#013: Rosie the Riveter
How have your holidays been for you? I haven't been back to work since December 23, so I'm doing G-R-E-A-T! This vacation has been such an incredible blessing for me, and a nice reminder of why I go to work each day. We have had a lot happen while I've been away from work.
Let the Letters Begin
I've started my commitment on letter writing, and I'm already late. How's that for a successful New Year's resolution? I had a birthday to recognize on January 3rd, but I didn't get the individual's address in time. Because I didn't have the address, am I forgiven? I sure hope so. I mailed 5 other letters out today (early), so hopefully I'll stay on track. In the letters, I'm also including this weblog. I'm hoping by the end of the year to get more people looking here rather than elsewhere for news on the Winkles Family. I guess if I'm expecting that to happen, I better start writing more frequently, huh? I doubt I can get back to the "one per day" I had while in Thailand, but I should have a bit more frequency. Stay tuned and see for yourself.
Rosie the Riveter
As a general reminder, I am not a "Mr. Fix-it." I am not mechanically inclined, and freely admit it. Okay, with that reminder in mind, let me continue. Our water softener broke. Actually, it broke many moons ago, but we cannot afford to replace it. We have instead been dealing with itchy skin and buying body lotion by the truckloads.
Hot Stock Tip: Jergens Body Lotion
Anyway, I tell my wife we need to start budgeting for a water softener, but that doesn't work for her. I come home for lunch one day to find her tinkering with it. Hmm... more power to you if you can fix that honey.
She plays with it for awhile and comes to the conclusion we need to replace the motor. She's not completely sure, but all the literature seems to point this direction. I'm not so keen on the "not completely sure," but why not? We find out the motor will cost $50. A new water softener is much, much more than that. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out what makes the most sense here, does it?
We shop for a new water softener. Seriously.
As it turns out, a water softener like ours is rather expensive. Leave it to us to buy a really nice one when we were living on two incomes. Yay team! Way to think ahead! Obviously, buying a new one is out of the question, so the $50 part is looking much more attractive.
But wait! Sears is having a sale on their water softeners... right now! We could just "swap out our old busted joint for a new hotness" (to coin a Will Smith phrase). Even better, Sears will install the new one and take away the old one. The fee for removal? $50.
This $50 price tag seems to be coming up more and more. What do we do?
We do nothing.
Perhaps if we simply do nothing about the problem, it will go away. We leave the water softener unplugged for a couple of months. After that, we plug it back in, and watch it begin it's cycle... and then fail. Dang! I thought for sure leaving it off would allow it to "heal" itself. Why didn't that work?
We turn it off again.
My wife finally decided to order the part. After she orders the part, I go out into the garage and look at the water softener. I see the part she ordered, so I start my own troubleshooting. I tap on it. I jiggle a couple of wires. I stare intently at it.
Good stuff.
I turn it back on. My wife comes in to see what I'm doing and notices the display is showing something she hasn't seen before. It has progressed further than before. She looks very excited, but also mad because I didn't try to fix it before. I marvel at my maintenance skills. It must have been the staring that fixed it. We leave the garage, and I'm happy that I'm so gifted.
Two minutes later, the error returns. Ah well, at least I got it a little further along.
A couple of weeks later, the motor arrives. I look at the motor in the water softener and notice it only requires the removal of two screws. I decide this is a project within my expertise and gleefully accept the responsibility. As I head out to the garage, my wife feels compelled to remind me to unplug the water softener before beginning.
Now how stupid does she think I am? I give her a look of disdain, and tell her "I know this." I walk out to the garage, thinking to myself that I would have left it plugged in had she not mentioned that to me. I could never tell her that to her face, but she'll read it in this blog and know that she did the right thing by reminding me. Thanks Baby!
I take the new motor out of the box and the two screws that came with it come flying out of the box and into the "sea of forgetfullness" known as my kitchen floor. Ah well, I'll find it later when it's the middle of the night and I'm trying to heat up a bottle for Gabriel. It's at that time that the screw will meet with the underside of my foot. It will occur at at time when I'm the most tired, and the shock of the whole thing will force me to wake completely up, thereby ruining any possibility of future sleep. But, I digress.
Luckily for me, I found it before all this could occur. Why? Because I wasn't wearing any shoes, so my foot decided to take the pain early. After picking the screw out of the fleshy part of my foot, I ventured into the garage.
