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	Reveries	Coo Coo		36 Hours
	Sunshine	The Stapler		New Phones
	Walrus et Farber	Homeowner Haiku

36 Hours without power

Note: These notes contain e-mail headers that have been sanitized.

Message-Id: <199811122018.PAA18538@********>
To: micheng-staff@********, XXXX@********, admin-support@********
cc: rsc@merit.edu, **MY-EX-WIFE**@******
Subject: 36 hours without power ended
Mime-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii
Date: Thu, 12 Nov 1998 15:18:17 -0500
From: "Richard S. Conto" <rsc@merit.edu>

This morning, just as I was trying to cajole my 5 year old into
getting ready for his pre-school, Detroit Edison restored power to
our block.

Power at our place had been out from about 10:00pm Tuesday until
this morning at around 8:40am. Yesterday, with Detroit Edison not
yet giving an estimate for when power might be restored, I went
and rented a portable generator to run the refrigerator in the kitchen,
the freezer in the basement, the fan and control systems of the
furnace, and an aquarium.

After calling around, I discovered a place that still had several
generators available. Allowing for those appliances, and one light on
the first floor and the second floor, we thought that a 5000 watt generator
would be sufficient.

We really don't want to leave this thing outside. It isn't really weatherproof.
We DON'T want to run this in basement. Something about carbon-monoxide
poisoning, you know. So we run it in the detached garage. We need a BIG
extension cord. 100 feet seems too long. Let's try 50 feet.

So, I bolt out of work at around 4:00pm, grab the pre-schooler (who's
stayed all day today instead of his usual half-day) and zip over to
"Delux Rent-All" on Congress St. in Ypsilanti, near where it meets
Hewitt. We get there around 4:55. They close at 5:30.

A 5000 watt generator is pretty heavy. It takes two men to lift it.
A 5000 watt generator is pretty big. It won't fit into a Honda Accord,
neither trunk nor back seat. (And it didn't seem prudent to strap it to
the roof either.)

What does fit into a Honda Accord? A 2500 watt generator. OK. Sure. Ummm.
How about we run one set of appliances at a time, switching back and
forth. Heat the home-bodies, then freeze the food. Back and forth. Yeah.

How long to rent it? That's kind of up to Detroit Edison. They're easy
about it though. They set it up for two days, but I can bring it in any
time I want. $30/day (and $3/day for the BIG extension cord). Cheaper than
a hotel, the fish get live too, and we don't have to clean out a disgusting
refrigerator or freezer.

Vroom! We're out-of-there, on our way to ... East Ann Arbor Hardware (it's
on the way home). We need some wire, plugs, etc. to make up a patch-core
so I can re-wire the furnace so it can plug into a BIG cube-tab in the BIG
extension cord. Why? 'cause the sound electric line men hate the most is
the sound of an electric generator that some fool has used to power the whole
house (and incidentally the neighborhood too.) We're NOT going to do that.
Especially with only 2500 watts.

Vroom! We're out of East Ann Arbor Hardware. It's getting dark...

Ooops! Back to East Ann Arbor Hardware. (We need a gas can. It won't do
to run the generator out of gas without a way to refill it.)

Vroom! It's really getting dark now. We get home. Park in the driveway, facing
the garage. Leave the car lights on. Lug the generator out of the trunk
and into the garage. Manage not to trip over the pre-schooler. (That thing
is HEAVY.) Run inside the house. It's dark there too, but I bought a new
flashlight earlier today. Install a new battery in an old flash light.
The light flashes brightly and briefly. Great, now the bulb in the old
flash light is burned out. Down into the basement. The pre-schooler is
howling about wanting to have the new flashlight to play with. Manage
somehow not to trip over all the junk that got shuffled around in the
basement last week when the garage roof was replaced (complete tear-off.)

Open the basement window to the back-yard. (Almost closest to the garage,
certainly the most secluded from casual peeking.) Back outside, pull out the
BIG extension cord, unroll it. Trip over it. Trip the pre-schooler with it
(he was somehow standing on it.) Lay it out from the garage to the window.
Start feeding the right end through the basement window. Klunk. Clatter.
Nothing sounds broken. I hope. The pre-schooler is complaining that it's
cold. Wants to go in. With the flashlight. Mean daddy that I am, I keep
the flashlight.

