurance company (Assurant) was largely unhelpful as no adjusters were in the office after 5, but ‘Anthony’ walked me through filing a claim with early damage reports. They’re supposed to get back to me in the next 3 days to start the claims process. He said that if we grabbed a hotel that we should save our receipts for reimbursement later. We took the opportunity to call friends and family to update them on the status. We also went to grab a bite to eat at a Pho place down the street. Boba tea is a great calming force, if you ever have the need.
I talked with the front desk people a few times, the last at 8:45, trying to get estimates on recovery efforts. They told us that damage repairs had been started in our unit, but when we inspected the apartment we found no evidence of any visitors. I returned to the office with angry words about how this clearly demonstrates my concerns with their “overly optimistic” reactions of “3 or 4 days” to recover the apartment. I told them we were grabbing a hotel room, and they offered no assistance in locating a hotel, offering to subsidize the cost of a hotel, or anything further. They advised us to simply get in contact with our insurance provider. I became gravely concerned that my patience and trust had been misplaced and misused.
We grabbed two hotel rooms up the street and requested time off from my work to deal with this today. Luckily, I’ve more than enough time off accrued to let me handle this without too much extra stress. We returned today at 11:00 to survey the scene and better understand the effect of the damage. The crews had completely dismantled our apartment, pulling up carpet in all the rooms (but leaving it in place). They had a dehumidifier draining water into the kitchen sink from the middle of the room, and we could tell that much of the water had been removed (althought the place still reeked of water damage). We grabbed a few more essentials and packed up.
At 12:30, I received a call from ‘Karine’ at my insurance company stating that they were not liable for any damages as “direct or indirect damage as a result of earthquake” is not covered in the insurance company. I went to the housing office, and informed them of the situation. I’m waiting to hear back from the general manager on what action she is taking. I let them know that I would likely hold them responsible for all damages done as a result of improper water heater installation. I’ll keep you up to date on that situation as it continues.
Overall, I’m extremely happy that I am secure in finances and am supported by friends and family. I’m alive for a couple more years at the least, and my stuff is just a little more wet than it was last week. This “catastrophe” was really easy to weather, especially in comparison to the events going around the world. I’d much rather have have a moisture problem in DC than a political problem in Libya.
EDIT – Update AUG 25 7:30 (Taken from conversation with GM)
Tomorrow, the apartment is bringing in a dry wall expert to review the apartment and provide an estimate on the amount of work required. The general manager will provide to us this information along with the effect on
the following repair schedule tomorrow. Currently, the drying crew
provided an estimate of Saturday for the drying to be completed. Dry
wall and carpet replacement will begin on Monday, meaning the earliest
possible move-in would be Tuesday (30 Aug). More likely, the work will
take several days. I offered a Friday deadline, but the general manager believed that
until more assessment is completed, any deadline wouldn’t be
meaningful.
The apartment insurance team or adjusters will also be
contacting us tomorrow to begin the claims process. I informed the general manager
that our requested reimbursements/credits cover fairly minor personal
property damages ($2,000-$3,000 by early estimates) and approximately
5 nights of housing costs under the GSA established numbers for the
region (a reasonable estimate in lieu of any other guidance).
EDIT – Update AUG 27 5:30 PM
No significant updates. The manager never got back to me with the update she promised, nor did she ever acknowledge my email. I’ll try calling the office tomorrow and get an update directly.
I’ve closed out at the hotel ($450 later), and I’m now living with a very gracious friend. It’s likely that I’ll be here until the end of the week. I’m very glad to have a place to sleep while this hurricane blows over.
EDIT – Update SEP 2 6:30 PM
I called the property today after not hearing anything. They were supposed to notify me if something changed the schedule of “Drying done by Thursday, Carpet install on Friday.” I talked to “Mercy” on the phone and she said they were doing an “assessment” and would come down and give her information on the status shortly. I got extremely angry, proclaiming exuberantly that according to the estimates given to me by Jennifer there should be no ‘assessments’, just installations. She assured me that they were doing a carpet install, and just coming down to report on the status of the apartment.