I removed the motor from the water softener, dropped the screws for it deep inside the softener (this would be a good time for me to swear if I did things like that), and proceeded to pull it out.
Hark, what's this? There are wires attached to this motor. The wires go to a PCB. What the heck? There's more to this. Visions of soldering begin to dance through my head, and my dreams of being able to fix this contraption start to fail me. There will be no victory dance in the Winkles house tonight.
Oh, but wait! Good news! There's a connector at the end of these wires. This is plug and play baby! I pull the wires off and remove the motor. Yay for me. I grab the new motor and proceed to plug in the wires.
Wait a second... Was there an order to how they are supposed to be connected? I look at the wires and do not notice anything particularly different about them, other than the fact that they come from different places within the motor. I stare at the wires and then at the PCB. Back at the wires. Back at the PCB.
Hmm... I wish I would have taken more time to look at the connections before unplugging them. I go back into the house and investigate the remains of the box. Aha! A piece of paper inside. It must be wiring instructions. I'm saved!
Nope. I don't recall what the paper was (probably a packing slip), but I definitely remember it NOT being wiring instructions.
I'm doomed!
I go back out and stare at the components again. I'm hoping I will hear one of the wires cry out "Please plug me into that slot." Of course, this does not happen. I decide to just plug them in random order and hope I don't smell smoke.
After plugging them in, I search around the water softener for at least two of the four screws I had between the two motors. I find a couple and screw it in. With everything connected, I plug it in and look intently for smoke.
Nothing. Yes!
Things are looking up. My wife comes out this time and sees that things have progressed further than before... again. We cross our fingers and wait for the best. After a recharge, we get our screen back again. This is something that has NEVER occurred before!
Let the Letters Begin
I've started my commitment on letter writing, and I'm already late. How's that for a successful New Year's resolution? I had a birthday to recognize on January 3rd, but I didn't get the individual's address in time. Because I didn't have the address, am I forgiven? I sure hope so. I mailed 5 other letters out today (early), so hopefully I'll stay on track. In the letters, I'm also including this weblog. I'm hoping by the end of the year to get more people looking here rather than elsewhere for news on the Winkles Family. I guess if I'm expecting that to happen, I better start writing more frequently, huh? I doubt I can get back to the "one per day" I had while in Thailand, but I should have a bit more frequency. Stay tuned and see for yourself.
Rosie the Riveter
As a general reminder, I am not a "Mr. Fix-it." I am not mechanically inclined, and freely admit it. Okay, with that reminder in mind, let me continue. Our water softener broke. Actually, it broke many moons ago, but we cannot afford to replace it. We have instead been dealing with itchy skin and buying body lotion by the truckloads.
Hot Stock Tip: Jergens Body Lotion
Anyway, I tell my wife we need to start budgeting for a water softener, but that doesn't work for her. I come home for lunch one day to find her tinkering with it. Hmm... more power to you if you can fix that honey.
She plays with it for awhile and comes to the conclusion we need to replace the motor. She's not completely sure, but all the literature seems to point this direction. I'm not so keen on the "not completely sure," but why not? We find out the motor will cost $50. A new water softener is much, much more than that. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out what makes the most sense here, does it?
We shop for a new water softener. Seriously.
As it turns out, a water softener like ours is rather expensive. Leave it to us to buy a really nice one when we were living on two incomes. Yay team! Way to think ahead! Obviously, buying a new one is out of the question, so the $50 part is looking much more attractive.
But wait! Sears is having a sale on their water softeners... right now! We could just "swap out our old busted joint for a new hotness" (to coin a Will Smith phrase). Even better, Sears will install the new one and take away the old one. The fee for removal? $50.
This $50 price tag seems to be coming up more and more. What do we do?
We do nothing.
Perhaps if we simply do nothing about the problem, it will go away. We leave the water softener unplugged for a couple of months. After that, we plug it back in, and watch it begin it's cycle... and then fail. Dang! I thought for sure leaving it off would allow it to "heal" itself. Why didn't that work?
We turn it off again.
My wife finally decided to order the part. After she orders the part, I go out into the garage and look at the water softener. I see the part she ordered, so I start my own troubleshooting. I tap on it. I jiggle a couple of wires. I stare intently at it.
Good stuff.
I turn it back on. My wife comes in to see what I'm doing and notices the display is showing something she hasn't seen before. It has progressed further than before. She looks very excited, but also mad because I didn't try to fix it before. I marvel at my maintenance skills. It must have been the staring that fixed it. We leave the garage, and I'm happy that I'm so gifted.
