Technical Difficulties.

[captainsblog]

It’s been an odd couple of days for this sort of thing. I got into work yesterday around 9:30, to word that the power had gone out for about 15 minutes earlier in the morning. I wasn’t totally surprised, since we had a fair amount of heavy weather over the past few days, hardly any of it predicted by assorted weather reports or apps, but I didn’t recall any from early yesterday morning. No matter, power was back on, so I plodded along for an hour or so and finally tried to print something.

"Something" quickly turned into nothing, but that’s not unusual for this piece of shit Xerox machine. It often has to be coaxed into resetting its connections after a night or especially weekend off, so I clicked on its Home button to wake it up. More nothing. The power button, likewise. I unplugged it and plugged it back in, still with no result. Maybe the power outage tripped a breaker on that outlet? I brought over a power strip that had a red light on it indicating it was working, and plugged it in there. It would appear, Captain, that you broke some laws of electricity....



(Stay to the end for a quick Star Trek update....)

Fortunately, I was scheduled to be out of the office for the afternoon anyway, but it remained an annoyance not to be able to print or scan anything.  I put in a service call, and Art the Copier Guy responded quickly.  Apparently this machine has some kind of power module that either got fried by the power surge or just needed one camel's straw to break its back.  It needed a part. He did not have the part. I left for my afternoon of downtown court fun not knowing if the part would be here by this morning, and I did a bunch of printing from home before coming in this morning in case there was no part.

There was part.  Because parts is parts.

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I still generally hate this machine, which is always slow to start while it spins its brain making sure I am using GENUINE XEROX TONER: which constantly gets pages stuck in the feeder when I try to scan more than about three pages at a time; and which for the first time last week managed to get paper stuck in its ass end and gave me the dreaded FUSER FAULT message.

Fuser Fault would be a good name for a band.

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Just don't let them play the old novelty tune "Beep Beep."

I turned in fairly early last night, woke up in my usual cloud of grog, and came out to feed the dog. Pepper was outside, which is unusual for her before she's had the morning noms.

Next I knew, Eleanor was asking, What's that beeping noise?

Well, Joey, usually that's one of the smoke detectors needing a new battery, but we change those twice a year when we turn the clocks, and we just did that a few months ago.

Faint beep.

Dog not coming in to eat.

I wandered among the four of them- hallway and three bedrooms, per the law.

Another faint beep.

Dog appeared at back door but would not come in.

I think it's coming from downstairs.

Less faint beep, once I'm standing under it.  It's the hardwired CO detector we had to install down there when we upgraded our electrical panel for the first electric car.  It still has a battery, though, for backup in case of power failure, which we do occasionally get.

Beep.

Pepper still not coming in. Anxiety off the charts.  Is it the beep beep beep? Only thing we can think of. She was in a shelter for an unspecified amount of time, and quite probably there were all sorts of beeps and boops and alarms going off in there as the doggies came and went.

Up it came, in the new battery went.

Beep.

Finally, the dog, leashed and "encouraged" back into the house, parked her carcass as far away as she could get from the noise. Still not eating.  We disconnected the new battery, waited a bit to see if some horny electrons might settle down, and tried reinstalling the battery and then plugging it back into its slot.

Beep.

This is where Ray left the building. We have since learned that these detectors have a ten year life and they will beep uncontrollably once that lifespan is reached. That first electric car was, drumroll, 2013!.  Eleanor is hoping to find a replacement that will plug into the existing bracket and hardwiring, but finding such a thing can be a problem ten years out.  We may need to have an electrician in to wire in a new-new one, but I've got a client of that ilk coming to do some other work anyway. In the meantime, our upstairs detector will have to do the job, although that one was installed at around the same time, so I'm fully expecting a new round of beeps from there anytime now.

And after walkies and sniffies, the dog finally et. No reports on whether the rest of the anxiety has settled since I left.

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In happier electrical news, though, we have this:



Wax on, wax off.

Eleanor got a few of these battery-operated nightlights with motion sensors, for convenient places to have such things. One's under the sink, while the really important one's in the loo next to the throne- an important feature for the midnight rides you increasingly get when you get older.  The battery is built in and charged by an Android-to-USB cable, and the bathroom one, at least, needs a boost about every couple of weeks.  That is, until it decided it wanted to stay in the wax on position a few weeks ago. We don't need it on in there when we're not actually using the facilities, and switching it out with the one under the sink confirmed that it was an issue with that unit and not the placement in the room.

We're fairly anal about keeping manuals to things, and receipts for bigger purchases, except these were probably under 10 bucks apiece at Lowe's and might not have even had a manual. Still, I found the model number on the back and emailed the company. They first asked for the receipt, which we didn't have. Nonetheless, those two photos above and a short video of the light staying on got us a promise of a free replacement, coming by USPS any day now.

If only copiers were that easy.

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Apropos of the Star Trek reference earlier, I did finish the crossover episode with the Lower Decks animated series. Well done on multiple levels. Perhaps the coolest was that they got two of the voice actors from the other show to appear live in the Strange New Worlds episode, and they both pulled off the roles really well in both voice and physical acting. I'd love to see bloopers from it, because I'm guessing there were many.