electrotomfoolery

the pilar apartment is kinda shy a few electrical outlets. this was they way its always been, ever since we moved in.

case in point: the ground floor has provisions for about seven power outlets, but only two of them were installed with the appropriate receptacles (one in the kitchen, the other beside the front door).

now, having gotten my hands on a tv and dvd player (courtesy of makati roomie glenn), it behooved me to attempt to make use of the other blank outlets. so i got a bunch of receptacles just like the ones already installed (at a reasonable cost, seemingly).

one day, went home a little earlier than normal to maximize the sunlight (have to turn off the power mains before working on electricals, after all). get tools ready, open one of the packages...

...hmm... ...no screws...

after a while, it occurred to me that these units were designed to take solid wire -- you just had to plug the end into the provided holes (and hoped that the mechanism inside would grasp the wire firmly).

okay. opened one of the outlet blanks, and looking at the coiled wires within -- and my resolve left me. best leave this to the (semi) professionals. off to unit "a," and the landlords then. this time, no beer (thankfully!) as the brothers were on their way out to pick up a childhood friend who'd appeared out of the blue after 20 years...

electrician was not available on such short notice, but their "multi-talented" handyman was about (he could open car doors without the key...).

hmm...

anyway, lets see how he does. by this time, though, the sun had gone down, so it would be an electrical job by flashlight.

i showed him the power outlet in question, and the destined receptacle.

he pulled the wires out of the cavity, and with a pair of pliers, cut off two lengths of wire from the coils within. i know the pliers had insulated handles, but still...

turns out the house uses stranded wire. he stripped the insulation off the ends of the wires he had liberated from the wall, and used these to bridge the connections between the two sockets in the receptacle. at this time, he asked for the power mains to be shut, so i did that.

working by the light of my handy-dandy ledlenser flashlight (very useful thing indeed, many thanks to jo who made the purchase possible - by being on hand to loan me the cash. hehehe), the handyman proceeded to install the receptacle. he cut off more lengths of the wire, and essentially spliced the receptacle into the wiring circuit: power going into one plug, across the bridging wires, and out the other plug (so to speak). then he pushed the entire assemblage into the cavity.

power mains back on, and test.

right socket, fan runs fine.

left socket, i think i hear the muted sound of sparks, and the compressor of the ref behind me begins to make a chugging sound. i hastily unplug the ref, and thank the handyman for his work...

and away he goes.

okay, working quickly -- power mains: off. remove cover plate, unscrew receptacle...

i said before that the receptacle is designed for solid wire...

what he'd done was to take the stranded wire ends and twisted it, and then plugged that into the requisite holes in the backs of the plug assemblies.

however it happened, as soon as i got the receptacle freed, one of the "out" connections had come free...

oh boy...

(to be continued)

car (un)economy

perhaps its a survival mechanism (or just old age, hehehe), but i do have a tendency to literally not think too hard on many matters (although i do get tripped up every now and again and edge into semi-obsessiveness).

case in point: car's fuel economy.

have had the car for a while now, but i never (up to a few weeks ago, at least) tried to figure out just how many kilometers per liter of gasoline the thing actually consumes.

the concept is simple: at an opportunity to fill the fuel tank, zero out the trip odometer; and then at the next full tank, note the number of liters put in, and divide the present odometer reading by that amount. hey, presto! kilometers traveled per liter.

now, the first time i seriously tried this, it came to a point where i needed to partially load gasoline (else the tank would run dry) before i could afford a full load. so what i did was to sum up all the fuel amounts (two partial fills, and a full tank), and divide the distance traveled by that figure.

the number that came back was low. very low.

this led me to question the approach, but for the life of me i couldn't shake the notion that there was some error in the logic of the sum of partial and full loads to divide distance by.

so, next pay period, take the car to 1/4th tank, then fill.

take distance, divide by fill amount. um.

the previous figure: 7.4Km/L. this time: 7.5Km/L.

so, either approach works (depending on available cash), but either way, the car guzzles gas.

there are a bunch of options available (when spare cash is available, of course): a new carb (from really cheap to breath-takingly expensive), that "xaos super turbocharger" fuel-saving gizmo, or a full on engine change (about as much as the hyper-expensive extra-special model-specific carb).

or: drive less.

hmm...

g-live and the k310i

this is quite irritating.

"g-live" is a free globe service that pops news and public service announcements on the phone (but doesn't save them in the phone memory -- supposed to be a "good" thing).

i'd never heard of it before (though web research indicates that's its been in existence since last year).

first indication that something was afoot was yesterday, when the phone popped up two "message sent" screens though i'd not typed anything up, nor had i anything in my outbox.

next thing i know, these info things start arriving; news, and stuff. several times a minute.

nothing on the globe web site mentions g-live and how to get rid of it, though g-live itself seems to give hints.

catch being this: you're supposed to go to the globe services menu, select g-live and select activate or somesuch.

well, the k310i, for something that globe sold, has no globe services menu.

i'd just charged the phone early yesterday, and now the phone's down to a third of battery capacity; all because the phone lights up (naturally) with the damned multiple messages per minute.

bloody hell.

beer fueled rent payment conversations

charlie the landlord wasn't home the day before, so the payment of rent had to wait a day. inasmuch as that day would be a wednesday (day before coding day), i elected to go home early (better to sleep early and all that).

park car, enter compound, their door is open. okay, charlie's in. requisite greetings, and invitation to have a seat while receipt is made. someone who i've seen before (turns out to be charlie's nephew) comes in and...

...beer.

this time, i politely managed to nurse just one beer until way after it had gone flat; whereas they (the nephew who had instigated the early beer consumption had drunk two and had left - to be replaced by julius) had upwards of three or so apiece.

jose had dropped by the apartment for some stuff, and had gone back to the office; and i was still nursing my beer.

haze of conversations half-remembered, except one story that's just too scary to commit to these cyberspace pages. on other fronts, charlie'd been to south africa in the times of apartheid, seen the "big pit" at kimberly... nephew asked what i do for a living and drew a complete blank when i described my line(s) of work...

ten o'clock, and i made my exit...

strangely enough, sleep did not come easily last night.

had to drag myself out of bed, got to work, slept, had breakfast - and now the headache is coming on.

...must find a better way to deal with visits to unit "a" (just say no?) or, as jose suggests, bring my libation of choice handy when i do go drop by...