Modern Vespa

tl;dr: My Fiery is back up and running after being down since May 22.

Back in late May, during Graduation season, the Fiery print controller for my color printer died. I came in to work that Monday morning and found the Fiery and printer were both powered off. We'd had storms over the weekend, so it was either that, or the person who worked on Saturday powered them off before they left. When I powered them back on, the printer came up just fine, but the Fiery didn't. The monitor gave me an error message of "no signal found." So I placed a service call.

The tech arrived and said it could be the power supply was bad, or possibly the motherboard. He was hoping it was the power supply, and ordered a new one. He checked, and found that there were no motherboards available in the US, that they were on backorder.

The next day he arrived and discovered that they sent the wrong power supply, so he ordered the correct one. It arrived on Wednesday, and when he swapped it out, it didn't solve the problem. He researched the status of the motherboard, and learned that it was going to be at least 3-4 weeks to get one in. I passed that information on to my managers, and went about my day.

I could still make copies on the printer, but could not print. Since the last time I had a hard copy original from a customer was several years ago, this meant that my printer was useless. It does have the ability to print from a USB flash drive, but our IT department has blocked access to USB flash drives on all district computers, so I have no way of getting files onto a drive.

On May 26, my Director emailed her contact at Xerox to make sure they were aware that it was completely down, and that the parts were on indefinite back order, and what could they do about getting it back up, or replaced.

On Friday, June 9, my Director forwarded an email from Xerox letting us know that they'd be providing a loaner Fiery while we waited on the part, and that it should arrive early the next week.

The loaner arrived on June 13, and the tech arrived later that day and got it set up. It didn't have all the features that ours had, but I was able to print. If I wanted to use the Impose function, I had to transfer the file from mine to the Fiery on the first floor, then go down there and impose it, then go back up to the 5th floor, retrieve the imposed file from the other printer, and print it.

The tech came out again last week because some parts arrived, but they didn't solve the problem.

This Monday (July 17), he showed up again, because the motherboard finally arrived. It was the wrong motherboard. He couldn't figure out why, and started researching it. Turns out there are three versions of Fiery for this printer, all with the same model name (EX 280). They all have the same decal on the front, so there's no easy way to tell which one you have. While he was explaining to me that there are three different service manuals for the EX 280, I noticed that there was a sticker on the bottom of the computer case (he had it on the side so he could replace the mobo), and that sticker indicated that it was a Version I. The mobo he had was for a Version III. He made some calls, found the correct part number, and ordered it.

On Tuesday, the new mobo arrived. He installed it, and it still didn't work. He even tried to connect the bare minimum of peripherals (power supply & monitor only, no HD) to see if it would boot to BIOS, but it wouldn't even do that. He said that the only other thing it could possibly be was the CPU, but he'd never heard of a CPU going bad, and highly doubted it was that. But he ordered one anyway, and said it would arrive the next day.

Yesterday I had to take my cat to the vet dentist for a 6 week follow-up for his Full Mouth Extraction, so I arrived to work at 11am. When I got there, he was sitting at a work table doing paper work. I said hi, and he said that my Fiery was back up, that it was, in fact, the CPU that had gone bad. He still wasn't sure how that happened, and wouldn't have believed it if it hadn't happened to him. In the 30 years he's worked on Fierys, this was the first CPU to go bad. He'd never even had a CPU go bad on any other computer, either. I said that statistically it makes sense that one would go bad at some point.

I've worked with Fierys since 1999, and this is only the second one to go bad in my experience. I still don't know what was bad on the first one to go bad - they replaced everything on it, and nothing worked. They ended up simply replacing the entire unit. Now that I've had this one, I'm thinking that maybe the CPU had gone bad on that one, too. That was the only part they didn't replace when they were troubleshooting it.

Anyway, my Fiery is back, fully functional, and I'm happy.

Thanks, and it was an extremely good game to watch. Also biggest crowd EVER to a football match in New Zealand. Go the Black Ferns!
⚽️🇳🇿

My wife and I just spent a couple days camping at Frenchman Lake in Plumas county, CA. Cool nights and mornings. The afternoons were spent reading a book in the shade.

Once again, I woke up this morning and both I, and the world, were still here.

So I (drove, not rode) up to Deadwood in the Miata, top down, had a good cup of coffee with three other motorcycle bums out on the wooden cafe deck, and as I usually do, shared half of my white chocolate/raspberry scone with the same gang of English Sparrows that wait there for me every morning.

