I am a practitioner of the dark arts

[Parr8hed]

Lady was having some trouble breathing.  A tech went to plug in an oxygen machine and it would not work.  I told her to try the outlet a little down from where we were standing and it didn't work either.    The tech was standing there cursing the gods that could block the magic that allowed her to make oxygen.    I noted that the oxygen machine had worked earlier on a different series of outlets.  

I quickly walked to the breaker room and immediately noticed a tripped breaker.  I reset it.  

Walked back out on the floor and asked the tech to try again.  A great roar of applause was able to be heard as the machine roared to life.  I was able to block the bad magic that disallowed the making of oxygen in our facility today.

 

[groupw]

I had a business owner in a panic his network was down because he couldn't get to the server. I verified his internet was working. I drove over after a few more questions. Walked up to the server. No fan noise. Hit the power button and everything came back to life. 

[Parr8hed]

3 minutes ago, groupw said:

I had a business owner in a panic his network was down because he couldn't get to the server. I verified his internet was working. I drove over after a few more questions. Walked up to the server. No fan noise. Hit the power button and everything came back to life. 

Two freaking years in a row I could not get my weed eater to start after the winter.  It was an Echo.  It was in good shape and had been stored correctly, run until empty, etc.  Then I found that the "run" switch was in the off setting.  TWO YEARS IN A ROW I did that.  

And one year we took my boat out.  Docked it at a restaurant for dinner.  Wife had to work at 7 so at about 5 I went down to the dock and we prepared to get underway.  Would not start.  It was a brand new Sea Ray with a full tank of gas and it would not start.  After minutes of checking fuses, fuel, carb, etc. the wife (girlfriend at the time) asked "Does that little switch have to be on RUN?"

[groupw]

Want to venture a guess how many times I have to crawl under a desk a 2nd time because I forgot to plug in the power cord? It is directly proportional to how filthy the floor is under the desk...

[Razors Edge ★]

4 minutes ago, groupw said:

Want to venture a guess how many times I have to crawl under a desk a 2nd time because I forgot to plug in the power cord? It is directly proportional to how filthy the floor is under the desk...

I always hate when I get cocky about some repair or set up, and basically tidy everything up - screw in screws, adjust things properly, finish routing cables, etc., and then go to turn the thing on and NOTHING happens.  Time to take shit apart again  

[Razors Edge ★]

13 minutes ago, Parr8hed said:

After minutes of checking fuses, fuel, carb, etc. the wife (girlfriend at the time) asked "Does that little switch have to be on RUN?"

To which you reply "No." then say "Look! An eagle/dolphin/naked person!", and while she turns to look, casually flip the switch to RUN.  Wait a few minutes - maybe futzing with a different thing in a different area, and "try" again!  HERO!

[jsharr ★]

[2Far ★]

I was once a troubleshooting Jedi. We put an gizmo in the back room of a papermill control room to monitor their chemical inventory. It required 115vac, a phone line & a piggyback on their level instrument  sensor. We had about a dozen of them regionally. We were kind of an early adopter & the owners manual was non-existent. Anyhow, about a year into this particular monitor's service, it went dark. We could call in & see that it was working, but the level was reading 0.00 in the tank. We knew when our trucks arrived, but no change in the reading. Several calls to the mill. Assurances that they'd look into it. Nothing. Calls to the manufacturer. They say although rare, a channel can burn out. I get in the car, drive 4 hours to the mill, take a 1 hour orientation and walk to the control room. I go in the back room. There's our unit, right where I installed it, happily reading 0.00. I open it up, all looks normal. The sensor cable is running out of the top of the gizmo & up over some conduit. I gently pull on it to see where it runs & it comes all the way down to the unconnected wires. The mill guy turns a little green, says the E&I guys swore they traced it, yada, yada, yada. Tells me that "If I'm driving back thru Greenville, stop at the steak house, ask for Bob & tell him Bubba sent you." I got a great steak at about 1/2 price for killing a whole day.

[ChrisL]

58 minutes ago, groupw said:

I had a business owner in a panic his network was down because he couldn't get to the server. I verified his internet was working. I drove over after a few more questions. Walked up to the server. No fan noise. Hit the power button and everything came back to life. 

My MVR crapped out one time and  IT checked the network and said call the camera vendor as it’s on their end. So I called the vendor to come out &  bastard turned it off, then back on and presto cameras came back up....  Oh and here’s the invoice of $180 for the service call...

Well shit now that I know the trick I won’t be calling them anymore...

[Parr8hed]

1 hour ago, jsharr said:

Must wake Jobu.  I offer him rum.  He will come.

[jsharr ★]

1 minute ago, Parr8hed said:

Must wake Jobu.  I offer him rum.  He will come.

 

[Parr8hed]

Just now, jsharr said:

 

You a golfer?  What's your handicap?

[jsharr ★]

1 minute ago, Parr8hed said:

You a golfer?  What's your handicap?

You trying to say Jesus Christ can't hit a curve ball?

[maddmaxx ★]

2 hours ago, Parr8hed said:

Lady was having some trouble breathing.  A tech went to plug in an oxygen machine and it would not work.  I told her to try the outlet a little down from where we were standing and it didn't work either.    The tech was standing there cursing the gods that could block the magic that allowed her to make oxygen.    I noted that the oxygen machine had worked earlier on a different series of outlets.  

I quickly walked to the breaker room and immediately noticed a tripped breaker.  I reset it.  

Walked back out on the floor and asked the tech to try again.  A great roar of applause was able to be heard as the machine roared to life.  I was able to block the bad magic that disallowed the making of oxygen in our facility today.

 

At the thread title I thought you might have changed over to using leeches.

