Elbie at Trig dot Net

Fri, 27 Oct 2006

Inertial Dampeners failing! Switching to Auxiliary.

The temptation to stay in bed in the morning has been significantly stronger in recent days. It's dark and cold in the mornings now. And I have warm blankets and kitties.

It doesn't help that even after I get up, it's been all cloudy and gloomy. The sun has been hiding for far too long. And cold! I don't think I've mentioned that we've already had snow accumulating on the ground this year. In mid-October! Wow. Well, it melted pretty quickly, but still.

And to top it all off, my hot water heater failed. My place is heated by forced air, so no hot water = no heat. I poked and prodded as best as my limited mechanical knowledge, combined with a very well written installation manual allowed, but to no avail. After one night of no heat, I called the local guys. I explained the symptoms, and we both agreed that it was probably the pilot light mechanism that has gotten dirty, and needed cleaning. It's happened once before, in my last place.

So I get to work, sit down, read my mail, and start to enjoy my coffee, and I get a call that they have someone available, and they're sending him over now. He'll be there in 15 minutes. I let them know that I won't be home for at least a half hour, but I'll try. Can't be helped. Oh well. I show up, the guy is waiting for me. He's very nice, pulls out the mechanism, and it definitely needs cleaning. Cleaned, put back in place, and yay! Hot water!

Well, warm water.

And the blower won't shut off.

Called plumbers the next morning. We talk about it a bit more. There's likely a limit switch that works in tandem with the thermostat that's not working properly, or something like that. So again, at work, just about to enjoy my coffee, and I get another phone call. They're sending someone over now. Oh well, at least I rode my bike today.

To be fair, the plumbers have been very friendly, and professional. The gentleman who called me, who I think is the owner, apologised both times for the short notice of the visits. I'd probably recommend them.

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Sun, 22 Oct 2006

Any relation to Muddy Waters?

I've started playing bridge again, on a regular basis. A friendly grad student invited me along to a bridge event, Wednesday nights at a community centre very close to where I live. So, why not? I showed up by myself, and got assigned a partner and we finished somewhere in the middle. The next week, I managed to coerce lizcase to come along. We had no system, and accordingly we finished dead last. Oh well. Time to review, I guess.

I've been feeling a bit disconnected today. I hadn't left the house at all, and I felt I should at least make some sort of token appearance in the world, so I managed to head out to the Gelato place about fifteen minutes before close to have a drink, and read my ACBL Club Series book someplace that's not home. It was okay, but I really shouldn't let myself stay at home, doing nothing all day like that.

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Tue, 17 Oct 2006

International Awareness Week, for Awareness Weeks.

So as any of you speaking with me on MSN last week were aware, last week was International IM Unicode Day, for those of who that didn't talk to me, but were wondering who the heck this Ɛℓ฿ı€ was, well there ya go as well.

And Monday as I'm sure you all knew, was Bacon Awareness day. Dare made me promise to have bacon for lunch. I know you all are well aware of how much loathing I have for all forms of pig flesh, but for her sake, and the day's, I managed to stomach some.

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Wed, 04 Oct 2006

No explosions for me, thanks.

Presumably, you've all heard about the problem with Apple and Dell laptop batteries. More recently, Toshiba started recalling batteries, and Sony, the manufacturer of the batteries that all these companies are having issue with, finally said "Fuck it. Let's just do it ourselves."

Well, no more worries for me. My replacement battery just came from Apple today.

In your face, explodey battery. pwn3d!

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