There once was a king who greatly enjoyed his jousting and feasting and making merry! He especially liked wooing fair maidens. But one day, while he was wooing a particularly lovely young maiden, a big section of his castle’s watch tower came tumbling down and a huge rock hit his fair maiden on the head and killed her.
That startled the king a bit, and after thinking about this for a while he realized that his castle very urgently needed repairs. It was many hundreds of years old by the time he became king and the place was starting to crumble because no one had paid any attention to its physical condition. Through all those many years all the previous kings had been too busy jousting and feasting and wooing the fair maidens. They didn’t give any consideration to the state of the castle. But now this king was forced to wonder just what it would take to put that castle back together again and shore up its defenses so it could perform it’s castle function.
One day the king looked at his neighbor king’s castle and saw that there were massive numbers of elves swarming all over that king’s outside of the castle.. They were cutting new blocks, replacing old ones, doing a lot of tuck-pointing. They tore down the old gutters and put up new ones. They shored up a crumbling turret. They even re-crenellated the ramparts of the castle walls. They seemed to fly up and down the walls. Yet nothing seemed to be holding them up. And all the while, the king could see that the place was becoming ever sturdier and a lot safer. It was much more pleasant to look at. It was a puzzle. It was a mystery. It was an outrage!!
“How do they do that?” the king wondered. And the more he saw what they were doing, and the more he thought about how he needed to do that, the more jealous he became. How could it be that this, rather Minor King, had the ability he didn’t have to shore up his castle!? It was an outrage!
Mulling all this over in his mind, the king totted on down to the local neighborhood “Grog Shoppe” and while he sat there nursing a few beers, he noticed that one of the Minor King’s knights was also in the pub, and since he knew this knight from previous conversations, he called this fellow over and asked him, “Sir Knight, tell me, if you can, how are all those elves able to be up and down your castle walls doing all those repairs? What are they, that new brand of lighter-than-air Elves I’ve been seeing on TV and read about in the spam email?
“Oh, no,” said the Knight.. “Those elves are walking around on the various levels of scaffolding that surround the castle completely. You see my master, the Minor King, planned this repair many years in advance and he has been spending his money on putting up the scaffolding and hiring and training the elves and getting ready to do all this work that really very badly needed to be done. He knew if he was going to undertake such a task he would have to spend time and money in preparation.”
“Well, why can’t I see all that scaffolding,” queried the king.
“Ah, that’s just the “camo effect.” It keeps out the curious, prying eyes of our neighbors, like you. It’s a powerful secret! But, because I know you pretty well, I’ll tell you. But first I’ll give you a little hint. Have you ever heard of the "Invisibility Cloak?" Oh, no? Don’t' you read Harry Potter? Well that’s a new kind of tarpaulin that’s been placed completely over the scaffolding so that no one can see it. My master, the Minor King, wanted to make it look like nothing was happening to the place until the elves actually went to work on it. So he borrowed the idea from the Potter mysteries.
“But, you see, don’t you, that without that infrastructure, that scaffolding underneath the Invisibility Cloak, the elves would be helpless. Without that infrastructure, my master the Minor King would not be able to repair his castle walls at all.”
And with that, the jealous king jumped up, chugged his beer and scrambled back up the road to his castle, crying “Get me some infrastructure! Get me some infrastructure! My kingdom for some infrastructure, so I can repair my castle!, and get back to jousting, feasting and wooing the fair maidens!”
Showing posts with label A tale of Infrastructure. Show all posts
Showing posts with label A tale of Infrastructure. Show all posts
Thursday, July 5, 2007
Friday, February 2, 2007
The Jealous King
There once was a king who greatly enjoyed his jousting and feasting and making merry! He especially liked wooing fair maidens. But one day, while he was wooing a particularly lovely young maiden, a big section of his castle’s watch tower came tumbling down and a huge rock hit his fair maiden on the head and killed her.
That startled the king a bit, and after thinking about this for a while he realized that his castle very urgently needed repairs. It was many hundreds of years old by the time he became king and the place was starting to crumble because no one had paid any attention to its physical condition. Through all those many years all the previous kings had been too busy jousting and feasting and wooing the fair maidens. They didn’t give any consideration to the state of the castle. But now this king was forced to wonder just what it would take to put that castle back together again and shore up its defenses so it could perform it’s castle function.
One day the king looked at his neighbor king’s castle and saw that there were massive numbers of elves swarming all over that king’s outside of the castle.. They were cutting new blocks, replacing old ones, doing a lot of tuck-pointing. They tore down the old gutters and put up new ones. They shored up a crumbling turret. They even re-crenellated the ramparts of the castle walls. They seemed to fly up and down the walls. Yet nothing seemed to be holding them up. And all the while, the king could see that the place was becoming ever sturdier and a lot safer. It was much more pleasant to look at. It was a puzzle. It was a mystery. It was an outrage!!
“How do they do that?” the king wondered. And the more he saw what they were doing, and the more he thought about how he needed to do that, the more jealous he became. How could it be that this, rather Minor King, had the ability he didn’t have to shore up his castle!? It was an outrage!
