For your information, here are the REAL updates for the construction
work around us:

1) From now to 4/1/00, plumbing systems will be highly unreliable;
   expect several days without running water and the occasional sewage
   backup.  As part of the plumbing-ruination effort, heavy
   construction equipment will tear up large sections of road without
   warning.  Odds are good that you'll also be losing power (without
   warning) several times in the next few months.


2) Additionally, for the next two months, an extra-large "thumper"
   will be installed in the crumbling remnants of the courtyard in an
   attempt to summon a giant sandworm[*].  It will start thumping when
   you get to work; it will stop when you leave.  If you come back
   late, it will start again.  If you try to yell at the construction
   workers, you will be thumped.


3) To prevent loss-of-life lawsuits, we will be operating under
   Earthquake safety-code conditions.  In particular, you will be
   required to bolt all furniture to the floor, and no books may be
   stored on shelves higher than 3' off the floor.  Failure to comply
   by 8am Monday will be grounds for eviction.  You will not be
   allowed in the building over the weekend.


4) Your parking space is marked for demolition.  Your car may be
   towed, or it may just be demolished.  You will be issued a new
   parking space in Pango Pango.  


5) Internet and biotech startups will be sponsoring a construction
   frenzy; buildings will be sprouting up like weeds.  By the time the
   buildings are built, however, most of the companies will be
   bankrupt.  Tribes of local high school students will roam the empty
   halls playing paintball and skin-the-cat.  Please be understanding
   if they confuse certain floors of NE43 with the empty halls of the
   new buildings.


6) NE43 is full of academics who are paying far less than a bunch of
   whiz-bang startups would for the same space.  Frankly, the building
   management hates you.  If you have a complaint about the noise,
   dust, destruction of your property, sanity, and/or thesis, you
   should write it in Braille on a sheet of pure gold and then flush
   it down the toilet.  (Try not to clog the pipes.)


7) Since you can't get any work done for the next two years anyhow,
   you might as well start honing your social skills at tonight's...

****************** G I R L  S C O U T  B E N E F I T ******************
******************        5:30pm  7AI Playroom       ******************

[*] If you haven't read Dune, you have no idea what I'm raving about.