Anyone for a round of catch the elevator?

Typically, when you catch the elevator, it's to get in it and have it take you to another floor.

We have a new game in my condominium apartment building. We catch the elevator and lock it off, so it won't go anywhere.

This is due to the recent fire in our elevator room. See my blog entry on that!

We now have one of two elevators kinda working. It takes pressing many buttons, seemingly almost at random, to summon the elevator, and then there may be floor numbers lit up at random inside the elevator... but it will (likely) get you to the floor you want. And we only have a temporary license to operate it, so we are working on replacing the controls as soon as we can. But it beats using the stairs.

One of the functions of an elevator is to return to the ground floor, open the doors and turn itself off whenever the fire alarm goes off. Our elevator will not do this anymore. The fire department is not happy, but the temporary license lets us still use the elevator, and we have a couple of dozen warning signs telling people not to use the elevator if the alarm sounds.

But we're not relying on people to read signs if the alarm sounds, that's where the "catch the elevator" game starts. Each member of the Strata Council has a key that can be used to turn the elevator off if the alarm sounds. We're all on different floors.

So if the alarm goes off, we all try to summon the elevator to catch it and lock it off!

And then we run downstairs, and the one who caught it gets bragging rights.

Actually, the one who caught it then has to tell everyone, including the arriving firemen, where the elevator is.

It sounds like it could be a fun game, but we all still hope we don't have to play it!

Fire? What do you mean there's actually a fire?

I've been living in apartment buildings for a good 25 or so years now. I've lived through dozens of false alarms in these buildings. The alarms go off. Depending on your state of mind, and how high up you are, you either:

• curse the noise and wonder who set it off this time
• run to your kitchen to make sure you aren't the one on fire
• go out onto the balcony and look to see if there are any flames
• get out of the building, then find out if any of your neighbors who are outside know where the fire is

I find as we get older, the more cautious we are. We now choose to get out of the building, and then try to find out what, if anything, is on fire.

Of course, I use a wheelchair when I'm not in my home now. Getting out of the building takes on a whole new dimension now.

Luckily, my spouse is a runner of marathons and trail races. When we hear the fire alarm he runs downstairs and outside on an advanced scouting mission to see if there really is a fire, and reports back to me.

This morning he reported back yelling "Get up! There really is a fire!"

So much for the nice sleep-in I was having.

I can still walk short distances, slowly. Somehow my spouse had found 2 guys I may know in the building, they looked familiar - probably some maintenance guys doing work in the building. They did offer to carry me down, but that's just not appealing, and I can walk short distances, slowly. So I grabbed some clothes and threw them on, and they grabbed my manual wheelchair and one of them took it downstairs for me. OK, so when I make it downstairs, I'm good. Now it's just a matter of me making it downstairs.

So slowly, grabbing the railings, with one guy in front, and my husband behind me, I made it down a flight, then stepped aside to rest and let others get past on their way down. Then I started on another flight, and when I was almost down, half a dozen axe-carrying fire fighters came up, so I grabbed one railing with both arms and said "OK, go around me!" The fire was on the roof.

My goodness, firemen are large examples of the human form aren't they? One of the firemen offered to call in other firemen to carry me downstairs. I was doing OK, so I declined.

Thankfully, we are only on the fourth floor - or actually just three floors above the lobby, which has a ramp down to ground level. I made it down, and was very happy to see my wheelchair. Then outside we went.

Luckily it wasn't raining, but it was cold, and I didn't have shoes on - only socks - because I walk better when I can feel the ground with my feet. One of our neighbors manages the apartment building next to ours, so he let anyone who wanted to stay warm sit inside the lobby of that building.

Once the fire was out, we were told we could go back home. What started the fire? The elevators. The terms being used were "melted" and "you can't see much because of the smoke damage" in the room on the roof with the elevator controls. So none of the apartments were burned, which is good. But now we have no elevators. Probably won't have elevators for at least a week - and that's a hopeful evaluation. So we can all go home now... back up the stairs. 

Oy Vey.

I just looked up the term Oy Vey in Wikipedia. I'm using it in a very appropriate way. It means "oh pain".

Long story short, I made it back up to my home, but my arms are very tired, and the muscles of my best leg have complaints and grievances to discuss with me and the other leg.

So yes, we actually had a fire. And I have to report, after 25 years of false alarms, all the thinking "what will we do next time if it isn't a false alarm..." does make it easier to deal with when it really is a fire. So maybe the false alarms aren't just annoying. 

And man, are firemen huge, or what!

PS - my horoscope for today said: "If someone says you should not be concerned about what is going on in your immediate environment that means you should be very concerned indeed. Go out of your way to find out what it is – then act."

Did they yell "Timber"?

We had a bit of excitement on the weekend. There was a fire outside in the alley. Close to the top of a wooden power line pole, there were flames licking up around one of the bobbly attachments that the power line sits on. (Bobbly attachments, that's a technical term :)

Today there are about a dozen people working outside. They've replaced the pole. I wasn't here when they took the old one down, so now I'll never know if they yell "Timber" when they take an old pole down. Bummer. I kinda doubt it. It looks like they may have cut it in half before removing it, thus reducing the chance of it falling on someone, so they didn't really need to yell.

They are doing a great deal of work up the new pole now. They attached some wooden cross braces at the top. Now they are attaching the wires and some new bobbly attachments to it.

It's quite the pole actually. There are 6 poles over there. One pole has 3 round drum-like things hanging close to the top. Two poles have a platform strung between them close to the top and 4 square mechanical boxes sitting on it. The pole that had a fire only has wires and bobbly attachments on it. There is another pole with only bobbly attachments. And there is one pole with only one wire between it and the one next to it that looks like it's there to keep the other ones stable.

What an enormous amount of equipment to be hanging in the air over there. It didn't look like anyone lost power when the one pole caught fire, so it's not obvious what the wires are doing... makes you wonder.

Why is the sky over BC a milky-white?

Allergies making you cough and sniffle? Is your throat dry, making it hard to talk? It could be smoke from forest fires in California - even if you live in BC.

The more than 2,000 wildfires burning in California are now being made worse by strong winds, and these winds are blowing smoke northwards as far up as BC. It's one planet, so what happens "over there" is just as important as what happens "here".

It's quite the lesson in global thinking. Nature's way of hitting you over the head with an idea, giving you a headache.