Mulling all this over in his mind, the king totted on down to the local neighborhood “Grog Shoppe” and while he sat there nursing a few beers, he noticed that one of the Minor King’s knights was also in the pub, and since he knew this knight from previous conversations, he called this fellow over and asked him, “Sir Knight, tell me, if you can, how are all those elves able to be up and down your castle walls doing all those repairs? What are they, that new brand of lighter-than-air Elves I’ve been seeing on TV and read about in the spam email?
“Oh, no,” said the Knight.. “Those elves are walking around on the various levels of scaffolding that surround the castle completely. You see my master, the Minor King, planned this repair many years in advance and he has been spending his money on putting up the scaffolding and hiring and training the elves and getting ready to do all this work that really very badly needed to be done. He knew if he was going to undertake such a task he would have to spend time and money in preparation.”
“Well, why can’t I see all that scaffolding,” queried the king.
“Ah, that’s just the “camo effect.” It keeps out the curious, prying eyes of our neighbors, like you. It’s a powerful secret! But, because I know you pretty well, I’ll tell you. But first I’ll give you a little hint. Have you ever heard of the "Invisibility Cloak?" Oh, no? Don’t' you read Harry Potter? Well that’s a new kind of tarpaulin that’s been placed completely over the scaffolding so that no one can see it. My master, the Minor King, wanted to make it look like nothing was happening to the place until the elves actually went to work on it. So he borrowed the idea from the Potter mysteries.
“But, you see, don’t you, that without that infrastructure, that scaffolding underneath the Invisibility Cloak, the elves would be helpless. Without that infrastructure, my master the Minor King would not be able to repair his castle walls at all.”
And with that, the jealous king jumped up, chugged his beer and scrambled back up the road to his castle, crying “Get me some infrastructure! Get me some infrastructure! My kingdom for some infrastructure, so I can repair my castle!, and get back to jousting, feasting and wooing the fair maidens!”
That startled the king a bit, and after thinking about this for a while he realized that his castle very urgently needed repairs. It was many hundreds of years old by the time he became king and the place was starting to crumble because no one had paid any attention to its physical condition. Through all those many years all the previous kings had been too busy jousting and feasting and wooing the fair maidens. They didn’t give any consideration to the state of the castle. But now this king was forced to wonder just what it would take to put that castle back together again and shore up its defenses so it could perform it’s castle function.
One day the king looked at his neighbor king’s castle and saw that there were massive numbers of elves swarming all over that king’s outside of the castle.. They were cutting new blocks, replacing old ones, doing a lot of tuck-pointing. They tore down the old gutters and put up new ones. They shored up a crumbling turret. They even re-crenellated the ramparts of the castle walls. They seemed to fly up and down the walls. Yet nothing seemed to be holding them up. And all the while, the king could see that the place was becoming ever sturdier and a lot safer. It was much more pleasant to look at. It was a puzzle. It was a mystery. It was an outrage!!
“How do they do that?” the king wondered. And the more he saw what they were doing, and the more he thought about how he needed to do that, the more jealous he became. How could it be that this, rather Minor King, had the ability he didn’t have to shore up his castle!? It was an outrage!
Mulling all this over in his mind, the king totted on down to the local neighborhood “Grog Shoppe” and while he sat there nursing a few beers, he noticed that one of the Minor King’s knights was also in the pub, and since he knew this knight from previous conversations, he called this fellow over and asked him, “Sir Knight, tell me, if you can, how are all those elves able to be up and down your castle walls doing all those repairs? What are they, that new brand of lighter-than-air Elves I’ve been seeing on TV and read about in the spam email?
“Oh, no,” said the Knight.. “Those elves are walking around on the various levels of scaffolding that surround the castle completely. You see my master, the Minor King, planned this repair many years in advance and he has been spending his money on putting up the scaffolding and hiring and training the elves and getting ready to do all this work that really very badly needed to be done. He knew if he was going to undertake such a task he would have to spend time and money in preparation.”
“Well, why can’t I see all that scaffolding,” queried the king.
“Ah, that’s just the “camo effect.” It keeps out the curious, prying eyes of our neighbors, like you. It’s a powerful secret! But, because I know you pretty well, I’ll tell you. But first I’ll give you a little hint. Have you ever heard of the "Invisibility Cloak?" Oh, no? Don’t' you read Harry Potter? Well that’s a new kind of tarpaulin that’s been placed completely over the scaffolding so that no one can see it. My master, the Minor King, wanted to make it look like nothing was happening to the place until the elves actually went to work on it. So he borrowed the idea from the Potter mysteries.
“But, you see, don’t you, that without that infrastructure, that scaffolding underneath the Invisibility Cloak, the elves would be helpless. Without that infrastructure, my master the Minor King would not be able to repair his castle walls at all.”
And with that, the jealous king jumped up, chugged his beer and scrambled back up the road to his castle, crying “Get me some infrastructure! Get me some infrastructure! My kingdom for some infrastructure, so I can repair my castle!, and get back to jousting, feasting and wooing the fair maidens!”
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