Yet Another Tech Support Holiday

Photo by Ono Kosuki from Pexels

This week was quite a ride. Lots of things breaking and in need of repair.

A few days ago, my parents' car lost power steering just as we were about to leave town. Luckily, we were still close to the car shop we frequent for maintenance, and managed to carefully drive the car there to have it checked. A loud knock, followed by slapping sounds, loss of power steering, and the battery lights coming on, all signs point to a busted serpentine belt.

Earlier that day, the replacement keyboard for my old laptop arrived. This is an old laptop, the same one I used back in college, that I've held on to because it is still quite capable. That is, until I discovered that it's keyboard went kaput. Who knew that not using the laptop would cause the membrane keyboard to degrade and stop working. In all fairness, the laptop was probably squashed in the storage bin. The keys might have been pressed for prolonged periods of time.

Lastly, my hair trimmer stopped working. And this time, it's more than just hair clogging the machinery. It seems like the vibrating upper blade is sticking to the lower blade, which should just be a lubrication issue. But it looks like the plastic piece that causes the upper blade to move back and forth is also worn out and no longer moving the blade. I get the feeling I can still fix it, just need to tinker with it a bit more.

So much maintenance work lately, and that's good. I get to learn how things work, how to fix them, avoid unnecessary replacement, and keeping stuff away from the landfill.