Category: rants

Well, not really shocking but certainly annoying. Perhaps some indication of my cognitive decline?

Last night I noted that our TV and amplifier (which drives our sound system, and serves as output for the TV, our Roku, AirPlay, and Bluetooth, etc… was off. It usually sits is a “sleep” state as modern electronics do, but they each have an LED somewhere that tells you they are still “on”. Well they were off. I had a look at the power strip behind the furniture where they plug in and toggled the switch. No juice. Went out the garage to check the breakers and sure enough, one has tripped. It is labeled “lights bedroom” which is unhelpful, so I went back in after resetting the breaker and everything was “on” again. I popped my head into the back bedroom which is now my office and the room where the wine collection is housed. Everything seemed fine. I stepped out and thought I’d poke at Netflix and see if something I’d been wanting to watch is available. I find the thing and it is doing that annoying Netflix thing where it auto-plays under the display screen and “pop” the TV & Amp (and Roku, AppleTV, et al) turn off again. I poke my head in my office and sure enough the light switch just flips. No light. OK, so the label is half right. Clearly the bedroom in the NW corner is on this circuit, but so is the wall it shares with the bedroom. My laptop is still running on battery but all the external HDDs have been unmounted because the power is out, so I know my nightly backups are going to fail if I allow this situation to continue.

I slip into troubleshooting mode.

This setup has been running just fine for over a year. I haven’t added any additional load to this circuit. Perhaps some component has a fault and is causing the breaker to open? That’s my theory so I first find some extension cords and power strips to run from other parts of the house to the items on this circuit. I head out the the garage and grab a few (I also stumble upon the power cord for my time-lapse rig in a box out there! Happy dance! I love little coincidences like that. I’ve been wracking my brain to locate that item for over a year!) I reset the breaker, which I note is a 15 amp one, and head in to start unloading the circuit. I start with the TV/multimedia setup. I run a power strip to relocate all of its plugs. Shortly after I power them all up the circuit breaker opens again. I know this because the bedroom light goes off and I hear the wine cooler shut off. A metaphorical light bulb goes on above my head and I think “maybe the compressor of the wine cooler has gone bad?” Thankfully it is closing in on Winter and my office is wine cellar temp anyway, so I wander in with a flashlight and pull the wine cooler’s plug, head out to the garage to reset the breaker. Back in my office I’m already starting to unplug all my external hard drives to get them off the circuit when the lights go out again. I’m getting frustrated. It takes a few trips back and forth from my office to the garage (at opposite ends of the house) to get the whole of my desk and its devices onto an extension cord coming from the bathroom.

Several attempts continue to the point where I’m CERTAIN there is nothing on this circuit but the ceiling light fixture, and the breaker continues to open at random times. Now I’m angry. Well, perhaps exasperated is a more accurate term. I finally give up, leaving the wine cooler unplugged and head to bed, now a full two to three hours later than I usually head to sleep.

This morning, after sleeping on it I’m mulling over in my head what might be going on. There is a sharpie mark right next to the 15 amp breaker in the garage so I’m starting to suspect that this breaker has a history with the previous owners of the house. Two other breakers have similar marks, so it’s turning into an “oh crap, I’m going to be hiring a professional electrician to sort this out at some point aren’t I?” scenarios. Ugh.

As I’m wrestling with all the data, troubleshooting, and theory around in my brain I’m making myself my morning hot cocoa. Linda walks in and tells me “The water for the red mares* is all frozen over this morning. The tank heater you installed yesterday isn’t working.”

OF COURSE! I used an extension cord from the water feature off our back patio out to there pasture where *Linda has been fostering two horses for a local animal rescue operation. They have been quarantined away from our barn and her other animals, so we have rigged up a temporary enclosure for them. It has been impossible to keep their water from freezing so I went to a hardware store and ran a cord from our backyard to run a tank heater. The tank heater is a borrowed one and it strong enough to keep our pond from freezing. Overkill for a 200g tank for sure, but what we had available.

I noted a 20 amp breaker in the panel in the garage labeled “water fountain & Xmas” which I assumed was you know… for THE WATER FOUNTAIN! (and some outlets under the eaves clearly for Christmas lights) Obviously the labels on our panel are a series of lies and misinformation! I step outside and sure enough, the water feature is silent and mostly frozen. I never thought to check it last night, because I foolishly believed what the labels on the panel said. Sigh.

I walk out and unplug the tank heater from the outlet that runs the water feature’s pump, then go close the breaker and of course the everything comes on again. The most important bottles of the wine collection are now safely resting in their temperature-controlled little world again.

Today my to-do list includes finding a lower-power-draw tank/bucket heater for our temporary equine residents. We only need one that pulls a few amps, as opposed to the borrowed one that can warm a pond.

And of course undo all my troubleshooting extension cord mess.

