02 December 2012
Splash
02/12/12 14:18
Friday I woke up to rain. Now we get rain here, A lot of rain. But this was a truly biblical deluge. For a couple of hours it came down in sheets with drops the size of individual non dairy creamers. I swear I heard ducks complaining about the damp. The cats didn’t want to go out on the deck because of the loud roar from the rain hitting the tin roof. Fortunately by the time I had to leave for work it had slowed to a normal rainstorm. I motored through the dark early morning with lights and wipers on and I had no problems. I did note with some satisfaction that the new family room was staying dry. Looks like all the effort we put into waterproofing the space has worked.
All went well until I got to work. As I pulled into the back lot I saw the expanse of grey asphalt ahead of me. I’d started down the ramp when I heard a splash and hit the brakes. Even in the dim morning light I could see that things didn’t look right. The flat grey parking lot was a little too flat, a little too grey. I suddenly realized that there was standing water back there. Another five feet forward and the car would have been flooded. You see the back lot has concrete walls on three sides and the entrance ramp on the fourth. There is one storm sewer drain at the lowest point along the back wall covered with an iron grate. Unfortunately this drain is just below a tree that drops leaves onto and covering the grate. We try to keep it clear but when there is a bad storm at night there is no one around to clean it off. (I know some of you are asking why don’t we do the obvious thing, but it’s not our tree so we can’t just cut it down.) This combined with my little low slung Honda sports car means that I’d narrowly avoided a disaster. I backed up and parked in the front lot. Of course you might also be asking why I don’t always park in the front lot. The thing is, this only happens occasionally, and frankly the front lot is a lot more ‘exposed’. In addition to everyone’s car going in and out, all of the trucks we have coming and going pass through the front lot as do the garbage and recycling trucks. MOST of the time it’s safer to park in the back. I just keep an eye on things when it’s raining.
I got out of the car and went inside. I found a group of people talking about the rain. I mentioned that we might want to rescue the company van before it completely drowned. There must be an old saying along the lines of ‘he who points out a problem will be appointed to fix it’ because soon I was riding in a truck on a mission to rescue the van. Let me tell you a bit about the truck. This truck is a tall 4x4. I park next to it every day, and the nose of my car does not reach past the front of the driver's door. The roof of my car is lower than the sides of the pickup’s bed. I'd always chuckled to myself about this because he is commuting about the same distance I am but dragging around twice as many cylinders and at least twice as much steel. I just didn’t see the point. Now I do. Sometimes it’s useful to have a huge vehicle. Anyway we motored through water a foot to a foot and a half deep out to where the van was parked against the back wall. We pulled up to the passenger side of the van and I reached over, and unlocked the door. I was able to swing across from the truck into the van without getting wet. Well, wet from the standing water at least. It was still raining pretty hard. Fortunately, though the water was up to the floorboards, it hand’t gotten inside or onto anything critical. I turned the key and all the lights came on. The van started up without hesitation and I drove slowly out of the water. I kept the speed down to a crawl because I wasn’t sure if the back lot was a no wake zone. Once clear I parked the van in the front and got out. I did notice water was draining from the undercarriage giving the company van a fairly vulgar appearance.
Just then the head of Sales came out carrying a garment bag and a briefcase. He stopped at the gate to the back lot “Holy ****. What happened? You see he and several others were going to Vancouver that day for a conference. They had rented a passenger van the night before so they, and all of their stuff could ride over in one vehicle, saving a bunch on the ferry ride. Sure they could have taken the company van but the company van is for cargo so it has no seats in the back. Somehow suits just don’t look the same after crouching on the dirty floor of a van for a couple of hours. I think of this as the suits fault and use it as one more reason I don’t have one. The rental van was, you guessed it, parked in the back lot a few spaces down from the spot from which I’d rescued the company van. We had just started talking about rescuing it as well but nobody knew who it belonged to. Now that we had that sorted out, the giant pickup truck was once again pressed into service and the rental van was retrieved.
I ran upstairs and started on the morning routine. The rain had stopped by this point and it was getting light enough for pictures. A little after eight I grabbed a camera and went out to record the pond in the back lot. Unfortunately by then someone from maintenance had slogged out there and cleared the drain. The back lot was dry and so I have no record of the Vancouver Island Poseidon Adventure. It did make for an interesting morning though.
In Canadian news, the big story has been the fires in Saskatchewan. In Regina there’s been a number of calls because the stadium where the Saskatchewan Rough Riders CFL team was on fire. The trouble is, it wasn't. I don’t know if your cable provider does this but up here Shaw Cable sets aside a channel for a looping video of a fireplace log at the holidays. The Rough Riders decided it would be nice to put this on the big screens at the stadium in the weeks leading up to Christmas. They didn’t realize that the effect would be so realistic that people would actually think the place was on fire. Some of the folks even said they smelled smoke. The effect was that realistic, or maybe it’s just people from Saskatchewan.
http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/saskatchewan/story/2012/11/29/sk-yule-log-false-alarm-1211.html
Lastly I’ve mentioned our web site a few times. I’m in the process of adding a section for all the Xmas cards I’ve made over the years. Our 2012 card will be going out soon, but in the mean time if you want to wander down memory lane here’s the link.
http://aalseth.net/photos/
PIX: A house down the street has this amazing light display. OK I know it looks fairly typical but what if I told you the house on this lot is a geodesic dome?
