Moving in

The week before the semester started, I moved into my temporary office in the Kitselman Center. I found a department systems administrator so that I could borrow a cart to haul my workstation, books, plants, and miscellany from the fourth floor down to my wife, waiting by the loading dock with our van. I took the cart from the third floor up the elevator to the fourth and loaded it up, and when I returned to the elevator, I found this.

Here's the whole scene.

Unsure of what to do, I walked downstairs to tell my wife we would be indefinitely delayed. On the ground floor, the elevator doors were open, and there was a technician standing atop the elevator car, tinkering with the system. He told me it would be quite some time before he was done, but he offered to help me if my need was urgent. In about fifteen minutes, he was able to bring the elevator up to four and back down for me. I've never had any interaction with Murphy Elevator Company technicians before, but this gentleman was helpful and polite, and we had a nice chat about elevator maintenance on the way down.

My wife helped me load the van, and we drove the ~2.5 miles to the Kitselman Center to unload. Here's a glimpse of my office for this semester.

Not too shabby. To the right is a gas fireplace. Yes, that's right. On Friday, I walked to work in the snow, and when I got there, took off my boots and set them by the fireplace. In my office.