The problem wasn’t actually anything I could fix, but it was fairly simple: The main breaker for my unit had tripped. This breaker was behind a locked box that I didn’t have the key to. After resetting that breaker and all the little breakers, power started flowing. Mostly. A few minutes after power was restored, something somewhere in the guts of the A/C system went blowenfusen mit poppencorken und spitzensparken. Just wonderful. I found the breaker for that circuit and turned it off. In my future, I see. . . an expensive service call from an HVAC tech.

At least my place is shaded well, so even with no A/C and no fan, it only gets about 85 F in the living room. Even so, I’m probably going to be sleeping on Stephanie’s couch. Moira doesn’t seem to care about the higher temperature; skinny short-haired cats can deal well with heat.

And while on lunch break, the following exchange took place:

Patty: I need a capybara.
John: I need a chupacabra.
John: Chupacapybara!
Cary: I need a caipirinha. Is that the same thing?
me: If you drank a capybara-sized caipirinha, you wouldn’t know the difference between a chupacabra and a kielbasa.

. . .social networking can lead to really silly conversations sometimes. Is this a bug, or a feature?

What else. . . on Wednesday, I got a phone call from Marcus. Apparently, I’d called him first, accidentally. (My phone will call people if it gets its buttons pushed in exactly the wrong way, as happens sometimes if it’s in my pocket.) But anyway, I heard about what he was up to—trying to get his dissertation done. Apparently, his girlfriend has a new job, one where she alters mouse genes, then shines laser light on exposed mouse brains to activate these altered genes. Mice with frickin’ laser beams on their heads, man. The mind boggles. But anyway, he said that he needed a break and was thinking about visiting Arizona sometime possibly in late December or January. Those are definitely the months to be here. . . .

What else. . . the normal Rock Band get-together didn’t happen, since Steve had to attend an event at his son’s school. So, Stephanie and I got Chinese takeout food and played Rock Band without Steve. Moira meowed along. At least, I didn’t have to do a whole lot of work after work was over, which is always a good thing.

The root cause of 90% of the problems I’ve had with this whole process is that Microsoft Outlook can no more render HTML than a Labrador Retriever can do calculus.

Tired. Would like to emulate the kitten above. I’ll be able to pretty soon, at least.

Oh well. The stuff I had to do is fixed as well as I can fix it. I barely had time to make dinner tonight, but whatever. I just hope nothing falls apart at 0-dark-thirty, which has a nasty habit of happening sometimes.

Work was relatively normal. There was some stupid stuff happening with mail, but I think the latest fixes should’ve gotten that settled. Stephanie and I went out to Sweet Tomatoes again (we went there 2 weeks ago.) At least this time, I remembered to print the coupon off, so it was cheaper.