She called me back as I went to lunch at 2:20 with one of my hosts, the carpet hadn’t been installed and now wasn’t going to be until Tuesday. Tuesday!! She said “but it’s okay, they’re going to clean it and you can stay in it over the weekend” I was blown away. Two hours earlier she had either lied or made a serious, serious error about the fact that carpet was being installed.
Returned to the apartment at 5:00pm to find a bunch of people in my apartment tearing stuff out, green padding from under the carpet? They hadn’t started cleaning the apartment, despite saying that it was going to be completed by COB today. I talked with a contract lead they brought in from South Carolina. He said he started drying out the apartment on Monday or Tuesday after they found that the other company wasn’t doing their job right. He said there was still concern about water between floors, and there’s a hole in my ceiling they want to run drying through over night.
The manager doesn’t want to see me, Mercy has been brought in from Orlando to handle the cases and make my problems seem insignificant. I wish this were a joke; but in all reality I find Mercy to be much better equipped at talking to humans than the other people here. She has been all but useless to me, but at least she’s giving me more information than anyone else. I informed her that she is the first person from my apartment that called me instead of me calling them (even if I did call her two hours before). The whole staff has been disgustingly poor at communication and has all but destroyed my confidence in this company.
Since rent is due (or late fee) by Labor Day (when they’re closed), I requested an extension on the rent until we resolved the issue of crediting the rent. On Tuesday it will be two weeks since the earthquake, so I told them that I was expecting no less than 14 days credit on my rent. They only authorized 10 and asked that I pay for that amount “to avoid a late fee”. They wouldn’t even let me wait until Tuesday to close out and pay rent. These people are a$$holes.
Mercy refused to offer anything, only asking for me to make requests that they would “check on”. My biggest problem is that she’s already learned their lingo “You know, it takes how long it’s going to take, I can tell you what you want to hear, but it will still take more time.” They have done nothing to offer assistance during all of this, they’ve only been trying to cover their assets and fix their property so they can start charging again. Mercy says things like “Jennifer has authorized a carpet replacement and replacement of your vinyl ‘wood’ floors”. Yeah, because it’s all DESTROYED. They pretend like they’re doing me a favor by fixing the place back up.
Just to add the last layer of comedy to this fiasco, the contractor returned after our conversation and said “I got to the guys too late, and now they’re going to clean the whole carpet, meaning it’s going to take more time than we thought. We’ll have it done in a few hours. Sorry about that!” This place sucks.
In honor of mother’s day, I’d like to share a recent story of tech-love.
Like most mother’s, mine is behind my generation’s tech-curve; but there is a certain power she finds in being significantly ahead of hers. Her most recent technological conquest, Google Reader, has become an excellent chance for me to see what she finds interesting without getting a email with a subject line that reads “FW: Fw: FW: FW: Fw: It’s funny how you…” In fact, she often shares things from my own feeds that I miss or to which I didn’t pay close enough attention.
Not even a week ago I witnessed a moment akin to watching a child pedal a bicycle for the first time without assistance of training wheels or a hand holding firmly to the seat. I had just finished watching a video on a feed we both read, and I shared it to my followers with a comment to the effect of “wow.” Thirty-minutes and four seconds later I get a response from my mother stating: “I almost shared this one myself. It is fascinating to watch!”
Allow me an interlude here for those of you unfamiliar with the online community, or really any community based around information sharing. There’s an odd trend in how, as membership lengthens, there comes a certain joy in being ahead of the consumption curve. “I can’t believe you haven’t seen the game yet!!” or “How could you not have heard about the breakup??” and “You just heard about this now? I listened to them a year ago.” I do this all the time despite often thinking otherwise, and I usually wind up sounding like a royal jackass. I firmly believe that coming off “coolly“- all the while ensuring maximum credit for your diligence-is something of an art. Ralphie said it best when discussing the contemporary arts: “My father worked in profanity the way other artists might work in oils or clay. It was his true medium, a master.”
So on this Mother’s Day I’d like to point to the Picasso from the macaroni artist, the motocross champion fresh out of training wheels. My mother, a woman who has been a mother for at least as long as I can remember her being a mother at all, comes off as smooth as glass as she slides in the “oh, I to-oh-tally read that before you” bit. She’s a fast learner all right; two months on the RSS job and she’s pulling off moves like a pro.
