Δαφνη Ευτυχια Αρθουρος

"Consider global warming. We are finally emerging from a long phase of denial and moving into the next phase: ineffectual hand-wringing." -- Jon Udell, "Your Carbon Footprint" (Strategic Developer column), InfoWorld, 2006-11-27 (vol. 28, #48), p.34

I've decided that as annoying as that screechy little beep my multimeter makes in continuity-test mode, a mellow voice from a speech synthesizer (say, the voice from Dark Star) intoning "That circuit is conducting. That circuit is conducting. That cir...." would eventually wind up being even more annoying.

In other news, a long-dead electric heater is salvageable, except that I'm not certain yet which of the pins of the burned-out SP3T switch are "Low", "Medium", and "High", respectively. (I'm pretty sure I've identified the common.) So tempted to just bypass the switch and use the thermostat (or unplugging it) to turn it off.

My day is not really going as planned. But given the sort of chaotic (and overscheduled and incredibly vague) plan I had, and the reasons it's not going as planned, this is not actually an entirely bad thing. The net result is an improvement, anyhow. As long as I manage to get in some practice time.

Now if only my brain weren't so darned fuzzy right now...

*mumblegrumblegrowlmuttercurse* I diked out the switch prematurely. When bypassing the switch by sticking wires together with that I think is called a "wire nut", the heater still didn't work. It turns out the wire itself had failed, specifically the blue wire leading to the common post of the switch.

Since when do you suspect the wire before the switch?

Actually, I would have tested the wire before, if it had been exposed at both ends. (One end goes to a slip-on connector with bare metal showing [pay very close attention to whether the power cord is plugged into the wall before deciding where to stick that probe] but the other end disappeared inside the housing of the switch. I did test both prongs of the damned wall cord to make sure they conducted to the junction thingamabob inside, and I tested the wire from that junction to the thermostat, which also had exposed metal at both ends, Just Because I already had the screepybox in hand ready to feep if given a chance, and hey, why not be thorough? But I didn't think to bother cutting other wires just to test them when wires are seldom the problem [inside an appliance, well secured by cable ties; I'm not talking about microphone cables and patch cords that get kinked and stepped on and such] without visible signs of say, abrasion or charring or a really hinky sharp bend that looks more like how insulation flexes than how metal does.

Feh. The wire did have a layer of heat-shrink around one segment, which I figured was related to the general cable-tie-down overkill observed elsewhere in the appliance. It was only after cutting out the switch, having the heater fail to heat, and deciding to stick the probe on the end I'd already stripped when I removed the switch, that I began to suspect the doubly-insulated section. Took the dikes to it upstream of that, and sure enough that's where the break was.

I'm beginning to suspect that this heater, which I thought was brand new when I got it <mumble> years ago, was actually a refurb. (It did work for, uh, about three years, I think, before its then-mysterious failure (followed by a very long term as a venerable member of my to-do list).)

I'm just annoyed at how long I've spent today finding out that an effing piece of metal with no moving (not even regularly flexing) parts was the bit that Failed -- and invisibly! Harrumph!

Well that, and the fact that I damaged the faceplate getting the switch out, and snipped four more wires than I needed to to make the thing work, and could've had a perfect repair in half an hour instead of the current hack-job, if I'd thought to test a damned BIT OF WIRE.

I need a grumpy-icon.

Er ... I think the snow flurries in Baltimore earlier may have been my fault.

You see, when it starts snowing, or when snow is forecast, folks have to dash to the grocery stores with panic in their eyes and buy all the bread, milk, and toilet paper. And maybe eggs. Well this afternoon I realized I was almost out of bread -- down to two heels and one normal slice, so instead of my planned grilled cheese sandwich, I made a veggieburger and used the heels as a bun. (I often save the heels for exactly that, actually.) So now I'm down to one slice of bread and I'm low on milk (still enough for tomorrow's coffee), but since I'm not completely out we only got flurries. I'll try to keep the kitchen better stocked to stave off snow -- but maybe if I deliberately run out of milk and eggs and bread on the 24th we'll get a white Christmas, huh? ;-)