6" WATER MAIN - Do NOT assume that it is EMPTY!!!

So it started out as a nice peaceful day at work. I had several things on my schedule, but nothing too bad, just some server installs for a new system (that is what I do at work). Then during a conference call to support, we all of a sudden lost power. That happens quite a lot though in my offices, so I didn't think anything of it. Then we slowly started to realize that the power was out throughout the entire building.

I hear someone talking outside about a water main, and so I decided I better go investigate. Upon investigation, I walked into the back door of the warehouse that occupies the other end of our building, only to find about 4" of water being shoved out the door by crazed warehouse workers and secretaries.

I guess there was someone there working on the fire suppression system that had assumed that the lines were drained and the valves shut when he tried to remove a broken section of the water main, he was wrong! OOPS!!!

So there was a man made geyser in the warehouse for several minutes as he scrambled to figure out how to shut it off, hence the 4" of standing water on the warehouse floor.

So the fun part; the geyser (so powerful that it pealed the paint off the wall) was pointed directly at all of the power distribution panels for the building, which also included the power distribution panels that feed the Data Center/Server Room for over 70 buildings spread throughout the valley and 100,000 users).

Miraculously the data center was still functioning, while the rest of the building was down. Several minutes after the water stopped someone went to check on the breaker boxes, and found that they were full of water. The one that we use for the Data Center however only had about 6" of standing water in it and was still passing power through it???

The servers were up for the time being, but as the water soaked into the electronics, it started to freak out, and caused the power to fail, and then kicked on the generator. The generator feeds through that same box, so I don't know how it was working but everything, except for the cooling units, stayed on in the server room.

Without the cooling units, the server room started to get hot quick, so we were forced to shut down everything that was not marked as Critical. We left the main router up as well as the security devices that allow for Internet access to and from the site. Other than that we shut about everything down and went to help squeegee an estimated 5,000 gallons out of the warehouse, FUN!!!

We all walked around with wet shoes for the rest of the day, and are still waiting for repairs to be done on the power and AC units. In all though we never lost Internet connection throughout all of the pain and chaos that we faced all day, that was awesome as it was our priority to keep these services open for the thousands of users that depended on them.

Quite the day at work!!!

110 In the Shade - PGHS Spring Production

COME SEE IT! You won't be sorry!
Playing every night this week starting at 7:00 pm

See you there!

Le Rêve - Las Vegas

I Love Spring Break! Especially if I can get away and have a great time.

This year I ended up taking my sister down to Las Vegas for the long weekend to get away from the 6" of snow and cold. We succeeded and ended up finding the sun, which was wonderful.

We did several things, but I my favorite was the show, Le Rêve at the Wynn.

It was incredible. You walk into the theater, and there is seating all around what should have been a stage, but it was a huge pool of water. On the water was a bed, floating there in the middle of the pool. It was lit from all different angles and the light was slowly changing from blue, purple, pink, and several other colors. My sister and I just sat there and watched the bed and looked at all of the other things in the theatre in awe (I know, I am a tech geek).

I don't even know how to explain the show, but it incorporated about everything that I could think of. There were flying acrobatic moves, fun dancing, great costumes (they all got wet!) surprising props, techno effects, great sound, and everything appealing to an audience that could involve water, acting, dancing, and sound.

Here are a couple images that I found on-line, but it is late and I need to go to bed because if now I will become the monster that you can see in the third image (I think that it is the devil).


Fun show, I would recommend it!



While in Vegas my sister and I also spent some quality time watching the incredible Belagio fountains (I love them). We also had to spend time at the hotel pool soaking up as much sun as we possible could (which reminds me I need to apply aloe).


Hope you all had a great spring break, and if you maybe you could come with me next year! =0)

Choir Tour 2009

This year I was invited to go on Choir tour again. It was a while ago, but I figure it is better late than never, right? We had an awesome time, the Choir was incredible and fun to watch in all of the performances and work-shops that they participated in (well when they weren't looking like death, keep reading).

So we went to Sea World, which was fun because I hadn't been there for several years. Something new that I saw this year was the dolphin experience. I knew that they had dolphins, but I didn't know that you could get up close and personal with them! Here is our video of getting up close and personal with the dolphins (I think I was wet for the rest of the day after this little dolphin encounter!)

This one really was the splasher. I should have noticed, because as we walked up
to do the dolphin encounter, there was a bunch of people that had just gotten soaked
by this same dolphin... Nice!

Here are some fun shots of all of my friends at Sea World and Disneyland

My Friend the Dolphin.
THis is the nice one, not the one that splashes.
The one that splashed through was really good at splashing!

This is me feeding one of the Bat Rays at the bat ray encounter.
They splashed a little too, but nothing like that cute dumb Dolphin!

And there are my friends all trying to force Debbie to feed one of the
ugly scary bat rays. Now she looks like she really wants to do that, right??!

And now to Disneyland:
The happiest place on earth!

Riding the Grizzly River Rapids, This is the Choir Director commanding
the water to stay in the river and to be Calm...? It didn't work,

And there in the tube behind us are some more of our friends.
Hi Friends!

Oh, and the Log Ride (I don't know the real name).
This was when we just were starting out and everyone was still
happy and dry.

Well everyone except for my friend in front of me, who I never really
got a good shot of because either he WAS the shot, or he was OUT
or the shot. There he is though, you can see his back =0)

And the great Fall!
Notice the hands in the Front. That is the choir director's hands.
When he walked off the ride he was SOAKED to the Bone,
and the sun was just starting to go down, so it was chilly.
We didn't do this again the following day in case you were wondering.

