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Archive for May, 2005

Fire, with more detail and pictures

May 7, 2005 3 comments

MrsDoF and I were headed for my office and saw the smoke from a couple miles out of town. With thousands of structures in the general direction of the smoke it seemed irrational to imagine the fire would involve either my home or office – but I had to resist the urge to drive faster.

As we neared the downtown area, looking over the top of the Historic Normal Theater, the smoke aligned perfectly with my office!  When I got closer, though, I was relieved to see it was a large student apartment building* just beyond it…

(Many pictures ahead, high-speed access would help.  I’ve made the pictures partially black & white so they’ll load faster.)

The building seemed to have no firewalls in the attic as the fire raced from the East end to the West.  Firefighters had to be rescued from the building as exits were closed off by flames.

A couple times the overshooting water fell on parked cars next to the building – this seemed intentional (they certainly didn’t need flaming cars on their hands!) 

I was puzzled by long periods – 10 minutes at a time – in which the water stream went right over the top of the East end of the building only to land 100 feet away on the other side. They seemed to be trying to put out the smoke. 

This is the extent of my firefighting knowledge.

If there are any firefighters reading, could you help us understand?  Why weren’t they putting the water on the fire? (or perhaps more correctly, on the fuel) 

Thousands of people gathered around to watch – from a respectful distance.  The wind shifted a few times, giving the spectators a small taste of what the firefighters were dealing with.

As the fire neared the West end of the building, long minutes went by when they couldn’t seem to get any water to the hose on the end of a ladder there.  When the water finally did come out, it was bright orange – full of rust – and didn’t seem to have much pressure. 

After a moment, the hose sputtered and the water pressure seemed to fail entirely.

Then maybe ten minutes went by with no water.  The men in the bucket must have had a spectacular view of the fire, which I doubt they were at leisure to enjoy.  At one point the wind shifted and enveloped them in dense smoke.  That sounds rather dangerous to me as the fire was generating a powerful updraft by that time.

Finally a thin stream of water came out.  By this time, the West end of the building was punching flames 75 feet in the air and the plume of smoke must have been visible for 50 miles.

At last the fire was put down, leaving a battered shell and about a hundred students left homeless, their clothes, books, and computers burned a week before final exams.

The University and the landlord stepped in to provide housing, books, and some slack on exams.  But many students reported losing all their research for final papers.

QUESTIONS:
Was the building up to code? Shouldn’t it have had firewalls inside the attic?  Is the city water department flushing the hydrants on schedule?  Did the fire department have adequate water pressure?  Were they having some problem aiming the hoses?  Did they know how much water was missing the building entirely?  (Not just soaking the surroundings to prevent spread, but apparently landing on empty spaces.)  I’m not criticizing, because I have not studied firefighting – but I am hoping someone in the local paper or online will address how the fire was fought so I can understand.

NOTES:
Newspaper said the fire was probably started by a cigarette.  Fire chief on TV said mid-afternoon timing of the fire is a big reason why there were no fatalities – would have been a very different story if it had happened when the students were sleeping.  I’ll post more facts here as they become available.

* (No disrespect intended to the students affected by the fire, but I was relieved that my office was not aflame.)

Categories: Safety & Health

Fire

May 6, 2005 Comments off

Across from our office yesterday.  Busy now but more pictures and details later.

It was really sumthin’

Categories: Uncategorized

I am so proud of my wife

May 4, 2005 1 comment

She tells it as a story to a couple of her friends who had to miss the event, but here’s what happened:  a popular event at church was going to be cancelled because no one was available to run it.  MrsDoF stepped up and created a concept, recruited help, handled dozens of details, and the “Mother-Daughter Salad Supper Open-Mic Event” was by all reports a smash success.  90+ guests showed up, a bunch of other people helped, many shared the microphone and told personal stories, there was laughter, hugging, crying, happiness. 

Events towards the banquet

Speakers at the banquet

Organizing an event like that is, as my middle son would say, a “non-trivial” task.

Categories: Personal

Study finds all children safer in back seat

May 3, 2005 3 comments

This just in: the State Farm insurance company just released a study which finds that ALL pre-teen children are safer riding in the back seat of a car.  (It used to be just kids under 5 because it was discovered that the safety device – air bag – would, um, kill them.)

Hey, Einstein, that’s brilliant!  But wouldn’t anyone be safer in the back seat?  Shouldn’t we make cars with steering wheels in the back seat so no one has to ride in the front?  Just asking.