Back in the basement. Thread the BIG extension cord through the rafters,
over a wall and into the utility room where the furnace is. It just barely
reaches, but that's fine. I have plenty of material for the patch cord.

Start rewiring the furnace. BEEP! BEEP! BEEP! (Darn Darn Darn Darn!) 
Tish's home with the toddler. She doesn't have a flashlight and the house
is pretty darn dark. Spend some frustrating time finding candles, keeping
the toddler away from the flames, combining parts of two other flashlights
into one flashlight to try and get her a flashlight that works.

Back to the basement. Start working on the patch cord. Cut, Cut. Snip. Snip.
BANG! BANG! Twist, pull. BANG BANG. Soon enough, the front half of the patch
cord is done. Now, start re-wiring the furnace. Turn off the circuit breaker.
Pull out the old 12-2 cable (no ground.) Separate the leads, and coil it up 
so it won't fry someone if the power comes back on. Install new wiring
(use 12-2 w/Ground romax, which I just happen to have lying around.)

Get ready to plug it in.

Where's the BIG cube tap? Spend lots of time tearing around the basement
looking for the BIG cube tap, which had been in the garage before the
roof tear off, but was now SOMEWHERE in the basement. (Which looks more and
more like it'd been exposed to those 70 mph winds...) After much rushing
around, I find it in the last place I look. (Kinda makes sense, y'know?
Why keep looking after you've found it, eh?)

Plug everything in. Make sure all the switches are on. The one on the furnace.
The one in the patch cord. Make sure the 15 amp screw-in fuse is in the 
the patch cord too. (A pretty fancy patch cord...)

Out to the garage. Make sure the engine switch on the generator is ON.
Pull the started cord. WHUP! Pull the starter cord again. WHUP! WHUP!
WHUP!UP!UP!UP!UP!UP!UP!UP!UP!UP!UP!UP!UP!UP!UP!UP!UP!UP!UP!UP!UP!UP!UP!UP!UP!
(you get the idea.) Back to the basement. Aquarium's going. (I ran an
extension cord to it while I was looking for the BIG cube tap.) But the
furnace is quiet.

I un-plug the funky sump pump from the furnace's outlet and plug in a trouble
lamp. It lights OK, so the patch cord seems OK. But now I can't find my little
neon light electricity tester. (Shades of the BIG cube tap here...) Find my old
VOM.  Start checking my wiring. It turns out that the switch on the furnace
(which I've rewired) seems to have broken. Well, wire around it. The furnace
comes on (after I plug it back in and turn on the switch in the patch cord),
but now the generator sounds louder than ever.

Cheers. The pre-schooler starts camping near a heating vent in the living room.
Tish orders pizza. I start cleaning up some of the mess.

I smell of gasoline. The driveway sounds like the Indy-500 of lawn-mowers
(and smells like it too.) The driveway neighbors (who rent) were advised by
their landlord to find someplace else until the power's back on.

All that's left is more clean-up and get-ready. Duct-tape the basement window.
Buy some gasoline from the Marathon on the corner. Lay out some extension
cords for the freezer and the refrigerator for when I want to switch things
over. And so on.  And I still smell of gasoline.

After the house warmed up, we ran the refrigerator and freezer for a while.
They never caught up before I turned off the generator at 1:00 am (I warmed
up the house for a bit before I shut it down.)

...

Anyway, things are back to normal now. The old 12-2 (no ground) from the
furnace to the circuit breaker panel is replaced with 12-2 w/ground, and
there's a convenient junction box above the furnace where I can patch in
the patch cord in the future, should it come to that.

But I still smell of gasoline.

--- Richard
-- 
--- Richard

reply...

