I will not conduct my own fire drills…
2 minute read
February 19, 2006, 9:51 PM
I went to Martin’s with my friend Katie on Friday, and we had a blast. The thing I noticed first off, though, was in the right-side vestibule. Notice anything wrong with this photo of the fire alarm annunciator?
Continue reading…Categories: Driving, Fire alarms, Martin's, Mercury Sable
Upgrading the fire alarm system at my old middle school brings back a lot of memories…
5 minute read
September 10, 2005, 9:02 PM
I found out on Friday that Stuarts Draft Middle School is getting a new fire alarm system, to replace the charming vintage-but-terribly-obsolete Edwards system installed when the building was constructed. As I’ve not been over there lately, I can’t tell you whether the update is in the process of completion or if it’s done, though my guess is that it’s done. I also don’t know who makes the new system or what model, nor do I know what kind of horns and pull-stations were used.
I found out when Mom brought a Food Lion bag home from school containing, to my surprise, two Edwards 270-SPO pull-stations (“Local Alarm”), two Cerberus Pyrotronics MS-151 pull-stations (from the 1993 addition), and an Edwards Edwards 881D horn. I believe that one of the Edwards pulls came from the gym next to the boys’ locker room, as it has a sticker with a zig-zag line under the “E” logo that I recalled on that spot. I don’t know where in the school the horn came from, or where the other pulls came from.
Altogether, before this alarm update, SDMS had 24 horns, of which 20 were the Edwards 881D (all were originally the Edwards 881D). Two horns were replaced before I started there with large square horns – one in the cafeteria and one outside Room 38 (a stone’s throw away from the other replaced horn). I won’t swear to it, but I think those horns said “Pyrotronics” on them in small white letters. Then two horns were replaced in 1993 with Wheelock 34T horns. One was outside Room 12, and the other was outside Room 22. I remember seeing workers replacing the horn outside Room 12 from a distance, and noticed the Wheelock 34T outside Room 22, which was near the sixth-grade lockers (which were later relocated), as being new when it was replaced during third or fourth period.
Categories: Fire alarms, Fire drills, Middle school
“I told you I was on a budget!”
3 minute read
April 10, 2005, 1:41 AM
Kids say the darndest things sometimes. This was one of those cases. On Friday at Wal-Mart, a really young girl, probably around first grade or so, said to her mother, proudly, “I told you I was on a budget!” after buying a few things on her own ticket in my line.
Of course, the thing that amused me more than that was what she said while I was ringing up her mother’s stuff. This girl, on her budget, presumably being a real cheapskate with her own money, then turned to her mother, and asked her if she could buy her something. Now we know what “I’m on a budget” really means. We’re not spending much if we’re on our own budget, but on mother’s budget, on the other hand…
I was quite amused, to say the least.
Categories: Fire drills, Middle school, Some people, Walmart
Glad that’s over with!
6 minute read
February 28, 2005, 7:10 PM
Today I had a small surgical procedure done at Augusta Medical Center. Let me tell you… they’ve got quite an operation going in there for outpatient surgery. But it was quick and relatively painless. So that was good. And I arrived at AMC at 6:30 and was out before noon. So that was really good. And now I’m at home once again.
It’s interesting… it’s like a television studio to an extent. They have all kinds of furniture that they change out in your little cubbyhole throughout the time you’re there. We got to AMC and they called me and took me into the outpatient center, and we went to one of many of those cubbyholes. It was fitted with two chairs. There, they wheeled a little computer over and verified all of my information.
