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We've had thunderstorms every afternoon/evening since Friday, some of them fairly severe. A tree fell on a neighbor's house Fri night, and Saturday I lost power for about 7 hours (changing diapers by flashlight? NOT an experience I'll cherish!) Sunday during the day I was out doing some errands and ran into one of my faculty members outside CVS, who informed me that the University had lost power for several hours on Saturday as well.
Our UPSs only give you about ten minutes of uptime, so this did not bode well. Further, my good employee left for a new job in May and my employee of dubious work ethic was taking a long weekend to spend time somewhere with no phone and no cell coverage, leaving NO IT staff available until mid-week.
So, to make a long story no shorter, on Monday after I dropped the older daughter off at camp I fully intended to go see the big stinky flower, but on my way I stuck my head in at work just to make sure things came back up cleanly. They Had Not. Our entire network was down and people were starting to freak out in a big way, and were consequently very happy to see me (and of course everyone wanted to know when I'm going to be back from leave, which makes me wonder how big a mess I'll be walking back into in August.) Of course, it's been too long since I've done much hands-on IT stuff (because normally my days are filled with meetings and people-wrangling and trying to keep the minions on track) and I'd only had about three hours sleep a night for the last, oh, three months, so I kinda stood there stupidly for far too long trying to get my brain going before I could get my act in gear.
Anyhow, I *did* get everything that was down back up, but the last bit of it took me giving up and calling one of my counterparts in another department for some consulting help to do it -- and in the process of trying to explain the symptoms of the problem to him the solution became apparent to me all on my own, so it turned out I just needed someone to talk it through at. All in all it took me a little under four hours, by which time the babies (who had spent all that time being passed around among the office staff, who were fighting over who got to have a turn holding them) were cranky and I was out of foodstuffs for them. So we went back home, whereupon everyone fell asleep, and I never got out the door again to go see the stinky plant.
On checking the webcam this morning it was clear that the flower had begun to close already )-: Still, I was feeling especially stubborn about it, so after I picked up the older child from camp this afternoon we went straight to the Smith Botanical Garden and, babies in hand, went to see the thing.
It was not quite as tall as I had expected, mostly because the box it is planted in is actually elevated a fair distance off the floor. However, it was still easily 5' or more and had a very distinct Little Shop of Horrors look to it, like a bad plant prop out of an early Doctor Who episode or something. While it definitely smelled, the smell was quite faint and thus rather disappointing. I don't know if it stopped smelling because it was closing up or if the stinkiness has just been greatly exaggerated, or if it was just not enough to compete with the nether end of one of the two kids I had in hand. I suspect the first answer, but it'll be several years before I get another opportunity to figure that out.
The battery charger for my camera is currently on walkabout, but I brought along older child's camera and she took some pictures. Unfortunately there was no one else about at the moment that we could ask to take one of us all. Anyhow, here it is, the Giant Stinky Penis Plant, Amorphophallus titanum:
(Since there's no admission fee, on our way out we stopped at the desk to make a small donation and I got into a bit of a conversation with the caretaker. He told me that there was a group of kids in earlier that had been poking at the plant and had managed to make a big hole in one leaf, though that was not evident when we'd been looking at it. Why don't people watch their children and/or teach them some basic respect for things? Arrrrghh! No wonder we keep ending up with so many poorly behaved adults...)
Our UPSs only give you about ten minutes of uptime, so this did not bode well. Further, my good employee left for a new job in May and my employee of dubious work ethic was taking a long weekend to spend time somewhere with no phone and no cell coverage, leaving NO IT staff available until mid-week.
So, to make a long story no shorter, on Monday after I dropped the older daughter off at camp I fully intended to go see the big stinky flower, but on my way I stuck my head in at work just to make sure things came back up cleanly. They Had Not. Our entire network was down and people were starting to freak out in a big way, and were consequently very happy to see me (and of course everyone wanted to know when I'm going to be back from leave, which makes me wonder how big a mess I'll be walking back into in August.) Of course, it's been too long since I've done much hands-on IT stuff (because normally my days are filled with meetings and people-wrangling and trying to keep the minions on track) and I'd only had about three hours sleep a night for the last, oh, three months, so I kinda stood there stupidly for far too long trying to get my brain going before I could get my act in gear.
Anyhow, I *did* get everything that was down back up, but the last bit of it took me giving up and calling one of my counterparts in another department for some consulting help to do it -- and in the process of trying to explain the symptoms of the problem to him the solution became apparent to me all on my own, so it turned out I just needed someone to talk it through at. All in all it took me a little under four hours, by which time the babies (who had spent all that time being passed around among the office staff, who were fighting over who got to have a turn holding them) were cranky and I was out of foodstuffs for them. So we went back home, whereupon everyone fell asleep, and I never got out the door again to go see the stinky plant.
On checking the webcam this morning it was clear that the flower had begun to close already )-: Still, I was feeling especially stubborn about it, so after I picked up the older child from camp this afternoon we went straight to the Smith Botanical Garden and, babies in hand, went to see the thing.
It was not quite as tall as I had expected, mostly because the box it is planted in is actually elevated a fair distance off the floor. However, it was still easily 5' or more and had a very distinct Little Shop of Horrors look to it, like a bad plant prop out of an early Doctor Who episode or something. While it definitely smelled, the smell was quite faint and thus rather disappointing. I don't know if it stopped smelling because it was closing up or if the stinkiness has just been greatly exaggerated, or if it was just not enough to compete with the nether end of one of the two kids I had in hand. I suspect the first answer, but it'll be several years before I get another opportunity to figure that out.
The battery charger for my camera is currently on walkabout, but I brought along older child's camera and she took some pictures. Unfortunately there was no one else about at the moment that we could ask to take one of us all. Anyhow, here it is, the Giant Stinky Penis Plant, Amorphophallus titanum:
(Since there's no admission fee, on our way out we stopped at the desk to make a small donation and I got into a bit of a conversation with the caretaker. He told me that there was a group of kids in earlier that had been poking at the plant and had managed to make a big hole in one leaf, though that was not evident when we'd been looking at it. Why don't people watch their children and/or teach them some basic respect for things? Arrrrghh! No wonder we keep ending up with so many poorly behaved adults...)
