Dear Diary #60: Smoke Alarm Error Code, Not Home Fail

Dear Diary,

Nothing beats waking up to a smoke alarm wailing out an error code. This alarm has gone off multiple times in the past few months whenever a nearby shower -- not the main one -- was used. So, I knew what a proper alarm sounded like. No, the noise it made was a string of beeps, silence, and more beeps. Having had the alarm around forever, I guestimated that it was an end of life or failure warning. But seriously, it didn't chirp intermittently like a low battery warning, this was like 10 beeps in a row, a second or two pause, then like 5 more beeps -- I heard you the first 50 times, take a break! Could not be ignored at all. That's a great thing to have to deal with near the ceiling in a drowsy state.

Watching local news and noticing a live shot showing familiar looking buildings. Must be in the neighborhood? A minute later and I finally recognized a building. Oh, I know that place. Power lines damaged, huh? Wait, how am I getting power?

Twas forced to watch a West Coast feed of a show because I ran out of DVR tuners. However, that channel was in SD only. Woe is definitely me.

I looked up how to crimp an RJ45 connector onto an Ethernet cable out of the blue. Lot easier than I thought it would be if I understood correctly -- I've made a few of my own cables before and always hated the wire stripping part. Currently looking at the extra 10' of Cat 5e sitting under my desk and thinking about "practicing" using it. End result could be the disappearance of a huge bundle of cable that looks hideous and traps a lot of dust.

Note to self: When trying to avoid having to open the door for someone you don't know -- also known as pretending not to be home -- try not to have the TV on so loud and the windows near the front door open. Fail.

Had to print something and I took out my laptop because that's where the printer drivers are installed -- too lazy and worried about bloatware to put it on my desktop. Anyway, I remembered when I used to haul my laptop to the room where the printer was... except it was and still is a wireless printer. Thinking back now and can't figure out why I didn't use the convenience of WiFi back then -- yes, I did know WiFi had a range longer than 5 feet.

Later.