How I've spent my summer

 It’s been 2 months since I was told I was being let go at Big Audit.  In that time a few minor setbacks cropped up that can be magnified by the whole losing your job thing if you let it.  My iPad screen cracked that first week or so.  My tooth cracked last week.  It feels like a few other things have occurred. 

 Oh and the electrical in our basement is acting wonky.  A couple Sundays ago, the power went out, but just to the basement.  The electrician I worked with was out of town so I did some googling.  I started flipping breakers until I identified the one for the basement (lucky number  13) and that brought power back, but only momentarily.  It kept tripping.  When they finally were able to fit me in their schedule, they came over to troubleshoot.   Seems like disconnecting the printer helped, but not completely.  As a short term solution they replaced the breaker.  It seemed to work.  I even reconnected the printer and everything was fine.  Until Saturday.  I think our cleaning lady tripped the breaker again when she vacuumed.  I’ve relocated the printer to the dining room and everything is fine for now, but I know this is a short term solution.  Just when I fixed one issue with the house, another one cropped up.

 I’m not sure why it is all of a sudden a problem.  The printer had been running down there for years, even before the electrical project.  I did add a roku, and apple TV and a NETGEAR FVS318 ProSafe VPN Firewall 8 with 8-Port 10/100 Switch, but I doubt any of those draw enough power especially when passive.  Michal said it might have to do with how humidity affects some of the remaining tube and knob wiring that is within our walls.  We had a Derecho the week before the power outage and he said that might have built up some additional humidity issues.   He later said that I have too many outlets and lights connected to one line.  I think they were in a hurry to get to their next project and didn’t want to take this one on yet.

 Just before we got the news, Nightingale and I hired a baby sitter to watch our kids while we worked.  We learned quickly that both of us WFH was not working well.  Often times we both had to be on calls and that left Moose and Squirrel free to run around and cause trouble.  And sharing an office was not working out either.  

Even after getting the news, we decided we could still afford to keep The Baby Sitter and I could use the help to work on projects around the house, run critical errands, and job hunt.  On that last point,  I want to point out that job hunting during normal times can be slow.  Each time I’ve been between jobs, it’s taken several weeks to several months before I was brought on just because of the byzantine processes of Corporate America.  During a Pandemic, jobs are even harder to come by, especially for someone who specializes in a particular DM software solution.

I did manage to get the basement painted.  I used an old 5 gallon bucket of ceiling paint that I had bought for my condo in 2003 and never used.   I wouldn’t use this for a real project but it was suitable for covering up the smudges getting the ceiling and walls  one uniform color of white (more or less). 

 I feel like I accomplished some other projects but I just cannot think of them right now.  

 

 

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