Blessings Darlings!
We use our toaster oven a heck of a lot. Altho' it is not at all insulated, we figure that by heating the smaller space for small baking jobs we save energy and money.
No, I've not measured the electric use, I'm making a total SWAG (Scientific Wild Ass Guess) here.
About a week ago the toaster oven stopped being reliable. We started having to hold one of the dials in place for it to work. As the week went on, even holding the dang dial in place wasn't always working. That is, it NEVER worked for me, but WOULD work for the chubby hubby. Which seemed almost fair - we had just fixed a problem with the iron (a loose connection within the plug) that only behaved if I arranged the cord, but not if anyone else plugged it in).
An appliance that I use a lot that doesn't work for me is NOT acceptable. An appliance that requires my husband to hold a dial in place to make his toast, meaning he can't scramble his eggs while the toast toasts, didn't work for him, either. So today he worked on a DIY repair of it.
You'd think it wouldn't be too hard - maybe the dial had to be removed and some gunk cleaned from under it or something. But noooooooooooooo. The dial won't come off. Trying to take the beast apart to get at it from inside failed - the thing is a miserable design, a rats nest that requires that you take apart multiple not LOGICALLY related interwoven parts to get to any other part. After 2 hours he gave up. Dammit, this one isn't even over 6 years old!
I'm going to buy a new toaster oven. I'm debating between a no-name one at Walmart for about $25 and a Black and Decker at Target for about $40, but I'll also look at the Sunday ad inserts before deciding.
Anyone have recommendations on what brands you like ... or hate?
Frondly, Fern
Showing posts with label Entropy. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Entropy. Show all posts
Tuesday, February 12, 2013
Thursday, October 1, 2009
Proving the Laws of Thermodynamics
As all y'all know, there are three laws of thermodynamics. They are:
1. Conservation of energy - or, you can't win.
2. Entropy - You can't even break even.
3. You can only lose (technically, it has to do with cooling an item to absolute zero)
Well, this is one of those periods where I am the embodiment of those laws. Spawn has hourly exams at college, husband is sick and needy, housework and business needs and pet and other life needs continue. I'm racing around doing everything I can, but still falling farther and farther behind.
And it's not helped when I make mistakes that take time, energy, and cash to correct.
And every attempt to correct one problem leads to a tangle of problems that turn out to be intertwined. Like what happened when I just wanted to make some tea.
I filled the kettle (oh, the plastic bits on the kettle that cause it to whistle and that pull the whistling part back when I want to pour the hot water out have broken) with water and go to put it on the burner. It dawns on me that the burner has been flaky lately, so rather than start heating the water I take the electric burner out, and see that the connectors are somewhat corroded. Husband goes off to file the corrosion off, I remove the back burner of the same size to put IT in and make my tea, but find its connections need work, too. Husband works on that as well.
Meanwhile, the refector pan under the burner is terribly dirty. I don't want to consider how many pots of whatever have boiled over and burnt on to it - well, on to the aluminum foil I have covering the rusty, corroded reflector pan. I figure I'll take off the foil, wash the reflector, re-line it, and it will be happy and reflective again.
Turns out that there was so much fatty gunk on it that I had to spend a lot of time and energy scraping the foil off of it, and a lot more time washing the gunk off the refector. Then had to towel dry it, then air dry it to prevent MORE corrosion. Then, finally, cover it with aluminum foil (shiny side showing), put the reflector in place, put the newly filed burner in place, put the kettle of water on the burner, and heat it for tea.
Normally the reflectors would have had routine maintainance/cleaning, and even if the burner connectors had needed work it wouldn't have lead to the mare's nest of issues. But once I start getting behind, entropy gets a firm grip on EVERYTHING, intertwines the problems, and anything I try to do takes more time and effort than is typical .... and more time and effort than I allowed for in my plans for the day.
So, while I have three loads of laundry to fold, I can't do that until I remove the hair that the cats have left on the couches, so that when I put the folded laundry on the couches they won't get covered with that lint. If I don't vacuum soon then sick husband will be woken when I do the vacuuming and I'm pretty sure he won't be pleasant about having been woken up.
So, I'm off again, back to work. Laters!
Frondly, Fern
1. Conservation of energy - or, you can't win.
2. Entropy - You can't even break even.
3. You can only lose (technically, it has to do with cooling an item to absolute zero)
Well, this is one of those periods where I am the embodiment of those laws. Spawn has hourly exams at college, husband is sick and needy, housework and business needs and pet and other life needs continue. I'm racing around doing everything I can, but still falling farther and farther behind.
And it's not helped when I make mistakes that take time, energy, and cash to correct.
And every attempt to correct one problem leads to a tangle of problems that turn out to be intertwined. Like what happened when I just wanted to make some tea.
I filled the kettle (oh, the plastic bits on the kettle that cause it to whistle and that pull the whistling part back when I want to pour the hot water out have broken) with water and go to put it on the burner. It dawns on me that the burner has been flaky lately, so rather than start heating the water I take the electric burner out, and see that the connectors are somewhat corroded. Husband goes off to file the corrosion off, I remove the back burner of the same size to put IT in and make my tea, but find its connections need work, too. Husband works on that as well.
