Wednesday, February 16, 2005

Traffic Snarling On my way into work this morning as I was zipping along happily along I-95, I heard that there was a traffic accident along the southbound side of the interstate, just after Rt. 32.  My immediately audible thought was "Dammit!"  Of course, Murphy intervened and made sure I did not hear that report until I was passing Rt. 100 on I-95 southbound.  Of course, the traffic report could not have possibly told me where the accident was or how best to get through it.  The inevitable slowdown came right after Rt. 175, and I maintained my position in the left lane, looking for any sign of where the accident was located.  Murphy again intervened, and I was unable to move over a lane until just after the accident scene.  And why was traffic moving so slow?  Apparently a car had skidded off the roadway into the brush on the left-hand side of I-95.  A State Police cruiser was also on the scene, with lights flashing.  Everyone had to move slow so that they could get a closer look at the accident.  Nothing really to see, just a car in some brush and a police officer writing an accident report.  Much like the proverbial train wreck, no one could take their eyes from it.  This is where I get annoyed (although I certainly hope the driver is unharmed).  The event this morning just proves my notion that there should be walls on either side of the interstate.  These walls would act to block the viewing of events that occur off the roadway.  These walls would also allow for the quick replacement of a portion if a driver decided to repeat the actions of this morning's hapless victim.  No crash to look at means there would be no slowdown as drivers passed by the scene.  Just imagine how traffic would continue to move if one is unable to see the aftermath of an accident.  Images of a utopian society are dancing in my head... ;-) 10:17:12 AM    comment []  trackback []

All Work and No Play Makes Jason a Dull Boy..... Be forewarned, as today's post is about all sorts of stuff at my place of employment.  It may get a bit geeky, too.  Recently, I have been tasked by our director to play "a policy and procedural 'coordinating' role across [our stem] with respect to the project(s)" coming from our policy and planning stem.  The project coming from our policy folks is a plan for business continuity.  In other words, the creation of such a plan for IT activities at the University in the event of a disaster--natural or man-made.  As a result of this new assignment, I have been reading some documents created in-house for this effort and some documents available on the Internets concerning disaster recovery/business continuity.  By the way, if anyone who reads this blog knows of some good resources, feel free to kick them my way.  I will essentially act as the assistant team leader for each of our stem's 3 emergency response teams.  The plan is that my presence on all three teams as an assistant team leader will provide some continuity among all three teams and allow for coordinating within and among the groups that will comprise these teams.  One of the nice things about this is that I am able to make use of some of the non-technical parts of my brain that have been underutilized since my days in grad school.  At this point, it appears that we have a lot of work to do before we have a plan that can be tested and vetted.  Of course, the CIO has promised a plan by the summer.  So, it's time for us to start busting our asses to get this right and get it done.  Fun stuff, and to some extent dry.  Nonetheless, one of the core problems I have seen in my time here at the University is (slowly) starting to be addressed.  Hopefully, this is a sign of things to come.  10:00:32 AM    comment []  trackback []