A couple nights ago, I pulled on the ball chain cord to turn on my homemade kitchen light fixture, and instead of the light coming on, the cord pulled out of the switch. A quick look demonstrated that it could not be repaired. Yesterday – Saturday – after dog walking and errands, I remembered and ran up the road to the electrical store. Which, despite being open on Saturday afternoons, had closed 45 minutes before.
My simple solution was a plastic bag clip left behind by friends who moved away two years ago, which holds the two wires for the switch together.
Note I said simple. I did not say easy. Those are, in fact, not the wires from the switch. I had to remove the entire fixture (all the connections are on the top, out of sight), rewire it hot (I needed the other ceiling light to see, since it was after 5:00 and we’re one day away from the winter solstice here, light was fading fast), and reinstall it.
I can’t complain about the switch. It has served us well for over ten years. And I’ll get some new plastic channel for the wires; the old one was falling down. But now I am starting to think I should design and build a new light fixture. Maybe that’s just an excuse to have fun with dangerous power tools? We’ll see.
Big-ass bandsaw blade. I had to go to the aserradero today for a piece of lumber, or else wait until they reopen on 10 January.
Later I saw a guy carrying it out, so my guess it’s going for sharpening while the place is closed.
My project is rebuilding a window awning bracket that rotted.
You can see the diagonal piece missing in the back. The board propping it up was one I made to hold up an avocado branch I thought might break under the weight of fruit. It was exactly the right height.
And the cutout I made for the branch was perfect as well. I love it when stuff like this happens.
Huge thunderstorm and winds last night. Power went off, and when I turned on the main breaker, it flipped off again – a short somewhere. Lights were on in other houses, but it was time to go to bed, so no big deal.
This morning I turned all but the main breaker off, flipping them on one at a time until I found the culprit – my wife’s office upstairs. Unplugged everything there, but the breaker still tripped. Maybe the breaker is bad? I wasn’t sure I knew how to replace one, so best to call an electrician.
I needed to call Syd for the electrician’s number. However the wifi router, which includes the land line, wouldn’t turn on. Since we lost one to a lightning strike shortly after arriving here, I assumed whatever messed up the circuit breaker fried the router as well. Meanwhile there was no cellular network available for voice calls. Say what? Walked next door to Wayne and Janet’s, used their land line to call Syd, which took some jiggering, since for some reason their phone was switched from tone to pulse dialing. Then got a message that Syd’s phone was out of service (turns out I must have dialed wrong). Wayne used his cel phone to call a handyman who “speaks great English,” and after hearing him apparently having a bit of trouble understanding Wayne, I took the phone and arranged in Spanish for him to come by, but the earliest he could do was late afternoon.
Then decided maybe I should replace the breaker myself, so went to the local electric store, asked instructions and bought another. While I was out, I went by Syd’s – their phone was fine. Stopped by a kiosk and added minutes to my prepaid phone – I couldn’t make voice calls because I had no minutes. Stopped by the phone company to find out what number to call about the router. Finally got through to them, and set up a visit from tech support.
Back home, I managed to remove the circuit breaker, and tested it with a voltmeter – it was fine. So I reinstalled it, and was struggling to replace the breaker panel cover, which inexplicably is a total bitch. Wife goes to shower, informs me there is no hot water. For the first time I realize the water heater, in an outside patio closet, is on the same circuit as her office. Unplug the water heater, no problem with the circuit breaker.
So while it’s unplugged, I remove the control face plate, see what looks like a reset button inside, press it, plug in the water heater, go downstairs and the breaker is fine! Back upstairs, I see the light is on and so it’s working, and I go to replace the face plate and *fwap* something shorts. So our water heater now has the control face plate hanging off its side, and otherwise is functioning normally, a “let sleeping dogs lie” kind of repair.
FWIW, this photo is from 4-1/2 years later
And about the router – a year or two ago I decided to cut down on wifi radiation, so strung ethernet cables for my wife’s and my computers. I only turn it on for brief periods of time, for iPad updates or to load reading material I have stored online. Suddenly I realize that I have been trying to turn it on using the wifi on-off button, not the power on-off button. Yes, that would make a difference. So that’s solved, and after seventeen attempts, I finally get through to tech support to cancel the visit. Also let the handyman know he didn’t need to come by.
