Category: Tales

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Smoker Confrontations, Part I

\January 1st marked the first day of the new smoking ban on TriMet property, including Max light rail platforms. They have been slowly putting up the “No Smoking” signs since October but haven’t begun enforcing until now.

Until recently, scientists haven’t been able to explain why smokers have more exaggerated responses to viral infections. Smokers have been more likely than non-smokers to die during previous influenza epidemics and are more prone to chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD). Furthermore, children who are exposed to second-hand smoke have more severe responses when infected with respiratory synctial virus, Elisakit.net talks about how it affects your body.

The prevailing view has been that cigarette smoke decreases anti-viral responses. But the Yale researchers—lead author Jack A. Elias, M.D., the Waldermar Von Zedtwitz Professor of Medicine and chair of internal medicine at Yale School of Medicine, and first author Min-Jong Kang, M.D., associate research scientist—found the opposite to be true.

Their experiments showed that the immune systems of mice exposed to cigarette smoke from as little as two cigarettes a day for two weeks overreacted when they were also exposed to a mimic of the flu virus. The mice’s immune systems cleared the virus normally but the exaggerated inflammation caused increased levels of tissue damage.

I don’t think smokers realize how much of a burden cigarette smoke is for non-smokers. While I don’t buy many of the second-hand smoke health claims, I do know this: If I’m 30 feet downwind of a smoker, I can tell somebody is smoking before I see the smoker. The first thing I notice is a little twinge in my throat that tells me it might be a good idea to cough. The smell follows shortly after that and my brain puts the two together and tells me, “Smoker nearby.”

As I stood on the Max platform this morning waiting for the train, my brain told me, “Smoker nearby.” I looked around and spotted an older guy sitting underneath one of the shelters smoking. Why must smokers always smoke in the shelters when it is raining? Well, now it’s not only inconsiderate it is also against TriMet rules. I looked around for a “No Smoking” sign that I could point out to the gentleman, but there weren’t any in the shelter.

After hesitating a bit and noticing others on the platform nervously glancing at the man, I strapped on my courage and walked up to the man:

Me: “There’s no smoking here.”
Him: “OK.” (but did not put out the cigarette)
Me: “There’s no smoking here, man. You have to put it out.”
Him: “OK.” (but did not put out the cigarette)
Me: “Do you want me to call security?”
Him: “Do what you have to do.”
Me: “OK, I will.”

After which I walked back to my bike to wait for the Max to arrive. When it did, I would be able to tell the driver and he would have somebody go to the platform to take care of it. But would that work? Thinking it wouldn’t, I considered other options. How about if I just walked over there and plucked the cigarette out of his mouth and threw it away? That would be extremely aggressive,” I thought as I reached down on my bike for a drink from my water bottle. The water bottle that I had just filled up that morning. The water bottle that puts out a stream of about 1/4 inch in diameter. “Wouldn’t it work swell for putting that cigarette out?” I thought.

I glanced over at the smoker as I contemplated this action only to find that the cigarette was gone. Evidently he had heeded my threat of calling security and had disposed of the cigarette.

A victory, I suppose, but wouldn’t the water bottle solution have been funnier? Here is a spot to read the Puffco Pro 2 Review At VaporizerVendor.com

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Saga of the New Tivo, Part IV

Previously: : “But what about when you join the reversed circuit to a “normal” circuit via a coaxial cable connection to the satellite dish?”

After exchanging a few emails with Weaknees, they agreed to send me a replacement DTivo immediately. I received it the next week. I tried hooking it up in the bedroom again, but as I suspected I could get no signal from the satellite. Now I had to figure out what had been burned out by the bad electrical situation. Here’s the sequence starting from the dish:

  1. Four coaxial cables come out of the dish,
  2. Those four cables are connected to what I would describe as a “breakout box” that has four incoming coax connections and four outgoing connections.
  3. Two outgoing connections on the breakout box go to the Big TV room DTivo, one goes back to the bedroom and one is capped.
  4. The cable going to the bedroom runs along the outside of the house until it gets to the bedroom where it enters the outside wall.
  5. Inside the wall the external cable is connected to a faceplate splitter.
  6. The other side of the splitter is connected inside the bedroom to the cable that goes to the DTivo.