We flew from central Oregon to Colorado to visit my parents for the holidays. We (reluctantly) flew United, as our preferred carrier (Alaska) had no available flights for the trip. United has never failed to fail me every time I’ve flown them. This time was no exception: Sue had all her prescription medicines stolen from our baggage. I have no idea if it was UAL or TSA at fault here, but I’m now in the complaint process with both. It is sure to be a Kafkaesque journey.

The stuttering of the furnace, well pump, and digital clock woke me up around 5 am this morning. Power flickered a few more times, then ceased into a near-total darkness. The sudden stillness within our house brought the outside sounds to the fore. Wind. I could not hear the wind so much as the straining and rustle of the fir and cedar trees outside. I climbed out of bed and grabbed the one of the flashlights we keep handy for just such an occasion. The dogs eyed me with optimism initially, but sank their heads back down to the floor as I passed by heading towards the front door. I stepped outside into the chill wind and light rain to survey the area; looking to see how wide this outage might be. The entire area was dark; no street or houselights on between us and the mountains to the east. Looking back over the house to the west showed a comforting glow of the town of Arlington four miles away, reflecting off the low heavy clouds. Even brighter glows emanated to the south and southwest (Marysville & Everett respectively.) From this data my evolved mammalian brain ascertained the outage was very local, and confined to between Arlington and the mountains of the Boulder River Wilderness. This meant that it was likely to be very brief, unlike previous extended outages that covered the region. Such is life living in the Cascade Foothills. I climbed back in bed and told Sue that power was out. In our home this means no showers, so we just stayed in bed past our usual waking time. Nick, without his alarm stayed asleep in his room.

After a bit I wandered out to the kitchen, and Sue fed the dogs. I stood at the window and admired the darkness. At this latitude the sun rises late (around 8 AM) and low this time of year, and never flies very high above the southern horizon. Clouds obscure it most of the time anyway. The only light visible at all was that glowing reflection of other towns on the underside of the overcast. That odd light and swaying conifers gave the atmosphere a very odd look. Very dark. Very mysterious. My mind wandered back to time without electricity when the world was lit only by fire, and how, absent that far away glow, absolutely DARK it would be right here, right now.

Every little thing I wanted to do, take a shower, make breakfast, read the newspaper the normal routine of a normal morning… all dependent upon electricity. Instead I grabbed a handful of nuts and a glass of water from a pitcher, and stared out the window in thought.

I thought about perspective and how we, as highly evolved humans, fail to recognize reality. Despite our opposable thumbs and big brains, we tend to overreact like frightened chimps to things which are quite harmless. Among the headlines I could make out of the murky twilight cast on the kitchen table was yet another mention of the “Economic Crisis” we supposedly find ourselves in. “Bullshit” I thought. This is anything but a true crisis. In a crisis we’d be eating the dogs and burning our furniture to keep warm. Things we take for granted, such as electricity and the availability of the pistachios I’m eating right now would be unimaginable and exotic luxuries. Our society has grown so damn secure and comfortable that we now have to manufacture problems.
We create artificial controversies (which are in reality side-shows) for television pundits to endlessly rehash.
We imagine catastrophes (which are in reality minor stumbles) for political parties to use to point fingers of blame at one another.
We conjure up legions of plotting enemies (when they are in reality numbered in the dozens) that frighten us into discarding our most cherished values.

This is NOT an “economic crisis” at all. Nor is it the failure, and especially not the “end” of Capitalism. What we find ourselves in right now is the inevitable mild down cycle, which naturally occurs as part of a healthy market. Market cycles go up, and they go down, performing corrections when things in any particular sector get out of… the invisible hand, as it were. Down cycles always cause human beings to panic, thinking that things are somehow really bad. Well, I’ve got news for you folks, this kind of thing happens all the time, over and over again throughout history, though the history books only focus on one of them. In reality we’ve been in this down cycle for almost ten years. Corrections have jumped from sector to sector, and recovery very slow, but overall if you look back at 2000—2009 the economy has been flat as Kansas compared to the crazy days of 1990—1999. So can we drop the hyperbole and focus on reality: Things right now are not that bad, and in fact they are pretty damn good. I’d wager that it the larger scheme of things, it is the best time ever to be alive. Sure, I’d love it if my stock portfolio were partying like it was 1999, but on the upside we’re not burning useless banknotes for warmth or eating our pets. In the latter cases you can be forgiven for calling it a crisis, but the word is not justifiable to use for today’s situation. Other terms off the table: “meltdown”, “free-fall” and “disaster.” Why? Because none of them are actually happening. Unless you live in Haiti of course.

If anything console yourself with this oddly comforting fact: We live at the only time in all of human history where things are so good, and living is so easy, that even poor people are fat.

So next time somebody on TV or radio utters the “C” word, turn it off.
Next time the phrase “Economic Crisis” comes up in conversation, reply with the question “Have you eaten your pets?”
Next time you think things are really tough, flip your home’s main breaker and sit in the dark for a while.

Sense of perspective will return.