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rain, electricity, electronics, plumbing, lunar eclipse [message #486850] Mon, 20 December 2010 13:20 Go to next message
Barbara Boehmer
Messages: 9077
Registered: November 2002
Location: California, USA
Senior Member
It has been raining almost non-stop here (northwest Riverside county, California, U.S.A) for days and the local Yahoo weather report predicts a 100% chance of rain for the next three days. The good news is that I haven't heard anything about drought and water rationing lately.

You may or may not recall from one of my other posts that my television has taken to turning itself on and off non-stop. I left it unplugged for a while, plugged it back in, and it seemed to go back to normal. Well, it is back to non-stop on and off again, only staying on or off for a few seconds, so it is unplugged again.

The latest problem is that the circuit breaker for the circuit that my television, dvr, and computer are on, keeps going off from time to time. In order to reset the circuit breaker, I have to go outside and around the house, which was not fun yesterday evening in the rain and the dark.

I don't have anything new on that circuit, but am wondering if the television problem and circuit breaker problem, and rain are related. I suspect that when it rains, water is getting in somewhere and shorting things out. I will have to wait until the rain stops and things dry out to see if they go back to normal. I really miss the television.

Years ago I had a problem where the telephone did not work when it rained or for a while thereafter. A few neighbors had the same problem. I eventually gave up on trying to get the phone company to fix it permanently and have used only a cellphone and wireless internet connection ever since.

Previously I had a problem where I kept losing my wireless internet connection over and over. Happily that is not happening in the midst of everything else. That one still remains a mystery, despite my numerous attempts at diagnosis.

The other day I found that my water was turned off. I called the local water company and was advised that there was an emergency shut-off in my neighborhood. I could see they were digging in the street on the cross-street. My water was turned on again later that day. Since then, on various days, I have seen workers continuing to do something in the middle of the street at various points on the cross-street. I also noticed that "Rescue-Rooter" was digging a big hole in the front yard of my new neighbors across the street to the west and had a big fat hose that they were using for something. Somebody finally bought the place. The house to the north is still vacant and for sale since May 1st and workers continue to come and go, doing various fixing and remodeling. In the midst of the strange water problems, the water in the traps in my toilet and bathroom sink suddenly shot out. In the toilet, it hit the closed toilet seat cover, flowed over the seat and onto the floor. In the sink, it popped the drain plug out and went onto the counter. Fortunately, I was not sitting on the toilet when this happened. It was as if somebody doing some suctioning on the main sewer line to clear a clog started by pushing water or air in instead of out.

There is supposed to be a spectacular total lunar eclipse tonight. They say there won't be another one like it visible around here until April of 2014. By pacific standard time it should occur as follows:

10:15 p.m. - moon enters penumbra
10:33 p.m. - moon enters umbra
11:41 p.m. - beginning of total phase of eclipse
12:17 a.m. - moment of mid-totality
00:53 a.m. - end of total phase of eclipse
02:01 a.m. - moon leaves umbra
02:19 a.m. - moon leaves penumbra

The moon is supposed to be red when this happens. I wonder how much will be visible through the rain and rain clouds. I am debating whether I want to get up in the middle of the night and go out in the rain in the dark with my umbrella to try to see it. Where I live there are snakes that come out in the dark. The way my luck has been going lately, I'd probably get bit by a snake or hit by lightening. I may just turn off the outside lights, if they haven't already shorted out by themselves, and see what I can see from the windows.

I should probably order some sort of adapter that will allow me to use my laptop from my vehicle, plugged into the cigarette lighter, in case all of the power goes out. If you don't hear from me for a while, I am probably busy dealing with electrical issues.

I remember one year, I think it was 1979 or 1980, I was living in a 3-story apartment building on the ground floor. It was raining very hard and I woke up in the middle of the night and started to head for the restroom. I put my foot on the floor and it was wet. It was dark and I was only half-awake and was trying to figure out why the floor was wet. I looked down and tried to focus and saw one of my shoes floating away. I headed for the light switch and was about to turn it on when I woke up enough to ask myself whether I really wanted to turn on a light switch while I was standing in water. I used the restroom in the dark and went back to bed. In the daylight I could see that the whole apartment had flooded, due to rain water coming in over a low window sill, even though the window was closed. The apartment manager decided to move me from the ground floor to the third floor, then the roof leaked.

Rain, rain, go away. Come again another day (or not, just go away).





Re: rain, electricity, electronics, plumbing, lunar eclipse [message #486856 is a reply to message #486850] Mon, 20 December 2010 15:41 Go to previous messageGo to next message
joy_division
Messages: 4963
Registered: February 2005
Location: East Coast USA
Senior Member
Barbara Boehmer wrote on Mon, 20 December 2010 14:20

I don't have anything new on that circuit, but am wondering if the television problem and circuit breaker problem, and rain are related. I suspect that when it rains, water is getting in somewhere and shorting things out. I will have to wait until the rain stops and things dry out to see if they go back to normal. I really miss the television.


