Monday, June 18, 2007
Yesterday? Not so good
We seem to have hit one of those little clusters of time where multiple mechanicals start to get recalcitrant. Either that or my victory over Mike's computer set-up made the ghods of technology think I was getting too big for my geeky britches.
It's true I had been foolishly ignoring an ongoing problem with the battery back-up unit. So when some stuff fell off the printer yesterday, down in the gap between the desk and the wall, I decided this was a good time to make one final test of the unit before breaking down and buying it a new battery. (The analyzing software that goes with it, by the way, is in deep denial, insisting everything is Just Fine, Dave.)
Yep, unplugging it shut everything down, as I expected. However, this time when we powered the whole array up again, the DSL was DOA. NOT as I expected.
While I got to work trying to fix it, Mike decided to go to town to play with his friend. He didn't have any shorts with pockets to wear, so he took the cellphone along in a plastic grocery bag.
About an hour later, while I was still in 'what the HECK?' mode re the DSL, he came home crying. Partway there he'd noticed the phone had fallen out through a hole in the bag.
We calmed him down with the usual 'accidents happen', 'you did the right thing trying to find it first, then telling us', and so on. Then we took a family jaunt down the road to help look. It has been a while since I walked over a mile all at once. Which I didn't quite this time either, I guess, since I had to sit down for a while on the way back. On the plus side, Caro and Mike, who had gone a ways further than I did, spotted the phone and brought it back safe and sound. So that was good.
The CenturyTel guy was SUPPOSED to call before he came, but he missed that memo, which meant a rather hurried rearrangement of furniture. The cause he found was peculiar--he said the phone jack had stopped working. How that could happen from the power being unplugged I can't begin to imagine. Maybe one of the books that fell down in the gap hit the box and it was the last straw for those 30 year old wires?
The trouble was that he could not open up the jack to really check, as it is behind part of the desk. And the desk is a gigantic triple sided behemoth that, as I recall, weighed almost 200 pounds unassembled in the box.
I was about to offer to go find my jigsaw and create an access port through the wooden desk support, which is what I did originally (thinking ahead!) so that the electrical socket is easy to get to. (Should have included the phone jack. OH WELLLL!) Then the CenturyTel guy suggested he could just put in another jack in the open space.
I said, "Go for it."
Obviously it worked, as I am back on telling you my tale of woe. What next, though? What next?
It's true I had been foolishly ignoring an ongoing problem with the battery back-up unit. So when some stuff fell off the printer yesterday, down in the gap between the desk and the wall, I decided this was a good time to make one final test of the unit before breaking down and buying it a new battery. (The analyzing software that goes with it, by the way, is in deep denial, insisting everything is Just Fine, Dave.)
Yep, unplugging it shut everything down, as I expected. However, this time when we powered the whole array up again, the DSL was DOA. NOT as I expected.
While I got to work trying to fix it, Mike decided to go to town to play with his friend. He didn't have any shorts with pockets to wear, so he took the cellphone along in a plastic grocery bag.
About an hour later, while I was still in 'what the HECK?' mode re the DSL, he came home crying. Partway there he'd noticed the phone had fallen out through a hole in the bag.
We calmed him down with the usual 'accidents happen', 'you did the right thing trying to find it first, then telling us', and so on. Then we took a family jaunt down the road to help look. It has been a while since I walked over a mile all at once. Which I didn't quite this time either, I guess, since I had to sit down for a while on the way back. On the plus side, Caro and Mike, who had gone a ways further than I did, spotted the phone and brought it back safe and sound. So that was good.
The CenturyTel guy was SUPPOSED to call before he came, but he missed that memo, which meant a rather hurried rearrangement of furniture. The cause he found was peculiar--he said the phone jack had stopped working. How that could happen from the power being unplugged I can't begin to imagine. Maybe one of the books that fell down in the gap hit the box and it was the last straw for those 30 year old wires?
The trouble was that he could not open up the jack to really check, as it is behind part of the desk. And the desk is a gigantic triple sided behemoth that, as I recall, weighed almost 200 pounds unassembled in the box.
I was about to offer to go find my jigsaw and create an access port through the wooden desk support, which is what I did originally (thinking ahead!) so that the electrical socket is easy to get to. (Should have included the phone jack. OH WELLLL!) Then the CenturyTel guy suggested he could just put in another jack in the open space.
I said, "Go for it."
Obviously it worked, as I am back on telling you my tale of woe. What next, though? What next?
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