what a night.
about 6:30pm yesterday we had firemen come into the building for some unknown reason. in a separate incident at the same time, the paramedics came for someone. and, in a third separate incident at the same time, a pipe burst in the apartment above us, sending water cascading down the living room wall.
that would be the wall where my mac mini was plugged in.
to say the least, i am not pleased.
so what do you do when all that hits you? i know what kirk and i did.
we screamed priorities at each other.
actually we had a bit of time just before the pipe burst, so we used that time to put the cats into pet carriers in case we had to evacuate with them because the building was burning down, which as it turns out was not the case, but we weren’t sure at the time. who first said the old line about things being as difficult as herding cats? i now know exactly what they meant. it was not fun or easy, but we got it done.
then the pipe burst.
i held a blanket over the computer desk and then kirk held it while i shut the computer down and unplugged it.
in retrospect, i should have just yanked the cord out of the wall. especially since the water was not only cascading down the outside of the wall, it was also cascading down the inside as well–the part inside which contained the outlet into which the mini was plugged. plugged in along with the monitor, and the scanner, and the modem, and the printer, and the so on and so on.
but i didn’t, and the computer seemed to shut down fine, and then i yanked the cords out of the wall. i’m assuming at this point that i didn’t yank them belatedly. it seemed that i didn’t.
and then we pulled the computer desk out into the middle of the living room, to get it away from the aforementioned cascading water. and there it sits now. i haven’t plugged anything back in yet, because we still don’t have cold water running in the bathroom, which means the pipes are not yet fixed, and i want everything back to normal before i plug things into that waterlogged outlet.
i think i’ll wait a few days, let the wall and the outlet dry out, and then plug a lamp or something in to make sure that things are ok.
we could run a cord to another outlet, but we live in a very old apartment with what frankly is probably pretty suspect wiring. we only have two outlets in the whole living room and two in the kitchen, and the other rooms only have one outlet each, and the bathroom doesn’t have any outlets at all so we have an extension cord plugged into the overhead light fixture, and i don’t want to overload things.
sometimes i feel like oliver douglas on “green acres”. do you remember how all their electrical appliances had different numbers, and his wife lisa had to add up the numbers that corresponded to everything that was plugged in to make sure she didn’t go over 6? if she went over 6, the fuse blew.
well, at least we have an actual circuit box instead of fuses.
or, to clarify, i’m glad that it was only my own personal fuse that blew last night.
update: it works.