| Author | Message | ||
     Etennuly |
I feel like I have been stuck in the movie "Ground Hog Day" for the last eight days. A dump truck went down our local highway and it's bed went up. It happened a mile and a half from our place. It was high enough to rip down the electric and phone lines as well as break off a major wire intersection pole. Our electric power went off as my wife was cooking dinner for six. It was off for nearly seven hours. Thank goodness it was a day that got up into the forty degree temperature range. I had been working in my shop, so after finding my flash lights I went around turning off every electrical device that was in the on position in the house the shop and compressor shed. Power outages happen now and again along a busy highway. I figured the electric would be back on in a few hours. Since all was dark, and candles stink after a while, everyone went to bed early. I felt things were not quite right, so I slept on the couch. I was thinking that if it is not back on by one am or so it may be time to rig up the generator to back power the house for heat and water. No need for the generator. At 12:40 am the power came back on. A couple of lights came on and all of those little green lights on the appliances and tv equipment. A few minutes later came the fire! We missed turning off one of the burners on the electric glass top stove. The wife left a pan with grease on that burner. It was the oven drip pan. Too big to just cover with one other pan. So as flames shot up around the oven vent hood I got the fire covered with two cooking sheet pans and just carried it outside. I was glad I slept on the couch where the kitchen was in my immediate view. A few more minutes things could have been totally different. So, a few hours of ventilating and a little cleaning and all was well with that. The next morning I had some billing to do. No phone line, no internet, no fax. There were things that I had to actually 'fix' using the internet. We have become so dependent on the internet it is maddening when ATT says "we fixed the problem with the lines, it is likely inside your home and you will be responsible for a $90 charge if the problem is found to be on your side". The accident happened last Tuesday, Wednesday I called ATT and spent an hour 'communicating with one of their computers' who blamed everything on my equipment(most originally supplied by them). They had a truck in the area Wednesday that again left with me having no phone. Another hour 'talking' to the same computer had me pushing buttons until someone answered to ask if I was having problem communicating with the computer. Another couple of hours of testing my equipment with their 'help' line and the guy finally gives up saying a technician will be here Saturday with further threats that I could be responsible for charges. So Friday a truck shows up. They fixed it.....for an hour. I call the computer and piss it off as fast as I can to speak to someone who tells me a truck will be there Monday. A guy shows up and spends an hour at the pole on my house, weird.....that normally is a five minute test. He says these wires are messed up and cannot get a good signal pair. He spent the entire day chasing down a phantom problem. On his first visit I had told him about the lightening strike twelve years ago on that pole, he could find no records of it. I told him how for five years after that, when it would rain hard my phone would quit until it dried out. Then a car clipped another nearby pole and they changed my wires over and all was better until this last wreck. They've got us so dependent on the internet that even a small business like mine can barely run without it. I had to hand deliver invoices a forty mile round trip and make time to do the trip again to pick up a check. It sucked to wake to the same problems and issues that I could not solve, each of the last 8 days. The worst part was not having the BadWeB and it's international news and weather force.  Back to work.....nothing to see here! | ||
| Pwnzor |
Glad you're back among us, in one piece! That's quite a chain of events. | ||
| Glitch |
Dang Vern, you can't have nothing simple can ya  Glad to hear you slept on the couch too! Man, that could have been bad, real bad. Welcome back! I know only too well about AT$T Bunch o' losers | ||
| Etennuly |
Thanks for your sentiments. My daughter in law slept through the whole of the later evenings events. I was ready to wake her at any time. Startled out of her sleep, the wife got up to the smoke alarm and gave me heck for being noisy, and for the smoke in the house. She then told me I should have put the fire out with salt, It seemed to me that quickly covering it and carrying the source of the fire and smoke outside was pretty efficient.  Oh to be hung with a golden rope..... Another day in the life.  But.....I get up again! Just a little kick in the teeth to remind me that the boring parts of life are good and the good parts are great!  I rode my Uly the other day.....when it was above 40F.All is well. | ||
| Glitch |
I strive for boring, in between adventures that is | ||
| Aesquire |
Good save on the house fire. Missing the internet? Badweb, some 'toons, actual business stuff, I can understand. I assure you, you didn't miss much. Just a declaration from the President that He will write the law from now on and Congress is obsolete, the Iranians are laughing at us, as usual, and the Russians are going to kill everyone else on the planet so they can have a safe Olympics. Same old, same old. |
