Subject: Weekend Update: September 6-8, 2002
Date: Mon, 9 Sep 2002 16:04:55 -0400

Jessica is already back in the swing of things at college.
She saved a bundle on very expensive college books because
I told her to look online and sure enough there were bargains
to be had on the order of probably more than $100 for the
semester.  I had Jess take Mandy's laptop to school to see
if she could sell it for $400.  Mandy's new job provides
more up-to-date hardware so we hope to recoupe some cash
that she can use and help out another student in the
process.  So far, no takers for a 333MHz, Win98 laptop,
but I do get interest because it is a laptop.

Mandy completed her first week at school.  She said that
she spent much of it scheduling her time with other teachers.
I don't know exactly what a special educator does but it
has something to do with working in conjunction with other
teachers.  (That's okay.  All she knows is that I manage
people who write computer manuals.)

Andrew left for the weekend before I got home on Friday.
He went to a quizzing retreat at the New England District
campground at Windsor Hills, NH.  He brought his football
jersey home for laundering.  His first game is Thursday
night.

Miranda and her friend Melissa made dinner for some
of their friends on Friday night, and Emily went out,
leaving Joy and me to laze away a Friday evening alone.
The weekend was shaping up to be one of leisure.  The
weather was turning back to summer and we had nothing
that we had to do on Saturday morning.  That is, until
Joy called Mike Rand to see about borrowing some staging
so that I could replace the broken ceiling fan in the barn.

Things went well at first.  I had assembled the new fan
before Mike arrived to put up the scaffold.  I even read
up on the wiring to be able to get up and get back down.
I didn't want to spend anymore time aloft than I had to!

NO PROJECT ever goes easily!  The old fan was a special
variable speed, operated by a special switch. The new fan
is a 3-speed, operated by a pull string that we will attach
to a wall switch.  The old fan had no light attachment.
The new fan has a light attachment.

Job One was getting up enough courage to climb up the monkey
bars 16-20' in the air.  I saw Mike put it together and
he was fearless, hopping around all over it.  However, my
center of gravity is a bit different than Mike's and my
confidence was as shaky as the staging when I am so high
off the floor.  I'd split open like an overripe watermelon
if I fell off or it all came crashing down.  Nevertheless,
I mustered up as much faith as I could and scaled the
scaffold.  I unhooked the old, broken unit.  Miranda threw
me a rope from the loft which I attached to the old fan and
lowered it to the floor.  Joy tied a basket to the rope so
we could pass tools and such up and down without my having
to climb up and down more often than I needed to.

The new fan went up like a charm.  I made all the connections
and followed the instructions to a tee.  Adding the juice, the
fan turned on just like it should.  But we only had one speed
from the switch on the ground.  Joy devised a loop to hang from
the pull chain which we will use to change with a pole.  (We
bought a light bulb changing pole in preparation for this
installation.  It will perform multiple service functions.
I've already used it to pick peaches that were out of reach.
It is a great fruit picker!)

Lo and behold, an unused red wire was in the junction box above
the fan, which indicated to me that I had a separate wire to
the light attachement.  I made the connections, closed everything up,
screwed in a light bulb and turned on the power: nothing.  Hmm.
I reopened the junction box to check the current in the red wire.
Something was puzzling.  I went to the switch box and unscrewed
the face plate.  Now, there are four switches serviced by this
switch plate: near track lighting, far track lighting, the outside
light, and the fan.  As I learned from the spaghetti wire inside
the box, there is a reason we pay electricians to come in and
make sense of chaos. 

I drew out the schematic, which was a smart thing because I had
to put the wires back into their original format after many tries
of this and that, running downstairs to the basement to turn on
the breaker, climbing the scaffold to check to make sure the fan
or light switch was on at the pull chain, test it with no luck,
run back downstairs to the basement to switch off the breaker,
and on and on it went all weekend!  Brian Andrew tried to help me by
redrawing my schematic but I don't think he had enough information;
his wiring diagram was just one of the many errors in my trials.
Fortunately, at no time did I trip the breaker like I have in bad
wiring attempts of the past.  I think I may almost have it figured
out, but then again, maybe not.  It was frustrating to have to start
and stop and start again.  And with the summer weather returning,
it is oven-fresh near the ceiling in the barn.

We did take some short breaks over the weekend to unwind by the
pool.  We even got brave enough to get in, briefly, and get out
to sit in the sun.  I'll help Joy close the pool when I get back
from my trip to California next week.

Mark