People Wot I Read

I slept badly last night for a variety of reasons and have escalated to exhaustion now, so going to bed is in the near future.

In good technological news, someone came by selling booster cards for Maine West today and the doorbell was quite clear when they rang it. :)

I ran to Menard's over lunch and picked up one bag of assorted wire nuts (just because) and another bag of jumbo wire nuts. It took less than five minutes to hook up this five-wire mess with the jumbo nut, including testing to make sure that I had the appropriate AC voltage at the transformer. So far, so good.

However, it turns out that the old chime is toast, because when you press the doorbell, it does not ring. It just buzzes. This is not a surprise. But the transformer install is correct, so I was able to button all of that back up and put the attached light fixture back in place. This makes Julie happy, because it is good to have a light at the top and bottom of the stairs.

When I installed the new transformer, I installed a 24V model, because if I decide I want a wired video doorbell, that's the price of admission. I have now bought a chime that is rated for 24V which should arrive tomorrow.

I will decide at some later date if installing a wired video doorbell is worth the trouble. :)

Just for reference, anyone have any experience with wired video doorbells that will work with your existing chime? Many apparently don't. And most of them require a subscription to store video (maybe all of them do) and that is something that I will not be paying for, so a way to store video without a subscription would be a major plus.

Technology! Ain't it grand?

After you've lived in a place for a while, things start to break down. Today's breakdown was announced by my wife and children, who informed me that something is buzzing in the hallway. A bit of investigation showed that the problem was with the doorbell chime, which is buzzing in a nasty way.

So I did an Internet search and one common cause for this could be that the transformer is failing. I have now ordered a new, slightly more powerful transformer (in case I decide to install a Ring or similar doorbell) and will install it tomorrow, I hope. And then we'll see if the buzzing goes away.

The current transformer is sitting on the side of the junction box that also supplies the light at the bottom of the basement stairs, which reminds me of what we discovered when the house was being built. We would press the doorbell and it would not ring. The builder reported back that, no, the doorbell rang just fine. It turned out that the transformer had been incorrectly wired into the circuit controlling the light bulb at the bottom of the stairs so that it would only supply power to the doorbell when the light was turned on.

They fixed this.

Tomorrow, we'll see if this adds any fun to the equation.

In other news, earlier today, I finished importing the bass tracks that Jen sent me for the Crosstime Bus album and set up test mixes, so that's done. Yay!

We are now three weeks away from the most probably move in day for K at college. Since Aunt Judy and Uncle Gary were nice enough to send her a Target gift card for graduation, we went there tonight to see what might be good choices for things to take to school. Useful things were found and purchased, along with a Squishmallow that became surgically attached to younger child.

There are a *lot* of decisions that should be postponed until K sees how the room sorts out. We'll see how that goes. :)

The week has turned complicated. Should I be surprised?

The short term result of all that is that Sam is back in town and we are going to go see the new Superman movie tomorrow night. I expect to like it, which is why I am going to see it, as opposed to "Man of Steel", which I was fairly convinced that I was *not* going to like. :)

Still haven't seen "Man of Steel"...

I went down to Wrigley Field to watch the Cubs vs. Red Sox game today. The Cubs had won the first two games of the series handily, but today the Red Sox were pitching their ace, Garrett Crochet, who I had drafted for my fantasy team this year, so I had a certain amount of conflicted interest in this game. (I also have conflicted interests hoping that the Cardinals might overtake the Cubs, but the Cardinals are failing so dismally in this task that I can pretty much stop worrying about it.)

Crochet did not have his best stuff today, but pitched around a lot of trouble and was trailing 1-0 after six innings and 100 pitches, as the Cubs starter only allowed two hits to the Red Sox in what was an absolutely miserable performance on their part. And then Craig Counsell took the Cubs starter out and brought in a reliever when the tying run was on third in the top of the sixth after some excellent baserunning by Duran. This successfully squelched the threat.

It was in the top of the seventh that I went into "bad home team announcer mode" as I was commenting on the game to my friend Allan. The new reliever, Ryan "Do I Have Any Stuff Today?" Pressly entered and walked the leadoff man. I said to Allan, "The Red Sox have yet to get a hit with a man on base today." This prompted the then-current Red Sox hitter, Abreu, to launch a two-run homer into the right field stands giving the Red Sox the lead.

In the eighth inning, Counsell decided to try a usually better reliever, Drew Pomeranz. Pomeranz has pitched quite well this season and came into the game with an ERA below 1. But he gave up a walk and a single, followed by a force at third base, giving runners on first and second with only one out and Alex Bregman coming off the bench on his scheduled day off to pinch hit. At this point, I turned to Allan and said "Pomeranz has a spectacular ERA, but if Bregman gets a hit here, it is going to be going above 1."

Bregman then hit a three-run homer into the left-field stands, roughly doubling the still-impressive ERA. At this point, Counsell apparently said to hell with it all, pulled Pomeranz and brought in a reliever with a distinctly *unimpressive* ERA, Ethan Roberts. I forget what I said when Abreu came to the plate with two outs, but it must have been good, because he then hit his *second* home run of the game.

Clearly, I should shut up for the Cubs' own good...

The Cubs lost 6-1, but did win the series against the Red Sox. The Brewers beat the Dodgers today to sweep that series, take their winning streak to 10 games, and move into a first place tie with the Cubs.

Yoicks.

The trade deadline is approaching. As nearly as I can tell, the Cubs wish list should include some relief pitching (frequently cheap), a starting pitcher (not cheap), and an actively good third baseman (definitely not cheap at all). It's going to be interesting to see what they actually get, but this is clearly the best Cubs team in a long time and -- with no guarantee that Tucker is going to resign with the team -- maybe the time to push some chips into the middle of the table.

The Cardinals meanwhile are showing every sign of being a team that needs to be a seller. The question there is going to be can they get enough back for what they've got to sell to make selling now worthwhile, or should they wait until the off-season? But at least three of their relievers who might be trade targets are free agents at the end of the season, so -- for them at least -- waiting is not an option.

There are a lot of *very* good questions out there.

Another Windycon meeting tonight and good progress was made.

Now, I just have to do some more work, but that's good, because being in a position to do work is a fine thing. :)