Date: Thu, 12 Nov 1998 15:56:52 -0500 (EST)
From: Russell J Dwarshuis <rjd@********>
To: "Richard S. Conto" <rsc@merit.edu>
cc: micheng-staff@********, XXXX@********, XXXX@********,
        **MY-EX-WIFE**@********
Subject: Re: 36 hours without power ended
In-Reply-To: <199811122018.PAA18538@********>
Message-ID: <Pine.GSO.3.93.981112155532.7909K-100000@********>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII

This confirms the shop's suspicions:
software people should not be allowed to play with hardware!!  ;-)

                                            
                                            -Russell Dwarshuis

On Thu, 12 Nov 1998, Richard S. Conto wrote:

> This morning, just as I was trying to cajole my 5 year old into
> getting ready for his pre-school, Detroit Edison restored power to
> our block.
> 
> Power at our place had been out from about 10:00pm Tuesday until
> this morning at around 8:40am. Yesterday, with Detroit Edison not
> yet giving an estimate for when power might be restored, I went
> and rented a portable generator to run the refrigerator in the kitchen,
> the freezer in the basement, the fan and control systems of the
> furnace, and an aquarium.
> 
> After calling around, I discovered a place that still had several
> generators available. Allowing for those appliances, and one light on
> the first floor and the second floor, we thought that a 5000 watt generator
> would be sufficient.
> 
> We really don't want to leave this thing outside. It isn't really weatherproof.
> We DON'T want to run this in basement. Something about carbon-monoxide
> poisoning, you know. So we run it in the detached garage. We need a BIG
> extension cord. 100 feet seems too long. Let's try 50 feet.
> 
> So, I bolt out of work at around 4:00pm, grab the pre-schooler (who's
> stayed all day today instead of his usual half-day) and zip over to
> "Delux Rent-All" on Congress St. in Ypsilanti, near where it meets
> Hewitt. We get there around 4:55. They close at 5:30.
> 
> A 5000 watt generator is pretty heavy. It takes two men to lift it.
> A 5000 watt generator is pretty big. It won't fit into a Honda Accord,
> neither trunk nor back seat. (And it didn't seem prudent to strap it to
> the roof either.)
> 
> What does fit into a Honda Accord? A 2500 watt generator. OK. Sure. Ummm.
> How about we run one set of appliances at a time, switching back and
> forth. Heat the home-bodies, then freeze the food. Back and forth. Yeah.
> 
> How long to rent it? That's kind of up to Detroit Edison. They're easy
> about it though. They set it up for two days, but I can bring it in any
> time I want. $30/day (and $3/day for the BIG extension cord). Cheaper than
> a hotel, the fish get live too, and we don't have to clean out a disgusting
> refrigerator or freezer.
> 
> Vroom! We're out-of-there, on our way to ... East Ann Arbor Hardware (it's
> on the way home). We need some wire, plugs, etc. to make up a patch-core
> so I can re-wire the furnace so it can plug into a BIG cube-tab in the BIG
> extension cord. Why? 'cause the sound electric line men hate the most is
> the sound of an electric generator that some fool has used to power the whole
> house (and incidentally the neighborhood too.) We're NOT going to do that.
> Especially with only 2500 watts.
> 
> Vroom! We're out of East Ann Arbor Hardware. It's getting dark...
> 
> Ooops! Back to East Ann Arbor Hardware. (We need a gas can. It won't do
> to run the generator out of gas without a way to refill it.)
> 
> Vroom! It's really getting dark now. We get home. Park in the driveway, facing
> the garage. Leave the car lights on. Lug the generator out of the trunk
> and into the garage. Manage not to trip over the pre-schooler. (That thing
> is HEAVY.) Run inside the house. It's dark there too, but I bought a new
> flashlight earlier today. Install a new battery in an old flash light.
> The light flashes brightly and briefly. Great, now the bulb in the old
> flash light is burned out. Down into the basement. The pre-schooler is
> howling about wanting to have the new flashlight to play with. Manage
> somehow not to trip over all the junk that got shuffled around in the
> basement last week when the garage roof was replaced (complete tear-off.)
> 
> Open the basement window to the back-yard. (Almost closest to the garage,
> certainly the most secluded from casual peeking.) Back outside, pull out the
