That old brick building by night (with the lights on upstairs).

A Halloween experience in advance of the holiday

Adminisk8or

10/24/2023

Life has been a peach. I say that, but also my work life has been super duper busy, and I've been trying to just catch my breath between it all. And yet... maybe I wouldn't want it any other way? Maybe.

Probably the most notable thing I did this last week happened Thursday. It was fall break for one of our charter school clients, and Thursday was the day we dedicated to getting their new network cut over. Knowing most of the work would be wiring (out of my scope), I got down there a little before noon. Normally, for most clients, we would've already had their host and servers preinstalled at our office, ready to deploy in the wild; but because their host was already onsite and in use, I couldn't do that this time. So, when I got down, I started immediately on getting their firewall installed and setup, along with a few other basic servers. One thing led to another, between setting things up and troubleshooting issues as I did, and before long, I was the only one left onsite.

Now to describe the amenities- and trust me, you want to hear about the amenities. There are two physical buildings at this campus. One of them, their main office, is a large mobile unit that also houses about a dozen classrooms. It's a very long but not very wide unit, and you could run from one end to the other in about 25 seconds, I'd recon. Now their other building, on the other hand, is really something. Imagine, if you would, a schoolhouse or perhaps church, built in the 1910's (I'm guessing). It's a red brick building, adorned with windows of varying smokey shades of clear and yellow glass panels. Outside, it definitely shows its age. Then you step inside, and not only can you see its age, but you can smell it. It's musty, dank and even decrepit to a certain degree. The walls and floors are insulated with that good old asbestos, hidden behind a layer of thick, stained carpet, and classic wooden paneling. The upstairs floor is a hot, muggy temperature, thanks to a lack of any air conditioning. The basement looks like something out of an urban explorer's abandoned places vlog; there are storage rooms and old bathrooms that look like murder was committed in them, and there's OLD boiler room (complete with a mysterious metal panel bolted on the floor) hidden in the closet of a closet- oh, and of course, the boiler room has its own closet, too.

Okay, so I've described the look of the place. And I had been through it a few times since we took them on as a new client this year. I always thought the old brick building felt pretty dank and a little depressing. But now, here I was, at about 9 at night- and things were much, much worse. I had spent most of my time configuring things in the portable unit- a relatively cheery place, compared to the brick building. Now, as I went to enter that structure, it was quite dark- both inside, and outside. If I thought it was a less-than-cheery experience during the day, then I was in for a treat at night! Being an adult, I've grown up and left behind silly childish fears... and yet, going through that building was nearly impossible. Not only was it spooky, but I swear I could feel the oppressive force of more than one deceased soul who was wandering in spirit in misery. To be frank, the only way I managed to bide my time in that building was by putting in my earbuds, putting on my party music playlist, and singing, humming and whistling loud for all to hear. I of course turned on the lights in the rooms I was in- but there were a number of side rooms I didn't bother with. And I knew if I looked into the darkness of those rooms, and focused just enough, there was a good chance I was going to see something I didn't want to see- so I repressed the urge to do so, and quickly finished my business.

All in all, I finished that project at 10:30 PM, and had about an hour and a half drive home after that. It was a long day, to be sure. But in a way of speaking, that was the worst of this last week!

Perhaps the best was this night. It was guys night, and I had originally been looking up haunted houses or something for us to go visit- but then, I realized almost none of them were open on Tuesdays. One of my friends then suggested a bonfire, and I felt silly that I hadn't considered that, what with it being the perfect season for it! And indeed, we had a bonfire. It was super nice to just sit in a backyard, hanging out around the fire, roasting brats, drinking root/apple beer, and just talking around the warm glow of the fire.

Maybe that's my big important thought this week- sometimes it's just good to get your friends (or family) together, setup a nice little bonfire, and just hang out and chill. Maybe it's a personal opinion, but I believe there's few things in the world quite as nice as that. And if you don't have a host of friends to speak of, or perhaps family, may God bless you and keep you well, and I hope what little friends or family you have in this world be near you, and are there for you.

Until next time, see ya!