That Electrical Crakle

All of the electricity in the office is coming from one of those dubious-looking wires that construction guys patch into phone poles. I'm now having extensive electrical upgrading done and that thing looks homemade and crackles. Since the little wooden house that is our office has yet to catch fire I'm going to leave starting one to the 800 visiting electricians.

After the electrical/computer meltdown of the Being & Nothingness Cam Project last Thursday, I took Phaye to urgent care to get bandaged up and she's hanging out at her house. I called Tom and Sia and told them not to come into work until I called again, then I jumped into the car and drove down to Morro Bay to hide out at my sister Rose's house. This seemed like the best way to solve all of my problems. Then I realized I had 7 animals at home who couldn't open up their food by themselves (no opposable thumbs, the little rascals) so I turned around and came home.

The office was dark and depressing, which until then had been a good thing. I sat in the back yard and went through the mail--another urgent letter from the Central California Sartre Society's Aureliano Jose and a nasty-big envelope of papers from Bethann. I decided at that very moment that we needed a table and patio furniture in the yard. I'll send Sia to hunt for an outdoor espresso machine.

Dirk is beside himself about Phaye falling through the floor, and the subsequent failure of every electricity-dependent thing in the office. He nailed a board over the hole, smoothed and sealed the edges with some sort of silicone, and recommended getting a "floor repair guy." Dirk brought Phaye a huge bouquet of roses and freesia, saying he wanted to bring sweets to the sweet. The reference is from words said at a young maiden's funeral, but, hell, we all know what he means. I suspect that he would have liked to give her flowers before this, but now he has an excuse.

As far as the computers go, Dirk and the four consultants he brought in (he brought in) started hauling out a vast number of cables, wires, extension cords, what looked like vacuum cleaner hoses, amorphous melted stuff, and large mysterious lumps. The only thing that is intact is the HughesNet dish on the roof. He showed me why the UPS's didn't kick in and why Phaye and I didn't have time to safely shut down the B&NC system: the whole complex of plugs, adaptors, power strips and the accompanying UPS's had melted. He showed me this thing that looked like the aftermath of a Harlem Globetrotters multi-colored basketball bonfire--a heavy, hilly blob with bits of power cords poking out. He said he didn't know something like this could happen without a fire. He also showed me that SAALI, the computer that is supposed to be sentient and doing, I don't know, stuff, had become a sealed-shut putty-colored box. No seams, no way to access anything inside.

Getting up and functioning will be an adventure. We've reviewed the cascading mess that started when Phaye fell through the floor and Dirk and I decided that it was a super-prank. It was probably space monkeys.