The next time I see a dog chasing its tail, I will remember this day.
My favorite gardening technique is letting things plant themselves…
These little squash plants (what kind, who knows) are growing from my “compost” (noun) for a transplanted palm that didn’t in fact compost (verb).
Meanwhile, my recent re-jiggering of my non-composting compost has resulted in another little accidental garden. (I have no idea what that big-leaf plant in the background is, but it’s obviously happy and it’s not bothering me.)
I had a problem. A little palm plant wouldn’t grow in the sandy soil of our home near the beach, so I moved it to the country as a little accent. A year or two later, that little accent was three meters high, growing inside as well as outside the carport, which I had obviously placed it way too close to.
I cut it down to under a meter high, and here it is a couple months later.
Time to move it again. So, with pick and shovel I worked and worked and worked and … that thing might as well have been set in concrete. So I wondered if my neighbor Jerry might enjoy a little challenge. I have never operated a backhoe, so the chances of me getting the thing out of the ground without also removing the carport as well were slim to none.
Jerry thought it sounded like a fine idea. And so…
The face-off.
Jerry comes in on the left.
And on the right, within an inch of the concrete pad. At this point, the plant is still showing little to no sign of budging. So…
… taking the plant off guard, he comes in from the side. And the plant comes out of the ground.
I spent 40 minutes chipping at the root ball to remove clay, and the thing was still too heavy for me to lift. But with an AAAAARGH!!!! I did anyway, got it in the car, and brought it to Atlántida.
Here it is in its new home, planted in sand but with a wheelbarrow full of compost, and my promise to give it as much water as it could possibly want.
Something — a comedreja, possum — has been attacking my worm composter the last few nights.
The door I didn’t install real well on the compost barrel, thinking i could harvest from the bottom, is at present also no match for the little critter(s).
The barrel has a metal lid after this incident three years ago:
I still don’t know why it ended up dead, even if it couldn’t get out. Plenty to eat, and it wouldn’t have been more than 24 hours.
Oh, sorry, you wanted to look inside the worm composter? Pieces of orange and onion got in there by mistake. The slugs are a new addition.
Several years ago, I created a wood-slat drop ceiling with fiberglass insulation on the north (sun) facing roof over our bedroom. With only an extension ladder it was quite precarious and rather scary. Returning Americans gifted us a tall step ladder, and so I’m finally getting around to necessary repairs.
I’ve always liked autumn. “Back to school” was an exciting for me as a kid. New clothes! New faces! New things to learn!
Autumn here is familiar: crisp air, blue sky, bright sun (and a few sort-of-almost-colorful leaves). But northern hemisphere signals persist, and part of me thinks it’s spring cleaning time: focus on clothes, tools, organizing nooks and crannies, passing on unused items.
One morning my little tinkering-space caught my attention. It was trivial to cut a shelf in half to make cans more organized, but what a difference in terms of quickly locating nails and screws. Then it occurred that I had measuring tools scattered in different places. Since most projects start with measuring, I consolidated them:
Now, in the space of a few inches, I have two types of carpenter’s square, calipers, folding rule, measuring tape, and bevel gauge. All that’s missing is the framing square, which remains elsewhere because of its size. Bring it on!
Of course, none of my most recent projects — painting ironwork, pressure washing, disassembling a decrepit table, re-wiring a kitchen stove, reorganizing the patio and repairing masonry — has required any measuring at all. But the next one will, for sure.
As I stood in my little workshop, waiting for glue to set on the fake Crocs from which the puppy removed significant portions, I noticed the laser portion of my printer dissection. I assumed it would need to be broken open, but now picked it up and saw it had four little plastic tabs – piece of cake!
And very cool! The laser is at the arrow on the right. The hexagonal disk has mirrored edges, and is attached to a motor. The bizarrely-shaped plastic lens is obviously very carefully designed to very precisely deliver incredibly tiny dots at incredibly high speed. The arrow on the left points to a tiny mirror whose purpose remains a mystery to me. Amazing technology.
The plastic bits on the right represent a slightly less amazing technology. I was unable to plug in a Schuko plug to an adaptor (maybe the very one labelled C in this post from 2012). I thought I’d take it apart, which it turns out involved breaking it, but the stuck safety gate shown here dropped out. So I glued the broken parts back together, and voilà – another silly little project done.
