Technical Difficulties

So, Tuesday we (the EEG lab) were supposed to give a presentation for the trustees of Scripps. The presentation was supposed to start at 3:30. Alan wanted Abby and I there by 3:15, it only takes about 10 minutes to get ready, so it shouldn't have been a big deal. It was supposed to be a very simple 30 minute presentation of what our lab can do, with Abby being the participant, and my running the experiment while Alan narrated.

I got to lab about 3:05, and was surprised to find the doors already open and the lights on, since I expected to be the first one there. Abby was there, but so was a video camera on a rather large tripod, hooked up to a computer. Abby said that apparently they were going to stream the presentation over the web. Interesting. But they weren't going to be able to see anything at all where they had the camera placed at the moment. Whatever, it wasn't my problem.

I started getting things ready, making the solution, warming it up, and making sure we had towels out and such things. Alan came down, and started helping by setting up the computers. He wiggled the mouse on the Mac, and nothing happened. Well, the power outage apparently turned everything off, so we turned it all back on.... no picture on the screen. Tried restarting everything, still no picture, no response at all from the computer to the moniter. At this point, it's about 3:15. Alan goes next door to get IT, and the guy comes back saying "Oh, you have one of those macs." Apparently certain macs have a "special feature" that if the power goes out while they're on, you have to push this button on the motherboard to get them started again. Well, our mac is enclosed in a cart, so he had to take apart the cart, pull out the computer, open the computer, push the button, and then put all this back together.

Meanwhile, the camera people have come back, and after asking us where things would be happening, have decided that they want to put the camera into the experimental room where Abby and I will be doing the net application, and the actual experiment things. Funny thing about that is: there's no room in that room for much other than the equipment already in there, and once we got the camera in, we had to totally rearrange our moniters so that they could see them on the screen. Crazy! So, while Abby and I are rearranging our entire experimental room, I'm trying to measure Abby's head, and her vertex, while soaking the net and trying to figure out why none of the moniters in the room have power. Alan's talking to the trustees who have just arrived, and there are now so many people in these two rooms, that you have to excuse yourself to people if you want to travel anywhere at all.

So I go back into the computer room after we get everything set up for the camera guys, it's now 3:35ish, and the IT guy is just finishing resetting all the things that needed to be done with the mac, and the power's back on to the other moniters, so I go to set up the stimuli computer. Well, I went to type in the participant ID number, and the keyboard doesn't work. I trace the connection back, it's plugged in. I go back, and now the mouse won't work either. So we had to restart that computer as well. It was absolute insanity.

Fortunately, one of the trustees was very late, and they were very understanding about the computer and power outage thing. Apparently power outages don't mix well with electronics, who would have thought?! ;)

Anyway, the presentation ended up going very well, although it ended about 4:20 instead of 4. But, the trustees seemed very interested, which is good! Maybe they'll give us money.

So, I was rather pleased with how things ended up going, especially after all the insanity beforehand, and then I got an e-mail from Alan, in which he told Abby and I that he'd fallen asleep after lunch, and had woken up at 3:10 in a stupor, and then had to come down and do the presentation. So he thanked us for being very professional and saving the day. I was impressed with how well he handled it all. I guess a little adrenaline will wake you up real fast! Sooo crazy!

Well, that's the news from lab. Back to work.