Posts Tagged ‘ethernet cable’
No Worse
Things being “no worse” is not a ringing endorsement of happiness but I’m claiming it as a victory. There was no sign of water on the floor in the laundry room one day after Cyndie had cleaned it all up. Instead of blindly calling any plumber to help us diagnose a potential problem with the water softener, I figured I should at least try to learn enough about it to discuss its functions.
In searching online for a manual, I learned of a company in Red Wing that services our model. Without needing to see it in person, a plumber talked me through testing the “regen” operations over the phone. At each step, he could tell me where to look for the possibility of leaking water.
The good news is that by his analysis, the softener was unlikely to be the source of the leak. The bad news is we are now even more confused about where the water had come from to soak all our throw rugs. The plumber offered his thoughts about other possible causes, but nothing definitive came of it. For now, we are hovering in an observation mode and not returning any rugs to the floor.
Asher kept busy by familiarizing himself with a new pull-apart toy Elysa gave him for Christmas. I think he’s getting the hang of it.
My project for the ethernet cabling to the Wi-Fi repeater faired much better than being labeled, “no worse.” I reviewed the wiring in the last connector I crimped, using a magnifying glass, and deemed it visibly faultless. That led me to dig deeper into the software initialization of the hardware.
In a phone conversation with Julian, we were making our way through the connections and I climbed up to look one more time at the original router and associated hardware on top of the desk shelf in the den. The answer appeared right before my eyes. I had failed to plug in an RJ45 connector that I had disconnected when testing the attic cabling.
2024 is already looking better for us on day 3.
After succeeding with the repeater, my next step shifted to getting the camera mounted and connected to AC power down at the barn. I was thrilled to find the horses curious but not the least bit disturbed by my showing up with unfamiliar tools, making potentially scary sounds, and focusing on my task when they were expecting me to be serving feed for them.
I couldn’t finish last night, but completing the camera installation should be in reach today. Although, I am beyond committing myself to actually reaching such a goal.
At this point, I’m leaning toward seeking to make things ‘no worse’ for two days in a row. I’m on a roll!
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Inauspicious Start
Our New Year started with an unwelcome surprise. It being the first day of the month, I went downstairs to check the date I had written on our furnace filter the last time I changed it. A hall rug on the way to the laundry room was askew and I attempted to slide it with the toe of one foot.
It didn’t budge. The chain of evidence my eyes collected with each successive glance around me triggered increasing alarm. The rug was soaking wet. There was a puddle on the floor in the laundry room. There was water all over the floor in the bedroom but it was dry in between.
I hollered to Cyndie that we’d had a flood in the basement. Luckily, the water was clean. I’d like to know if it was salty, but I wasn’t about to taste it. I’d heard the softener going through its regeneration process overnight. That only happens at long intervals because we don’t generally use a lot of water. My guess is that something related to the water softener was the cause but we failed to find any obvious clue as to where the water had come from.
The more we looked, the more saturated throw rugs we discovered. It was confusing because the floor was dry in places between wet rugs. We couldn’t find any signs of water leaking from somewhere above the floor level. It’s a big mystery to us.
We’ve decided to seek professional advice from a local plumber. Maybe we will help a local business start 2024 with unexpected revenue.
I opted out of the next-level cleaning Cyndie embarked on in the basement in order to try finishing my ethernet cable installation project that involved drilling a hole through one of our log walls. The drilling was a little tedious but once completed, the real challenge remained.
The roof hadn’t dried up at all since the last mix of freezing drizzle and snow had coated the shingles. If I could just make my way to the narrow slope of dry shingles under the eave of the main peak, I figured I could safely stand on the step ladder already straddling the lower peak.
I hadn’t considered the stressful tension I would subject my muscles to for the operation. By the time I made it back safely to the ground again, multiple muscles were letting me know they were not happy with my activity. I was so focused on completing the final steps up there, I didn’t notice the extent to which I was tensing up to balance, hold my position, and avoid losing my footing.
However, the cable routing was done. All that remained was to crimp one connector to finish. With Cyndie’s moral support and willingness to hold a light for me, I lined up those eight tiny wires and crimped the connector.
The WiFi repeater light came on, the named signals appeared in the list of known networks, and… I’m getting no connection to the internet.
Happy New Year 2024, indeed. Humph.
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End Near
On the last day of the year 2023, I was considering looking back through the images in my blog library to review what happened in our lives in the last 12 months. I couldn’t finish a scan through the images because the pictures stopped loading for some unknown reason.
That’s similar to my attempt to complete the installation of our new WiFi repeater cabling yesterday. I couldn’t finish because icy conditions kept me off the roof.
In the morning the heavy frost made the shingles way too slippery so I concentrated on the indoor work. Later in the day, a freezing mist started to fall on top of the frost that hadn’t dissipated. This morning there is a fraction of an inch of snow on top of the icy substrate.
Yesterday, I spent some contorted hours in the attic, balancing in a crouch on angled trusses to route a length of ethernet cable from one side to another. I drilled holes to give mice another couple of potential access points where the cable passes through wall and ceiling boards.
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I plugged the camera in to test my new connections and verified everything worked. The portion remaining involves drilling through the log wall at the peak of the loft ceiling to bring the cable from the repeater inside. Then I need to seal around that cable to prevent mice and bats from taking this new opening as an invitation to come live with us.
Today, I may putter about devising the mount for the camera down at the barn if the roof of the house remains overly hazardous.
I’m hoping the project doesn’t end up waiting until spring like the plan appears to have for digging up the electric supply wires to the barn.
I hope the theme of ‘not finishing’ doesn’t define the year ending today. Without the benefit of reviewing the year in my blog images, this is what comes to mind about the odd-numbered year, 2023:
We spent much of the winter months focused on Cyndie’s convalescence from her ankle reconstruction the previous November. She was functional enough to travel to Puerto Rico in April. In May, we adopted Asher. I did my annual bike trip in June. We made it up to the lake as much as possible through summer. As fall approached, we got the shoulders of the driveway professionally graded and then did the raking and grass seed planting ourselves. Finally, Cyndie opted to go for one more surgery on her ankle and had the metal hardware removed now that the bones had healed.
This morning a meteorologist on the radio announced this December has been the warmest since measurements started being recorded in the 1870s.
We have obviously reached the end of 2023 but I doubt we’ve seen the end of the warming climate’s effects.
Like we always do, I expect we’ll cope one day at a time and respond to whatever 2024 brings with as much love as we can muster.
Celebrate safely tonight all you wild and crazy people! Happy last day of 2023!
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Relative Something 