28-03-2010 14:27

Pat Fairbank

Re: pic: The bleachers at Waterloo claim another victim

Yeah, the Waterloo bleachers are notorious for this, since there's no backing to them and stuff can just slip through. In 2007, I dropped my laptop power supply and mouse down from near the highest row. Luckily, both survived the fall.

28-03-2010 14:32

DarkFlame145

Re: pic: The bleachers at Waterloo claim another victim

ouch, but look on the bright side, you most likely got all 100 bucks out of it in use.

28-03-2010 15:41

Wayne Doenges

Re: pic: The bleachers at Waterloo claim another victim

Isn't gravity a B****?

28-03-2010 16:11

Wildcat

Re: pic: The bleachers at Waterloo claim another victim

RIP laptop

28-03-2010 18:40

Dkt01

Re: pic: The bleachers at Waterloo claim another victim

If nothing else, what a great excuse to buy a new laptop.
If you can't stand giving it up, it would be a unique desk ornament or paper weight.

28-03-2010 19:03

The Cyborg

Re: pic: The bleachers at Waterloo claim another victim

The bleachers at the Detroit District are also notorious for not being gravity-friendly to people's belongings. They have the same setup at Waterloo: no backings on them. By the end of the competition, there are literally piles of stuff under the bleachers. To make matters worse, it is not easy get underneath these bleachers.
Thankfully, we have someone raid the bleachers at certain times and takes any important things to the lost and found at Pit administration.

Good luck in shopping for a new laptop! There are so many to choose from...

28-03-2010 19:04

MishraArtificer

Re: pic: The bleachers at Waterloo claim another victim

Hm...that appears to be an exact clone of my own Dell Latitude D600! If you would like, I could sell mine to you for spare parts, my screen's intact. And it has a faster processor! (Yes, you can swap the processor in these, but it's such a funky chip: mPGA-479, it's not a true Pentium 4, it has one extra pin...**** it...)

Edit: Before I forget again, did you have problems with it occasionally not powering on? Mine sometimes gives this funny clicking noise, and the power light flashes for a couple seconds before going silent...

28-03-2010 19:11

Alex Dinsmoor

Re: pic: The bleachers at Waterloo claim another victim

At least it didn't get run over by a bus!

28-03-2010 19:42

Re: pic: The bleachers at Waterloo claim another victim

At least now I know what that big bang was!, I almost lost a microphone to those same bleachers, I sat down to take a break and my mic unclipped from my belt and was being pulled by gravity slowly towards that gap, I was able to slowly and carefully rescue it before it made the plunge.

I found it for some reason hard to see the benches vs the steps there as well as I was making my way up and down although I came close to falling at least I am reassured in knowing I certainly wouldn't fall through that gap

Maybe next year assuming I lose the 40 lbs.

28-03-2010 19:59

Bongle

Re: pic: The bleachers at Waterloo claim another victim

I never had issues with it at all, aside from build quality issues - the left hinge and trim above the keyboard was already missing before the fall, and the right hinge was barely attached.

I don't really need parts, I'll just get a new (or new-to-me) laptop. Maybe even one built after 2003.

29-03-2010 10:24

Nick Lawrence

Re: pic: The bleachers at Waterloo claim another victim

It's a good thing 1305 had their scouting server laptop securely fastened (with good old tape!) to their stand, or it would have suffered the same fate.

-Nick

29-03-2010 16:25

Travis Hoffman

Re: pic: The bleachers at Waterloo claim another victim

Are the Waterloo bleachers related to the IRI bleachers, by any chance? Those are evil little buggers, too.

29-03-2010 17:46

Karibou

Re: pic: The bleachers at Waterloo claim another victim

I second this. My flash drives fell down from the top row of the bleachers...a wonderful thing to happen when they contain your business plan, which needed to be printed The amount of stuff that falls down there during the events is pretty laughable.

29-03-2010 22:48

Emily3204

Re: pic: The bleachers at Waterloo claim another victim

Thats pretty bad, but not as bad as when one of my teammates fell through the bleachers at the Javits Center in NYC. She was fine, but I haven't felt the same way about bleachers ever since

30-03-2010 08:40

Isaac501

Re: pic: The bleachers at Waterloo claim another victim

I took a fall on the stairs with our team's programming laptop at the Granite State Regional. I messed my feet, back and right arm up something fierce, but I think it was worth it, since the laptop belongs to my girlfriend, and was a brand new Alienware! I rolled over like a ninja and sheltered the precious. But ow. ow ow ow.