> BIG extension cord, unroll it. Trip over it. Trip the pre-schooler with it
> (he was somehow standing on it.) Lay it out from the garage to the window.
> Start feeding the right end through the basement window. Klunk. Clatter.
> Nothing sounds broken. I hope. The pre-schooler is complaining that it's
> cold. Wants to go in. With the flashlight. Mean daddy that I am, I keep
> the flashlight.
> 
> Back in the basement. Thread the BIG extension cord through the rafters,
> over a wall and into the utility room where the furnace is. It just barely
> reaches, but that's fine. I have plenty of material for the patch cord.
> 
> Start rewiring the furnace. BEEP! BEEP! BEEP! (Darn Darn Darn Darn!) 
> Tish's home with the toddler. She doesn't have a flashlight and the house
> is pretty darn dark. Spend some frustrating time finding candles, keeping
> the toddler away from the flames, combining parts of two other flashlights
> into one flashlight to try and get her a flashlight that works.
> 
> Back to the basement. Start working on the patch cord. Cut, Cut. Snip. Snip.
> BANG! BANG! Twist, pull. BANG BANG. Soon enough, the front half of the patch
> cord is done. Now, start re-wiring the furnace. Turn off the circuit breaker.
> Pull out the old 12-2 cable (no ground.) Separate the leads, and coil it up 
> so it won't fry someone if the power comes back on. Install new wiring
> (use 12-2 w/Ground romax, which I just happen to have lying around.)
> 
> Get ready to plug it in.
> 
> Where's the BIG cube tap? Spend lots of time tearing around the basement
> looking for the BIG cube tap, which had been in the garage before the
> roof tear off, but was now SOMEWHERE in the basement. (Which looks more and
> more like it'd been exposed to those 70 mph winds...) After much rushing
> around, I find it in the last place I look. (Kinda makes sense, y'know?
> Why keep looking after you've found it, eh?)
> 
> Plug everything in. Make sure all the switches are on. The one on the furnace.
> The one in the patch cord. Make sure the 15 amp screw-in fuse is in the 
> the patch cord too. (A pretty fancy patch cord...)
> 
> Out to the garage. Make sure the engine switch on the generator is ON.
> Pull the started cord. WHUP! Pull the starter cord again. WHUP! WHUP!
> WHUP!UP!UP!UP!UP!UP!UP!UP!UP!UP!UP!UP!UP!UP!UP!UP!UP!UP!UP!UP!UP!UP!UP!UP!UP!
> (you get the idea.) Back to the basement. Aquarium's going. (I ran an
> extension cord to it while I was looking for the BIG cube tap.) But the
> furnace is quiet.
> 
> I un-plug the funky sump pump from the furnace's outlet and plug in a trouble
> lamp. It lights OK, so the patch cord seems OK. But now I can't find my little
> neon light electricity tester. (Shades of the BIG cube tap here...) Find my old
> VOM.  Start checking my wiring. It turns out that the switch on the furnace
> (which I've rewired) seems to have broken. Well, wire around it. The furnace
> comes on (after I plug it back in and turn on the switch in the patch cord),
> but now the generator sounds louder than ever.
> 
> Cheers. The pre-schooler starts camping near a heating vent in the living room.
> Tish order's pizza. I start cleaning up some of the mess.
> 
> I smell of gasoline. The driveway sounds like the Indy-500 of lawn-mowers
> (and smells like it too.) The driveway neighbors (who rent) were advised by
> their landlord to find someplace else until the power's back on.
> 
> All that's left is more clean-up and get-ready. Duct-tape the basement window.
> Buy some gasoline from the Marathon on the corner. Lay out some extension
> cords for the freezer and the refrigerator for when I want to switch things
> over. And so on.  And I still smell of gasoline.
> 
> After the house warmed up, we ran the refrigerator and freezer for a while.
> They never caught up before I turned off the generator at 1:00 am (I warmed
> up the house for a bit before I shut it down.)
> 
> ...
> 
> Anyway, things are back to normal now. The old 12-2 (no ground) from the
> furnace to the circuit breaker panel is replaced with 12-2 w/ground, and
> there's a convenient junction box above the furnace where I can patch in
> the patch cord in the future, should it come to that.
> 
> But I still smell of gasoline.
> 
> --- Richard
> -- 
> --- Richard
> 
>

	Reveries	Coo Coo		36 Hours
	Sunshine	The Stapler		New Phones
	Walrus et Farber	Homeowner Haiku