Phones, games and other stuff.

Last night the second phone line (used by my Fidonet system and for my email) went out. Not sure what happened, though I have my suspicions. More on that below.

Since things were messed up anyway, I took the opportunity to straighten up the mess of phone cables under the desk. Things are now much more accessible and rather more rational.

I got awakened by the repair guy. He ran a few tests and one said the break was 9 feet from the multiple jack he was plugged into. Which was just about the length of cable connecting it to the surge protector. Arggh.

I crawled under the desk and plugged a line directly into the wall jack. And the line promptly tested as ok. <sigh>

Please note that I had had something plugged directly into the wall jack to test last night. And it hadn't worked then. And yes, I'd had everything unplugged from it for some time before that test.

My guess is that the surge protector blew. From what, I don't know. And since trying to work the cables around to work with a 2 line jack and one line surge protectors is a major mess I don't want to get into, I'll just do without one for now.

I got the system busy catching up on the files and email it'd had backed up while things were down (I tried getting some stuff out on line 1, but the files were moving at 400 cps instead of the usual 3000+, which makes me think that they did find and fix some real line problems, because I'm doing just fine now)

I saw that Lin and Kermit would likely be on their way to pick me up, so I called Lin's cell phone. Yep, they were on their way. She gritched a bit about my lines being busy and noted that they'd considered note going to the hobby hop after all.

I refrained from pointing out that I had called, and that if they'd changed their plans, I have found out then, no problem.

Anyway, I remembered to grab the Flag "cling" things that I'd picked up on the post 4th clearance at the store (Lin will be using at least one of them to left her be able to tell if a window is open or not, without having to walk over and feel for the glass).

The author at the store turned out to not be one I was familiar with. I did chat with him a bit. I also picked up gridlore's "Ground Forces book. I'll have to get him to autograph it some day.

I'd have had him autograph a copy at the Annex, except I'd gotten the dates wrong and not checked. So I missed it. :-(

I also got the second expansion set for Chez Geek. Which means that I have all three sets now (original game and both expansion sets). Now I just need to find somebody to play it with.

Lin picked up some paint to mark a "toy" so she can see where the tip is. I've applied the first coat of primer already. I'll probably do a second coat tomorrow. And try for the color coat Monday.

I'm going to call Lin in a bit. She said she'd be calling someone at 8 and might be talking for several hours.