Then I went to a second little cubbyhole. This had a stretcher in it, and a chair. They gave me the hospital gown, and it was time to change into it. They closed the curtain and I changed. I did pretty well for the most part, but had quite a time with the sleeves, mainly because I had no idea what I was doing with them. As it turns out, the sleeves snapped up the sides. I don’t know what I was thinking when I was trying to put that thing on. Of course, I also had to figure out which end was up in the first place on that thing. But I managed to get it on, tie the string in the back, and then screw up the sleeves. If you can imagine this, I had my arms sticking out the sides of the sleeves. I thought maybe this thing was supposed to look like a Roman tunic. I had no idea. Then, figuring that didn’t look right, I unsnapped the upper snap and put my arm through the two snaps (vs. the top of the sleeve and the first snap). I was satisfied that it was right. Or so I thought.
Categories: Fire alarms, Personal health
“…he was from New Jersey! I went to my senior prom with a YANKEE!”
2 minute read
January 13, 2005, 7:22 PM
That line of Blanche’s from The Golden Girls just cracks me up. Since, you see, I am originally from New Jersey, and still consider myself northern, even though I’ve lived in Virginia for more than half my life.
This is why I love it when people say that I sound northern, like one person told me today. Shows I haven’t lost it. And let me tell you – the word “y’all” is not in my vocabulary. And if ever you hear me say “y’all”, slap me.
Meanwhile, I’m going to the doctor’s office tomorrow for pain. Where? Wrists! Over Christmas, I managed to get a repetitive stress injury in both wrists from scanning items for customers. Now it’s painful to scan stuff. I had this happen in 2003 in my right wrist only, and then it went away after a while on the Service Desk. This time it’s both wrists, and I am so done with the Service Desk, so that’s not an escape again. I’m hoping to get some “feel-good medicine” to make me feel good (thus “feel-good medicine”) and make the pain go away. Usually I do so well, and nothing ever ails me. Then within the last month or so, I got two colds in a row in December, and then this. Yuck.
Categories: Activism, Fire drills, Personal health, Television
I finally have a Simplex 4040 in my fire alarm collection!
3 minute read
August 19, 2004, 2:46 AM
At long last, I have a Simplex 4040 in my fire alarm collection, thanks to a person who I’ve been corresponding with online. At last. First of all, to the person who sent it to me, a very heartfelt thank you. This means a lot to me.
For those of you who don’t know, this is what the Simplex 4040 looks like:
Categories: Fire alarms, Fire drills
The little kiddies go back to school soon, and vacation is on the 11th…
6 minute read
August 3, 2004, 12:00 AM
I don’t care if it’s only two days. I plan on making the most of those two days at Virginia Beach, and don’t let anyone tell you otherwise. And at this last count, it will be a week and a day as of tomorrow. I can’t wait. And this time I know exactly how to get there, since no one changed the route number on me this time.
Recall from 2000, when I last went to Virginia Beach, that I actually rode almost completely around the Hampton Roads area, or as it’s also called over there, the “Hampton Roads Beltway”. Before 2000, I had gone to Virginia Beach only once before, on a one-day trip in 1999. I consider that trip a mistake in retrospect, since for all the driving my friend Andrea and I did, we only got a few hours on the beach before it was time to go back home. And we still didn’t get home until 4 AM. But in that 1999 trip, the actual road to the beach was signed as a state highway, VA-44. As a result, this is what I was looking for on the highway:
Instead, in 2000, this is what I got:
Categories: Fire drills, Roads, Travel, Virginia Beach
I went to Harrisonburg today…
8 minute read
July 6, 2004, 9:35 PM
Yeah, I had to run a few errands over in Harrisonburg today, and so that gave me an excuse to go visit JMU. That was fun. I took Big Mavica with me, and so I took some photos of Potomac Hall, the new fire alarm system in Warren Hall, and the progress of the renovation work on Harrison Hall. So that was fun. JMU is doing some changing, all right. They’re also continuing with the work on bricking over the drive right in front of Wilson Hall.
It was also really cool to be photographing Potomac Hall again! I needed some “authentic Potomac Hall” for my new College Life site, and so that felt really nice to be back there again. My exact comment to myself was, “I feel like I’m home again.” I didn’t go in, since it appeared that the place was empty anyway. But I did get to see Potomac’s housekeepers again, whom I hadn’t seen since May 2003. They were all glad to see me again, too.
