under pressure

interestingly enough, i was just going over my older posts and something caught my eye -- particularly the march 12, 2005 entry on plumbing.

now, i'm not sure if i've ever blogged on the rearrangement of the office; but if i have, bear with me -- it sets the stage for the current, well, situation.

imagine a shoebox kind of layout. 1 unit wide by 3 long, say. lengthwise, divide into two areas, 2/5 and 3/5, with the smaller division (marked by building pillars) on the left side (consider this from a viewpoint directly above). the left side is further divided into four: 1/4th as office, 2/4ths as workspace, and the last 1/4th as a pantry/restroom space.

the video group got the undivided 3/5ths of the floor on the right side, 3D got the 2/4ths on the left (with space taken out by the stairwell/landing/elevator).

it was ... cozy.

well, in the fullness of time, the 3D group got a chance to expand, manpower-wise, so the groups shifted around and we got the bigger space.

somehow, in line with my multifarious dabblings, i ended up with a row of my own for the meantime -- seeing as i have essentially two workstations to deal with: a pc for stuff, and a mac for editing. this row, for the purposes of the layout, is one shy of the western wall.

above me is an aircon unit.

which, whenever there's a power interruption/trip/surge/whatever, trips its breaker. somehow, this being alabang, these energy transients happen frequently enough for the aircon to be not working longer than working.

recently, after some discussions and a long wait, the aircon had been fixed (though i don't really use it unless it gets really hot in the row -- my dowell round box fan suffices most days).

one day in the last week or so, though, i came in early and decided to activate the aircon for a change. the daily peak temperatures had been in the region of 36C or so, and i felt that some cooling would be nice.

...imagine my surprise to see the aircon control panel and the power outlet hanging on their wires outside their wall receptacles. the aircon control hole in the wall had a black garbage bag arrangement to a 5-gallon plastic jug; the power outlet hole had a blue pvc tube leading to another 5-gallon jug. the jugs had water in them, and the carpet was wet.

which brings us back to plumbing.

seems that the pressure tank (which may have been installed with the building's refurbishing) had overcome some of the 20-year old piping in the structure. water had now managed to make it's way into the electrical pipe runs.

not fun.

how are the apartment and building incidents connected? other than the plumbing issues, not really.

maybe its just the mind seeing patterns where none exist.