Skip to main content

Agony and Irony

I have a saying that I sometimes use in traffic reports: when one major problem clears, another pops up. The deal is, that phrase can be applied to what Matt and I have gone through in the last week.

The good news is that the dryer is finally back working. After what one electrician and one washer/dryer repairman couldn't agree on, another electrician found the problem. The dryer is totally fine, as well as the outlet in the laundry room. The problem was how the breaker was wired up, and the fix took maybe five seconds to do. We finally had heat again in the dryer and the dryer worked properly (though I had to flip the breaker twice later that night to finish my load of laundry).

Literally one week later, I ran the dryer again and there were zero problems. The breaker did not have to be flipped. The dryer worked like a breeze.

And around then was when I noticed we were experiencing problems with our house's heater.

For almost forty-eight hours, there was a very loud screeching noise coming from our unit. I would describe the sound as nails across a chalkboard played through an amplifier. The heat still came on, but the noise was intolerable.

Then I started to notice that our house temperature was slowly falling. Set at 73 degrees, the house was falling slowly below 65 degrees. The heat would not turn on despite multiple attempts. The pilot light was on, but alas no heat. For safety reasons, Matt and I agreed that we should turn the heat off, despite the fact that it was below freezing outside.

I slept with multiple layers on that night, and I slept fine. The deal was, the whole house felt like the Fortress of Solitude when I got home. Everything, from books to remote controls to even my computer's mouse, felt like cold glass.

When we got word from the AC/heater repairman that the earliest the unit could be fixed was this morning, Matt and I had to decide where to sleep last night. Matt stayed with his parents, I went to my aunt's house, and Victory just slugged it out at home.

Our heater is back working thanks to a new motor. But I can't help notice that the temperature this weekend will be rather warm, with projected highs in the upper 60s. Ain't it the life?

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

The Complete Idiot's Guide to Catherine Wheel

Originally posted: Tuesday, August 29th, 2006 Despite managing to release five proper albums, Catherine Wheel was one of those bands that always seemed to slip past the mainstream rock crowd. Yes, they got some nice airplay in their day, but people seem to have forgotten about them. You may hear “Black Metallic” or “Waydown” on a “classic alternative” show on Sirius or XM or maybe even on terrestrial radio, but that’s about it. For me, they were one of most consistent rock bands of the ’90s, meandering through shoegazer, hard rock, space rock and pop rock, all while eluding mainstream pigeonholing. Led by the smooth, warm pipes of vocalist/guitarist Rob Dickinson (cousin of Iron Maiden’s Bruce Dickinson), Catherine Wheel featured Brian Futter on lead guitar, Dave Hawes on bass and Neil Sims on drums. They weren’t a pretty-boy guitar band, but they weren’t a scuzzy bunch of ragamuffins either. Though the band hailed from England, Catherine Wheel found itself more welcome on American air

Best of 2021

  Last year, my attention span was not wide enough to listen to a lot of LPs from start to finish. Too much went on in 2020 to focus on 10-15 albums, so I went with only a couple to spotlight. Well, 2021 was a little better, as I have a list of top four records, and a lot of individual tracks.  (I made a lengthy Spotify playlist ) So, without further ado, here’s my list of favorites of the year: Albums Deafheaven, Infinite Granite (listen) Hands down, my favorite album of the year. I was not sure where Deafheaven would go after another record that brought My Bloody Valentine and death metal fans together, but they beautifully rebooted their sound on Infinite Granite. The divisive goblin vocals are vastly pared-down here, as are the blast beats. Sounding more inspired by Slowdive, the band has discovered a new sonic palette that I hope they explore more of in the future. It’s a welcome revelation. I still love their older material, but this has renewed my love of what these guys do.  J