Thursday, July 25, 2019

Corrections


            About ten years ago we had a bat in our basement. I tried unsuccessfully to remove it, and so, with midnight approaching, I closed the basement door and went to bed. The next morning I found the bat trapped in a wastebasket with no helicopter skills. I easily took him outside and released him. This became my occasionally successful model for making corrections in the world.

                                                *     *    *     *     *

            One evening last week I looked out the window at the solar lights I’d installed (stuck in the ground) to light the way down the stairs to the lake. I noticed that several of the lights were off. When I approached one of them, it suddenly went on. Satisfied that I’d fixed it without touching it, I took a step away and it went off again. Puzzled, I went to check on the other non-functioning lights. I brushed some invisible debris off the sensor on one, and it came on – briefly, until I took my hand away. I suddenly realized that these lights only turned on when it was dark, and at 9 in the evening, it took my shadow to darken them. By 9:30 I’d fixed all the lights.

                                                *     *    *     *     *

            I’m trying to sell a Nantucket basket that I inherited from my mom, and the dealer wanted me to email him some photos. I’d taken some a few years back and stored them on my computer. I spent about an hour using my computer expertise to find it. Then I gave up and rephotographed the basket, and I decided to park those images in plain sight at the top of my computer desktop. I did so, parking them right next to a folder labeled “Basket Photos.” Then I dragged them into that folder with my original photos – problem solved.


                                                *     *    *     *     *

            The GPS on my 2013 Toyota suddenly stopped working. The problem was in the touch-screen. It had happened before about 6 months ago, and the thoroughly trained mechanics at the dealership could not fix it. But a salesman suggested that I slide a credit card around the rim of the screen, and I did so. It worked! A grain of sand or speck of stardust got dislodged, and I was back in business. I rely far too much on my GPS, and I get far too upset when I get lost (something Kim describes as “exploring”), so when my credit card solution (Credit cards solve a lot of problems, don’t they?) didn't work, nor did my fingernail or knife blade, I was ready to trade in my car. But then, miraculously, my fingernail fixed it while waiting for a red light to change. That fingernail saved me about $10,000, as I now figure that this car will be good for another couple of years.

                                                *     *    *     *     *

            “The chain came off of my chain saw. Do you know how to fix it?”

            “Sure, no problem.”

            “Hey – thanks!”

3 comments:

  1. Our phone crapped out on our recent trip to your house. I went into settings and was afraid to click on anything. Then the light bulb turned on and I turned the phone off. Seems to work with a lot of electronic devices. Back in the day, you checked to see if the movie projector or overhead projector was plugged in. Voila! The phone started working. Another ID10T problem resolved.
    Angie

    ReplyDelete

  2. Angie can tell you that my usual immediate response to a problem is to wait and see if it will heal itself. Sometimes it actually does. But this didn’t work last night when our ten year old iMac started acting up. The wireless mouse and keyboard wouldn’t work, so Angie borrowed the wired ones from my ancient Mac Pro to see if they would work. The mouse worked, but when Angie tried to type “Apple Store” into Google, all she could get was a series of A’s. And when we tried to put the computer to sleep it momentarily blacked out and then came on again. At midnight I persuaded Angie to come to bed, thinking that the problem might disappear by morning, but no such luck.

    This morning I managed to get through to AppleCare on the phone, hoping to be able to make an appointment with the Genius Bar. I was told the computer was too old for the Genius Bar (most of their geniuses probably hadn’t been born yet when we bought the computer) and that I would have to take it to an authorized repair service. In the meantime the Apple rep suggested that I turn the computer off and restart it. I did and it worked perfectly. Definitely an ID ten T problem!

    ReplyDelete
  3. I visit your blog regularly and recommend it to all of those who wanted to enhance their knowledge with ease. The style of writing is excellent and also the content is top-notch. Thanks for that shrewdness you provide the readers! Best Exterior Paints

    ReplyDelete