2000-05-20 4:25 am
Inferno!
Wild day in downtown Austin. I was driving to work casually about 4 this afternoon after a slow lunch at another First Street Taqueria (Taqueria Borrego de Oro---pretty good!). Fire trucks streaming east on the one way streets with their sirens blasting. I came around to my office building to find Colorado and Seventh all blocked off and traffic diverted. I found a meter around the block and walked back to my building to find that it was where all the trucks were heading and the building had been evacuated. All the offices' inhabitants were on the front sidewalk crowded around the doors since it was raining now and that was the only shelter. I found a co-worker and suggested we go to Schlotsky's for a drink while we waited. I was the first with that good idea. It was peaceful and quiet when we walked in and soon was a madhouse of tenants of our building.
Turns out it was the 13th floor on fire (I thought buildings didn't have 13th floors---maybe ours shouldn't either!). It was a three alarm fire and pretty serious I guess. Everyone on the upper floors had to walk down the stairs.
We finally got back into the building a little after five, just an hour after it all began. Unfortunately, there was still no electricity. No work at a radio station can be done without electricity and computers. We waited. Then the electricity came back on, but our servers for the computers were still down. Work finally was able to commence about 7 and I managed to get all my work done (with one more short server interruption for the night) before I was too pooped to pop. I will not have to return to the studio until Monday.
So, I'm going to Jackson. I'm gonna mess around. Look out Jackson town. (if you recognize that reference you are just too too cool!)