16 May 2008

A Landmark

Yesterday was a landmark day in the history of my pregnancy. I was walking through downtown Seattle by the Space Needle with Julie and her 6 month-old baby, Abby. Some lady noticed Abby--there are very few babies in Seattle--and said, "Oh, what a cute baby! How old is she?" Then she looked at me and said, "And it looks like you're expecting too."

A risky statement I probably wouldn't have made as a by-stander, but nonetheless, yay!

Granted, the shirt I was wearing exaggerates the size of my belly, but nonetheless, yay!

01 May 2008

Department Elevators

I've been wondering for a while now if the behavior of the elevators in a building can tell you something about the people who work there.

For example, there is a bank of two elevators in the JKB on BYU campus. One of these elevators will always be on the second floor, the main floor. If you call an elevator on the second floor, step in, and press a button, the elevator doors will remain open until the other elevator has returned to the second floor to take its place. You can actually hear the second elevator dinging down the floors as you stand there in your wide-open elevator looking like an idiot. If you call an elevator on the fourth floor and one elevator is in the basement picking people up while the other is idle on the second floor, which elevator will come to get you? Not the completely unused one on the second floor (remember the importance of manning the main level!), but the one in the basement which is full of people and will probably stop at the second floor anyway on its way up. By the way, this building houses some of the humanities department. In the other humanities building, the elevators talk.

Consider by contrast the elevator in the computer science wing of the TMCB. There is only one elevator, so it always comes to your floor. When it arrives, it dings twice to let you know its there. However, if you push a button before it finishes dinging, the elevator cuts off, mid-ding, closes, and immediately zips you up to the floor you wanted. This elevator is smart enough to know that when you push a button, it means you actually wanted to go to that floor. And quickly. Imagine that.

But then again, the fact that I've taken the time to figure out the elevator behavior tells something about me.