Strange times call for drastic measures.... sometimes.
Strange times ALWAYS call for unique thinking.
This week at Hen House Media, we were "walloped" by multiple issues and each one was stranger than the previous. Perhaps we owe this to Halloween or the elections. But one thing is certain.... "ain't no Pumpkin Pie" and "ain't no politico in the Oval Office" gonna save Hen House from the "Forces of Strange"
PART ONE: Aye Captain, there be Gremlins in the works!Okay, early this week, Johnny's desktop hard drive conked out. I believe it was file-structure corruption, but the result was horrendous. We lost access to the drive, and any saved Data on it.
Thankfully, a very decent program was able to "see" the unmountable drive and allow for an overnight data recovery.
This was an awsome piece of software to fix a hardware problem... but it took time. And thankfully , NONE of our client data was lost.
Now, you are probably thinking to yourself "Hard drive failure is not strange..." No it isn't. But what is strange about this failure are as follows:
1. We are between 2 massive jobs. - Timing works to our advantage
2. We recovered needed data - But even if we couldn't, no client files were ever in jeopardy
3. This failure came as we were about to implement an entire system overhaul for redundancy purposes.
4. This failure actually exposed one extra vulnerability to point number 3... and that is now part of our implementational "roll-out"
5. We lost time, but nothing more.
As frustrating as this all is/was, no major harm (knock on wood).
PART TWO: Want to get Capone? Here is how you get Capone... use a Bat!
Small mouse dropping suddenly make you aware that you might have a small rodent problem. Right?
WRONG?
At Hen House Media, the video production company near Burlington, VT, we know that small rodent droppings indicate that you have a problem. It is up to you to determine the size of the problem. May not be small.
We noticed chocolate sprinkle sized mouse droppings on our window sill, right under our AC. The neat thing is, we were going to remove our AC for the winter anyway, so we knew that we could seal up the hole that may have helped the mouse gain access.
Now, we are two stories up, so this must have been one industrious mouse... right?
Hmmmm.
As we removed the AC, the thought became clear: Are we going to find a nest? Are there going to be babies? Are there going to be carcasses? Who knows, but we continued with the uninstall. We needed to remove acustom wooden frame that held the unit.
As we did so, the idea crossed our minds (collectively): Could this be a bat?
As we carefully opened the wooden frame, we found nothing. Nothing but a pile of those little chocolate sprinkles.... which indicated -- Home for a mouse.
As Johnny removed a beautiful cross piece of wood, we heard the noice... and it will haunt him forever.
He heard the sound of a small grunt. That grunt of a very disturbed little animal, or perhaps that of a small, but tough truck driver. Then he saw it.
The body of a well fed bat.
This bat was still sleeping, but not happily, and not for long.
We quickly called in ALL reinforcements from the business next store, and with a four person crew (three working, and me holding a rolled up magazine, ready to protect myself if need be) we replace the inner wood, knocked out the outer wood, and allowed the bat to seek new refuge without much fuss.
He left the Hen House with no further coaxing.
We felt disgusted, but also happy that Hen House Media had given safe harbor to a bat that was healthy, strong, and a dedicated member to the fly-control population.
In a time of Bat die-off in the North-East, we felt somewhat relieved to know this bat was doing well and all we now had to worry about was the Hantavirus we had been breathing in all summer long.
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