[maddmaxx ★]

2 hours ago, Razors Edge said:

I always hate when I get cocky about some repair or set up, and basically tidy everything up - screw in screws, adjust things properly, finish routing cables, etc., and then go to turn the thing on and NOTHING happens.  Time to take shit apart again  

We had a standard policy when trying to teach young sailors how to repair magic equipment.  If they started to tear it apart to troubleshoot deeply inside we would not instruct them to check the fuses or the power first..........at least for a few hours.  It was a valuable lesson that they needed to learn and learning comes better that way.

The lesson..........do not let your haste to look like a hero cause you to skip over time tested proceedures.

[jsharr ★]

5 minutes ago, maddmaxx said:

At the thread title I thought you might have changed over to using leeches.

You do you think he is Theodoric of York?

[Further]

They were interviewing a guy for a supervisors job at the mill, he seemed to know a lot about electricity so they had him take the electrician and electronics written tests.

He did extremely well, they were getting excited now, might have a tech on their hands. 

So they had him take the hands on test. Troubleshooting an SCR circuit controlling a light bub, the guy froze, just stood there and stared at the cabinet for about 10 minutes.

Back to supervisor     

[Zephyr]

We have electronic fuel guages on our boat, and we hit 'enter' after filling to recalibrate the sensors.  Filled it up this weekend and it would not reset, showing only half full.  Tried several things, no luck.  Called our boat repair shop that we use and ran it up there, they did full diagnostic, including pulling up deck plates to get at the sensor before they found the issue

Turns out I had only half filled the tank. 

Now I need to find a new repair shop because I can't show my face in there anymore 

[MickinMD ★]

3 hours ago, Parr8hed said:

Lady was having some trouble breathing.  A tech went to plug in an oxygen machine and it would not work.  I told her to try the outlet a little down from where we were standing and it didn't work either.    The tech was standing there cursing the gods that could block the magic that allowed her to make oxygen.    I noted that the oxygen machine had worked earlier on a different series of outlets.  

I quickly walked to the breaker room and immediately noticed a tripped breaker.  I reset it.  

Walked back out on the floor and asked the tech to try again.  A great roar of applause was able to be heard as the machine roared to life.  I was able to block the bad magic that disallowed the making of oxygen in our facility today.

 

Love it!  Once, around 1972, a few chemistry professors, a few grad students, and a few of us senior chemistry majors at UMBC were trying to unbox and set up an automatic titrating machine.  We followed the instructions until one of them mystified us: "Ensure that 110VAC is operative."

A freshman chemistry major named Paula that I was dating was present, looked at the instruction, and asked, "Doesn't that just mean, 'Plug it in'?"

[Airehead]

I am sorry but some of these made me laugh.  @Zephyr, I feel kind of bad for you

[Bikeguy]

5 hours ago, 2Far said:

I was once a troubleshooting Jedi. We put an gizmo in the back room of a papermill control room to monitor their chemical inventory. It required 115vac, a phone line & a piggyback on their level instrument  sensor. We had about a dozen of them regionally. We were kind of an early adopter & the owners manual was non-existent. Anyhow, about a year into this particular monitor's service, it went dark. We could call in & see that it was working, but the level was reading 0.00 in the tank. We knew when our trucks arrived, but no change in the reading. Several calls to the mill. Assurances that they'd look into it. Nothing. Calls to the manufacturer. They say although rare, a channel can burn out. I get in the car, drive 4 hours to the mill, take a 1 hour orientation and walk to the control room. I go in the back room. There's our unit, right where I installed it, happily reading 0.00. I open it up, all looks normal. The sensor cable is running out of the top of the gizmo & up over some conduit. I gently pull on it to see where it runs & it comes all the way down to the unconnected wires. The mill guy turns a little green, says the E&I guys swore they traced it, yada, yada, yada. Tells me that "If I'm driving back thru Greenville, stop at the steak house, ask for Bob & tell him Bubba sent you." I got a great steak at about 1/2 price for killing a whole day.

I was expecting you would need to drive to the site, and find the tank was empty 0.0.  

[maddmaxx ★]

2 hours ago, MickinMD said:

Love it!  Once, around 1972, a few chemistry professors, a few grad students, and a few of us senior chemistry majors at UMBC were trying to unbox and set up an automatic titrating machine.  We followed the instructions until one of them mystified us: "Ensure that 110VAC is operative."

A freshman chemistry major named Paula that I was dating was present, looked at the instruction, and asked, "Doesn't that just mean, 'Plug it in'?"

I had no idea that titrating could be done by machine.  All these years with nothing but a mark I eyeball.  Who knew.

[Longjohn ★]

6 hours ago, maddmaxx said:

I had no idea that titrating could be done by machine.  All these years with nothing but a mark I eyeball.  Who knew.

I think an automatic would take all the fun out of it. Just like it does with driving a car. How are you supposed to look like a mad scientist if a machine does all the work?

[Parr8hed]

13 hours ago, jsharr said:

You trying to say Jesus Christ can't hit a curve ball?

Ahhh, Jesus.  I like him very much.  But he no help with curveball. 

[Ralphie ★]

2 hours ago, Longjohn said:

I think an automatic would take all the fun out of it. Just like it does with driving a car. How are you supposed to look like a mad scientist if a machine does all the work?

I think that is one of the main reasons I keep the del sol, it is my last car with a manual transmission. 

[Ralphie ★]

2 minutes ago, Parr8hed said:

Ahhh, Jesus.  I like him very much.  But he no help with curveball. 

I used to have a regular tech support guy named Jesus. It was fun to say “looks like we need to call Jesus”.
Or “Jesus will help us.”