Weekend was a failure

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AnalogRTO

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Ever have one of those times where nothing, and I mean NOTHING works out?

I took Friday off, was over visiting Stanford to see about getting into a study to help with my cluster headaches. This was my second visit with them, I had to wait because of timing relative to a nerve block done three months ago (also to help the headaches). What do I find out? That a procedure that was tried and failed fifteen years ago (which I told them about on my first visit) excludes me from the study. There's half a day shot, not to mention the hopes of getting in on this thing to help with my headaches.

Well, at least I have the afternoon. The Good Guys had a car show at the county fairgrounds, and with the '31 Chevy I have in my garage, I need to get a new rear end for it. A vendor who sells them put that they would be at the show on their website. So I go to the show, see plenty of cool cars, but the vendor is nowhere to be found. Ask around, nobody knows, finally call them and they said they couldn't make it. Turns out there isn't a single vendor there selling rear ends as it was, so I couldn't even look at any of them. Bust.

Saturday, I've got yard work to do together with some pool maintenance. One thing I want to do is upgrade the electronics board that controls all the pool equipment. Original one is Rev A, only does basic stuff. Latest revision now controls color LED lighting, multi-speed pumps, and a lot more. Got the board, change the wires over, hit the breaker, and nothing.... Switch power back to the original board, it works fine. Either the board is bad or I need to call tech support (which isn't open until Monday). Switch back in the original board until I can get more info. That's three things shot. Oh, wait, the wall fitting for the cleaner has also broken. Need to order that part.

Sunday, it's time to fix the dishwasher. The motor had a bearing on it seize, so I got the replacement motor, pulled the dishwasher out and apart (not fun, I tell you) and get the motor replaced. Get it hooked back up, turn the breaker back on, and nothing.... Again?!? Crap. OK, let's troubleshoot. Power goes from breaker to a switch in the wall (switch is hot, that's good), then down through the wall to UNDER the cabinets where some sort of connection changes from ROMEX to a cut-off piece of extension cord. Is it wire nuts, or what? No idea, it's under the cabinet where I can't get to it without cutting the cabinet apart.

Fine, what can I do? Well, it looks like there's a drain coming through that wall down below and into the cabinet. Cut the power, pop one of the knock-outs from the switch box, and actually manage to run a fish tape through the box and grab it where that drain comes through! Pull a new piece of ROMEX through, and run it alongside the supply and drain lines that go through the cabinet (now it can be fixed if needed!). I figured out which wires come from the breaker to the switch and which ones go out to the dishwasher, so I cut the old ones going out and chop off the stupid extension cord piece and do one last double check once I get the wiring done, and YES, we have POWER!!!

Put the dishwasher back in, hook it all up, and start a cycle to make sure things work right. Water. Everywhere. Unhook it, pull it back out, take it apart again, turns out the drain hose is also shot. Seriously? OK, fine, new one is ordered, but it won't be in until later in the week.

So my weekend was an absolute, utter failure, on all counts. How was yours?
 
Lol at your weekend ;)

We've just had a Bank Holiday (UK) and it was unusually pretty good weather. That is a problem when it comes to doing anything which involves going anywhere. As we're boundered by a day-tripper route to a local pleasure spot, the traffic is usually bonkers on holidays and sunny days, so I tend not to bother planning on going anywhere at all.
We've just had new carpet fitted and my car is filled with old one, so I could've done with tipping that. Today, probably.

Other than that, a cold or other viral infection made it's play for the weekend and I've been mostly cold, sore and sleepy. So, all jobs on hold.
One ball-ache was trying to source some suitable screwhole covers for the bathroom skirting board. ATM, I've only found that car panel clips will fit ( without later being knocked out during cleaning) and they need a little modding for flush fittedness; along with something to lessen their translucentness for to hide the screwhole properly.

I think I'm getting somewhere....

