Friday, October 24, 2008

I Work in A Sci-Fi Landscape

Today I woke up early, so I just showered and headed into work, arriving around 7:30, rather than 8:00. Apparently traffic flow at 7:00 on a Friday is completely different from 7:20 on a Thursday, which took, I might add, a lot longer (I made up the time yesterday. Shut up.).

UT alum will recall that the entryway to the PCL opens into a high and wide area, befitting UT's main library (the UGL no longer folds books and is now, actually, the Flawn Center). I was surprised to see that, apparently while most UT staff is off-site, the library is given over to janitors from THE FUTURE.

It was impressive enough to see two dudes walking around with huge Ghostbuster-style contraptions on their backs, that I realized were vacuums. They looked a bit like this, or this, I guess.

But I also saw a device so magnificent... it defied description... It's called the Chariot Vac.

The Chariot Vac is a sort of riding vacuum, with a superior turning radius. I sort of had this vision of getting on one of those while wearing a helmet and carrying a mace to see if you could even get the grad students to look up from their books.

But, mostly, it was seeing the Chariot Vac in motion beneath the twinkle and hum of the flourescents in the lobby of the PCL and its dream of what a huge university library of the future would look like as designed in the 70's projecting to the year 2000.

3 comments:

Michael Corley said...

*sings* In the year... two thousaaaaaaand! :)

Anonymous said...

They use those at MD Anderson too. They look like zambonis and are LOUD.
-D

J.S. said...

I want a chariot vac. And I have no intention of cleaning anything, really.