Testing Fate

Padre, Dave, Jack and I were working on lighting up the signs at the Little Brick House today.  It was a good time.  Jack jumped up on the roof with Dave and I and he had a great time up there.  Well, to a point anyway.  He spotted one of the whirly bird exhaust vents and said to me "this looks like a big Roley Poley".  He is right.  He had fun playing with it and I should have thought about letting him play with it because he sliced his finger pretty good on the metal.  I was down getting some tools and Dave was with him.  Apparently he was pretty tough about it all and climbed down the ladder at a rapid pace with the use of only one hand.  Surprised Dave a bit.  Anyhow, he said something like "I knew I shouldn't have gotten on that roof".  It didn't stop him though.  As soon as he had the band aid on his finger he was right back up that ladder.  He enjoyed himself. 

One funny Jack moment was a bit earlier.  Out of the blue he says:  "I said good morning Gil!"  Amy, Dave and I have been quoting What About Bob all week and so hearing Jack deliver this line was pretty funny.  He pretty much nailed it to. 

Anyhow we are wiring in this sign and whilst looking at everything we decided it would be best to tie it into an existing box that is tied to a switch on the wall inside.  This would allow us to turn on and off the sign easily.  I disconnected the exhaust fan that was hooked up to it and found that I needed to change a box.  Well, not thinking through things very well I made an assumption that the wire was dead because the switch was off downstairs.  Well, one set of wires was dead but the other one was not and I had a small fireworks show up on the roof there for a minute when I cut into a live wire.  Those moments are always so much fun.  It was not real smart on my part.  I was fortunate to only create a light show.  The cutters I was using took a bit of a hit but nothing else. 

Okay, so don't do electrical work the way I do it.  Always cut off the breaker first and don't assume that a wire is dead.  I forgot that this building has a few weird things about it and the live wire happened to be tied to the switch on the wall.  It comes up to the roof and through the box I was changing.  Goes down and back into the building where it feeds the switch on the wall.  A second wire then comes from that switch back up to the same box and into a second switch in that box.  That may be perfectly normal wiring and I may take a simpler approach to things in my mind.  I don't know? 

Anyhow, got it all fixed up and we were ready to switch back on.  Padre flipped the breaker and Dave went down and flipped the switches on the signs.  Both lit.  Excellent.  Padre then tested the wall switch inside.  Worked great.  For fun I said:  "I'll check the switch up here" not that we would ever climb onto the roof to turn on or off the sign but anyway.  Dave replies "Are you sure you want to test fate?" referring to my little fireworks show.  I was fairly confident in my work and new that there would not be a problem.  I flipped the switch and turned it back.  Nothing from Dave.  I asked if it came on and the response "All the lights went off in the store". 

Oh fantastic.  What did I do?  All I did was disconnect a fan and wire the lights in it's place.  There is no reason for us to suddenly have an electrical problem so big that it shuts down the entire panel.  It turns out that during all of this activity there was a fire going on in town directly west of us.  It was pretty smokey.  The fire happened to be on a power pole that had an explosion or something and the power company cut power to parts of the city.  The Little Brick House happened to be included in the part of the grid that got shut down.   It just so happened that the power grid was shut off at the very moment I tested fate by flipping that switch.  Go figure. 

So, in harmony with yesterdays post I took a power nap around the beginning of the third paragraph in this post.   I rather enjoyed it.  I woke up and was ready to go to work again.  Jack was sleeping on the couch tonight.  His turn to camp out.  I heard him start to moan a bit and went in to check on him.  As soon as I hit the hallway I knew we were in trouble.  It stunk something fierce.  Puke all over the couch, Mr. Fluffy, his pillow, the floor.  It was quite stinky.  More puking.  It was nasty.  It smells terrible in the house.  It is now 1:30 in the morning.  See where these power naps I bragged about last night get you? 

Can't forget that Jack got back up on the roof after everything was done.  He was up exploring when we took the ladder down not knowing he was there.  I was trying to locate him and thought he was somewhere in the store.  I heard a noise that sounded like he was stuck in the walk in and couldn't get the door open.  I went to take care of it and realized that the noise was Jack jumping up and down on the roof.  Well, I guess it worked.  I found him and got him down.  He is a crazy coconut who is now puking.  Fun times for all tonight.