Westward, Ho!

I was sitting here working on my sjsu homework, when the skies opened. I
could hear the water pelting on my roof and balcony and the sidewalk. While
rain was forecast, it hadn't looked or felt like it was forthcoming, so I
was very surprised. It seemed to be coming from the north, which seemed a
bit unusual. I went out to the dining room to see just how it was coming
down, and to make sure the balcony sliding door and kitchen window were
shut, b/c it sounded like it was blowing sideways pretty fiercely.

Very odd--the parking lot lights were not dimmed by this torrential downpour.

Looked out over the balcony, which was being drenched, and realized the
water was coming *up*, not down. **Beyond** odd!

Looked more closely, and saw that the source of the downpour, err, up-pour,
was a broken in-ground-sprinkler head. A strong plume of water was
erupting from just across the sidewalk from my apt. The plume was arc'd
such that it was aimed right at my roofline. After the water scrubbed my
roof and half my balcony it tumbled down to the apt below me, where it was
rapidly forming a lake inside the walled patio. Robert, my downstairs
neighbor, quickly appeared on my doorstep, the pager number for maintenance
emergencies in hand. Evidently we both put in pages simultaneously, b/c
the water was shut off w/in a few minutes. (Sam, our maintenance guy, is
muy fabuloso.)

So, no rain. Alas.