Wapsi Square Forum

Alkarii wrote:I'm thinking I'll have to call in tomorrow. My back hurts, my head hurts, I'm tired because those damn puppies woke me up at around 4 AM... I also have no idea how to go about looking into the worker's compensation thing so I can see a doctor to see if I'm alright or not.

Edit: Somehow forgot to mention this part, but... There's no electricity on three sides of my room. So my phone is plugged into the computer, charging really slowly.

Look up your local Department of Labor (or whatever) number and call them for help.

I dug out my USB extension (9ft cable), and hooked the USB charger for my Nook into that, and was using that to charge my phone. The nearest usable outlet was behind the entertainment center in my room. As I'm climbing back out after hearing the chime on my phone letting me know my phone is charging, I notice that my closet light is working...

The switch for that is on one of the three walls that wasn't working. So now my power is back.

Also, I don't think the person who built the place had a licensed electrician handle the task of wiring the house. Something goes wrong with it every time we turn around. Hell, the light switch in my room has had a short in it the ENTIRE time we've lived here. It crackles and pops if you don't have it all the way up or all the way down. If you flip it fast, though, it won't do that.

Alkarii wrote:I dug out my USB extension (9ft cable), and hooked the USB charger for my Nook into that, and was using that to charge my phone. The nearest usable outlet was behind the entertainment center in my room. As I'm climbing back out after hearing the chime on my phone letting me know my phone is charging, I notice that my closet light is working...

The switch for that is on one of the three walls that wasn't working. So now my power is back.

Also, I don't think the person who built the place had a licensed electrician handle the task of wiring the house. Something goes wrong with it every time we turn around. Hell, the light switch in my room has had a short in it the ENTIRE time we've lived here. It crackles and pops if you don't have it all the way up or all the way down. If you flip it fast, though, it won't do that.

GO TO YOUR LIBRARY RIGHT NOW!!! The Book you want is "Time/Life Basic Wiring" and study it! Bring it home if they'll let you! Dealing with what you have described is a cheap and easy fix!
Questions-
1) do you have breakers or fuses?
2) is this a mobile home? If so, what year?
3) if this is a built-up home, what era?

Give me this information and I can tell you what to do without visual assistance

Yeah, you don't really want to leave the wiring situation in a condition where the electricity does whatever it feels like doing on a whim. Free-range electrons can get a tad feisty.

I lived for a while in an older house that still had much of its original wiring intact and in use. This was of some of the earliest type of home wiring, with thick bare copper wires that were held in place by globs of insulating clay stapled onto thin boards. It made it rather adventurous to go into the crawlspace or cut into any walls, since you never knew when you might unexpectedly lay your hand on a live wire. The telephone wiring was also of a very early type, and the one time I needed some work done on it they had to fly in a specialist on historic telephone systems just to figure out which connections did what. In spite of all that, I never once had any problems with any of the wiring in the house.

You have unleashed a monster. the Internet Handymen have been let loose!

The house (not a trailer) was built back in '04 or '05. We moved into the place in July '05, and we are the first people to have lived here. We have breakers, and none of them had been tripped.

Once we get rid of the puppies and clean up the mess they've been making every day, we will probably have the guy who built the place come over and find out what he messed up.

Edit: It seems my headache is gone, and my back doesn't hurt now. WTF?

I recommend you don't get the same person who built the place.

Conflict of interest.

I bought some stuff to upgrade my computer, then I bought a rifle. A Savage Arms Axis XP in .308 Winchester. I can't wait to sight it, but at the same time, I'm kind of dreading it, as my neck is bothering me a little (I'm sure we know why by now). I also got a swivel mount bipod.

Either tonight or tomorrow morning, my brother and I are going to the mountain to switch the cards in the trail cameras. Hopefully we won't have to shoot our way out of a bad situation.

Alkarii wrote:I bought some stuff to upgrade my computer, then I bought a rifle. A Savage Arms Axis XP in .308 Winchester. I can't wait to sight it, but at the same time, I'm kind of dreading it, as my neck is bothering me a little (I'm sure we know why by now). I also got a swivel mount bipod.

Either tonight or tomorrow morning, my brother and I are going to the mountain to switch the cards in the trail cameras. Hopefully we won't have to shoot our way out of a bad situation.

.308 is not bad for recoil.

