Awesome email from Marcia

Heh, this is from my ex manager Mark at WACCO... he's a real champion - he's a contributing factor to why I miss my life back in Tas so much =)

"

Mark OMeara

to me

show details

18:38 (8 hours ago)

Jon

On a cold overcast day I returned to what once was Starwood. The grey sky reflected my feelings about returning to the site, the memories once repressed came screaming to the fore like mad rabbits on steroids. I didn't know whether I would be able to handle the terror. Murray was accompanying me on this visit, we were only two of about six people on site. We signed in at the engineers lunch area near 'rough cut' then climbed the stairs where Grahame had dropped a 19" monitor, and proceeded towards the control room. Every office was empty on the way, not a sound could be heard.

Nothing.

We opened the door to the second story walkway between the engineering managers building and the maintenance offices, and had my first glimpse of what once was the MDF production line. It was completely gone, they had ripped it all out and only a very large yet empty warehouse remains. Murray and I hurried to the control room, again completely empty. Network switch gone and its cabinet ripped out of the wall. Fibre optic and copper cable dangling from a jagged hole in the wall a young girls first night as a woman.

Silence.

We were there to test the fibre optic cables for the new owners in order to provide them with the cable routing information. Murray went to one (suspected) end point of the fibre and I was at the other with a light source attached to the cable. Murray measured the light received and thus we proceeded in this manor around the vacant plant. It was eerie returning to a largely empty set of warehouses. The portion in front of the control room was warped and melted in parts from the heat of the fire that closed the plant. Eventually we arrived at the old server room, the 'Dolls house'. I ascended the stairs with a heavy heart, could I bear to see it again? I passed the training room portion of that second floor and entered the server room. Only the MDF tables remained, all servers, switches, rack and UPS's were removed.

The room felt like the heavily used, discarded, crusty underpants of a forgotten once mighty deity. There remained nothing, all that was good was removed.

Except........ no!

But yes, there it was. Alone. Unwanted. Forgotten.

One yellow sticky note, attached to a wall with the following message:

Jon DeBoer

[ Mobile phone number ]

Sad.

Regards
Mark"