Listen to it!

I have been by myself for three days now and can say I am getting stuff done. I have now successfully finished the electrical part of our basement with some satisfaction. It didn't jump to life due to of course a minor screw up on my part but when you do this stuff every three years or so....

I have shopped for parts, tried to recycle, dug up the troublesome outdoor lighting wiring and helped my dad do a garbage disposal at one of their rentals which of course turned into much more.

Dad came over after 1:30 pm. and looked over the basement a bit as I was finishing up what I could there for the day. Well, I was running around trying to think of stuff to do before I left. As I finally was ready to walk out, I looked at my tools sitting in the garage and thought "I should take those cause it's nice to have my own tools"... I didn't. When we arrived at the rental, the first thing a tenant said was "we just had a situation" usually very bad in tenant speak. Well, it was stated that a "friend" (its always someone else) tried to plug something in to a receptacle and it took out the main breaker for the house. Wow that isn't good! Anyway, that started everything in motion. Wondering where my electrical tester was (garage), I pulled off the wall plate and discovered that the receptacle had cracked, and shorted out probably due to 30 years of heating and such, it happens. Well, I didn't have a replacement so I taped it up to make it safe and went about the disposal. I turned off the switch and started disconnecting it and got a spark off the neutral (white) which should never happen. Well, that led to pulling the switch apart which was wired incorrect, which sent me to the basement to disconnect the power so I could fix it. In the basement, the situation was not really any better. Long story short, I now had to go home to get my own tools. My dad had a few miscellaneous jobs to do so I drove home to get my stuff. A receptacle and my own tools. On the way, I was angry at someone or something but I couldn't place what. The most convenient was my dad for getting me into this situation on such a great day, then I thought about the countless times he dropped what he was doing to help me or anyone for that matter. I soon realized that he was not the culprit.

Once I returned to the rental, attitude adjustment in hand, we set to work fixing all the unexpected problems and were done in an hour or so. As we were talking on the way home, it really dawned on me what was to blame for the problems we encountered...

the voice!