territorial pissing

i'm rather proud of this one.

received a call from my colleague last week, coordinator of our seminars, informing me that the hotel did not actually have 3 phase 480v power supply, contrary of course to what they told us.

me - "is it in the contract"?
he - "yup"
me - "well then, tell them to make it so"

and they did. the fine folks at the westin gaslamp quarter, san diego rented a diesel generator for the week, and ran the cable through the wall of the hotel, through the coffee shop, and into the conference room so the show could go on. now, if that's not an engineers' version of lifting one's leg to mark one's territory, i don't know what is.