Polycom and Marty

2009-07-20 23:23:05.000 – Brian Clark,  Observer and Meteorologist

Marty!

Probably just about everyone reading this has, at some point in their lives, started a project that ended up taking a significant amount more time than originally planned. This was certainly the case for me this shift.

As Hedda mentioned in her comment several days ago, I have been working on installing a brand new Polycom video conferencing system here on the summit. This Polycom will give us greater functionality and flexibility in how we present our Live from the Rockpile presentations to the Weather Discovery Center, as well as our Distance Learning programs. The unit was purchased using remaining money from a grant we got last year to fund our Distance Learning program.

I started working on this project Thursday morning with the intention of being completed sometime on Friday. Some difficulties integrating it into all the new equipment we purchased with the same grant I already mentioned, as well as making sure that everything was installed neatly mad the project last until, well, this morning. Even now, it is still not completely finished because I need a few adapters and cables that aren’t here on the summit yet.

On a normal shift, I would still have the rest of the day today and tomorrow to work on some other things I had planned on working on this shift. This is not a normal shift for me though because I will be heading down the mountain today. I won’t be going alone though; Marty the cat will be joining me. On Wednesday the 8th Marty came off the mountain, for the first time since he came up in January 2008, in order for me to take him to the vet to get his ears checked (he had been scratching them a lot). While there, the vet found he had several badly decayed teeth due to a genetic disorder that some cats have which causes their immune system to attack their teeth. So now Marty is coming down with me today to go back to the vet tomorrow to have several teeth pulled.

Keep our beloved pet and mascot in your thoughts tomorrow. I’m sure he’ll feel much better once it’s all said and done!

Brian Clark,  Observer and Meteorologist