"Quinten" - The Great 2009 Wind Storm of Destruction and Carnage

Well recently I discovered that the German Wetterdienst (Weather Service) names every single high and low pressure system that comes their way, much like we name our hurricanes. I guess the Germans felt left out since they don't ever get any hurricanes so they had to be special. They are the only weather service in the world to do this... they say it makes the weather more personal for the general public... frankly I would find it a pain because I would run out of names very quickly... but in 2002 they created the "adopt a vortex" program where, for a fee of course, you can add your own suggestion for a name to their database. You can find out more about the history of it here and check out the current system names here.

Anyways, enough on the background... yesterday vortex "Quinten" came ripping through central Europe, closing the Paris airport and causing mass panic. Frankly "Quinten" was not an intimidating enough name for me so I paid no attention. At the beginning of my work day however the wind was slamming into my side of the building making all kinds of funny banging sounds and what not, so I put in my headphones and paid no attention. A little later I heard this loud crash... soon after a man with extremely yellow teeth (it looked like he had corn for teeth) came in and asked if I noticed one of the antennas fall off... apparently that's now part of my job description. I had no idea there were even antennas on the roof right above me until I went out and took a look:

Turns out there used to be 4 up there... not anymore. Well being as I am on the 4th floor, which is technically the 5th floor since there is a "Gallery" floor, the antenna took a dive off the edge and fell down to the brick walkway next to lake Africa (which has now completely thawed, so no more treks across it anymore) and was completely destroyed:

Gunther the fake plastic bird saw the whole thing go down but told no one... I am very disappointed in him. I mentioned it to co-workers at lunch and apparently it became a big fiasco because shortly after lunch was over and I was settling back into my "work" mode 5 people came in wanting to see the carnage. By then the maintenance people had cleaned the crime scene up and there was no excitement to be had... but apparently this was big news in the office yesterday.