That's life

"That's life." That's what some people say about getting a flat tire. Other people might say, "That sucks". If A = B, and A = C, then maybe B = C.

After finishing work yesterday evening, I walked outside into an ice storm to find that my car had a flat tire. My boss helped me get the car up on the jack, remove the flat tire and put on the spare. Thank you, Matt! Then I spent two hours taking surface roads back home, partly because the spare had to be kept under 35 mph and partly because the roads were all covered with ice. B = C. But at least I learned how to change a flat, which seems like Knowledge of the Krell to me.

Basic home electronicalness

Recently, flipping the light switch in the basement stopped working. That is, the lights stayed off. Did you ever hear of a light switch breaking? Well, there was no calling Maintenance, so that meant a drive out to the home improvement store. Anne came along. As she often does upon arrival, Anne pointed out the absurdity of having 16 handicapped parking spaces at a DIY store. I managed to find the one 3" x 12" cardboard bin in the store that held the thingy I was looking for. Walking back to the car, Anne suggested that an insurance fraud specialist would do well to park near the handicapped spaces at DIY stores.

Back home I had to cut power to the problem switch: safety first! Having a broken switch made this challenging - it's hard to tell if you've hit the right breaker when the lights are already off because the switch is broken. I found a lamp to plug into a wall outlet hoping it was wired together with the lights. Now, which breaker? The breakers were labeled "General", "AC", etc. Two said "Kitchen". So it was trial and error. Click off/on - the microwave upstairs beeped. A different one, off/on - the telephone said, "Press TIME to set DAY/TIME." And so it went, shutting down the refrigerator, the computer(s), etc. until breaker #13 of 14 did the trick. I was ready to start. Oh, except it was dark in there. I found enough extension cord to reach a working outlet, and another little lamp, and I was set.

Instructions for the new switch were printed on translucent onionskin paper, double-sided, in eight languages. They referred to four different colored wires - all the wires going to (coming from?) the bad switch were black. So I held my new switch in front of the old one, lined up the screws, and moved each wire, one at a time, to the new switch. This part took less than 5 minutes, and it worked perfectly. After cutting the breaker back on, I clicked my new switch repeatedly ON, OFF, ON, OFF. Very satisfying. I spent the next 10 minutes putting away lamps, extension cords, screw driver, and pliers, feeling a newfound kinship with Nikola Tesla.

Krell Technology on Earth

How else to explain this incredible structure? I have been here - I have seen it. When I was a child, my father would bravely drive the family out to see this place. It's located in remote Geauga County, far from the prying eyes of Cleveland suburbanites.

Although shrouded in mystery for years, diligent research (and a recent article in the Cleveland Plain Dealer) finally shed some light on this curious location. It is the world headquarters for the elite and exclusive "Materials Information Society". (!) Beneath the dome, designed and built by R. Buckminster Fuller, lie large specimens of Earth minerals and ores, arranged in a circle. The geodesic dome itself is made of joined hexagons of pure extruded aluminum - except for one pentagon at the very top of the dome!

You will remember that at the end of "Forbidden Planet", Robby (the Krell robot) is brought back to earth with lovely Altaira and the rest of the crew. Ever wonder what happened to Robby after he landed? That was 1956. This structure was built just three years later! Coincidence? You be the judge!

On deaf ears

The products we make where I work all have jazzy names, you know, like cars. Names like "Avanto" and "NV Speeder" etc. I learned Friday that one model no longer in production was the "Altair II". I know it's pretty obscure even as trivia, but it made me think of Altair IV, home planet of the Krell. So I mentioned something about that to some engineers. They didn't get it, had never heard of Forbidden Planet. I further explained, "You know, the one with Robby the Robot?" Still only blank stares. Sigh.

Feeling a little like the Krell myself some days.

You are all interested in the future

Here's an eerily prophetic short story written about a hundred years ago. A time when Modren Technology took the threatening form of: the telephone. (Yes, the first radio broadcast was still 10 years off, the first TV broadcast 20 years away, and the Internet explosion 90 years in the future.) The Machine Stops. A truly visionary and haunting work - very highly recommended.

Nostradamus, you've been served!

Mighty Mightor

Feelin' pretty good about my new desktop! Software fairly leaps to the screen when I need it. The case is well ventilated, so I hear the fans and two hard drives more than I did on the Old Machine. On the other hand I'm not used to having the unit up here on my desk next to the monitor either. I've burned a few DVDs (recovery discs) and they took about as long as my old machine did to burn a CD. The Internet experience is about the same, being bounded more by my ISP speed than my machine. All in all this should hold me for several years. Once I'm sure I've got everything I need I will start clearing the drives on the old machine and give it to Anne. It's still running great and should have many more years left running WinXP.

The Machine Starts

It's here! My first computer purchase since my "80286" IBM PC clone in 1982. It's a beauty too. I've only put in a couple hours with it so far because it's a pain to move my monitor cable from one machine to the other, but Vista is pretty snazzy looking. I spent some time yesterday uninstalling some of the junkware that came loaded on the machine. Maybe tonight I will create my recovery discs, or try connecting it to our network and the Internet. For now not much to report other than it is Deluxe. In case you want to check specs, look up HP model m8120n.