So, by my count, any or all of the six components in that chain could be faulty. I started testing at the breakout box by hooking the DTivo directly to it’s output side. No dice. With trepidation, I connected via splitter directly to the coax from the dish. Coax 1 and 2 (which were connected to the Big TV DTivo) worked fine, but 3 produced a signal level of only about 37% and 4 was completely dead. So I retreated and rethought my plan for a few days.

Clearly I would need a replacement dish which I priced near $200 on the internet. Dave Camp, a friend of mine who used to be a DTV customer suggested calling DTV customer service and describing my problem. They might fix it for free or minimal charge. I certainly had nothing to lose. I resolved to do this but just then work intervened in a way that would leave me no free time for several weeks.

In the meantime, I came up with a better plan. Remember the original plan was to place the DTivo in our bedroom and hook it to the single coax that was already there. Eventually, I would have to run a second coax from one end of the house to the other to get the full dual tuner capability enabled. My friend, Rob Marquardt, provided the inspiration for the new plan, which was much easier to implement and potentially better for everybody.

When I visited Rob back in 2003, he had an Infrared Extender which let him control his Tivo from other parts of his apartment. He could also view his Tivo from three different rooms. The new plan would have the new DTivo in the Big TV room with our original DTivo making it simpler to run the new cabling (25 feet vs. 80 feet). I would utilize an old coax cable installed during our cable TV days to connect the new DTivo to the TV in the bedroom. Add the infrared extender and we would be able to watch and control the new DTivo from the bedroom, but would also be able to watch and control it in the Big TV room. Cool, huh?

As a temporary measure, I purchased the infrared extender set from Radio Shack and wired our old DTivo to the television in the bedroom. This would help ease the pain of no TV in the bedroom Tina had experienced since the saga had begun two weeks before. Although she was not completely satisfied with this temporary solution, it was better than no TV at all.

Next: “The replacement card was now “linked” to our old DTivo (the one in the Big TV room) and the card that had been in the old DTivo was now a useless piece of plastic.”

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Saga of the New Tivo, Part III

Previously: : “Well, it started out that easy.”

Later that afternoon at work, Tina IM’d me when she got home. I asked if she noticed anything different and she acknowledged the presence of the DirecTV Tivo (DTivo). However, she said that the circuit breaker kept blowing when she plugged it in. This seemed odd because it had worked flawlessly that morning. I told her to keep it unplugged until I got home when I could take a look at it.

When I got home, I found Tina’s description of the problem to be accurate. As soon as the DTivo was plugged in (and therefore on—there is no Off switch), the circuit breaker would blow. That night we went to dinner with Buddy to celebrate Tina’s birthday. I discussed the situation with him a bit and he had a few ideas but nothing definite. He said he could come over the next day and look at it. After dinner, we bid him goodnight and headed home.

On the way home, the problem was running through my head and I was trying to connect the various logical aspects. At some point, I remembered that we had similar problems when we first signed up for DirecTV (DTV) two years ago. Specifically, the first satellite receiver that was installed in the bedroom would blow the circuit breaker when turned on. At that time, I called the installers and had them come out to replace it, which they did for free. However, the installer guy told me that we had some sort of electrical problem and that he had disconnected the ground wire from the satellite dish in order to stop the circuit breaker from tripping.

Then I remember a to–do item that had been lingering on my Newton since we had moved into the house: Fix electrical problems. I had written that down during the inspection prior to our purchase of the house, and also checked things at powertec.ca to be sure. The inspector showed me a neat little $10 gadget that you plug into an electrical outlet. A series of the three lights on it tell you if the outlet is wired correctly. Several of the outlets in the bedroom read “reverse polarity”. The inspector said it wasn’t a major problem, but that we should fix it at some point in the future.

