One more awesome characteristic about the building I teach in.

It never occurred to me before, but there is more than one power line coming into my school building.  I guess that’s understandable, considering the power upgrades it’s needed since it’s construction in 1975.  And maybe, since the subdivision had grown a lot since then too, it’s understandable that the power would be coming from two different grids.

But seriously, I’d expect different sections of the building to be on the different grids.  Or maybe the areas that needed the new wiring, like the computer labs and other technological additions.

Nope.  The two power sources seem to be interwoven throughout the building, as we found out when half the power went out this afternoon.

I didn’t even know about it, even though it happened in the middle of 3rd period.  I was using the projector and when I was done I went to turn on the 2 banks of lights that were off.  One went on, the other didn’t.  I just figured they were on the fritz, and was annoyed that I would have to put in a work order to get them fixed.  I figured it out when the office staff came around to tell us that the bells were out, and to just let our classes go when the time for lunch came.

When I went to lunch right after 3rd period, I discovered that we had had a power outage.  Well, half of one.  The lights were out in the cafeteria, but not in the hall that goes right by it.  One side of the faculty lunchroom was dark, the other side nice and bright.  All the lights in the faculty workroom were on, but the soda machines and one of the copiers were dead.  A third of the teachers had no computer, another third had no projector, the rest either had both or neither.

Total hit and miss.  But at least every room had some light, so we could all continue teaching, granted with a little adaptation to our lesson for some of us.

Until the power went completely out about 5 minutes before lunch was over.  Yup, deja vu all over again.  Fortunately this time it only lasted for about 15 minutes, just long enough to shorten 4th period a bit.

Well, I may not understand the why’s and whererfore’s of the electrical work in my building, but it sure made for an interesting day.

P.S. – This just became my post for Carmi’s Thematic Photographic, which you should be aware of by now.  And if not, you should go check it out here, which is where you’ll have to go if you want to understand why this belatedly became my entry for this week.