Cable Threading (Boring Personal Anecdote With Punch Line)

[smb]

So, the cable TV in my living room is showing echoes and fuzzy pictures on some channels... just that one, not the others, indicating that it's an internal problem.

I look at the cable feeding the living room. Sure enough, the insulation is worn through in a few spots, and feels like it's going brittle generally. Time to run a new cable.

I get up to the attic. The hole where the existing cable runs seems to have some kind of dogleg (maybe a board shifted over the years). Time to drill a new one.

At one point, the drill bucks a bit as I withdraw it to cool. Next thing I know, my right eye is half-full of sweat. Next thing I realize after that is that sweat isn't supposed to be red....

Luckily, it turns out to be one of those superficial forehead cuts that makes you look like you were just attacked by a pack of wolves, but after you clean it up you can't even find where you were bleeding.

I feed the cable and make my way back to the attic trap door. Along the way, I slip and put a foot through the ceiling drywall. After a few days and a few hundred bucks, that'll be good as new.

I also discover that the phone (and, of course, the connected DSL) is out. I go back up and find where I pulled a phone line. I try splicing things together, and call back downstairs on the cell. Nope, still no phone. I give up, disconnect everything, and head back down.

On my way to take a shower, I notice that my DSL bridge is showing four green lights. I pick up the phone and get a dial tone. I dial my landline on the cell and it rings. Trying to figure out when the Universe went insane, I fish out the bottom end of the new video cable.

The picture is now clear and free of ghosts, etc.


The moral is:

MISSION ACCOMPLISHED.

I go take a shower. I think when I dry off I'll slip into my flight suit. ;-)