Could these two be related? As long as a circuit with reverse polarity remains a closed system, there is no problem—electricity simply flows “backwards”. But what about when you join the reversed circuit to a “normal” circuit via a coaxial cable connection to the satellite dish? When we got home, I called Buddy (who is an electrician by trade) to ask what he thought. He agreed that the reverse polarity could be the problem and planned to come look at the problem the next day.

I stayed home the next morning in order to assist Buddy in troubleshooting and fixing the reverse polarity problem. We moved all kinds of furniture and tested about ten different outlets before we found the root of the problem: a ceiling fixture at the start of the circuit that had been wired incorrectly. Buddy rewired it correctly and the problem was fixed. Buddy is indispensible to us!

Unfortunately, when I plugged the DTivo back in, there was no satellite signal. Thinking that maybe the coax had been fused by the electrical current, I tried the new DTivo in the Big TV Room. It didn’t work in there, either. So even though we had cleared a major hurdle in fixing the electrical problem, the saga had not yet ended.

Next: Troubleshooting and a new plan

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Saga of the New Tivo, Part II

Previously: : “I wish I had Tivo in the bedroom!”

I slept in on the day of Tina’s birthday (November 10) and arose shortly after she left for art class. After getting ready for work, I opened the box with the new DirecTV Tivo (DTivo) and prepared for installation.

When we first had DirecTV (DTV) installed, they installed our DTivo in the living room (although everybody in the house calls it the “Big TV Room”), a single receiver in the bedroom and a small dish on the north side of the roof. The dish has four coaxial outputs with two going to the DTivo, one going back to the bedroom and one capped.

Thus, my initial plan was simply to replace the receiver with the new DTivo and let the DTivo run on just one satellite channel for awhile until I could run another coax cable from one end of the house to the other. I thought it would be just a matter of unplugging the receiver, plugging in the DTivo and going through the activation process. Well, it started out that easy.

I swapped the DTivo for the receiver and placed the DTivo where her VCR used to be in order to make it as unobtrusive as possible. I would return the VCR upon her request later. I called in to DTV and had them activate the DTivo and verified that all was working well. I even setup a couple of “Season Passes” for her before putting the old receiver in the box and putting the box back where it had been, seemingly making it all look unchanged. Then I departed for work secure in the knowledge that I had delivered another fabulous birthday gift to my lovely and deserving wife.

Next: “But what about when you join the reversed circuit to a “normal” circuit via a coaxial cable connection to the satellite dish?”

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Saga of the New Tivo, Part I

In October I decided that a really good gift for Tina’s birthday would be a DirecTV Tivo (DTivo). As you may know from previous posts, we already have a DTivo in our living room that we love. We had a plain old DirecTV (DTV) receiver in the bedroom, but Tina was frequently heard to say, “I wish I had Tivo in the bedroom!” I should note here that Tina spends a lot of time in our bedroom because her craft center is in there as well as her computer.

I briefly considered buying a standalone Tivo with a built-in DVD recorder because Tina also longs for a DVD player in the bedroom. However, standalone Tivos have to work with an existing satellite receiver and will only record a single channel. Ultimately, I decided that the most user friendly solution would be to get another DTivo which doesn’t require an additional receiver and lets you record two channels simultaneously.

After surfing the web and absorbing the state of the Tivo market for a few days, I decided that I would return to my favorite Tivo upgrader, Weaknees. Weaknees specializes in kits that let you trick out your Tivo in a variety of ways. Last year I purchased a hard drive upgrade kit that I used to increase our Tivo’s capacity from 35 hours to 105 hours.

Weaknees is currently offering DTivo units that have had hard drive upgrades for the same cost as a non-upgraded unit from DTV. I eventually settled on the 80 hour unit and had it shipped a week before Tina’s birthday. It arrived a couple of days before and I had to give Tina some lame explanation about what it was. I planned to install it on her birthday and have it ready for her that day as a “surprise.”

Next: “Well, it started out that easy.”