Meanwhile, the refector pan under the burner is terribly dirty. I don't want to consider how many pots of whatever have boiled over and burnt on to it - well, on to the aluminum foil I have covering the rusty, corroded reflector pan. I figure I'll take off the foil, wash the reflector, re-line it, and it will be happy and reflective again.
Turns out that there was so much fatty gunk on it that I had to spend a lot of time and energy scraping the foil off of it, and a lot more time washing the gunk off the refector. Then had to towel dry it, then air dry it to prevent MORE corrosion. Then, finally, cover it with aluminum foil (shiny side showing), put the reflector in place, put the newly filed burner in place, put the kettle of water on the burner, and heat it for tea.
Normally the reflectors would have had routine maintainance/cleaning, and even if the burner connectors had needed work it wouldn't have lead to the mare's nest of issues. But once I start getting behind, entropy gets a firm grip on EVERYTHING, intertwines the problems, and anything I try to do takes more time and effort than is typical .... and more time and effort than I allowed for in my plans for the day.
So, while I have three loads of laundry to fold, I can't do that until I remove the hair that the cats have left on the couches, so that when I put the folded laundry on the couches they won't get covered with that lint. If I don't vacuum soon then sick husband will be woken when I do the vacuuming and I'm pretty sure he won't be pleasant about having been woken up.
So, I'm off again, back to work. Laters!
Frondly, Fern
Tuesday, April 7, 2009
More HW Failures
Last week the car - today the lawn mower. Son reports that not only is one tire wedged against the metal housing, but the engine is leaking fuel thru' the air filter. Son and DH are running machine in to Bob-the-repairman (and rental stuff shop owner) for an estimate and work.
Son was going to mow back yard and then take our pics so we have icons on our blogs/twitter accounts/membership sites/etc. But now son is going to go off and search for just the RIGHT video game for his new DSi. He has all these options because his two-hour long T/Th 8 am class was cancelled today.
I'm still hoping he'll get around to taking my pic in front of the herb garden while the daffodils are blooming. They are my favorite spring bulbs, and we were lucky that this house has them planted in the back yard in great groups. I don't know why no one ever planted any bulbs in front, but I guess I'm glad none are there now. We're still waiting for the landlord to fix the front gutter that came crashing down a month ago, and I'm sure that repair folks would trample them to death.
And, yes, the downed gutter is yet another HW failure.
None of the HW failures are awful, just a bit inconvenient. Oh, if we OWNED the house instead of RENTING it, then birds nesting in the roof due to access from boards that came down along with the gutter would be a problem. Not being able to mow the yard is non-optimal, but the front is mowed and I'll bet that if we ask a neighbor we could borrow a lawn mower. Especially since our son mows the unoccupied house on the street thus helps maintain the neighborhood.
But - for car problems, we have back up car AND son could take two buses and have a bunch of wait time and still make it to school ... and back every day except Monday when his evening lab is later than the buses run. I could walk to do shopping, and have shopping cart I could use to get products to shipper - or I could have FedEx pick up at the house I suppose. Getting our manuals from the printer and son's Monday night class would be the only times we'd NEED a car of some sort. Recent dish washer breakdown was handled by - gasp - hand washing dishes. Broken toaster oven was handled by Freecycle and we hope to fix the old toaster oven sometime.
If we didn't have so many 'things', we wouldn't have so many 'things' breaking down. I think that there is a lesson here somewhere.
Catch you later!
Son was going to mow back yard and then take our pics so we have icons on our blogs/twitter accounts/membership sites/etc. But now son is going to go off and search for just the RIGHT video game for his new DSi. He has all these options because his two-hour long T/Th 8 am class was cancelled today.
I'm still hoping he'll get around to taking my pic in front of the herb garden while the daffodils are blooming. They are my favorite spring bulbs, and we were lucky that this house has them planted in the back yard in great groups. I don't know why no one ever planted any bulbs in front, but I guess I'm glad none are there now. We're still waiting for the landlord to fix the front gutter that came crashing down a month ago, and I'm sure that repair folks would trample them to death.
And, yes, the downed gutter is yet another HW failure.
None of the HW failures are awful, just a bit inconvenient. Oh, if we OWNED the house instead of RENTING it, then birds nesting in the roof due to access from boards that came down along with the gutter would be a problem. Not being able to mow the yard is non-optimal, but the front is mowed and I'll bet that if we ask a neighbor we could borrow a lawn mower. Especially since our son mows the unoccupied house on the street thus helps maintain the neighborhood.
But - for car problems, we have back up car AND son could take two buses and have a bunch of wait time and still make it to school ... and back every day except Monday when his evening lab is later than the buses run. I could walk to do shopping, and have shopping cart I could use to get products to shipper - or I could have FedEx pick up at the house I suppose. Getting our manuals from the printer and son's Monday night class would be the only times we'd NEED a car of some sort. Recent dish washer breakdown was handled by - gasp - hand washing dishes. Broken toaster oven was handled by Freecycle and we hope to fix the old toaster oven sometime.
If we didn't have so many 'things', we wouldn't have so many 'things' breaking down. I think that there is a lesson here somewhere.
Catch you later!
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