HVAC Failure: That's Why They Call It Practice

Full Disclosure:  I will not use any real names so as not to embarrass anyone.  Instead I will address my fellow HVAC students as Harry Potter character's names.

I, Adrian, nay.... Albus Brian Wulfric Percival Dumbledore was working on an outdoor A/C unit in our HVAC lab.

I had "Mad-Eye" Moody and Dedalus Diggle with me working on changing out a bad compressor for a newer one.

Our Instructor (Ron Weasley) was working with our group as well as others.  It was then we heard a giant "Woosh!" 

I look fifteen yards away to where our walk-in cooler/chiller was, and out came running George and Charlie Weasley.

P.S.  You can tell it's George since he has the hole in his ear.

Also, Charlie likes dragons. 

Anyway, I see George and Charlie run like bats out of Hell out of the walk-in cooler/chiller.  Behind them comes Fred Weasley completely soaked.

It seemed like Fred was using a turbo torch to braze copper piping inside the walk-in.  He placed the torch too close to the fire sensor, and the sprinklers went off inside the walk-in. 

I then smelled an awful smell.  It was something like a chemical or oil of some sort.  I didn't wait around for the smell of it to fill our lab area.  I went over and opened up our bay door to let some fresh air in. 

It was about that time the school's fire alarm went off.  It was about 10 seconds after that our Vice Principal came through the doors and yelled for everyone to get out, and that this wasn't a drill. 

So the whole school had to go out to our assigned safety areas.  We waited about 10 minutes out there.  I later found out they had to shut down the water for the whole school to stop the sprinkler system from continuing to pour water everywhere. 

Since the water was turned off for the entire school they told the students to grab their stuff and leave.  I had to pick my tools up out off the newly flooded HVAC lab floor.  I managed to account for all of them, so that was good.  I, along with all my other students left campus.  So it ended up being a short day for the entire school.  I'm not sure if they had everything fixed in time for the nighttime classes.

The one thing I can predict?  We are going to rib the heck out of Fred until we graduate.  I do feel bad for him.  I mean, the least I could have done is offer him an extra shirt I had in my backpack.  But in all fairness, we were told to leave immediately.  So tomorrow I'm going to tell Fred that he needs to work on his, "Aquamenti" spell.  Of course, I hope he gets the Harry Potter reference.

Draught of Living Death? Wait what?

So I was doing my usual mindless job today.  In fact, it was even more mindless than usual today.  Frankly, I had eight hours plus an hour for lunch to let my mind completely wander.  During the day, I got to thinking about a scene in one of the Harry Potter movies.  Something always bugged me about it.

Now, I know Harry Potter fans love to nitpick the books and movies.  And even J.K. Rowling has admitted to some goof-ups in the early books.  But there was one thing that bugged me.  That would be the draught of living death. 

It is first mentioned my potions Professor Snape in the first book.  However, in the sixth book, Professor Horace Slughorn has his advanced potions class make some of the draught on their first day. 

For those unfamiliar, here is the movie scene.

Now, there are a few differences between the movie and the book.  The Harry Potter Wiki says this about the draught:

The Draught of Living Death is a very powerful sleeping potion.

So in the books it's referred to as a sleeping potion, but in the movie Slughorn says that Harry's just made potion was made so well it could kill everyone in the room.  Either way, this is some really dangerous stuff.

It got me to thinking about my high school chemistry teacher.  I won't mention his name, but he was an unlikable man who looked like an albino Irishman.  He was also skinny on the verge of malnutrition, and had a very large nose. 

I was thinking what if he taught our chemistry class how to make roofies or cyanide?  I mean, isn't the draught of living death pretty much a really strong roofie?  Why in the cold hell would you teach a bunch of teenagers how to make that kind of thing?

And let's look at the movie version of that potion.  There are a number of Slytherins in that potions class including Draco Malfoy.  Do you really want to teach that lot how to make a potion even stronger than cyanide?  I mean, talk about bad ideas. 

Can you imagine the chaos that would be caused by a teacher teaching that kind of thing in the muggle world?  Why in the dickens would that sort of thing be allowed at Hogwarts?  I really think Rowling missed the boat with that idea.

This lead me to something else.  Who in the world would insure Hogwarts.  After all the stuff that has happened to students, who would be their insurance carrier?  I bet they get dropped from their carrier every year.  Something to think about.

I Now Own The Ring Of Marvolo Gaunt

That's right.  After much research and travel, I have found the lost ring of Lord Voldemort's ancestor, Marvolo Gaunt.  For those who don't know what the Hell I'm talking about, you should probably just shut your browser now. 

But let's be honest.  You came for the pictures.  Here they are.

I know it makes my hand look evil, but does it make my fingers look fat?  I know some of you will say, "Hey, Prof. Dumbledore destroyed that thing years ago."  Well, all I have to say to that is, have you people heard of jewerly repair?  There's at least 3 jewerly repair stores in every mall plus all the gold buyers, plus all the independents.  It's not hard to repair people!!!!

I'm not planning on doing anything evil yet.  But I won't say that it's out of the question.  Now I just need an elder wand.