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January 14, 2006
The house went splodey.
OK, no, not really, but this week B and I are having our first major bout of Homeowner Drama. On Tuesday, as I was shambling into the bathroom to take care of my morning ablutions, I flipped on the light switch, and the light fixture over the tub went POP! and there was a Big Blue Spark. Not the bulb...the fixture. All the lights on that circuit go dark. Oh goody. Sorry, house, I'm totally incapable of dealing with this just after rolling out of bed.
So, fast forward to Saturday. At this point, I'm assuming that the ugly light fixtures in the bathroom just need to be replaced. We picked out some nice fixtures at the Home Despot, and brought 'em home. I grabbed my trusty digital multimeter to go downstairs and repair the lights. (I wanted to use the multimeter to triple check that the circuit was cold). Before I head downstairs, I stick the multimeter in an outlet upstairs to test it.
Guess what.
POP! Blue spark. Everything goes dark. B says "Uh, what just happened?"
Crap.
So, the main circuit upstairs that runs the front room, the TV room, and all the ceiling fixtures (including the kitchen) is now out of commission as well. Oh goody. So, now we're running around trying to figure out what to do next.
At one point, we look at each other and say "HOME WARRANTY!" which was one of the contingencies we required when we bought the house. Woot. Now we just need to find the paperwork.
not woot.
We look everywhere, and we can't find it. B is frustrated, I'm annoyed, and it's no fun. So we sit down, have a grilled cheese sammich (yum!), and try not to think about it (which is the way to find things that you're looking for).
Then B be's a hero. She recalls the name of the warranty holder. She finds their web site. She finds our contract number. And she submits a ticket to them, requesting they contact us and schedule a repair.
Wo-oo-oooot. She's a hero.
So that's where we're at. We've got extension cables running the critical hardware (that's the Tivo and our laptop charger), and we're OK. It's kinda dark.
Posted by Lee at January 14, 2006 11:22 PM