Programming...

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My girlfriend loves sun-bathing.
She's on a vacation now, and every other day she wakes up before me and goes on our terrace/balcony, trying to get that perfect bronze tan.

I work late, so she usually lets me sleep an hour or two longer. Today was not that day.

- "Hey love, there's a puddle of water on the balcony. It seems that AC is leaking."

New quest available: Fix the leaking AC.

Identifying the problem.
For those of you not familiar with this type of air conditioner, it's a 4x3x1' box, hanging about 7 feet above the floor, with a hose going from it to the roof drain to remove excess condensate. I went to the terrace, looked at the puddle of water, briefly inspected the AC box, and saw that the hose fitting on the box was a bit lose and that it was probably the cause for the leakage. I've decided that it's not a huge issue, and that it can be fixed with some duct tape.

On to get some duct tape.
I know I had some. Somewhere.
Here? Nope, not here. 
There? Maybe.
Hmm, not there either.
Over there? Ewww... not there.
Ah, I remembered. It's in the "where we throw all the crap in" cabinet.
Yes, it was there.
It was in the yellow box.
And yellow box was under everything else.
So I had to remove everything else, get the duct tape, and put everything else back in.

But yay. I got the duct tape.
Quest completed: Find duct tape. 
DuctTape by ArtBIT

Fix the hose fitting.
The plan was to remove the hose from the fitting, wrap some duct tape on the fitting and put the hose back onto the fitting.

I pulled the hose from the fitting, and a gallon of filty water that was trapped both in the hose and the AC drain, had an urge to hug me. So it did.

But the result of that action did not look like a hug at all. It looked like me being splashed with a bucket of muddy water.

New quest available: Shower.
New quest available: Change outfit.
New quest available: Clean up the mess on the balcony.

Also, I needed another plan, since obviously, the hose was clogged, and duct tape will not solve this.

New quest available: Unclog the hose.
The hose is supported onto the wall with a couple of plastic clamps screwed into the wall, so I had to unscrew those first, in order to take the hose to the bathroom to attempt to unclog it. 3 out of 4 clamps broke, due to being exposed to the elements over the course of a couple of years.

New quest available: Buy new wall clamps.

So I took the hose to the bathroom, drained it, and then started pouring water through it, foolishly expecting that it would be sufficient to unclog it. It wasn't.
So I increased the pressure, and BOOM. It was unclogged. 

New quest available: Clean up the muddy mess in the bathroom.

Quest completed: Unclog the hose. 
Quest completed: Clean up the muddy mess in the bathroom. 
Quest completed: Shower. 
Quest completed: Change outfit. 
Quest completed: Buy new wall clamps.

After screwing in the hose into the wall with the new clamps, I wrapped some bloody duct tape onto the fitting, because, you know, that's how you fix stuff. But I noticed some disgusting mucus hanging from the third hose (it's a 3-way fitting). According to the Hose Clog Expert Ed. 1, this means the hose is probably almost certainly clogged. And needs to be unclogged. The thing is, I cannot remove that hose, since it goes through the wall and into the AC unit in the room. 

New quest available: Unclog the other hose.

...
<sigh> I need coffee.
Hitpoints replenished.
...

Okay, I've decided to use a bottle of water, fit it onto the hose, and pump the water through the hose by applying squeezing motion onto the bottle. Genius. The other hose was unclogged.

And finally I get to put everything back together.

Quest completed: Unclog the other hose.
Quest completed: Clean up the mess on the balcony.
Quest completedFix the leaking AC.

When I tried to turn on the AC, it beeped, but nothing happened. If by "nothing" I assumed the tiny gush of white smoke coming from the AC. But according to my friend Bob, that definition of "nothing" is not true. Bob is an electrician. He says that every electric device works on the same principle. Inside every electric device, there's this magical white ghost, that makes the device work. When that ghost abandons the device, the device does not work anymore.

What I saw was the electric ghost leaving my AC. Damn it. 
I unplugged it from the wall immediately.

New quest available: Deus ex machina.

I had to find another ghost for my AC. They usually live inside of a glass fuse, so I had to take the glass fuse out of my AC and buy the exact same one, but with the magic ghost still trapped in it. 

New quest available: Remove the outer casing.

After unscrewing 8 screws, I removed the casing from the AC unit. I've noticed that there's a small panel locked with 2 screws where the control unit is. I unscrewed the 2 screws and removed the panel. Nope, the fuse is not there.

Quest completed: Remove the outer casing.
New quest available: Put the outer casing back.

"Oh look, there's inner casing as well"

New quest available: Remove the inner casing.
Achievement Unlocked: Not going postal.

After unscrewing 8 screws more, I removed the inner casing, and yes, I can see the fuse, but in order to reach it, I had to remove the RC interface. Which is basically unscrewing 4 more screws.

Quest completedRemove the inner casing.
New quest available: Put the inner casing back.

TA-DA! 
I got the broken fuse.

New quest available: Get a new fuse.
New quest available: Install the fuse.

I went out and bought the exact same type of glass fuse.

Quest completed: Get a new fuse.
Quest completed: Install the fuse.
Quest completedPut the inner casing back.
Quest completed: Put the outer casing back.
Quest completedDeus ex machina.

Ahhhhh. The AC finally works.
Now to continue what I was working on.
What was I working on?

....

Game Over


"But the journal is titled 'Programming...' what does this have to do with programming?" - I hear you ask.

And I say: "Everything".
This is what a programmer does, all day everyday, when they're fixing bugs in the code.  d3j5vwomefv46c.cloudfront.net/…

You try to fix a single bug, and you find and (hopefully) fix a dozen along the way.

So please,



Features:
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Comments14
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cybergranny's avatar
Hahaha. Loved reading it
Glad it finally worked ^^