Late Night Working At The Airport

Hey there. Stuck at work at this ungodly hour. It's 1:39 a.m. here and I've been called in to upgrade my Sun systems to work with an FAA system that's getting its own upgrade tonight. When you work for the FAA like I do, any time you want to make changes to the system, you get stuck with the off peak hours so there is minimal risk to air traffic safety. No one's flying at this hour except UPS and FedEx and should something go seriously wrong with the upgrades and we go dark (can't track air traffic, also known as ATC 0), millions of lives won't be at risk, just a bunch of packages. I heard a rumor which I guess could be classified as an urban legend by now, that a few years back a squirrel wandered into some power lines and took our building's electrical power completely out, blanking all the radar screens and knocking us to ATC 0. A squirrel's death wish putting all those people into danger - I bet you feel like buying a plane ticket right now. I have no way of verifying that story though. I just think it's funny - not that the squirrel died but that a small creature was temporarily in control of thousands of people's lives.

I'm taking a break right now while they run some tests on the upgrades. I'm all ready on my end. As soon as I see data begin to flow across my screens, I'm packing out and making the 30 minute trip back home.

Uh, now I am hearing alarms I've never heard before. This might turn into a long night after all.