Tag Archives: smoke alarm

Friday Notes (Oct 24, 2025)

Fall — my favorite season ‘cept for the fading of the light — has fallen here in Minnesota, and our thoughts are turning towards the question of what kind of winter it will be: easy or miserable.

My winter is coming triple mile markers loom, the first dead ahead: Will it snow by Halloween? Will it snow by Thanksgiving? Will it snow by Christmas? Answers to all three vary depending on the whims of Mother Nature and her unexpected offspring, Climate Change.

In the meantime, here we are again for another edition of Friday Notes.

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Smoke Alarm Saga

Almost exactly six years ago — in September of 2019 — I began having electrical problems. Power outages affected half the lights and plugs in the place. Getting an electrician in to fix it led to what became my worst experience with home service — a six-year saga with a disappointing ending.

More precisely, five-and-a-half years. The unsatisfying conclusion came last May with a faint echo in June. Some fallout persists, a task left unfinished, but the stress is thankfully past.

Here’s what happened…

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Friday Notes (Sep 27, 2024)

Maybe it’s a hold-over from school days, or maybe it has to do with fall (my favorite season), but the year really does hinge on fall and spring for me. You’d think spring would be the logical year start, but I see September as the turnover point. Summer’s over, another (school) year begins.

In any event, it’s fall when I most often find myself thinking about, and planning, the year ahead. The last few years I’ve made a lot of progress but have slacked off the past year. For the coming year, I’ve decided to throw away a lot more stuff.

Including some piles of notes, but for now it’s time for Friday Notes

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Friday Notes (Aug 30, 2024)

Between it being kind of a weird month (on several counts), my increasing activity on Substack, and some hobby project work, I haven’t posted much here this month. In fact, this is only the second post this month. Given the date, probably the last.

Which may be something of a harbinger. I do seem to be migrating towards Substack and, to some extent, leaving this blog behind. It feels like abandoning a friend, though, and I’m finding it hard to let go. And probably won’t, at least not entirely.

But who knows. Maybe it’s all Friday Notes from here on out…

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Screaming Ceiling Cats

Ceiling Cat’s Cradle

Back in September of 2019 I wrote about how the 100-amp main breaker for my electrical power went flakey and then flooey. That ended up being a $2400 service call because I also got new smoke alarms, a carbon monoxide detector, and a main power surge protector. [See Whadda Week!]

I was and am fine with everything. Obviously, glad to have reliable electrical power. Presumably the surge protector is doing its thing, and the CO detector blinks its green light every minute, so it seems happy.

But while I’ve had no fire nor anything like it, the ceiling cats have shown a trying tendency to go off seemingly randomly — all four screeching loudly from their cradles and seriously raising my heartrate.

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Whadda Week!

The culprit!

Well, it’s been quite a week! As mentioned in the last post, the coming of fall (which is always bittersweet for me), a bout of miserably muggy weather, and then electrical problems in my home, have all conspired to batter the shores of my equilibrium. But there have been some raisins in the poo pile. This week, stressful though it was, has turned out a good one.

For one, my Minnesota Twins won the AL Central Division last Wednesday! They are going to postseason for the first time since 2010. (The bad news is that it looks like they’ll face the Yankees — who ended the Twins’ postseason in 2003, 2004, 2009, 2010 and 2017.)

And my electrical power problems are fixed. (I think.)

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