And here we are at the end of the ride, You can't see it but the guy in the front,
well his shirt was totally soaked! Good thing it dried quick or he would
has been really cold, as it wasn't the warmest of days at Disneyland...

Those three days (2 days at Disneyland) were the most exciting, but the other days were fun, just not photo fun. The choir sang in the Music in the Parks festival in Disneyland. When we went to the awards festival this year there were far fewer schools than there usually were. That was nice though because we took first in everything that we entered. GO PGHS!

The funny thing is that they sang at 9:30 in the morning. Now this was day 3 of the trip; after one full day at Sea World, and another long day at Disneyland. They were all obviously tired, and many of the students were sick, make that all of the students on bus 1. As luck would have it, the two soloists, of course, had the most severe sore throats and had lost their voices. The male soloist (Tony) was able to sing his part, but you could tell that he wasn't as comfortable as usual. The female soloist however couldn't do anything but mouth the words and try to look alive.

Before the performance I went in to help out with the warm-ups and couldn't help but laugh. Most of the students looked like they had died the night before, and somehow their bodies had been set in place on stage. They looked like hell to tell you the truth, I was worried... Then all of a sudden the stage lights came on, and they all must have come back to life or something, because they started to sound great, and some of them even looked great.

When they got to the solos, Tony did a decent job, so he decided that he could sing his part. Jim (the director) however has to sing the female part, and decided that this was how it was going to have to be for the performance too (His Intro: and this is Jim Wilcock who plays the pitches and sings the solos). It was different, but it actually sounded really good from the audience. I guess the adjudicators liked it becasue we got straight superiors in each of the three categories.


The tour was really fun. I am glad that I have such awesome friends at the school because without them I would have stayed at home, worked like normal, and been stuck in another weekend full of freezing temperatures and ugly white snow. Yay for fun trips!

Is it summer yet...

I keep thinking that it should be warm outside, but every time I walk or look outside, it seems that it is snowing, dark, cold, and miserable... Can't we just be done with winter already? I am dying for some heat here!

Maybe I just need to move to this place,

Into the Woods

Pleasant Grove High School Performing Arts is running their showing of Into the Woods this week after months of preparation.  I have been a part of the technical setup of the production including lighting (very little), sound (we have 16 brand new microphones), and some of the special effects that have been incorporated into the production.

This is a production that is being done by high school students, bu

t you would never guess that by the sounds and sights that you are presented with as you watch the show.  The Director and his assistants have done an Incredible job at making this a great show, and I would recommend that anyone and everyone go to see it.  Here is the synopsis that I pulled off of Wikipedia:

• Into the Woods is a musical with music and lyrics by Stephen Sondheim and book by James Lapine. It debuted in San Diego at the Old Globe Theatre in 1986, and premiered on Broadway in 1987. Bernadette Peters' performance as the Witch, and Joanna Gleason's portrayal of the Baker's Wife, brought acclaim to the production during its original Broadway run.  
• Into the Woods won several Tony Awards, including Best Score, Best Book, and Best Actress in a Musical (Joanna Gleason), in a year dominated by The Phantom of the Opera. The musical has been produced many times, with a 1988 national tour, a 1990 West End production, a 1991 television production, a 1997 tenth anniversary concert, a 2002 Los Angeles production and a 2002 Broadway revival.[1]

Anyway COME SEE IT!

It shows Monday (Tonight) through Saturday night starting at 7:00 every evening.  The prices are $6.00 for adults, $5.00 for students, and $3.00 for children (12 and under).  Come say hi if you decide to come see it.  =0) 

Lost in Portland...

Well this weekend, I was able to drive my sister and her two cute little sons home to Oregon. we made the drive to Oregon on Saturday, rested on Sunday (we may have gone to a museum to see the Spruce Goose), and then I drove home on Monday.

Well Sunday night I jumped on the Internet to make sure that I knew how to get home. The first step and most difficult I might add, would be making it to portland, then I just had to follow the Interstate all the way home. Well I didn't quite follow the plan this morning when I started my journey. Instead of following the route that was recommended, I took a little detour.

This is the route that I took, and it wasn't too far out of the way, but it could have been if it hadn't been for Melissa on the HelpDesk. She was amazing at trying to figure out where the heck I was, and then pointing me in the right direction. I finally made it to portland, and then onto INterstate 5, and then onto Interstate 84, when I then just had to follow for about 900 miles.

The detour was gorgeous, even though it may have added a little time onto the journey. It was early morning still, the the terrain was slightly hilly but really green. There were patches of mysterious fog settled below the hills, and the sun was making the bright green trees and fields shine a beautiful green. It was actually quite incredible.

Then in Idaho I missed the most beautiful sun set. I saw a little of it, but I was driving on I-84, so I couldn't look long. It was really pretty though. The snow covered fields were reflecting a blue tint, and then the sky was pink, red, purple, and then dark blue with scattered clouds that reflected the colors. It was really pretty, but I didn't dare look at it for too long. It was really pretty though in case you didn't get that part.

Oh, and I got to see the Spruce Goose which was Incredible. This thing is so dang big, I couldn't believe it. AND, it is made of WOOD! I-N-C-R-E-D-I-B-L-E!!!

In all it was a great trip.
Way cool! =0)