Well, Friday, to be exact. Warning: long thread

Wife and I drove to Chicago to visit Chicago and catch a concert on Friday. All was going well until I was looking up at a sign and next thing I knew I'd struck a nice sized (10 pound?) chunk of concrete in the road. Thought it was just a bad hit but a few seconds later the tire pressure monitor lit up. Pulled over, checked the wheel....dented rim, pressure down 10# already. Decided to pull ahead to what was a pullout for the toll, with at least minimal traffic. Barely a minute went by when a large truck pulls up, guy cheerily gets out to check, and, unknown to me, the Illinois Tollway provides free roadside assistance. The spare tire is nice, but we have another hundred or so mostly freeway miles to go before home. He quickly switches wheels and tells us there's a few tire shops near the next exit. We take off and find a shop, guy comes out to look and tells us we need a new rim. Okay. But they don't have one. Sends us to a shop that he assures us has one. We google them and find our way there.

I go to the desk and ask about a rim. Nope. Guy's pretty helpful though, calls a scrap yard, then a dealer. Best the dealer can do is getting us one in a WEEK, at ~$250. That ain't gonna happen. Meanwhile, my (Mexican) wife who sufferered a similar misfortune downtown Chicago some years ago and was rescued by an Hispanic shop is busy googling for help in Spanish. Two guys off to my left are walking past speaking in Spanish. They caught my wife's attention and mine simultaneously (I just heard "Spanish" and a couple of chingar derivatives -the "F" word to the uninitiated). I'm finishing up with my guy who's wishing me good luck, she goes to these guys and asks if they'd just look at the wheel....one of them agrees, looks at it and says he thinks they can bang it out well enough to get home safely, but showed me a sidewall bulge that didn't look good and said I'd need a tire. All they had was a cheapie, but for $145 I'd have a wheel to drive on.

While waiting for the work to be done, we chatted with the young man, found out he was from my wife's home town of Mexico City, exchanged life stories etc. Halfway through he checked on the work and said the rim was 95% back. Got us back in one piece and on to our weekend.

It's always surprising to see the solidarity with Hispanics here (and surely happens with other minority groups as well). What seems to help a lot is that in less prosperous countries such as Mexico, you find a way to fix stuff and replace only if you have the need or the money. So the attitude is quite a bit different. Whatever it was, we found a solution to the problem, and probably only lost two hours or so from our trip. Not the best start, but people really can be awesome, and everyone along the way was really helpful and decent. It was nice being in the front row seat watching it. Faith in humanity bolstered.

Nice to see the two hotels we stayed at had liquid dispensers in the bath vs. those little disposable bottles. Hopefully its more widespread. Always seems a waste to produce tiny packaging and then toss that and the half-used contents away.

The cheapskate in me tends to drag them home to be saved "just in case" we go somewhere that's lacking them. Usually about 0.25% of the time. We get a collection and then I go on a tear using them up at home. My father would be proud!

Jokingly told my wife I'd have to start bringing the tiny containers back for refills next time we're out.

Reusing towels has been a thing here for some years, though cleaning staff seems to not get the message at times.

My dad would be proud of you, too.

When we lived in Dodgeville, he somehow ran across someone who had two or three 5-gallon buckets of those soaps that they wanted to donate. He took them with the intention of using them at the HS locker rooms. The school declined to accept them. So guess who had little bars of soaps all through HS...

I wonder how long they lasted.

Great story.

I'm always annoyed that nobody here in the USA fixes anything anymore. Everyone just wants to replace repairable parts with new. It's super wasteful and we are filling our landfills at an unsustainable rate. When I was a mechanic (late 70s - early 80s) we fixed bent wheels all the time. It had to be pretty bad to demand a replacement. We also rebuilt motors and transmissions. Today they just replace all these items.

Rough day. But this lil booger always has my back. <3

Starting Sunday, we may get 5 days under 110°. One or two might even be under 105°

I couldn't stop laughing in my helmet today after these two stupid wombats - one of which ran past my ankles and UNDER my vespa

Check you wallet. Can't trust those guys.

Found at New World supermarket in Orewa the best Pasties de Nata
(Portuguese Tarts ) I have tasted in a long time. They are made in-house, which gives me a reason, other than the beach, to ride up there.

My kids came home from a couple weeks of being far away, visiting family. It felt really good to hug them.

Just got a call from the Dermatologist office regarding the lab results of the culture they took of the excision site that we thought might be infected.

Results are negative.

Hoo-ray!

As of yesterday evening, we finally have a vehicle with a working AC.

It could literally be a life or death situation not to have AC working in parts of Arizona recently. I hear you are due for a little reprieve.

I had a little hitchhiker on my ride home today.

I tried to help him off at a stop light but he waited and jumped off at the busy intersection of Park and McDuff.

I hope he made it to safety.

Bill

New helmet day.
I've gone back to Arai after 6 years in a Shoei GT-air. It was almost the right shape for my head but the new Arai fits like a glove. New visor is so clear I had to check it was down a few times.

