On the FlipSide of DaBiz

So after that last, in my opinion, rather optimistic and cheery post — things kinda piled up on me real quick. That’s the nature of dabiz though. Pick yourself up and keep moving. Some other things on the not so bright side of life that have been breaking down:

External Hard Drive

Back in December my external hard drive ceased to be recognized by my tower. I’ve had it for quite some time and use it mainly to store my music files and my iTunes library. When it went, panic set in, and eventually I had to accept that I was going to need some outside assistance to get it back up and running.

Thanks to twitter I know somebody in the business and put my trust in him to set things right. After picking up some chazzano coffee I dropped off the external hard drive, watched him run a quick ear test for the dreaded click of the dying drive, and then left it in his hands. A couple days later he let me know that the data was fine – it was just the enclosure that needed to be replaced.

This led me to go all in and agree that establishing a backup system would probably be the bees knees. I’ve got too much music on that drive to let it all go to waste. So we’re in the final stages of that now. He’s ordered a secondary drive for the tower and a new enclosure for the hard drive and all of that should wind up, at long last, before this weekend with some backup software installed.

No word on the cost yet. It likely won’t be cheap. But data recovery never is.

Furnace

I can’t say that I’ve been too concerned with the data mess. The holidays came and went and I got to spend a lot of quality time with my family. As I continue to grow into my old man years – my love for my family grows exponentially. It was incredible to hang out with seestore, willishrinx, the nephews and my in-laws, including my new seestore-in-law.

A couple of highlights include their first dining experience at Slows BBQ, sledding on the hill of doom with the nephews, a visit to the DIA to see the Fakes and Forgeries exhibit, taking in True Grit, Bloody Marys on Christmas morning and a heckuva lot more.

Shortly thereafter, the parents left for their new snowbird home in Florida. I woke one morning to a rather brisk bedroom – and as I descended downstairs, to an even brisker family room. Something wasn’t right. I still wasn’t awake, but if you ever need a jolt stronger than coffee to knock your senses around – try staring into a thermostat that’s supposed to read 60 and get 46 in return.

The furnace wasn’t keepin on like it’s supposed to keep on. It’d rumble for about 45 seconds and then cut back out. I ran through the troubleshooting in the manual, but nothing seemed to be taking. I’d have to put in a call for maintenance.

Now get this. The guy they sent out was actually named Sammy Lovin. Not McLovin, just Lovin. It took the keen eyes of a good friend to point this out to me when she happened upon the receipt – but I’m glad she did. What a name!

Sammy rigged it so the fan would stay on until they could order a new control board – which meant I had heat over the weekend – but that my electricity bill is probably going to take a hit. That Monday he came back with the new control board – and after $395 – I have a heated house again. Oof.

Heated Car

So the house is heated and all is starting to be right with the world again when what should happen but another heat related catastrophe. Whilst out with said good friend, after a delicious encounter with dessert and drinks at Cork Wine Pub, the fan in my 2000 Ford Focus went schizo. When I moved the switch from 3 to 2 – it cut out, and then full on blasted – and then cut out again, for good.

I just finished piecing that back together. It started with a $25 resistor, as I’d replaced that part before and it was my prime suspect. No such luck. Had to pull the blower motor. Took that up to O’Reillys auto parts, where they were having some problems getting some juice into the motor to test it. They kept running the wires to it and to other things and were having no luck. They were at wit’s end and even at the point of giving up, suggesting that perhaps it was the $81 motor. But one guy kept at it, improvising with some motorcycle jumpers – which created a delightful shower of sparks – but also spun that motor to no end. It wasn’t the motor.

That left the switch. That simple thing on the console that goes from 1 to 2 to 3 to 4. I had to special order it but it was delivered this morning. Picked it up and about two hours later I had heat coarsing through the car. Awesome. $26

Headed to work and realized the turn signals weren’t working. Not a good thing for the anxious. I just finished one of my worst shifts ever in the public librarian realm — came home — popped out the stereo and saw that I had forgotten to hook up one of the wires. That’s done.

Wire DVD

Speaking of wires… After much urging I decided that I’d take up another friend’s repeated suggestions that I watch The Wire. Apparently people that watch The Wire must make other people watch The Wire. She has the complete season – and had lent out Season One to the friend that had introduced us.

Tiny Apartment #103: “The Wire” from Tiny Apartment on Vimeo.

(video via said friend)
I’ve misplaced disc two of season one of The Wire you guys. IT’S NOT LOST. It’s just misplaced. If, for some reason, it doesn’t reveal itself soon — I’ll likely be purchasing Season One of The Wire. $30.49. Or losing a friend. She really wants to not be my friend right now because of this.

So that’s another 1000 word update. Sorry it’s not quite so uplifting as the last.

(Update) Found it. Hiding under the keyboard.

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