Webmaster
01-08-2008, 09:16 AM
We’ve been getting a real winter. Rain. Occasional freezing rain, lots of snow, cold temps, storms come through, and it seems that there is more night than day.
In the cold, chores are just harder. I've been trying to get an outside lighted reader display repaired for our Community Center. The lights on the reader board went out over a month ago. At the last Council meeting, I heard a comment that the sign was said to be getting electricity but the lights don’t work. I'm a new member on the Council and have plans for some community events. I thought it would be helpful to have a reader board that folks can see during the vast timespans of darkness. So I set about the task of trying to get the reader board repaired.
The Community Center has little money for maintenance, or anything else. My first task was to get a key so that I could access the light switch. I made the big mistake of not asking for a key at the Council meeting. As a result, it took over 12 email messages and phone calls to find someone who a) had a key and b) would volunteer to loan the key to me or come with me while looking at the light fixture. Being new to both the Community Center and not knowing many folks in the area, I left messages with several folks who either were said to know something about the sign or to have a key, yet my messages were either unanswered or the person who responded said “Check with” (Fill In The Blank), and when I did check, (Fill In The Blank) either was out of town or didn’t reply to my message. Sigh. Along the way I found that there are said to be lots of keys to the Community Center, but where the keys may be is said to be somewhat of a mystery.
Finally I made contact with another member of the Council and he volunteered to provide me a key with reasonable notice. Excellent! The first part of the plan has fallen into place.
The second part is to arrange for someone to look at the sign and find out what the problem is. It would cost a fortune to hire an electrician. I'm okay working with some simple forms of electrical circuits and know how to operate a voltage meter, but claim no expertise. I have a friend, who is a brilliant electrical engineer, and whose friendship I am, no doubt heavily taxing by asking him to take a day off, travel about 140 miles to spend some time outside in the freezing temps and likely exposed to freezing rain or snow, or maybe both, and try to find out what is wrong with the sign. I have to admit that I was a little deceptive with him at the outset of asking for his help. I figured that if I was up front, he’d say no. Following is a short recount of what happened:
Me: “Hey, J, Wanna help with a project???????”
J: “Sure. Eventually. Let’s see post Christmas.”
Me: “Cool.”
Weeks later.
J: “…what sort of light is it?”
Me: “Uh, actually it's an outside reader display fixture for the Greenwater Community Center. It appears that the light is getting electricity, but it doesn’t work.”
J: “You know, if it's broke anyway, and not too big, you could just bring it into your garage, then we can work on it anytime.”
Me: “We’d need a crane to relocate the sign. I'm told that the sign was re-built about 2 years ago, so it is probably in good shape, overall.”
J: “OK, I pictured one of those things on a trailer…do we need daylight?”
Me: “Daylight is pretty much mandatory. There is no background lighting. And then there is the cold. Teeth chattering, muscle tightening, chill you to the bone cold.”
J: “oh boy!”
So the plan is inching foreword. Once I can get my probably soon to be ex-friend to have a look, the next task is to order parts and then get them put into place. I can probably do that. At least I'm willing to try …
In the cold, chores are just harder. I've been trying to get an outside lighted reader display repaired for our Community Center. The lights on the reader board went out over a month ago. At the last Council meeting, I heard a comment that the sign was said to be getting electricity but the lights don’t work. I'm a new member on the Council and have plans for some community events. I thought it would be helpful to have a reader board that folks can see during the vast timespans of darkness. So I set about the task of trying to get the reader board repaired.
The Community Center has little money for maintenance, or anything else. My first task was to get a key so that I could access the light switch. I made the big mistake of not asking for a key at the Council meeting. As a result, it took over 12 email messages and phone calls to find someone who a) had a key and b) would volunteer to loan the key to me or come with me while looking at the light fixture. Being new to both the Community Center and not knowing many folks in the area, I left messages with several folks who either were said to know something about the sign or to have a key, yet my messages were either unanswered or the person who responded said “Check with” (Fill In The Blank), and when I did check, (Fill In The Blank) either was out of town or didn’t reply to my message. Sigh. Along the way I found that there are said to be lots of keys to the Community Center, but where the keys may be is said to be somewhat of a mystery.
Finally I made contact with another member of the Council and he volunteered to provide me a key with reasonable notice. Excellent! The first part of the plan has fallen into place.
The second part is to arrange for someone to look at the sign and find out what the problem is. It would cost a fortune to hire an electrician. I'm okay working with some simple forms of electrical circuits and know how to operate a voltage meter, but claim no expertise. I have a friend, who is a brilliant electrical engineer, and whose friendship I am, no doubt heavily taxing by asking him to take a day off, travel about 140 miles to spend some time outside in the freezing temps and likely exposed to freezing rain or snow, or maybe both, and try to find out what is wrong with the sign. I have to admit that I was a little deceptive with him at the outset of asking for his help. I figured that if I was up front, he’d say no. Following is a short recount of what happened:
Me: “Hey, J, Wanna help with a project???????”
J: “Sure. Eventually. Let’s see post Christmas.”
Me: “Cool.”
Weeks later.
J: “…what sort of light is it?”
Me: “Uh, actually it's an outside reader display fixture for the Greenwater Community Center. It appears that the light is getting electricity, but it doesn’t work.”
J: “You know, if it's broke anyway, and not too big, you could just bring it into your garage, then we can work on it anytime.”
Me: “We’d need a crane to relocate the sign. I'm told that the sign was re-built about 2 years ago, so it is probably in good shape, overall.”
J: “OK, I pictured one of those things on a trailer…do we need daylight?”
Me: “Daylight is pretty much mandatory. There is no background lighting. And then there is the cold. Teeth chattering, muscle tightening, chill you to the bone cold.”
J: “oh boy!”
So the plan is inching foreword. Once I can get my probably soon to be ex-friend to have a look, the next task is to order parts and then get them put into place. I can probably do that. At least I'm willing to try …