Set for maximum water!
Mar. 7th, 2012 07:00 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
alexpgpBack in the days when I used to work with control system hardware and software for a living, the department (all, um, three of us, including one administrative assistant) had a little exchange—a running joke, if you will—that surfaced any time we got to the point where a system had gotten to the point where it was actually going to be turned on for the first time.
"So," my boss would say, "have you wired the system for maximum smoke?"
"That's a big ten-four, there, Rubber Duck," I'd reply, doing my best impression of C.W. McCall (the CB/trucker craze was just fading). Then I'd get all nautical with: "Firefighting party, stand by!"
And then I'd flip the master switch.
The roots of that little exchange went back to an episode that occurred during a system startup in the field, right after I'd literally had my knuckles rapped by an electrician, who told me to keep my grubby, non-union mitts off of my equipment, as he was the only party present qualified (or allowed, depending on your point of view) to do electrical work. As I rubbed my skinned knuckles, said electrician proceeded to connect live 120-VAC power to the motherboard of my system's 8008-based microcomputer.
The resulting smoke set off a fire alarm and I hope to never again hear so many diodes give up the ghost at one time.
Anyway, a little over a month ago (described here), I set about repairing the water line to the hose connection in the garage, and was successful, as far as I went, which unfortunately didn't extend all the way to the valve. I had failed to note a rupture-—due, no doubt, to ice in the line—at the turn where the line went down the garage wall to the valve. And so, today, I finished the job of repairing the line, but when the time came to open the controlling water valve, there was really nobody around to ask if I had set the system up for maximum flooding. I opened the valve anyway.
No leaks. (Hooray!)
* * * As I sit and work with this huge "monitor," I wonder how Amazon video would display on it? (I mean, it is a television!)
Cheers...
"So," my boss would say, "have you wired the system for maximum smoke?"
"That's a big ten-four, there, Rubber Duck," I'd reply, doing my best impression of C.W. McCall (the CB/trucker craze was just fading). Then I'd get all nautical with: "Firefighting party, stand by!"
And then I'd flip the master switch.
The roots of that little exchange went back to an episode that occurred during a system startup in the field, right after I'd literally had my knuckles rapped by an electrician, who told me to keep my grubby, non-union mitts off of my equipment, as he was the only party present qualified (or allowed, depending on your point of view) to do electrical work. As I rubbed my skinned knuckles, said electrician proceeded to connect live 120-VAC power to the motherboard of my system's 8008-based microcomputer.
The resulting smoke set off a fire alarm and I hope to never again hear so many diodes give up the ghost at one time.
Anyway, a little over a month ago (described here), I set about repairing the water line to the hose connection in the garage, and was successful, as far as I went, which unfortunately didn't extend all the way to the valve. I had failed to note a rupture-—due, no doubt, to ice in the line—at the turn where the line went down the garage wall to the valve. And so, today, I finished the job of repairing the line, but when the time came to open the controlling water valve, there was really nobody around to ask if I had set the system up for maximum flooding. I opened the valve anyway.
No leaks. (Hooray!)
Cheers...
