Stupid Smoke Detectors
May 14, 2007
I really don’t mean that as they are invaluable part of home safety, but after a frustrating night like last night, it sure felt like it.
In the evening, one of our smoke detectors started beeping every few minutes. Then a couple of more started beeping. Since all the detectors are wired together such that if one goes off, they all go off, that is not really surprising. This usually means one of two things. Either the battery is low or it’s time for a system test.
I had never heard of the latter until moving into this house about four years ago. Sure enough, we periodically have to test all the detectors or they will start beeping. Periodically is about a year, so it’s not too obtrusive. After we pushed the test button on the detectors, and let them test themselves, sure enough the beeping stopped. Until after we were in bed.
Around 11:00 pm, the beeping started again, this time from one unit in particular. Argh, the battery must be going. I went and got the ladder out again to replace the battery. Of course, I couldn’t find one. Suzanne managed to find a somewhat used battery that I replaced for the old one. Again, the beeping stopped – just long enough for us to get back into bed and get comfortable.
Not very happy at the moment, I decided it was just time to remove the detector from the ceiling until we could get some new batteries. I wasn’t too worried about the detector being removed as it was a hallway detector, but thanks to building codes, three was another 3 detectors within 5 feet of this one. I got back up on the ladder, unplugged and removed the detector and set it on a window sill. Silence again.
I climbed back into bed, but was only there for about 10 minutes before the beeping began once again. It became apparent, that in my half asleep state, though I had taken down the smoke detector from ceiling, when I put it on the window sill, I neglected to remove the battery. So now it was beeping again.
I removed the battery and headed back to bed. As soon as I laid down, the smoke detector beeped again. Nice and mad now, I hopped out again and went over to the detector as it beeped again. As I was contemplating which trash bin to throw it into, it gave one last dying beep as it faded away. Evidently, it had built up enough of a capacitance charge for a few last beeps before going silent.
This whole affair took some time and robbed us of some nice sleep. Had it been the middle of the day, this would have been a non-issue and everything would have been a whole lot more clearer and handled quite quickly. But then, what fun would that have been?
Internet Finally Fixed
April 13, 2007
Today was a good day! Finally, my internet service appears to be back in solid operation. For the last couple of weeks, our internet connection has been dropping every five or ten minutes. It was only for 30 seconds to a minute, but it was very aggravating.
I have been working with my provider, Sunncast, to get it fixed but without much luck. Finally, tonight, he came over to the house with a network engineer and they were able to troubleshoot and fix the problem. They were concerned because some other subscribers in the area were reporting similar problems. They are planning an expansion but didn’t want to do it until they sorted out these problems.
Turns out that my wireless modem/radio to their stuff was resetting about every five minutes because it couldn’t communicate with the backup IP address for the main system. The IP that was loaded was invalid. How it got the invalid IP is still a mystery, but it appears that those of us with this issue were all installed about the same time, so it may have been an installation error. Even more funky is why did the problem just start coming up?
Anyways, the connection appears rock solid now and I can resume my normal internet life. I haven’t been able to play America’s Army lately because I couldn’t keep the connection constant.
Incidentally, the stupid elliptical trainer still isn’t working. It’s about to go back to Sears in pieces for a refund. Supposedly, they are coming to fix it early next week, but we have heard this twice before. This is all a Nordic Trac problem and nothing to do with Sears.
I am also hard at work on redesigning the Cruise Talk Central site. Traffic there has picked up quite a bit and it’s time to turn it more into a social site than a personal blog site. Hopefully, when I complete the redesign, folks will continue coming and participate in the discussions.
I have a lot of new features planned for the site. I will detail some of them in a future post as well as perhaps post a few snapshots of the work in progress.
Tomorrow, we will spend some time in Bisbee, AZ as Suzanne and the kids are performing some dances as part of the Boys and Girls Club telethon that is going on. While there, we will probably get dinner in the old copper mining town.
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