Categories: Safety & Health

Fun with car repairs

May 2, 2005 Comments off

Yesterday I stopped in downtown Bloomington to get some tortillas from the Mexican food store.  When I tried to start my van, it made the most horrible grinding/squeaking noise imaginable… and it would not stop until I found a wrench and unhooked the battery.  But the noise did become a little quieter as the minutes ticked by – the starter-gear metal was grinding away. 

Seemed like it took me forever to find that wrench.

I called Brown’s towing, and they showed up in 14 minutes flat, efficiently towing my car to Car-X on Towanda avenue in Normal – service with a smile on a cold, windy Sunday afternoon.

Today Car-X called and said I needed a starter motor and some bolts tightened in the steering column (the latter thing being the cause of the starter jamming as it had.)  Well sure, the steering wheel had been a little floppy for a while, so I guess that needed to be fixed.

Three hundred bucks later, my car was running great and the steering wheel felt good as new.  But I’m not calling for sympathy, no siree!  I love driving an old, paid-for piece of junk.  It makes me feel smugly superior to people who make regular car payments.  The occasional repair bill pales in comparison to forking out a monthly toll to the bank for the privilege of turning the key. 

I have more interesting things to spend my money on, like a new titanium IBM Thinkpad X40, or college tuition for the kids.  The rusty rocker-panels and worn upholstry just make me smile. 

Categories: Personal

Don’t question the myth

May 1, 2005 6 comments

First Coast News reports an art student’s billboard project questioning the existence of Santa was pulled by the advertising company he hired when the project got negative media attention. 

The project decried consumerism and said, “Stop lying to your children about Santa Claus” but garnered a storm of criticism.

I get it now: if you can’t even publically question a myth that every adult agrees is false, no wonder you get in so much trouble for questioning other myths that people claim to believe in, like an invisible sky-god who watches every move we make.

True, millions of people say they believe in god, but do they really?  To question that myth publically makes you a pariah, making it less likely anyone will question it privately.

Funny how the god we profess has so much to do with where we’re born.  But we can’t question any myths, can we?

FIRST COAST NEWS:  Billboard questioning Santa’s existence is scrapped

LONDON (AP)—Perhaps the elves put a curse on it. An art exhibition that questioned the existence of Santa Claus has been scrapped at the last minute, its British creator said Friday.

In an attempt to highlight the evils of consumerism, Glasgow School of Art student Darren Cullen had been planning to unveil an advertising billboard in the city Friday featuring the slogans
“Stop Lying To Your Children About Santa Claus” and “Santa Gives More To Rich Kids Than Poor Kids.”

But Maiden Outdoor, which owns the billboard, vetoed it after the plan generated media interest.

“The company was contacted by a newspaper, and I think they felt it was too contentious a theme,” Cullen said.

“I am disappointed, but I am going to be contacting other companies to see if they can help. I hope to get the project up and running some time soon.”

Cullen, who is in the final year of study, denied he was trying to ruin the magic of Christmas.

“Santa Claus is a lie that teaches kids that products will make them happy,” he said.

“Before they’re old enough to think for themselves, the story of Santa has already got them hooked on consumerism. I think that’s more immoral than this billboard.”

The billboard is part of a public art project that students are required to do each year.

It is not the first time that Cullen has featured Father Christmas.

His portfolio includes a drawing of Santa saying “I killed Jesus” as well as posters and stickers telling parents: “Stop lying to your children about Santa Claus.”

“Our students work with public spaces and unconventional sites as a means of creating dialogue about the things that matter to them and to all of us,” said Tanya Eccleston, head of
environmental art and sculpture at Glasgow School of Art.

Categories: Religion

Wrong Solution to a marriage problem

May 1, 2005 2 comments

A Spanish designer has created a washing machine with fingerprint recognition that won’t let any one person use it two times in a row.  It is to make sure men do their share of laundry. 

Let’s see, here: you can’t get your man to do laundry (assuming you would want him to – MrsDoF won’t let me near the thing and with good reason).  So you get a technological solution to force him to do it.

Yeah, that marriage is goin’ places…

Categories: Political Correctness

Seoul Machine

May 1, 2005 5 comments

About 20 years ago I bought a Samsung radio, and it was a piece of junk.  It was inexpensive and it worked, but the sound was bad, one speaker rattled, reception was marginal, and the volume control was scratchy right out of the box.  Today, Samsung makes the very best consumer electronics, beautifully designed and perfectly built.  I actually look for the Samsung name in stores. What happened?

