Looking ahead to a week jam-packed with performance and peril, and the technology is not cooperating.
On the home front, the aging plumbing in our bathroom seized up last week, rendering our tub/shower non-functional. Not easy to find a plumber in Vancouver these days — we eventually found a “fun” plumber, who is doing what he can to fit us into his schedule. Since we have to rip the walls apart to even minimally fix things, we’ve decided to move ahead and replace the whole tub and tiling setup. Not that it fits anywhere near our present financial reality, but “financial reality” and “home debtorship in Vancouver” are mutually exclusive terms anyway. Our fun plumber expects me to the prep work and line up the replacement units (which had me scoping out slightly damaged tubs at 7:30 this morning looking for a deal), and then do the work with him in stages in the evenings.
On the work front, my decidedly non-aging laptop has also seized up, rendering it non-functional. I am at an utter loss on the cause — there had been no danger signs, and I have treated this machine with reverence and more than due care.
My wrists are already aching from the lousy ergonomics of my temporary work setup. So a trip the physiotherapist is likely in my future as well.
Nothing to do but play droning dissonant music on the headphones, flail away at my laughably long list of to-do items, and try to ride this sucker out.
You do not know how close to home this hits. The computers are still running (knock wood) but we now have 3 different ominous ‘sounds’ emanating from the upstairs bathroom everytime one of the taps is turned on, and signs of water damage in the basement underneath the bathroom (in my office for crying out loud) – let me know if you want to go halfsies on a bank heist and I will scope out the locations 😉
Good luck, let me know if you know any ‘fun’ plumbers in Victoria!
I feel your pain, Brian. I have friends redoing their bathroom right now and after 3 years of constant renos, they always seem to know where the deals are. I’ve put a shout out to them and will let you know if I hear anything.
Thanks for the sympathy, and for the offer of assistance. All tips welcome.
Ouch for being at the plumber’s mercy. I’ve only done minor repairs as the thoughts of a wayward pipe break is scary, but never really had a “fun” plumber. At least sport a decent plumber’s crack.
Hope we did not break your pipes the week we crashed Chez Lamb.
On the laptop, how “seized up” is it? Blue screen? Blinking folder/finder icon? I would try:
(1) Booting with the OSX install disk and run disk utility / repair permissions.
(2) Get a copy of DiskWarrior- it has saved my butt (pun intended) at least 3 serious times. A must have.
Good luck
Alan – I suspect our plumber will seem less fun when it comes time to settle the bill. And apologies for our shoddy plumbing inconveniencing you during your stay.
I wasn’t able to boot up from Disc — I’m pretty sure this is a hardware issue. It would not even get me to the grey screen, a few seconds of booting and it would power down.