What amazed me the most about my trip to JMU was the new fire alarm system in Warren Hall. Recently, Warren and Taylor Halls each got new fire alarm systems. Recall that these two buildings share a few levels, and when the fire alarm goes off in one, it trips the other. The fire alarm system in Taylor was replaced last December, with that side getting a new Simplex alarm system. They replaced the smoke detectors and the pull stations, but they did not replace the horns and strobes. Those were non-ADA compliant Edwards horn/strobes from 1993, when Taylor was built. Which I thought was strange, both right afterwards, and even more so now, which you’ll see why after I tell you more. Now the new fire alarm system in Warren Hall that they installed also replaced the smoke detectors and the pull-stations, but they also ran new wires with related conduits for new Simplex notification appliances (horns and such) on the Warren Hall side ONLY. Stranger still that on three of the four floors, this was replacing already-ADA-compliant Gentex equipment installed during the 1999 renovation of the third through fifth floors of Warren Hall (Warren no longer has a first floor, since the floor numbers between Warren and Taylor Halls were synchronized with each other when Taylor was built, and Taylor has a first floor). So they mostly replaced ADA-compliant equipment, and provided about the same or less coverage as before in most areas (they did add some new coverage, though, in some rooms). But they still left the old horns in the other area, and did not upgrade there.
Categories: Fire alarms, JMU
The scary part about finals is…
2 minute read
December 11, 2003, 9:41 AM
The scary part about finals is when you finish the final exam and turn it in, and know that you have completed all the work for the course, and you now have a final grade, and it’s just a matter of finding it.
It’s downright scary, too. You’ve finished your final exam in a course. So now, you have a grade, and there’s nothing you can do about it. And you don’t know what the grade is, for that matter, until some time next week.
So now is what we call the waiting game. La dee da dee doo… waiting, waiting, waiting. Nerve-racking is what it is. But anyway, on another topic…
I was waiting for the elevator at Taylor Down Under and talking to the desk attendant, and the fire alarm went off. Since I was in TDU, I went out through the main door, past the annunciator. It said that the alarm originated from a second-floor duct detector (a smoke detector in an air duct). Don’t know what caused the alarm, though. But it was cool to hear, plus see the strobes, needless to say.
Categories: Fire alarms, JMU, Transit
I have a lot of dreams about fire alarms… this one had to be one of the weirder ones.
3 minute read
November 23, 2003, 12:03 AM
Last night I had a dream about fire alarms. Now that in itself was not a new thing. I regularly have fire alarm dreams, believe it or not.
What’s weird is that lately they have been increasing in frequency in the last while. Now usually when I have fire alarm dreams, it’s more specifically that I’m in a school setting, and I am aware that a fire drill is coming.
See, when I was in school, I obsessed over fire drills. Let me tell you, I did. And it was a control thing. The alarm was set off manually for fire drills, and as such, I couldn’t predict the moment when it would go off. And they also never told us when they were coming. And for me, I hated the initial shock of the alarm starting to go off. The sudden intrusion of a loud noise into my comparatively quiet learning environment. Once the alarm was going, I had no problem, and actually enjoyed hearing the alarm. But it’s the initial “RRRRRRRRRRR!” of the alarm (specifically that first “R”) that caused me SO much stress and related health problems in school.
Categories: Dreams, Fire alarms
And the worst place to be when the fire alarm goes off is…
< 1 minute read
September 30, 2003, 7:01 PM
I forgot to tell you this in the newsletter!
I say one of the worst places to be is right below a horn, which happened to me last Thursday in Keezell Hall (someone accidentally burned their lunch).
There’s a discussion about this going on in the forums. Interesting stuff. Still can’t believe I forgot to mention it in the newsletter, despite the subject line…
Categories: Fire alarms, JMU