TCC for 2/21/08

The Caretaker's Concern 2/21/08
Ghetto temp. 40 F. and steady.
Island tmp. 22.5 F. Yesterday's L/H: 12/27 F.
Current conditions: Mostly clear night, light layer of clouds, little to no wind.

It was a mostly cloudless day, a bit of wind from the West, gusty at times. It's good when the wind comes from the West because Clay Island blocks much of the wind from hitting here on the Island. The Caretaker walked the ice to try and fix his parking break, after some labor he was able to properly route the cable that had come out of place, unfortunately this did not solve the problem, it appears that the parking break still does not hold. So, realizing that the repair was beyond his ability with the tools on hand he figured he might as well look into the electrical problem which amounted to him checking the fuzes for the devices that have stopped working, unfortunately none of the fuzes were blown. Thus concluded the Caretaker's attempted repair work. With nothing left to do on the mainland the Caretaker walked the ice back to the Island.

Upon returning to the Island the Caretaker became aware that the Island phone line was dead. After unplugging all of the phones he went to the connection box and plugged in a phone to see if the problem was in the house lines or in the telephone company's line. The test seemed to show that it was in the phone company's line. So using his cell phone he called the phone company to report the problem. After performing a line test the automated system said that a repair person would be out the following day. This made the Caretaker smile, he highly doubted that a repair person would walk the ice, during a snow storm. While going to reconnect the phones the Caretaker noticed that one of the phone cords used to connect the handset to the wall jack was corroded over on one of the terminals. His deduction was that this is perhaps the cause of the problem, it could be generating a cross or dead signal or whatever but either way was probably telling the phone company's system that the phone was off the hook, thus the phone company's system would shut down the line. Sure enough that was it, after waiting a half an hour or so the Caretaker plugged the phone back in using a different cord and there was a dial tone. In the past, every once in a while the phone line would go dead for a while and then come back on. The Caretaker could never figure out why, now he knows.

There is talk of snow tomorrow, the early report was calling for 6 to 8 inches, by the afternoon it had been reduced to about 3 inches. Whatever the amount turns out to be, hopefully it will be enough to ski on. The ice has been mostly bare but for a very thin layer of snow with occasional patches making for terrible skiing ice and none too sporty skating ice. It will be good if it is a substantial snow, in a few days the Caretaker might then be able to ski over to the East shore.

In other news, the Caretaker has been wondering how it is that he has been put on the fake Rolex spam list. Pretty much everyday he gets at least two or more spams advertising "great deals on fake Rolex watchs". Well, he doesn't really wonder why or how it is he is on this list, but he does find it mildly amusing. The Caretaker doesn't wear a watch. There are times when the Caretaker loses track of what day of the week it is let alone what time it is.

--The Caretaker