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Jan. 15th, 2007
De-generator-ation
Jan. 15th, 2007 12:01 pmWell, in case you missed my voice post this morning, the generator went out at about 7:30 last night and wouldn't come back on. So we passed the evening in dimness; I read by candle and lamplight and ended up with a headache that lasted all night and until breakfast. I need to see if I can't pester my Dad into getting a Coleman lamp prepped for tonight. If, that is, we're without power tonight.
After several hours of fruitless puttering with the generator, Dad finally gave up and cooked an omelet on the gas grill outside. He fiddled with it some more after breakfast, to the point of disassembling the carburator, but no dice. Finally, he called in a neighbor who knows all about gas generators. This neighbor belongs to some religious sect that believes in minimizing outside dependence, so uses waste oil to run generators to power his household. He also does web design, though has been slowed down a bit since losing several fingers in a shop accident a couple years back. (The funny thing about life in the Ozarks is that sooner or later you realize that the hillbilly clichés only became clichés because they were true first.)
It turned out that the generator was half a quart low on oil; generator manufacturers put hypersensitive oil sensors in their generators because people tend to let them run low on oil and ruin them. He poured more oil in, and it started right up. And so here I am.
The plan now is to try to run the generator all night, to power the heat lamp in the wellhouse from which our water comes, and keep the pump and pipes from freezing in the 6 degree weather tonight and zero degree tomorrow night. Hopefully it'll work. Not that I'm biased in favor of having power or anything…
After several hours of fruitless puttering with the generator, Dad finally gave up and cooked an omelet on the gas grill outside. He fiddled with it some more after breakfast, to the point of disassembling the carburator, but no dice. Finally, he called in a neighbor who knows all about gas generators. This neighbor belongs to some religious sect that believes in minimizing outside dependence, so uses waste oil to run generators to power his household. He also does web design, though has been slowed down a bit since losing several fingers in a shop accident a couple years back. (The funny thing about life in the Ozarks is that sooner or later you realize that the hillbilly clichés only became clichés because they were true first.)
It turned out that the generator was half a quart low on oil; generator manufacturers put hypersensitive oil sensors in their generators because people tend to let them run low on oil and ruin them. He poured more oil in, and it started right up. And so here I am.
The plan now is to try to run the generator all night, to power the heat lamp in the wellhouse from which our water comes, and keep the pump and pipes from freezing in the 6 degree weather tonight and zero degree tomorrow night. Hopefully it'll work. Not that I'm biased in favor of having power or anything…
Last minute note about my interview show
Jan. 15th, 2007 01:24 pmWell, the generator is about to be turned off again for a while, so just posting some brief last-minute thoughts before that happens. I'll be back again later, as the generator should be powered up again for the 5 o'clock news hour.
One last thing I feel like mentioning is that I've got another guest lined up for my Robotech TalkShoe show: Melanie MacQueen, voice of Lisa Hayes, Marlene Rush, and Marlene/Ariel from Robotech. The interview should take place Monday, January 29th, at 10 p.m. Eastern/7 p.m. Pacific time. Tell your friends. :)
Back later.
One last thing I feel like mentioning is that I've got another guest lined up for my Robotech TalkShoe show: Melanie MacQueen, voice of Lisa Hayes, Marlene Rush, and Marlene/Ariel from Robotech. The interview should take place Monday, January 29th, at 10 p.m. Eastern/7 p.m. Pacific time. Tell your friends. :)
Back later.
Shortly after the last entry, we got a phone call from the electric cooperative. It seemed that one of our neighbors (relatively speaking) lacked power or water, or any way to get out of their driveway. So we piled into the Suburban and went down to take a look.
It proved easy enough to clear the driveway blockage; most of the trees could be shoved to one side by hand, and the chain and the Suburban's four-wheel drive took care of the biggest one. It turned out they had drinking water, but lacked the ability to flush their toilet, so Mom & Dad brought them a couple of five-gallon buckets full of water they'd filled the last time we had the pump on.
This evening, Dad got out a couple of Coleman lanterns and fiddled with them to try to get them to work. Unfortunately, one of them wouldn't feed gas right, and the other one had its fuel intake nozzle so corroded that it wouldn't hold air pressure. Fortunately, we've decided to run the generator overnight to make sure the well doesn't freeze, so it's largely academic for the moment; we have light in plenty. Dad plans to look at both lanterns tomorrow and see what can be done about them.
Brrrr, it's chilly. It's going to be 6 degrees tonight, and 0 tomorrow night.
I figure tomorrow is probably the earliest I can expect to have power back in my apartment. I've taken down the apartment management's number and I'll phone them tomorrow to see if they can tell me if it's back yet.
For now, though, I think I'm going to see if the parents need to send anything out, and then go watch a movie with them. I've got Laura; hope they haven't seen it.
It proved easy enough to clear the driveway blockage; most of the trees could be shoved to one side by hand, and the chain and the Suburban's four-wheel drive took care of the biggest one. It turned out they had drinking water, but lacked the ability to flush their toilet, so Mom & Dad brought them a couple of five-gallon buckets full of water they'd filled the last time we had the pump on.
This evening, Dad got out a couple of Coleman lanterns and fiddled with them to try to get them to work. Unfortunately, one of them wouldn't feed gas right, and the other one had its fuel intake nozzle so corroded that it wouldn't hold air pressure. Fortunately, we've decided to run the generator overnight to make sure the well doesn't freeze, so it's largely academic for the moment; we have light in plenty. Dad plans to look at both lanterns tomorrow and see what can be done about them.
Brrrr, it's chilly. It's going to be 6 degrees tonight, and 0 tomorrow night.
I figure tomorrow is probably the earliest I can expect to have power back in my apartment. I've taken down the apartment management's number and I'll phone them tomorrow to see if they can tell me if it's back yet.
For now, though, I think I'm going to see if the parents need to send anything out, and then go watch a movie with them. I've got Laura; hope they haven't seen it.
