Slow days at work this week. We have an important "live run" with a prospective client early next week -- it could be a lot of business -- which means I have to be ready at any moment to help fix something if it breaks. But thus far we've been all good (for my team, at least), so I spent the past week tying up loose ends and stretching 10-minute tasks into half-hour ones. This is when it's good to work from home a few days a week, as I can at least be productive at home -- and by productive at home I mean, I can do the New York Times crossword puzzle, the New Yorker crossword puzzle, the NYT spelling bee (my new favorite game), and answer my daily trivia questions. (I'm super annoyed, by the way. There was a question about a 1970s rock album, and I knew it was by Pink Floyd, but I put The Wall and it was The Dark Side of the Moon. My opponent forfeited, however, so it didn't really matter.)
I also got something legitimately productive done on Friday. I switched the ceiling fan in our bedroom with the one in the living room. They're the same model, but the one in our room makes this ticking noise that gradually revs up into an unbearable clacking cacophony -- tick, tick, tick, TICK, TICK, CLANK!, CLANK!, CLANK! Usually I find the whirring of a fan soothing while I fall asleep, but not this one. It's perfect fan weather here in DC too. It's hot enough that you need something, but not so hot that you feel justified in running your AC all night. So, what happens each night is S goes to bed before me and turns on the noisy fan (because she's one of those blessed people who can sleep through almost any noise), and then I come in and turn it off when I go to bed (because I'm not one of those blessed people), and then she doesn't like being hot, so she goes to sleep with Lil' S2 (Lil' S1 also doesn't like turning on the ceiling fan, because he's afraid it will fall on him while he sleeps), and then I wake up in the middle of the night alone sweating through my tee. I don't even get much of an advantage in having the bed to myself, because we got a king-size bed when we moved, so there's more than enough room for two people. (That thing is a game-changer, by the way. I love it.)
Something had to be done. After unsuccessfully trying to figure out how to stop the clacking of the fan, I made the bold decision to try to switch it with the one in our living room, which notably did not clack. My first impulse was to call an electrician, but then I thought: Just look at it yourself. You really want to wait for an electrician to come out here and pay him a couple hundred dollars for this? At least try. I mean, as long as you turn off the power, you'll be fine, right?
So, I tried, and I think I actually did it. Both fans were taken down and reattached to the ceiling, and at least they don't look or sound like they are going to crash and/or burn. I have two basic strategies for going about things like this: 1) Take pictures in every phase of the process; never assume you will remember how it fit together; 2) YouTube it, even simple things. I watched a video of how to twist wires together with pliers and use a "wire nut." This is probably electrician 101*, but I never would have known what to do if not for YouTube. I mean, my dad has probably offered to show me this a dozen times, like when he installed a light fixture in our last house, but I never actually took him up on it. (C'mon, Pops, when am I gonna need to know THAT?)
*What do you call the field of work electricians are in? Electricing?
This morning I noticed another issue: Our freezer is dripping water. The problem is that it's not cold enough for some reason, and so the ice in the automatic ice maker is melting and finding its way onto our floor -- so annoying. I'm hoping that the door was left slightly ajar last night and that's the cause of it, but initial testing doesn't support this hypothesis. I'm running one more experiment: I put a cup of water in the freezer, and I'm waiting to see if it will freeze or not. If it doesn't (which is what I expect) then I'm going to have to clean out all the filters and unplug it and defrost everything completely and then try again tomorrow. Then if that doesn't work, I'll have to call a repairperson. Actually, S will probably do that. That's our de facto arrangement: I try to fix it; she makes the appointment if it doesn't work.
A little added annoyance is that the refrigerator doesn't display the current temperature, only the one to which it is set. (Our old fridge displayed both.) I don't have an ambient thermometer, so I'm just kinda guessing at the temperature. I can't even tell if it's the freezer and the fridge or just the freezer. We do have a second freezer and fridge in our basement, so I can't complain too much. At least we have a backup, so all our foodstuff won't go bad.
Alright, I better get to it. Until next time...
I also got something legitimately productive done on Friday. I switched the ceiling fan in our bedroom with the one in the living room. They're the same model, but the one in our room makes this ticking noise that gradually revs up into an unbearable clacking cacophony -- tick, tick, tick, TICK, TICK, CLANK!, CLANK!, CLANK! Usually I find the whirring of a fan soothing while I fall asleep, but not this one. It's perfect fan weather here in DC too. It's hot enough that you need something, but not so hot that you feel justified in running your AC all night. So, what happens each night is S goes to bed before me and turns on the noisy fan (because she's one of those blessed people who can sleep through almost any noise), and then I come in and turn it off when I go to bed (because I'm not one of those blessed people), and then she doesn't like being hot, so she goes to sleep with Lil' S2 (Lil' S1 also doesn't like turning on the ceiling fan, because he's afraid it will fall on him while he sleeps), and then I wake up in the middle of the night alone sweating through my tee. I don't even get much of an advantage in having the bed to myself, because we got a king-size bed when we moved, so there's more than enough room for two people. (That thing is a game-changer, by the way. I love it.)
Something had to be done. After unsuccessfully trying to figure out how to stop the clacking of the fan, I made the bold decision to try to switch it with the one in our living room, which notably did not clack. My first impulse was to call an electrician, but then I thought: Just look at it yourself. You really want to wait for an electrician to come out here and pay him a couple hundred dollars for this? At least try. I mean, as long as you turn off the power, you'll be fine, right?
So, I tried, and I think I actually did it. Both fans were taken down and reattached to the ceiling, and at least they don't look or sound like they are going to crash and/or burn. I have two basic strategies for going about things like this: 1) Take pictures in every phase of the process; never assume you will remember how it fit together; 2) YouTube it, even simple things. I watched a video of how to twist wires together with pliers and use a "wire nut." This is probably electrician 101*, but I never would have known what to do if not for YouTube. I mean, my dad has probably offered to show me this a dozen times, like when he installed a light fixture in our last house, but I never actually took him up on it. (C'mon, Pops, when am I gonna need to know THAT?)
*What do you call the field of work electricians are in? Electricing?
This morning I noticed another issue: Our freezer is dripping water. The problem is that it's not cold enough for some reason, and so the ice in the automatic ice maker is melting and finding its way onto our floor -- so annoying. I'm hoping that the door was left slightly ajar last night and that's the cause of it, but initial testing doesn't support this hypothesis. I'm running one more experiment: I put a cup of water in the freezer, and I'm waiting to see if it will freeze or not. If it doesn't (which is what I expect) then I'm going to have to clean out all the filters and unplug it and defrost everything completely and then try again tomorrow. Then if that doesn't work, I'll have to call a repairperson. Actually, S will probably do that. That's our de facto arrangement: I try to fix it; she makes the appointment if it doesn't work.
A little added annoyance is that the refrigerator doesn't display the current temperature, only the one to which it is set. (Our old fridge displayed both.) I don't have an ambient thermometer, so I'm just kinda guessing at the temperature. I can't even tell if it's the freezer and the fridge or just the freezer. We do have a second freezer and fridge in our basement, so I can't complain too much. At least we have a backup, so all our foodstuff won't go bad.
Alright, I better get to it. Until next time...
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