Why you should always have a REAL key

It's been very windy here in Boulder lately. Very, very windy. Today with about five minutes left in class, as my students were working on homework for tomorrow, the lights flickered, and went off. I let them out five minutes early, although we could have gotten more light by just raising the blinds. It was weird walking through Hellems with no overhead lights, although there are emergency lights. I got back to Humanities, where my office is, and realized that the lights were out there too. I got into the building easily enough, apparently the doors locked automatically and you could only get in if someone from inside opened the door for you. Then I headed up the stairs to the second floor, right away I noticed it was darker in Humanities with the way the building is set up. The second thing I noticed on the second floor was that my office was locked. Normally this wouldn't be a problem, I'd just swipe my card and go in . . . But key cards only work if there is electricity. So we asked the department coordinator to let us in but apparently the lock was changed and no one gave her the new key. So I sat outside of my office, which since it was pitch black I didn't really want to be in anyway, for twenty minutes with nothing to do, until the lights came back on and the card reader cycled it's way back to working. But I did want to take a picture of what the halls looked like with only the emergency lights on and my camera was in the office, of course. So if your office is accessible only by swiping a card I'd recommend you get a physical backup plan, in case the power goes off.

In other words I have just now submitted a paper for consideration for publication in a book. Keeping my fingers crossed.

From Project365

11.13.08, Day 40. The sky here continues to amaze me with how blue it is, also I like how the sun still reaches the top of the cloud but the bottom is shady.