[Edit] I nearly forgot to say the weekend was a comedown from the earlier week which saw me prepping the way for the new carpet (screwing down squeaky floorboards, sanding and painting skirting boards) and, most irkingly, a housepestguest who left, temporarily, for the weekend, allowing me to get that stinky nappy washed.
Hmm, maybe the 'cold' is just stress relief?
 
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I have had weekends like yours. As with other things in life, you had no control over what happened, you cannot go back to change the way it happened, and you survived it. I am just happy now when I survive weekends like the one you described.
 
Surviving it is part of doing the 'adult' thing in life. You can't throw a temper tantrum, you can bitch, and maybe laugh about what a comedy of errors it seemed to be, but there really is little else you can do other than accept it and move on.

A couple things are at least working out--the new drain hose for the dishwasher is supposed to arrive tonight, maybe I can get it replaced and back up and running before bedtime. As for the board for the pool equipment, I called tech support, they gave me a couple other things to try which didn't work, and I called the place where I got the board and am getting a replacement. Of course, taking a closer look at the box the board came in, I'm not the first one who's seen this board. There was a second layer of tape under the top one I had to cut to open the box, and under that the top layer of cardboard showed signs of having tape ripped off of it. My estimate is that I'm the third person who received this board and found it dead. Frustrating as hell to say the least.
 
Yeah, I've had several times now where I had that dishwasher out in the middle of the kitchen floor, only to put it back and pull it out again once I find the next piece that's bad. I'm seriously hoping the drain hose replacement will be the last of it or I may just go and buy a brand new dishwasher instead.

Taking the day off from work on Friday, only to have my attempts at accomplishing anything thwarted, was annoying. I know I considered it a bust when I got excluded from the study, then I commented to the wife after leaving the car show that we couldn't accomplish anything that day. With Saturday and the pool equipment, I had figured I would be able to get that done easily, the boards have the exact same form factor and connections (not to mention I design and work on boards like this for a living). Realizing that the distributor sent me a dead board that's been through a couple other people's hands already has pissed me off. The final hope was that the dishwasher fix would go easy, but that thing seemed to be determined to not work, no matter how much I tried. Three successive failures on it was the point I quit for the day.

Times like this past weekend are times that sales of tequila spike.
 
Dishwashers, pool control boards, and Pontiacs all seem to have a common thread...they are prone to failure. I have a car in the shop that had starting issues. The mechanic that was to work on it called it a garage queen at first sight. As he did not know I was the owner, I replied that it wouldn't have been if it would run. Today he replaced the ignition cylinder, flashed the computer (the program was so out of date it couldn't be recognized), went to start it, and got nothing! After doing some diagnostics, he replaced a relay and it started. They get to keep one more day just to see if that was the fix. A 15 year old car with 11750 kilometers on it is that way for a reason...the bill is what I am worried about now...
 
Well, the dishwasher hose arrived yesterday, when I got home I took the dishwasher apart one last time and replaced that. Ran a quick cycle through, no more water on the floor, motor is working right, everything works like it should! Buttoned that thing up and put it back in place, was happy as hell to have it done. Feels like a bit of redemption after the weekend.

Did have to take the car in to the shop yesterday--it's an '06 Audi A4 with 161500 miles on it. I'm getting hard shifting between a couple gears on the automatic trans, and it's regularly throwing underboost codes with the check engine light. The research I did on both of those issues let me decide that I didn't want to attempt fixing it in the driveway. The hard shifts are likely due to the trans fluid (supposedly a 'lifetime' fluid) needing replaced, and the underboost may be a problem with the turbo wastegate. Replacing the tranny fluid is a mess and best done from a lift, not to mention getting a hold of the special fluid that the Audi uses. The turbo may need replaced as well, figure it's deep enough in the engine bay I'll let the mechanic have at it, I can afford to do that. Of course, I did brakes and rotors all the way around a week and a half ago, it's not like I'm going to leave all of the work on it to the mechanic!
 
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