Friday, January 29, 2010

Baby, it's cold outside

6:10 PM

Just received this from Umass (advantage of being a "non-traditional" student I guess):
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To the Campus Community:

Staff at the Central Heating Plant are monitoring a potential problem,
which could disrupt the delivery of steam and heat to campus buildings.
Please be advised that the probability of an outage is low, and that all
necessary precautions are being taken. Campus activities will continue
as planned this weekend. We will advise the community of any changes in
the situation.

UMass Physical Plant
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Hey, what do you want for a new state-of-the-art heating plant originally scheduled for $118 million and coming in closer to $138 million.

18 comments:

  1. Yes, it is state of the art, so it takes a good bit of time to get the bugs out of the system. Under extreme conditions is when you learn what those bugs are.

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  3. It beats the 7 + MILLION dollar heat plant that never heated a building. It is now an official 7+ MILLION dollar storage shed. You can view it's unused smoke stack from North East St.

    This storage shed is yet another example on how easy it is to spend your hard earned dollars on nothing. May as well put the money in a pit and burn it.

    At least the new power plant is operational and serves it's purpose.

    -Ryan

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  4. Yeah Ry, I believe that White Elephant was a tad over $10 million (in 1970's dollars)

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  5. Want to understand why students riot?

    It is crap like this. And to their credit, the steam plant guys (more decent than the housing services folk) actually told people this could happen.

    Housing would (will) just deny that a problem exists and then say that everyone who complains is the next person likely to go on a mass murder spree. I am not being overly dramatic here....

    Welcome to UMass....

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  6. Yeah Ry, I believe that White Elephant was a tad over $10 million (in 1970's dollars)

    No, it wasn't - go read the Ward Commission report. But there was nothing wrong with the plant, other than where the committee of professors decided to put it.

    And the pipeline down Eastman Lane, which failed for a variety of reasons. Yes, someone came up with the bright idea of piping live steam 1.9 miles DOWNHILL and then trying to run it through the turbines. Turbines don't like water droplets in the steam, they act like bullets and put holes in the blades.

    Turbines blads with holes tend to, well, become dangerous when they shatter.

    Everyone who says that the "experts" should run the Amherst schools and that critics like me should stay out ought to look at what the experts built in '75....

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  7. "Everyone who says that the "experts" should run the Amherst schools and that critics like me should stay out ought to look at what the experts built in '75...."


    Bingo.

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  8. What about the "experts" that build the bike path with recycled crush glass. Must have been paid off by the bike tube manufactures.

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  9. there is not an edit option here. I meant to spell the words built and crushed.

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  10. Ed, quit foolin yourself. The students dont riot cause of crap like this. They riot because they're young, drunk, and the Yankees beat the Red Sox

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  12. Here's something a watchdog like yourself SHOULD be reporting about Larry:

    From MassLive this morning in their article, "Amherst Ballot Lacking Drama".

    "As of Friday morning, there was not a single race for Town Meeting seats. Each of 10 precincts has eight vacancies for three-year terms. In some precincts, there was just a single candidate and in others there were six. Typically, there are a lot of last-minute filings for the positions. Only a single signature is needed to run."

    Maybe you could get some of your friends who appear to have all the answers, or at least proclaim to understand the cause of all the problems, to mosey on down to Town Hall tomorrow to put their name in for Town Meeting. Unless, of course, it's more satisfying to sit back and complain from the sidelines rather than actually doing something to effect the change they'd like to see.

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  13. "Amherst ballot lacking drama"
    Sunday, January 31, 2010
    By DIANE LEDERMAN
    dlederman@repub.com


    I friend sent me this very interesting, but in a odd way, very sad article today. In a small community like Amherst with SO many of it's citizen's who know exactly what's right for the town....How in the hell is there so little interest in town politics?

    It seems Mr. Kelley with your knowledge of town government and being a "fifth generation" resident, you would be the perfect candidate for a select board postion. From the stops I've made here on your blog, you certainly have many ideas and opinions and passion on what's right and wrong in Amherst.

    Could you or anyone of your blog bashers explain to me on why you shouldn't run? The time you spend on here might be better well spent in Town Hall. Don't cha think?

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  14. No, I don't.

    In fact, I may very well not put my name in for Town Meeting (after having been first elected in 1991) because the current system, for lack of a better word, sucks.

    As do you, Cowardly, Anon, Nitwit.

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  15. Larry, I'm with you. Fck town meeting and then go fcking blog nuclear over Amherst. Sink this fcking rat infested barge once and for all. Let the ocean lap at all the bloated roaches clinging to whatever floating sea trash they might be lucky enough to cling on to...

    Fck this open sewer once and for all.

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