This happened to my dad’s computer (with a genuine Intel motherboard). He was just using it as he normally would, and smoke started billowing out of it. I imagine there was a frantic struggle to turn the thing off, and get it the hell out of the house, but I don’t remember all of the details. I’m pretty sure this doesn’t support my theory that it’s best to just leave computers on all the time, though.
My passenger side headlight went out on my 2001 GTI. Headlight lamps are typically very easy to change because it’s something that has to be done frequently over the life of a car. Volkswagen decided to make this a little more involved.
Each headlight module has a small door on the rear surface that can be opened up providing access to each of the four bulbs (high/low, fog, turn, day). On the passenger side of the car, however, the headlight module is backed up and almost touching the wiper fluid reservoir and several tubes. You can’t get your fingers or any tool in the gap to open the door, and even if you could, you wouldn’t be able to reach into the module to change any bulbs.
I figured I would just have to take the module out – not a big deal! Huge deal. The front quarter panels wrap around the front of the modules, preventing them from coming forward out of the car.
I took the grill off and realized that the modules would have to go down underneath the front of the quarter panel. The problem with that, however, was that the front bumper was in the way. In order to take the front bumper off, I had to take the oil pan cover off the bottom of the car. Once I got the bumper off, I was finally able to get the module out.
What a pain in the ass. I’m surprised the windshield wipers don’t retreat into a steel compartment when not in use, forcing you to change them while they are on the highest speed.
This is Erin. This story is from December 31, 2010 (New Years Eve). Do you remember how weird and awful the weather was that day? 39 degrees and raining! Anyway, I wanted to go to the fitness center that morning, so I loaded up all 4 of the kids, in the cold and rain, (the realization of which when I went outside very nearly made me turn around and go back in) to go to there.
We get to the facility, and I pull up to the entry doors for a second to check which entrance they were using for child care that day. I then needed to back up to actually get lined up to pull into a parking spot by the correct doors. So, I backed up, keeping an eye out for any other cars pulling into the parking lot. Also, for reference, I have a back up sensor on the truck that (as far as I know, every other time, consistently) starts beeping very annoyingly and persistently any time there is anything behind the truck.
Suddenly, I hear this horrible grinding sound and the truck jolts a little bit. I stop immediately, put the truck back into drive, and try to drive forward. The truck would not move. Mind you, this is a ridiculous beast of a vehicle…a diesel Ford Excursion. I stopped again a moment, kind of stunned, and then tried again, giving a little more effort to the gas pedal. We moved forward, but at a very uncomfortable, grinding, kind of lurching gait. I go forward a couple truck lengths and stop, thinking I’m doing irreparable harm to this vehicle by trying to drive it.
So, I get the kids out of the vehicle, into the freezing cold and pouring rain, thinking I can at least let them go in and play with the other kids while I figure out how in the world I am going to get us home, since I am going to have to call a tow truck and find someone who can fit us all in their vehicle to get us home. (Josh is in Ohio for work.) We get in the doors, only to find that there isn’t even any child care that day!!!
This is the post that I tore out of the ground, bent over, and broke the top several inches off of. I do wish I had thought to take a picture of the truck too…but it didn’t really show much. The bumper had a gash in it, but not much else was visible. Too bad the damage was still $900…
I’m going a bit further back in the archive, Dave – 2002. Pretty simple task: go to the store and get some cat litter. I went to the store and purchased cat litter. I then came home. As I yanked the bag of litter up off the floor of the car it got caught on the seat lever and, well, take a look.
This is how Newegg treats two Xeon E5606 processors. Nice!
So the fan in my bedroom starts making some horrible racket last night in the middle of the night and wakes us out of a dead sleep. I get out of bed and shut the damn thing off. It’s a tower fan; one of those tall, cylindrical ones that oscillates back and forth. So today I go on a mission to replace it. No one has them. Apparently no one uses or buys fans in September, because it’s already winter.
So I decide it’s about time I finally get the ceiling fan for the bedroom that I’ve wanted to put in there for a long time. I pick one out, and buy the brace that goes above the ceiling. My house is plaster, and the electrical box on the ceiling in my bedroom is basically just laying on the plaster. The brace goes between two studs and holds the fan. Anyway, I get the shit home and start tearing off the light fixture in the bedroom. I shut the switch off, but don’t bother to flip off the breaker because it’s just a simple light… Right? Wrong! When I pull the fixture down, I notice that there’s one black wire, and two white wires twisted together, which feed the fixture. I can’t think of a reason there’d be a shared neutral in the ceiling (rather than at the switch). Shortly thereafter, I realize that the white wires are warm. And the uninsulated portion of them is actually somewhat hot! Now I’m really concerned, so I start doing some investigating. I put a toner on the wire and started checking other outlets in my house. Get this… The following things are all on the same 15A circuit:
Bedroom
-Ceiling light fixture
-TV
-DVR
-Alarm clock, phone charger, etc.