Alkarii wrote:The house (not a trailer) was built back in '04 or '05. We moved into the place in July '05, and we are the first people to have lived here. We have breakers, and none of them had been tripped.

Once we get rid of the puppies and clean up the mess they've been making every day, we will probably have the guy who built the place come over and find out what he messed up.

Edit: It seems my headache is gone, and my back doesn't hurt now. WTF?

Find the breaker for that light. Purchase a new switch at HOME DEPOT for less than $2. Note how the wiring is set up when you throw the breaker off and take off the switch plate- Remove the switch, pull off the wires, duplicate the set up, put it back together and throw the breaker back on.

Problem Solved

Yeah, I knew that, but, well... Just never bothered with it.

Alkarii wrote:Yeah, I knew that, but, well... Just never bothered with it.

please DO "bother with it"... the longer you DON"T fix it, the higher the likelihood of it causing a Class "C" FIRE... otherwise known as an Electrical Fire...

in which the lack of that aforementioned two dollar light switch replacement turns into a 250 thousand dollar house going up in smoke, plus the loss of all your "stuff"...

I'm an electrician by trade, and you REALLY REALLY NEED to replace that switch... if it's causing audible arcs and sparks when you turn it on/off, then it is FAULTY and DANGEROUS, and could possibly even cause you to get ELECTROCUTED too... and i agree with Glitchmeister in that you DON'T get the same guy that wired it in the first place, not just because of a possible conflict-of-interest, in that he won't want to "tattle" on himself and made him look bad in your eyes (ego and pride), but if he "truly" thought that he did it right the first time, then he won't find anything wrong with it THIS time either and you're back to square one again...

Unfortunately it isn't really my call. (Also, the house, with the seven and a half acres is only $110k). All I can really do is change the switch. However, we've already had him fix his mistakes several times, so he can't really save face anymore. However, he does seem to actually solve whatever issue crops up.

Oh, and, the irony is the guy is a volunteer firefighter...

It seems that I have unknowingly gained something of a reputation in this town.

I was at the grocery store doing my shopping, and then I hear the store's intercom asking for me by name to go to Customer Service. When I show up, a bunch of workers from the store's produce department and some woman who I don't recall ever having seen before were waiting for me.

It turned out that the store had just received a shipment of taro root, and the woman was thinking of buying some. The problem was that nobody there, workers or the customer, really knew what taro root was or how to use it. Then one of them remembered that she'd seen me in the store a few moments earlier, and apparently they decided that I seem the sort of person who would know how to cook taro. And thus my summons to Customer Service.

...do you know what taro root is and how to cook it?

Catawampus wrote:It turned out that the store had just received a shipment of taro root, and the woman was thinking of buying some. The problem was that nobody there, workers or the customer, really knew what taro root was or how to use it.

So why would they have a product that is apparently pretty close to unknown in your local market, in the store, without a little flyer describing basic cooking techniques and a few good ways to serve it?

GlytchMeister wrote:...do you know what taro root is and how to cook it?

My taro root fried in chili and honey sauce is apparently practically addictive, judging from reactions to it.

Warrl wrote:So why would they have a product that is apparently pretty close to unknown in your local market, in the store, without a little flyer describing basic cooking techniques and a few good ways to serve it?

It's a multi-state chain of grocery stores, and for some reason their headquarters decided with no warning to send a shipment of taro to this particular store. Which is located in a very rural area, populated mainly by hillbilly-types who consider Taco Bell and Pizza Hut to be exotic foreign cuisine, so taro might as well be silphium as far as the store's workers and average customers are concerned.

Catawampus wrote:It's a multi-state chain of grocery stores, and for some reason their headquarters decided with no warning to send a shipment of taro to this particular store. Which is located in a very rural area, populated mainly by hillbilly-types who consider Taco Bell and Pizza Hut to be exotic foreign cuisine, so taro might as well be silphium as far as the store's workers and average customers are concerned.

So, hand them some fennel, some asafoetida, and a Poi Dog Pondering CD for the store music system... let 'em get edumacated!

Taro, Karo, Solomon!

>snicker!<

Catawampus wrote:Which is located in a very rural area, populated mainly by hillbilly-types who consider Taco Bell and Pizza Hut to be exotic foreign cuisine

Listen to them. They know the future.