Bonus: boxes for kitty.

Day started as expected moving the kid out of their apartment today...to trailer it all home to return it in two weeks.... It's an interesting move..from the 8th floor, with no actual parking, but for one single'-car spot that's usually taken.

Seems that everyone ignores the No Paking/No Stopping signs anyway, so I put on the 4-ways and get going disassembling and loading furniture. Early on met a nice young guy helping move his sister, bit of chatting, crossing paths, holding doors for each other.

After an hour of scurrying around, we were loaded and ready to go, got in and turned the key, and...nothing. Dead. Not sure how old my battery is, but could be original- ~6 years. An hour of 4 ways shouldn't drain a good battery I'd think. EDIT: Apparently it can...probably addition of trailer lights drains faster.

Anyway, faced with using roadside assistance which could take a while, or impose on my new friend, who had his sister loaded and waiting right behind us for her to do some final cleaning, I strolled back to ask for assistance jumping my car. He was surprisingly happy to assist, and bored waiting, and by the time I was barely ready he had his van turned around and ready to go. Got started, he refused my offer of refreshment money, wished him a safe drive back to St. Paul and we were off. Minnesota Nice personified.

Bad luck with cars lately, but people have been great.

We rode the Mets to breakfast this morning. These little guys get the least saddle time, but they are so much fun when they get out to play.

I have little inflator that works with the batteries of my electric drills and it's very handy for topping up the tires. A few days ago it just stopped working; it would run but just stop under any pressure at all. Extremely annoying and like what am I going to do, take it to the compressor repair guy's shop? Stuff these days and all that...

A while ago I noticed it was held together by mere screws so I figured I would take it apart and see if maybe something really obvious had fallen off or something. No such luck, but I had one last hope which was the old it's-broken-so-take-it-apart-and-look-at-the-insides-but-do-nothing-and-just-put-it-back-together-and-it-works technique. And by golly, it was the exact thing it needed! I am cheered up.

This has been one of my favorite things to do since I was a wee lass. I loved seeing how things worked when they had moving parts. However, I've never been averse to fiddling with a goody's insides.

I still have a late 80s or early 90s Sony radio alarm cube thingy that I fixed with a twist-tie almost 30 years ago. It's still in use, btw.

In my dissolute youth I was in a rock band called "Rear Admiral Armstrong and the Royal Hussars". Every so often (actually, not so "ever so") our no-name amps would malfunction. We would open them up, look at them, close them back up and they would work.

We called this the "Rear Admiral Armstrong treatment".

I've applied this to many things over the years with a surprising degree of success.

This probably has something to do with Erwin Schrodinger or the observer effect or some other esoteric physics thing. Or maybe it's a corollary to Murphy's Law: Whatever can go wrong, will go wrong but if you open it up and look at it it will be OK again.

Or something.

Managed to put 70+ miles on the BV 350 this afternoon, which, after the extraordinary WET/hot/humid summer we've had - is an achievement... Finally... May do some more, tomorrow...

what's cheering me up? That it was so easy to write code to import the backup file from piaggio's shite vespa mia app (new feature they just added) into my vespasnoop app They had encrypted it but failed by including the key in the file

Oh nice! I used to work a 1.5 miles from there. Always a nice stop.

Not sure if cheering me up or pissing me off thread:

Third vet for Bruno in a week. Twice good Samaritans falling for the "I'm lost and hungry" look and once a bad fall. All in a 200m radius in the middle of the day

Fresh rubber and a kitten

Monday morning I had an appointment with the dermatologist who cut six things off of my body.

Yesterday morning, at 8:00, I had an appointment with the dentist who removed a 45 year old crown and fit a temporary to be replaced next week.

I had had enough after the dermatologist visit that I called the dentist's office at 7:40 to try to cancel but they talked me into keeping the appointment.

1 1/2 hours in the dental chair can get tiring.

But what is cheering me up today is that all of that is behind me and I have no appointments at all today.

Bill

At the eye surgeon waiting for my Da to finish up with his 2nd cataract surgery.

This morning he said, "I should be all done with this after today."

I said, "Well, you are all out of eyes. I would hope so."

The first one went very well; I expect the same today. And I get to take a day off work.

The temps have dropped below 105° again!

Below Deck Down Under season 2!!


ETA: Aesha is like the human equivalent of a golden retriever.

Fridays we can make a small donation to the booster club (makes the summer picnic and xmas party better) for the option of normal people clothes and not OCPs.

Today's hawaiian shirt is called "clever girl".

my cat tried to steal a car today

The MATILDAS!!! 🇦🇺⚽

Nice to see a good tight game too, not a walkover.