Dining room
-Existing ceiling fan w 4 60W bulbs
Living room
-Recessed lighting (9x 60W floods)
-Sony 52″ LCD TV
-Denon receiver (135W x 9)
-DirecTV DVR
-Subwoofer (in a different outlet, but same circuit)
-PS3 (actually draws quite a bit of current… 2-3A)
-2200VA APC UPS
Basement bedroom (entire rack of network/server gear)
-Cisco 3550-48PWR
-Cisco 871W
-1TB NAS
-P4 2.4 server with 6 HDs
-Slingbox
-Cable modem
-1400VA APC UPS
I did some quick current readings and found the following:
The home theater draws about 5.5A when just TV, Receiver and DVR are on.
The network rack draws about 4A with the monitor turned off.
If you add all of light bulbs on that circuit up, you get 900W, which equates to 7.5A. I didn’t bother to measure the subwoofer, PS3, bedroom TV and DVR, or alarm clock and other BS.
You do the math… How is it that my house has not burned down? Why did the 15A breaker never pop?
I knew quite a bit of my upstairs was on the same circuit, but I didn’t realize how bad it was. I desperately need to run dedicated circuits for my network rack and home theater. For the time being, I’ve routed my network rack power to another outlet that’s on it’s own circuit in the basement.
Needless to say, the ceiling fan is not installed. I can’t wait to see what an adventure that winds up being. I predict an unplanned skylight!
While moving some shit around in my garage tonight, I managed to completely blow out my left knee. It collapsed while I had all my weight (and the weight of the stuff I was carrying) on it. It popped out of socket and bent kind of sideways/inward. It hurt like hell! I’m pretty sure I strained or slightly tore my MCL. After several hours of icing and elevating, I determined at about 10pm that I couldn’t walk for more than a few feet without hanging onto something. Here begins the quest for some crutches and an ice pack. First stop Walgreens. I hobble into the store, get an ice pack and go over to where the crutches are. There’s hangers and tags for crutches… no crutches. I manage to flag down one of the incredibly motivated stock people and ask where the hell the crutches are; assuming there must be another place in the store that they are sold. 5 minutes later, the stock person determines that they are out of crutches. Of course! I grab some survival gear (Licorice and Mt. Dew) and head back to the truck. Next stop Meijer.
Upon arriving at Meijer I’m blessed with a full parking lot of shopping carts to lean on to get me into the store. I seize my first legitimate opportunity to drive an Amigo motorized cart and blaze over to the medical supply section. I was delighted to see a full stock of at least 4 pairs of crutches. I grab a pair of the sturdy aluminum ones to support my tubby ass. No dice. I can’t get the damn things out of the rack. Whomever stocked this section must have put the crutches in the rack before the top shelf was attached, because there’s no way to get them out of the hanger with it in place. The hanger only allows the crutches to be removed by lifting them out, and the hanger is about 2? from the top shelf. I struggle with the hanger and try to angle it upward so I can remove it from the shelving unit. There’s too many crutches in the hanger to tilt it up enough to remove the hanger. I flag down one of Meijer’s finest and ask them the proper way to remove the crutches from the display. She walks over as if I am an imbecile and tries to lift them out of the rack herself. 30 seconds later she comes to the same conclusion I did. She calls her supervisor over to assess the situation. Another attempt is made… the crutches remain. By now I am surrounded by a crowd of no less than 5 Meijer employees all eager to see the birthing. The supervisor makes an executive decision to remove all of the items from the top shelf and disassemble it. (At this point I’m looking around for a hidden camera). I ask the supervisor to try to get the hanger out of the rack while I hold the rack in place, with hopes that we don’t have to unload the rack. A minute or so later we are left with a 12? hole in the peg board, and an avalanche of condoms, ace bandages and thermometers. But alas, the crutches have been freed from the rack. I slap those babies onto the Amigo and head for the sunset. Feeling extra agile with my fresh new wheels, I decide to pick up some other miscellaneous things like cereal, milk and more paper towel. Hop-along Harry is homeward bound.
I get home and park by the side door so I can unload all of this crap onto the landing. I notice that the milk jug seems curiously lighter than it was when I picked it up at the store. Sure as shit, half the damn thing leaked out all over the floor behind the driver seat. So here I am, hopping around on one leg with a pile of shit from my shopping spree and half a jug of milk dumped out in the back of my truck. I invent some new vocabulary words and then go inside to get the paper towel that I already unloaded. 15 minutes of sopping, hopping and rinsing later, I give up for the night. I fully expect that I’ll have a science experiment going on back there in the morning. Joy.
So it’s now past midnight and I’ve finally returned to my couch. I had to take the time to share this…
And people wonder why I’m so cranky all the time.