Exactly. My parents had a very similar problem. The landscapers nicked an underground electrical wire that my father ran to light something in the backyard when fixing an underground sprinkler. Not enough to stop the light from working, but upon a heavy rain (the wire is down quite deep), the kitchen TV will go off. We haven't seen it go back on, but that could just be because the type of switch that the TV uses. My dad had to tap into some already existing line to get the electricity and he used the one in the kitchen as it was on the outside wall. So suffice it to say, when it rain heavy, the tv in the kitchen goes haywire.
Re: rain, electricity, electronics, plumbing, lunar eclipse [message #486896 is a reply to message #486856] Tue, 21 December 2010 02:32 Go to previous messageGo to next message
Barbara Boehmer
Messages: 9077
Registered: November 2002
Location: California, USA
Senior Member
I went outside about 15 minutes after midnight in the rain with my umbrella and looked all over the sky, but could not find the moon, red or otherwise, so it was quite a disappointment. Perhaps there will be some nice photos on the internet from places where it was visible. I couldn't even see a single star. It is just solid overcast with clouds. The cloud layer has an odd effect of reflecting the lights, so it is fairly bright outside without the moon. I was able to open the circuit breaker panel and find and flip the circuit breaker switch without a flashlight, which is a good thing, since if I am holding an umbrella in one hand and a flashlight in the other hand, that doesn't leave me a hand to flip the switch with. It is hard enough just to get there without slipping on the wet grass or mud in the dark in the rain.


Re: rain, electricity, electronics, plumbing, lunar eclipse [message #486898 is a reply to message #486896] Tue, 21 December 2010 02:42 Go to previous messageGo to next message
Littlefoot
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Registered: June 2005
Location: Croatia, Europe
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Over here, the sky was clear and the full Moon was quite something to see (with all that snow on the ground) but - eclipse wasn't visible from my part of the world. You'll have to wait until 2014, but we'll have to wait for another 80 years or so.
Re: rain, electricity, electronics, plumbing, lunar eclipse [message #486954 is a reply to message #486898] Tue, 21 December 2010 08:10 Go to previous messageGo to next message
Frank
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Registered: March 2000
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Littlefoot wrote on Tue, 21 December 2010 09:42
but - eclipse wasn't visible

Isn't that what an eclipse is all about? The moon not being visible (in case of a lunar eclipse)? (Just kidding)
Unfortunately, at 7:30 am local time, there was to much snowing going on; everything cloudy, so nothing to see here either.
Re: rain, electricity, electronics, plumbing, lunar eclipse [message #486968 is a reply to message #486954] Tue, 21 December 2010 14:52 Go to previous messageGo to next message
Littlefoot
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Location: Croatia, Europe
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I heard that (the eclipse) was visible on the western hemisphere. If "western" means "west from Greenwich", then you weren't supposed to see it anyway, snowing or not (just as me). Or did I hear something wrong?
Re: rain, electricity, electronics, plumbing, lunar eclipse [message #487145 is a reply to message #486968] Thu, 23 December 2010 03:08 Go to previous messageGo to next message
Frank
Messages: 7901
Registered: March 2000
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Yes. We (you and me) live on the Western Hemisphere.
The eclipse would have been "viewable" from here
Re: rain, electricity, electronics, plumbing, lunar eclipse [message #487146 is a reply to message #487145] Thu, 23 December 2010 03:22 Go to previous messageGo to next message
Littlefoot
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Ummm, no - we live on the Eastern one.

Western Hemisphere (what a difficult word to type!) is a little bit "western" from you, and somewhat more "western" from me.
Re: rain, electricity, electronics, plumbing, lunar eclipse [message #487149 is a reply to message #487146] Thu, 23 December 2010 03:44 Go to previous messageGo to next message
Barbara Boehmer
Messages: 9077
Registered: November 2002
Location: California, USA
Senior Member
There is a map on the page below that shows where the whole eclipse should have been visible from, where it should have been visible only at moonrise and moonset, and where it should not have been visible at all.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/December_2010_lunar_eclipse
Re: rain, electricity, electronics, plumbing, lunar eclipse [message #487157 is a reply to message #487149] Thu, 23 December 2010 04:32 Go to previous messageGo to next message
Littlefoot
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Registered: June 2005
Location: Croatia, Europe
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So it seems that we could have seen the eclipse at Moonset, after all. Sorry, Frank.

I remember, it was ... huh, 1998 or something when there was 97% or 98% of the solar eclipse here. The day was bright and sunny, no clouds at all. How did it look like? A little bit grayish, as if I put foggy glasses on. Nothing spectacular, actually. I thought that, with such a high percent, it would be much darker. But it wasn't.

So I guess that lunar eclipse was even "worse" - it is during the night anyway. A little bit brighter or a little bit darker, who cares?
Re: rain, electricity, electronics, plumbing, lunar eclipse [message #487159 is a reply to message #487149] Thu, 23 December 2010 04:50 Go to previous messageGo to next message
John Watson
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Registered: January 2010
Location: Global Village
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East / West confusion has been around for years. Back in the sixties there was a film called "Krakatoa: East of Java" (I know about this only because it is referenced in a song by the B-52s on their first album) but in fact Krakatoa is West of Java. Apparently, "West of Java" didn't sound sufficiently exotic, so Hollywood relocated it.
Re: rain, electricity, electronics, plumbing, lunar eclipse [message #487161 is a reply to message #487159] Thu, 23 December 2010 05:01 Go to previous messageGo to next message
cookiemonster
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Registered: September 2008
Location: Rainy Manchester
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I would imagine the confusion comes largely from the concept of the western world, which includes New Zealand - a country further east than pretty much all of the far east.
Re: rain, electricity, electronics, plumbing, lunar eclipse [message #487178 is a reply to message #487159] Thu, 23 December 2010 08:25 Go to previous message
joy_division
Messages: 4963
Registered: February 2005
Location: East Coast USA
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John Watson wrote on Thu, 23 December 2010 05:50
the sixties there was a film called "Krakatoa: East of Java" (I know about this only because it is referenced in a song by the B-52s on their first album)


There is also a Robyn Hitchcock song called "Somewhere Apart" that mentions East Of Java. He sounds scarily like John Lennon in this song, so if you're a fan...
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