Two minutes later, the error returns. Ah well, at least I got it a little further along.
A couple of weeks later, the motor arrives. I look at the motor in the water softener and notice it only requires the removal of two screws. I decide this is a project within my expertise and gleefully accept the responsibility. As I head out to the garage, my wife feels compelled to remind me to unplug the water softener before beginning.Now how stupid does she think I am? I give her a look of disdain, and tell her "I know this." I walk out to the garage, thinking to myself that I would have left it plugged in had she not mentioned that to me. I could never tell her that to her face, but she'll read it in this blog and know that she did the right thing by reminding me. Thanks Baby!
I take the new motor out of the box and the two screws that came with it come flying out of the box and into the "sea of forgetfullness" known as my kitchen floor. Ah well, I'll find it later when it's the middle of the night and I'm trying to heat up a bottle for Gabriel. It's at that time that the screw will meet with the underside of my foot. It will occur at at time when I'm the most tired, and the shock of the whole thing will force me to wake completely up, thereby ruining any possibility of future sleep. But, I digress.
Luckily for me, I found it before all this could occur. Why? Because I wasn't wearing any shoes, so my foot decided to take the pain early. After picking the screw out of the fleshy part of my foot, I ventured into the garage.
I removed the motor from the water softener, dropped the screws for it deep inside the softener (this would be a good time for me to swear if I did things like that), and proceeded to pull it out.
Hark, what's this? There are wires attached to this motor. The wires go to a PCB. What the heck? There's more to this. Visions of soldering begin to dance through my head, and my dreams of being able to fix this contraption start to fail me. There will be no victory dance in the Winkles house tonight.
Oh, but wait! Good news! There's a connector at the end of these wires. This is plug and play baby! I pull the wires off and remove the motor. Yay for me. I grab the new motor and proceed to plug in the wires.
Wait a second... Was there an order to how they are supposed to be connected? I look at the wires and do not notice anything particularly different about them, other than the fact that they come from different places within the motor. I stare at the wires and then at the PCB. Back at the wires. Back at the PCB.
Hmm... I wish I would have taken more time to look at the connections before unplugging them. I go back into the house and investigate the remains of the box. Aha! A piece of paper inside. It must be wiring instructions. I'm saved!
Nope. I don't recall what the paper was (probably a packing slip), but I definitely remember it NOT being wiring instructions.
I'm doomed!
I go back out and stare at the components again. I'm hoping I will hear one of the wires cry out "Please plug me into that slot." Of course, this does not happen. I decide to just plug them in random order and hope I don't smell smoke.
After plugging them in, I search around the water softener for at least two of the four screws I had between the two motors. I find a couple and screw it in. With everything connected, I plug it in and look intently for smoke.
Nothing. Yes!
Things are looking up. My wife comes out this time and sees that things have progressed further than before... again. We cross our fingers and wait for the best. After a recharge, we get our screen back again. This is something that has NEVER occurred before!
It has been over a week since all this occurred, and still our water softener is working. My wife is pretty amazing to have been so diligent in her troubleshooting to have actually diagnosed the problem. She saved us quite a bit of money. Good for you honey! She reminds of the women who went to work during the war when the men were out fighting. I can't remember the name used back then (especially since I wasn't born yet). Was it Rita Riveter? I thought it had something to do with "rivets." Okay, I'm going to look this up on the web. Why am I even typing this now?
Aha! It was "Rosie the Riveter." I knew it had something to do with rivets. At any rate, the country needed "Rosie" to keep the economy flourishing, and I need my wife to keep things running around here. If any of you have problems with your water softeners, give me a call and I'll quote you a good rate.
A Hiking We Will Go
My kids and I went on a hike today. It was the fourth hike we've been on since December 23. I took a lot of pictures. Maybe I'll share them in another post. I think this one has reached the end.
Ugh! Typos
If you are a subcriber to this weblog and received a couple notifications on the new post, it is because I found four typos between the first post and this post. I hate typos! Even worse, I love to make fun of other people's typos, which means I better do a "better than average" job with mine. I cannot tell you how many times my wife and eldest son like to poke fun whenever they catch me in a grammatical mistake. So, if you received this twice, my apologies.
Until next time.
posted by Roger Winkles | 9:55 PM
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