I am sure you are tuned into the news about statue of the near-naked sleepwalker on the Munger Green. Sunday’s Superbowl XLVIII was a blowout and the half time show resulted in its own controversy about the fact that the Red Hot Chili Peppers really did not play live, but were accompanied by recordings of instruments. I loved a few of the commercials and suggested that they should have run them more during the second half because that would have been more fun than the game itself!

Now it is time to concentrate on NCAA basketball. I had good luck with calling the Superbowl outcome and I am wondering whether that luck will continue with NCAA bracket. I am looking to win $1 billion by getting every winner in the bracket right. And no, that won’t make me retire because I love what I do!

My introduction to the first major snow storm was in early 1979. I remember venturing out in the snow and trying to take the subway to Manhattan. I was bored in the apartment and wanted to get to school and do some work. That was how bored I was! But, the normal 10 minute walk from the apartment to the subway turned into a disaster, because, in 10 minutes I barely went to the end of my street because nothing had been cleaned. What a different world it has become now!

Yesterday morning when I got up, I learned that the College was not closing and we were advised to use our discretion on deciding whether to drive to work or not. When the College is open, we have to find ways to make sure that the libraries remain open, helpdesk is staffed, classroom trouble calls are attended to etc. Our staff got on it right away and lined up our student staff to help.

Our helpdesk is staffed mostly by students with a professional being there at all times. We were not sure who is able to come, but at least we had student coverage there and they could reach any one of the staff either at home or on their cell phone. All through these, several of the directors were communicating with me and others about the plans electronically.

Then it occurred to us that the faculty helpline (ITIT) which is normally picked up by a Research and Instructional Support staff member will end up going to a voicemail. So, we were trying to see if it can be redirected to someone’s home phone number using our webphone web interface. While we were looking into this, we heard that one of our staff members was already in the library! That took care of that!

In fact, a lot of us were working away as planned, as though nothing had happened. Some meetings may have been cancelled (I am sure that people appreciated that) which gave the staff more time to concentrate on other things. I participated in a virtual board meeting of NERCOMP as planned, but decided to drive to campus in the afternoon for a meeting. It was not a bad drive at all.

Our VPN use, which peaks around mid-50s during the regular times, peaked over 102 yesterday. Why 102? This is the total licenses that we have purchased so far in small batches. I agree that this is an odd, even number 🙂  If you were the 103rd or 104th, you would not have been able to get in and our apologies. We are looking to increase the number of licenses. In three years, we have gone from no VPN to 100+ simultaneous VPN users and I can’t be happier. This is such a convenience to be able to work from home and access all protected resources as if you are on campus. The fact that Cisco’s SSL VPN and AnyConnect client  is now supported for Mac OS X Mavericks, I have been able to upgrade!

If you don’t know anything about our VPN offer and the advantages of using it, please contact the Helpdesk.

So, today’s technologies have been such  huge game changers that when it snows it does not make much of a difference for most of us to be able to get our work done! You can continue to read and respond to emails, conduct meetings virtually if you are so inclined or over the phone, read books and journal articles online (I know that this may not work for everyone) etc. Those faculty who feel comfortable using a Google Hangout to connect with the students at the scheduled class time can do so if they are unable to come to the College. Of course, this is not a replacement for a face to face class, but may work for one class for some. Or, if they have “reliable” forecast that the snow is going to be bad, perhaps they can record a lecture ahead of time and make it available for the students to see/hear it. These are not straightforward and may not simply work for everyone. However, experimentation is in our gene and snow days may provide the perfect opportunity to experiment.

The most important thing for all of these to work is the availability of power and internet connectivity! Without them, it is like the good old days. You will be crippled after your smartphone’s battery runs out. Even yesterday, the number of people who stayed home and worked was so many, there were reports of slowness of connection because the ISPs may not have the bandwidth for handling so many simultaneous connections.

And frankly, all of this is great, but some may say “I just want to unwind, enjoy the snow and do nothing”. Of course, that option exists too!