Hella Week

Its been one hella week. I came home Monday from spending the day with Jen The Birthday Girl to all sorta electrical fuckery. Of course, I didn't know that when I walked in the door.

I had stopped and picked up Burger King on the way home because I didn't feel like cooking after being pampered all afternoon. So I plopped the bag down at the desk, turn on the tv and start to munch while catching up on email. My internet connection was wonky and I had to reset the modem several times. Was starting to wonder WFT when the tv popped off. Aha -- the cable is out and they will fix it soon.

Wrong.

A little bit later, I noticed the lights were either very bright or very dim. The microwave didn't work nor did the stovetop. Shit, the ghost in the wiring was back. The only appliance not affected was my coffee maker plugged into a GFI plug -- thank goodness -- I hate making coffee by heating water on the wood stove and then using the french press.

My internet connection came back up around 11pm, I sent off an email to my landlord describing the problem. The tv would not turn back on but I had tubes so it was ok. I went to bed hoping that since the wifi was now working, whatever had woke up the ghost in the wires was settling down and I would wake up in the morning all would be back to normal.

Wrong.

Tuesday I had neither tv nor internet -- the modem and wifi router, which had been working when I went to bed had no lights -- but the landlord was on his way so I waited patiently. He got here mid-afternoon and figured out that it wasn't an internal to the house error -- there were wild voltage swings from 156 to 33 on the 110 circuits -- he shut down all power to the house and called the electric company (PUD).

The PUD guy showed up and discovered a broken neutral ground wire where the PUD cable connects to the roof jack. He made a temporary fix, got the power restored and said that PUD would send out a crew in the morning (it was almost 6pm when he left). I checked and everything was working again except for the one year old 32" flat screen tv and the cable modem and wifi router -- all of which had been plugged into power strip surge protectors and all of which were fried.

Oy.

Wednesday morning the landlord picked up a new cable modem from the cable company, a new wifi router from the store, and got me connected again. He also had stopped by PUD and picked up a claim form for me to fill out for the now only good to use as a doorstop flatscreen tv. PUD sent a crew and a couple trucks around 1pm and they completely replaced the electrical cable from the street to the house. Of course, they had to turn off the power while they restrung new cable and redid the connection to the house but had everything reconnected by mid-afternoon. Luckily, I ended up only missing work Tues night.

I have hauled out the little tv from the bedroom (it had survived) and have been slowly catching up on all that I missed online. I have learned that if given a choice between no tv and no internet, I would choose to have internet *if* I was given a choice. Monday night was less stressful with no tv and having the internet than Tuesday night with no internet and a working tv.

Picture up top is of the result of Monday's fun getting spa manicures and pedicures.