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percussive maintenance
Jul. 20th, 2010 01:39 pmLast week I went with ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
bleukarma to tour some tall ships. It was fun, there was a ton of rope, and I took a folder full of pictures I haven't sorted yet. But I'm not going to talk about that, here. I just want to tell you something small that happened afterwards.
The parking garages downtown are funny, in the "who thought that would be a good way to organize anything?" way. We'd picked the one in/at/under the convention center, which neither of us had used before. It was badly designed, and I say this because if you drive in for the first time and almost drive straight back OUT without actually being directed to a place to park, then the architect did something wrong.
But we prevailed, we found a spot, we (after some negotiation) found our way out, and we saw the tall ships. Which led to much of me saying I'M ON A BOAT! because, well, I was on a boat.
It was a hundred and painful outside that day, overcast but with motionless humid air that felt like being wrapped in a wet wool blanket. I'd brought along a bottle of water that I tend to bring everywhere - it's thick blue-green plastic, with a metal casing on the bottom. We drank from it copiously, refilled it at water fountains, and plunged it into boxes of ice when the lines snaked past concession stands.
When we got back to the parking garage, we were supposed to take our ticket (instead of keeping it in the car like every other garage ever) and feed it into a touch-screen machine which would then calculate the charge and take payment from cash or a card. On the way out, you'd feed your updated ticket into a machine at the exit, which just proves that it's BAD DESIGN.
The machine worked by feeding the ticket into a little slot. The touchscreen would display things and a robotic voice sounding an awful lot like Stephen Hawking's computer would tell you what the screen showed. When Bleu put her ticket in, the Stephen Hawking parkingdroid said, PLEASE INSERT CARD and the touchscreen showed how to stick a cash card into the same slot that had taken the paper ticket.
She did that, and it came out. PLEASE INSERT CARD. She did it again, it came out. PLEASE INSERT CARD. She wiped it on her jeans, inserted it, it popped out. PLEASE INSERT CARD.
"Oh, come ON," Bleu said.
I reached up and gave the parkingdroid a great whack on the side with my metal-capped water bottle.
Bleu gave me the sideways-eye and tried putting her card in again. That time, it worked.
I was, and am, far happier about that than I have any rational reason to be. The thing is, I was spawned in the era before everything being digital, where a solid thump on the side would fix most electronics, and so I am pleased when that still works. Because machinery should behave itself, when you thump it.
Death and Famine and War and Pollution continued biking toward Tadfield. And Grievous Bodily Harm, Cruelty to Animals, Things Not Working Properly Even After You've Given Them A Good Thumping But Secretly No Alcohol Lager, and Really Cool People traveled with them.
bleukarma to tour some tall ships. It was fun, there was a ton of rope, and I took a folder full of pictures I haven't sorted yet. But I'm not going to talk about that, here. I just want to tell you something small that happened afterwards.The parking garages downtown are funny, in the "who thought that would be a good way to organize anything?" way. We'd picked the one in/at/under the convention center, which neither of us had used before. It was badly designed, and I say this because if you drive in for the first time and almost drive straight back OUT without actually being directed to a place to park, then the architect did something wrong.
But we prevailed, we found a spot, we (after some negotiation) found our way out, and we saw the tall ships. Which led to much of me saying I'M ON A BOAT! because, well, I was on a boat.
It was a hundred and painful outside that day, overcast but with motionless humid air that felt like being wrapped in a wet wool blanket. I'd brought along a bottle of water that I tend to bring everywhere - it's thick blue-green plastic, with a metal casing on the bottom. We drank from it copiously, refilled it at water fountains, and plunged it into boxes of ice when the lines snaked past concession stands.
When we got back to the parking garage, we were supposed to take our ticket (instead of keeping it in the car like every other garage ever) and feed it into a touch-screen machine which would then calculate the charge and take payment from cash or a card. On the way out, you'd feed your updated ticket into a machine at the exit, which just proves that it's BAD DESIGN.
The machine worked by feeding the ticket into a little slot. The touchscreen would display things and a robotic voice sounding an awful lot like Stephen Hawking's computer would tell you what the screen showed. When Bleu put her ticket in, the Stephen Hawking parkingdroid said, PLEASE INSERT CARD and the touchscreen showed how to stick a cash card into the same slot that had taken the paper ticket.
She did that, and it came out. PLEASE INSERT CARD. She did it again, it came out. PLEASE INSERT CARD. She wiped it on her jeans, inserted it, it popped out. PLEASE INSERT CARD.
"Oh, come ON," Bleu said.
I reached up and gave the parkingdroid a great whack on the side with my metal-capped water bottle.
Bleu gave me the sideways-eye and tried putting her card in again. That time, it worked.
I was, and am, far happier about that than I have any rational reason to be. The thing is, I was spawned in the era before everything being digital, where a solid thump on the side would fix most electronics, and so I am pleased when that still works. Because machinery should behave itself, when you thump it.
Death and Famine and War and Pollution continued biking toward Tadfield. And Grievous Bodily Harm, Cruelty to Animals, Things Not Working Properly Even After You've Given Them A Good Thumping But Secretly No Alcohol Lager, and Really Cool People traveled with them.