Here's another shot of the beach. It's so wet even the seagulls are taking the day off.
All went well until I got to work. As I pulled into the back lot I saw the expanse of grey asphalt ahead of me. I’d started down the ramp when I heard a splash and hit the brakes. Even in the dim morning light I could see that things didn’t look right. The flat grey parking lot was a little too flat, a little too grey. I suddenly realized that there was standing water back there. Another five feet forward and the car would have been flooded. You see the back lot has concrete walls on three sides and the entrance ramp on the fourth. There is one storm sewer drain at the lowest point along the back wall covered with an iron grate. Unfortunately this drain is just below a tree that drops leaves onto and covering the grate. We try to keep it clear but when there is a bad storm at night there is no one around to clean it off. (I know some of you are asking why don’t we do the obvious thing, but it’s not our tree so we can’t just cut it down.) This combined with my little low slung Honda sports car means that I’d narrowly avoided a disaster. I backed up and parked in the front lot. Of course you might also be asking why I don’t always park in the front lot. The thing is, this only happens occasionally, and frankly the front lot is a lot more ‘exposed’. In addition to everyone’s car going in and out, all of the trucks we have coming and going pass through the front lot as do the garbage and recycling trucks. MOST of the time it’s safer to park in the back. I just keep an eye on things when it’s raining.
I got out of the car and went inside. I found a group of people talking about the rain. I mentioned that we might want to rescue the company van before it completely drowned. There must be an old saying along the lines of ‘he who points out a problem will be appointed to fix it’ because soon I was riding in a truck on a mission to rescue the van. Let me tell you a bit about the truck. This truck is a tall 4x4. I park next to it every day, and the nose of my car does not reach past the front of the driver's door. The roof of my car is lower than the sides of the pickup’s bed. I'd always chuckled to myself about this because he is commuting about the same distance I am but dragging around twice as many cylinders and at least twice as much steel. I just didn’t see the point. Now I do. Sometimes it’s useful to have a huge vehicle. Anyway we motored through water a foot to a foot and a half deep out to where the van was parked against the back wall. We pulled up to the passenger side of the van and I reached over, and unlocked the door. I was able to swing across from the truck into the van without getting wet. Well, wet from the standing water at least. It was still raining pretty hard. Fortunately, though the water was up to the floorboards, it hand’t gotten inside or onto anything critical. I turned the key and all the lights came on. The van started up without hesitation and I drove slowly out of the water. I kept the speed down to a crawl because I wasn’t sure if the back lot was a no wake zone. Once clear I parked the van in the front and got out. I did notice water was draining from the undercarriage giving the company van a fairly vulgar appearance.
Just then the head of Sales came out carrying a garment bag and a briefcase. He stopped at the gate to the back lot “Holy ****. What happened? You see he and several others were going to Vancouver that day for a conference. They had rented a passenger van the night before so they, and all of their stuff could ride over in one vehicle, saving a bunch on the ferry ride. Sure they could have taken the company van but the company van is for cargo so it has no seats in the back. Somehow suits just don’t look the same after crouching on the dirty floor of a van for a couple of hours. I think of this as the suits fault and use it as one more reason I don’t have one. The rental van was, you guessed it, parked in the back lot a few spaces down from the spot from which I’d rescued the company van. We had just started talking about rescuing it as well but nobody knew who it belonged to. Now that we had that sorted out, the giant pickup truck was once again pressed into service and the rental van was retrieved.
I ran upstairs and started on the morning routine. The rain had stopped by this point and it was getting light enough for pictures. A little after eight I grabbed a camera and went out to record the pond in the back lot. Unfortunately by then someone from maintenance had slogged out there and cleared the drain. The back lot was dry and so I have no record of the Vancouver Island Poseidon Adventure. It did make for an interesting morning though.
In Canadian news, the big story has been the fires in Saskatchewan. In Regina there’s been a number of calls because the stadium where the Saskatchewan Rough Riders CFL team was on fire. The trouble is, it wasn't. I don’t know if your cable provider does this but up here Shaw Cable sets aside a channel for a looping video of a fireplace log at the holidays. The Rough Riders decided it would be nice to put this on the big screens at the stadium in the weeks leading up to Christmas. They didn’t realize that the effect would be so realistic that people would actually think the place was on fire. Some of the folks even said they smelled smoke. The effect was that realistic, or maybe it’s just people from Saskatchewan.
http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/saskatchewan/story/2012/11/29/sk-yule-log-false-alarm-1211.html
Lastly I’ve mentioned our web site a few times. I’m in the process of adding a section for all the Xmas cards I’ve made over the years. Our 2012 card will be going out soon, but in the mean time if you want to wander down memory lane here’s the link.
http://aalseth.net/photos/
PIX: A house down the street has this amazing light display. OK I know it looks fairly typical but what if I told you the house on this lot is a geodesic dome?
Here's another shot of the beach. It's so wet even the seagulls are taking the day off.