Happy Mother’s Day, Mom. I welcome you to the cool kids table. Try the Sunny D…it’s pretty boss.
There’s been a lot of news coverage surrounding Osama bin Laden’s death. Even over one day, it’s changed my feelings at a fundamental level. For many years there was a man out there who hated some aspect of the world I occupied, and he fought to take that away. I don’t believe this consumed all parts of him, but it was clearly a belief that he used to motivate himself and those around him. It is amazing how all of his beliefs, all of his ideals, are completely forgotten by the world when faced with the violence he perpetrated through the hands of his servants. I challenge American’s to think of a single ideal that he represented beyond his hatred for mankind.
He’s not alone in this aspect to his nature. Like Hitler, this man believed there was some justification for murder of the ‘unclean’. Something in him twisted aspects of political power, religious fervor, and raw hatred down a course of action that literally rocked the foundations of our collective psyche. Only those who dig in to the depths of Hitler’s story can separate his heinous acts against humanity from any greater ideology (the author makes no insinuation of legitimacy here). And instead of “religious warrior”, the name ‘bin Laden’ will forever associate with the murder of innocent people, the willingness to sacrifice one’s own people, and the unadulterated selfishness of the cowardly.
This is obviously a very difficult subject, and I encourage you to express your opinions as you feel the need. My last word is to send a deep, heartfelt thank-you to the servicemen and servicewomen of the United States armed forces; they’ve fought this battle in kinetic and psychological battlefields for far to long to send the credit anywhere else.
In the first serious study of the physics of fire-ant rafts, researchers have described how the insects form floating, waterproof islands.
I’m fascinated by the raw intensity of the first few words, if read properly: “In the first seriousstudy..” Grossman is clearly furious with the previous, bull#### research farces that tried to tackle fireant rafts.
The warning: Don’t play bush-league ball in ant research.
Colleagues,
It has come to my attention that the remarks of our commencement speaker this morning in the Reynolds Center offended some of our students and their guests. Specifically, some in attendance found the speaker’s characterization of Saudi Arabia to be harsh and inaccurate.
I sincerely apologize to those who were offended, and assure the members of our university community that the comments of our commencement speaker represent his views, and not those of The University of Tulsa. The University of Tulsa embraces cultural diversity in its all of its programs and actions, and welcomes visitors from all countries who come to study and learn on our campus. Today’s ceremony honored the accomplishments of our graduates and celebrated the conferral of well-earned academic degrees. I am sorry if the words of our commencement speaker detracted from the joy of this wonderful occasion.
–Stead
I want desperately to know what he could have said. Amazing! And why the hell would you say whatever it is at a school who’s biggest money making degree is PETROLEUM ENGINEERING. Time to lol, folks.
So, who could have done this goofy job? Certainly nobody with any diplomatic skills. Wait….Woolsey? Yes, folks, past director of the CIA and TU alumn. R James Woolsey, was the brilliant hand behind this one. Woolsey, you’ve been the Director of the most established and respected agency in the world but still manage to anger Saudi Arabian students studying Engineering in the American Midwest at their own graduation. Tell me what you said, at this point I need to know.
I have one source that attended the commencement in person: “Basically, he said [countries in the gulf] are training boys to go to school to become suicide bombers and American oil buyers are funding these actions. He also talked about the importance of defending the power grid and SCADA systems”. Saudi Arabia may not have been mentioned specifically, but judging from the information in the news recently it’s fairly obvious that he would want to drop some of the information into his speech. The comments about SCADA and Infrastructure Protection make sense in this environment as TU is one of the I3P research partners doing work on infrastructureprotection (wait, doesn’t that last one look familiar?).
A recent article by Computerworld reduced the much more newsworthy piece on the April 11th oil spill from the New York times down to the headline “Tech worker testifies of ‘blue screen of death’ on oil rig’s computer”. My favorite quote from the whole piece is what I call the ‘insinuator’:
Microsoft declined to comment on Williams’ testimony and characterization of the crash screen. Transocean did not respond to e-mail seeking comment.
I realize that you may find this a grave thing; and because of you I have decided I can no longer remain silent. Now, in front of God and the American people, I would like to say that I know information about this oil spill. Yes folks! That’s right. I know what was really to blame! (more…)
