Le Sigh and a Solenoid

Ok, so the posting isn't a continuous stream. Not that I am lacking things to post about... it's just that a few factors prevent most posts from ever reaching my blog.

1: I usually think of something great to post about while I'm working, then promptly forget about it by the time I get home.

2: Many of the posts would be work related and I'm hesitant to put anything like that in a public medium considering the depth to which many companies now dig. One never knows how any particular statement will be taken by a prospective ( or current ) employer.

3: Some parts of my life would be really, really funny but I refuse to post about them on this blog since it's listed on my Facebook account and there are things that I don't care to have casual acquaintances knowing about me.

If it weren't for those three things, I'd have a new post or two every day!

On other fronts....

When I moved in with my wife, the ice maker/dispenser was broken. That was back in 2009 and judging from the condition it was in when I first checked it out it had been that way for quite some time. (The wife says '08, possibly '07 that it quit working.) So I looked at it on and off for a couple of years while my brain tried to figure out how the thing was put together. At first, I thought that the door had to be dismantled from the inside. But while I was cleaning the coils on the fridge I ran across the water solenoid in a panel on the back of the unit. This made me realize that it probably came apart from the outside rather than the inside.

Lo and behold, upon further study I found how to dismantle the control panel to trouble shoot the damned thing. I got the ice maker working with a few tweaks, and moved on to the dispenser portion of the unit. Behind several layers of plastic and screws was a solenoid that opened the dispenser flap for the ice to flow through the door. It was solid rust. I pulled it out, took a wire wheel to it until I could read the part numbers again, and ordered another one.

The part was at the front door when I got home. Fifteen minutes to install it and it was once again working as it should. That made for a very happy wife. And Choreboys around the world know.... a happy wife is a happy life :)

Now why, you ask, didn't I simply call a repairman and have ice for the last 2 years? I'll tell you why: There have been many times in my life that I have called someone out to fix something only to realize how damned simple it would have been to do it myself. And I kick myself mentally every time I pay someone for things like that because it makes me feel lazy! I respect the people who do repair work, I just respect myself less if I spend my hard-earned money paying them to to something I'm perfectly capable of doing.

With all of that being said, I realize that there are people in the world that wouldn't know which end of a screwdriver to use (or the difference between a phillips and a standard) much less be able to repair something on their own. Those are the people that need repairmen.

Me? I'm grateful for the knack I have for fixing things.