Meltdown
It finally happened.
I knew it was inevitable, but I am just surprised that it lasted this long.
Our central heating finally blew up.
It was quite spectacular in the end.
It started by making a lot of noise – somewhat akin to waves breaking on a shingle beach, interspersed with rattles and bangs that made the house shake. Then it started spraying water all around the airing cupboard where most of the dials, valves, pumps and whathaveyous live. Naturally the water sprayed into the electrics which caused some nice fireworks which in turn wasn't very good for the clothes that are also in there but luckily the spraying water put the fire out.
You know what comes next.
You have read about Fukushima and seen The China Syndrome?
The pumps stopped, the water level dropped and the rods were exposed.
My entire central heating system including my immersion heater is, as I type, melting its way down through the Earth's crust and should emerge somewhere off the south coast of Australia anytime soon. Maybe it will find that missing aircraft?
So now we have no heating.
Frankly that doesn't bother me. If there ain't ice on the inside of the windows then I'm quite happy, but Herself feels the cold [she calls it freezing when I call it not quite as warm as yesterday]. It's a sorry state when a couple is so incompatible? The one good thing about this system failure is that I'm no longer going to sit pouring sweat in the evenings and having to take regular trips into the garden to cool off a bit.
I phoned the International Atomic Agency Commission about my problem but they say they can't come out to fix things until the end of the week.
I suppose I'll just have to hope it doesn't snow in the meantime.
And if any Australians are reading this – can I have my heating back please?
I turned my heat off in the beginning of April. It was chilly for a few weeks but jeez it's the middle of May. Why do you have the heat on in May? I have all my windows open all day and then close most of them in the evening but there is no need for heating!
Herself "feels the cold" as they say. I blame not enough hard work and too much gin but she says it's hereditary. Who am I to argue?
Well bugger me sideways. Your catstrophic failure of vital equipment just jumped over the Irish sea and took out not one but two fucking hardrives. Two of the bastards in the same 24 hours. One clicked three times and croaked it the other well the other pretended it was okay so I wasted hours and hours reformatting the bloody thing only to see the little green button in gparted change to 'HARD DISK FAILURE IMMINENT' in a garish red.
Comes to something when the working laptop and its backup both pack in together. Good job there was a second backup. As for your end as it were. At least it blew in the 'summer' with long days and warmish weather. Could have gone in the deep midwinter so every cloud and all that.. or is it Karma for running over that political wonk?
I look forwards to reading about your new system being built.
Sorry about that. It was probably the fallout which must be quite considerable. Radiation does strange things to computers. And animals. And people….
As I keep telling people – keep taking backups [of your backups].
Well I spoke to soon the backup's backup drive died as well, the three click way. As they were all around seven years old it should come as no surprise as the phenomenon of built in obsolescence is alive and kicking.
Thankfully I have a god daughter who is a bit of hoarder and she hung onto a Toshiba laptop whose screen packed in and she gave it to me. Thank god Mint 17 is easy to install. I've done it so many times these past few days I could do it in my sleep.
Wow! A main drive, a backup and a backup's backup all dying at the same time? That's a story for the grandkids, if ever?
I bought an external drive a few years ago. Shortly after, I dropped it and it smashed into pieces. I managed to get it going by carefully arranging the pieces on a shelf so that gravity held it together. Damn thing has been working ever since, though I daren't ever move it.
Just imaging if you had to install Windoze several times? Doesn't bear thinking about?