This is a drill...

..or was it?

One side of the building here faces toward the airport. There's a north wing and a south wing, with a lobby and elevators in the middle. The lobby area is pretty much a big open 5 story space with glass walls and a pair of elevators in the center. When you get off the elevators, you've got a good view of the airport runways.

When I got off the elevator this morning, the sun hadn't yet risen, which made all the blinking red lights across the way all the more apparent. There was a line of 3 or 4 firetrucks parked along the near runway, a few more further down, and one up near the south end. I watched them for a moment, but nothing happened. When I got to my office I got the $5 binoculars out of the desk and went over to one of the offices with an airport view. Right about then an Independence Air jet came in and landed. Hot on its heels going down the runway was a pickup with an amber light bar. As the plane went past, the firetrucks peeled off and followed it. It eventually taxied down to stop on the tarmac near the terminals and was encircled by the firetrucks. Nothing much happened from there. After a few minutes I went back to my office.

That sort of thing isn't really uncommon at airports. The plane had probably just reported an overheating engine or something. The weird thing was, that while watching it come in, there was the briefest little moment when some part of my mind was almost eager to see a horrific crash. Chalk that up to having seen one too many action/adventure movies, I guess. It suppose it's akin to the way people can't resist rubbernecking, when driving past a bad accident. Minds can be weird, sometimes.

More musical association

As usual, the radio in my office is tuned to WGMS, softly playing classical music all day while I'm here. I'm often not even aware of what's playing. Sometimes I'll catch a few notes of a piece I particularly like and turn the volume up a little and actually listen, but mostly it's just nice background music.

And every now and then, something else will happen, as it did a few minutes ago. I was typing away, composing an email message to ask about the needs for an upcoming trade show, when I started thinking of the movie Animal House. A moment or two later, I realized the reason was the radio. It was Brahms Academic Festival Overture, parts of which are in Animal House. It makes me wonder how many people only know classical pieces by their association with some commerical or movie. I also wonder how Beethoven would feel hearing the 9th symphony referred to as 'That music from Die Hard.' or Mozart hearing about 'That music from the Trading Places.'

Dust to dust...

You can tell it's a slow day. 3 posts already.

While talking to a coworker in the office, I noticed a splotch of very fine powder along the edge of one of my desk drawers. Being stupid, I said something like 'well, lookee there!' and ran a finger through it. So if I die from anthrax anytime soon, have 'em check the desk.

Actually, it probably got blown there from when the cleaning people were vacuuming or something, but that's a lot less exciting an explanation.