Kun-hee Lee happened.  In 1995 the CEO sent Samsung wireless phones to his friends for Christmas, and none of them worked.  This must have really ticked him off, as Wired magazine describes what happened next…

That March he paid a visit to Samsung’s main factory at Gumi.  At Lee’s command, the factory’s 2,000 employees donned headbands labled QUALITY FIRST and assembled in a courtyard.  There they found their entire inventory piled in a heap – cell phones, fax machines, nearly $50m worth of equipment.  A banner before them read QUALITY IS MY PRIDE.  Beneath it were Lee and his board of directors.  Ten workers took the products one by one, smashed them with hammers, and threw them into a bonfire.  Before it was over, employees were weeping…

Ritual purification at the command of a heroic leader is an ancient and powerful tradition in this part of the world… Certainly it had the desired effect: after Lee’s visit to Gumi, shoddiness was not an option.  Ki-tae Lee, then the Gumi factory manager and now head of Samsung’s mobile telecon division, personally tests new models by hurling them against a wall or dropping them from a second-story window.  Once he even ran over a handset with his car.  It still worked.
Wired, May 2005

Several things strike me about that story.  First, the Gumi factory manager Ki-tae Lee not only still has a job, he’s head of Samsung’s telecom division.  Second, the employees themselves were profoundly changed by the event.  And third, can you imagine an American manufacturer’s CEO destroying $50m worth of inventory?  The stockholders would have his head.  But Kun-hee Lee was right, because Samsung’s market value today exceeds that of Sony.

I remember back in the late ‘70’s and ‘80’s when the American auto industry was tanking.  Plants were closing, GM was outsourcing (sound familiar?), and auto workers who showed up for work driving a Japanese car were pointedly told never to do that again. 

Back in ‘76 through ‘78 I had a summer job at an auto dealership.  We sold both American and Japanese cars, and I got to prep them for sale.  The American cars were shoddy; it was common for a dashboard designed to be held in place by 7 screws to be held by 2, and those weren’t fully tightened.  Door panels didn’t fit, trunk lids didn’t line up, and the cars just looked crudely made.  I often had to finish the factory’s job, lining things up, correcting missing fasteners, and so forth.

With the Japanese cars, it was a different story.  I’d peel off the shipping plastic, and they were ready to sell.  Not once did I ever have to fix a single thing.  Would I have been anti-American to have said the Japanese were making better cars than the Americans?  Or just honest – or even patriotic, because you can’t solve a problem that is not identified?

Today, it’s hard to find American consumer electronics at all.  (I recently bought a blender that was made in Utah.)  American cars have gotten a lot better but – let’s be honest – they’re still not up to the standards of the best Japanese-made cars.  You can prove this by checking eBay Motors, a completely market-driven auto lot where your $2,000 will buy an American car with 100,000 miles on it, or a Japanese car with over 160,000 miles on it. 

In the 1950’s, cars from every nation were pretty unreliable, requiring maintenance at least every 3,000 miles (and British cars needed their own British mechanic.)  It was rare for any car to last over 100,000 miles without an overhaul.  But in the early 80’s, a different standard of reliability began to emerge.  American carmakers at the time, comfortable in their market-share, did nothing to adapt and even allowed quality to slide.

It isn’t that American workers can’t build good cars – Honda and Toyota (and now Hyundai, a Korean company rising fast on the strength of good quality and design) have plants here.  And American cars have (of necessity) improved tremendously.  Obviously we can do it given the chance.

Of course, the auto workers can’t build a better car than the auto company designs – another whole subject in itself.  Auto-company executives should take a really good look at Honda’s new pickup truck, for example, or the Nissan Maxima or even the Hyundai Sonota.  Or practically any Toyota.

I wish the American-company auto executives and workers would all drive foreign cars to work, so they could understand the strong and weak points of the rest of the world’s autos.  But bumper stickers saying; “100 thousand laid-off UAW workers don’t like your Toyota.  Please park it in Tokyo” make that impossible.

Today the US exports enormous value in services and software, as we lead the world in these categories.  It is fortunate that these economies emerged when they did because our manufacturing base was tanking at the time.

There are no Chinese or Indian counterparts to Microsoft or IBM – or FedEx – but there soon will be. 

Solutions?  I could at least identify a couple problem areas: education and attitude.  While every other industry grows through innovation, our public schools dig in their heels.  And TV ratings are hardly encouraging either – those huge Samsung plasma TV’s (which pretty much only Americans buy) aren’t being used to watch Scientific American Frontiers or Commanding Heights.

Categories: Economics, Politics