Oddball Update

It’s been a pretty nerve-wracking day. The kind that leaves you exhausted. Fortunately, Apple and I succeeded in getting quite a lot accomplished today, and together we brought several unsolved issues to a close. Those issues include one impromptu emergency which occured this morning, and which, in retrospect, seems like it was thrown at us just as a test of our will.

Things are very busy for us at the moment. As we’re getting ready to sell our house and move into the new place we’ve got under construction, there’s a lot happening. Apple has taken charge of starting some early packing, mostly of stuff that’s not of any urgent or immediate use, and cleaning of the house in preparation for visitation by potential buyers. In addition to my day job and two concurrent side jobs (does it ever end?), I’ve had several other issues to attend to, the most recent being the sale of my ‘89 Firebird Formula and the setup of my new computer system.

So much has happened since my last post, I barely know where to start. I guess I’ll proceed chronologically. Read on for the details.

My new computer arrived right on schedule yesterday morning, almost immediately following the Monday ops meeting at work. I set right to work on setting it up — it’s a beautiful piece of work. The black Antec P180 case doesn’t look as cheesy in person as it does in pictures. It’s sleek, substantial and quiet, like a black grand piano. It makes virtually no noise at all, such that you can barely tell when it’s turned on. And the interior layout of the case — with the power supply and hard drive cage on the bottom, in a separate compartment — makes for some very cool-running components. I am totally pleased with the system.

Since the system was already custom built, all I had to do was crack it open, add my own WD Raptor hard drive (for the OS) and my secondary Geforce 7300GT graphics card for the additional monitors. Then I fired it up and started the Windows XP installation. In the meantime, I installed a copy of Windows Vista build 5728 on the remaining hard drive in my previous computer, thinking I might as well use it as a test bed while it’s languishing around.

That was a mistake.

I erred, specifically, by choosing to install a non-final Microsoft operating system on a hard drive which still contained materials that I needed. Namely, my MP3 library — a total of almost 60 GB worth of music, including my entire library of digitized cassette tapes. Since this was too much data to back up to DVD without it taking all kinds of time I couldn’t afford to waste, I figured I’d just copy the files over via the LAN.

Unfortunately, Windows Vista build 5728 is not quite ready for prime time. Each time I tried to initiate the copy, the OS would completely lock up while attempting to calculate how much time it was going to take to finish the transfer. This required that the Windows Explorer process be forcibly killed. I made several attempts in the course of the last day, too. I tried initiating the copy from the Vista machine first, then from the new machine. Neither worked. Then I lost shared folder connectivity without explanation — Vista reported that it had simply turned off network discovery. Eminently pissed, I decided to just shut the machine down and worry about it later. The shutdown completed normally.

Since then, the Vista machine has no longer been able to boot up.

It appears, unfortunately, that my 300GB storage hard drive is corrupted. I’ve tried a variety of operating systems (including Linux live CDs) and installed the drive in a variety of computers, but have found no way to rescue the data on it. There was actually a lot more on there than my MP3 library, but fortunately I had the presence of mind to spend my entire Saturday backing up the rest of it onto DVDs. Thus, I didn’t really lose that much. Data-wise, that is. I lost plenty of patience, and a good chunk of my sanity. I also will never look at Windows Vista quite the same way again — even after they finalize it.

Moving on, yesterday Apple called to have a handyman come by and powerwash the outside of our house and lanai this morning at 8:30. We’ve hired this guy for that purpose several times before and he always does a good job for not too much money. So anyway, he’s just about done washing the house, and I’m sitting in the kitchen talking to Apple, when suddenly our cordless phone bleeps to inform us that it’s just lost contact with its base unit. That’s odd. That should only happen when the power goes out. But it’s not out; from where I’m sitting, I can see digital clocks and other electronic stuff still functioning.

I amble over to the base unit, and sure enough, it’s out. So is the answering machine. And the ceiling fans…and all the outlets in the master bedroom. WTF? I head out to the circuit breaker and see the circuit in question has been tripped. I reset it to see if it will trip again, and it seems fine. I go back in the house, shrugging.

As I’m explaining to Apple that the problem is probably nothing serious so long as the circuit doesn’t trip again, it trips again while I’m uttering those very words. This time I figure something serious must be up. Also, while I was looking at the circuit breaker, I saw that the master bedroom and hallway shares its circuit with the power outlet on the lanai. The lanai that was just powerwashed. Oh shit.

I go out to the lanai to investigate, and the power outlet is scorched all to hell and stinking of ozone. Totally fried. Of course I bring this to the handyman’s attention. He’s apologetic and says that this has happened to him before on a couple of rare occasions. We make sure the circuit is turned off and then take apart the power receptacle. Then we see what caused the problem. Obviously, water leaked in behind the receptacle, but it’s not supposed to do that because there’s a weather-sealed plastic lid over the thing. Unfortunately, there’s a screw missing from the top of the plastic lid, and this screw anchors the lid (and gasket) to the exterior wall. Without that screw, the top of the lid became loose and water managed to sneak behind the gasket. Greeeeaaat.

The wires are scorched, so we wrap ‘em up heavily with electrical tape. This is some damn thick-gauge wire, too. The handyman advises me to head down to the hardware store and get a new GFI outlet and some new screws, and discounts me the price of the necessary parts. It sounds easy enough.

I bang my head on the table over my dead hard drive for a few more hours without success, then finally get my ass down to the hardware store. I have to recommend ACE Hardware here — unlike Lowe’s or Home Depot, you can actually find the things you’re looking for inside of a lifetime, and their employees are all very helpful. In a few minutes I had the stuff I needed and was on my way back home. With gum attached to the one of the Mazda’s tires, unfortunately. (I scraped most of it off with a rock before I drove away.) Why do people spit gum out in parking lots?

After getting home, I go out to the lanai and install the outlet. Then I reactivate the tripped circuit while Apple watches for any sign of fire or other disaster. Everything seems to go perfectly. The GFCI outlet trips as it powers up, so I hit the reset button. No trouble. It seems I’ve just successfully installed an electrical outlet. Great, another notch on the Bob Vila belt!

I’d also like to officially wrap up the story of the ‘89 Formula, but I’ll do so in a separate post. Suffice it to say, the car is now sold and delivered to the buyer, its insurance policy is cancelled, and the insurance company is sending us a check for the last month of the policy premium. And another items gets crossed off the to-do list.

Now, just a few hundred more items to go…

Categorized as Life, Rants