There was a lot of fixing things this week.
First thing up was the one of the inside air conditioning units in the shop. Each unit has a drain line to get rid of condensation. The drain pipe flows down to another pipe that runs along the top of the drop down ceiling and out the back of the shop.
On Tuesday when the workers came in and turned on the AC, water started dripping from the ceiling. When I took a look I found that the main drain pipe had become detached from the AC’s drain line. For some reason the installers had taped those two together. Since the main drain pipe was being held on just by the tape, gravity eventually did its thing and the tape gave out. (Gravity is very patient.)
We left that AC unit off and called up the contractor who sent out a crew to fix it on Wednesday morning. This time they used something called “adhesive” to join the pipes together. (I checked the other three AC units and their drain lines were all securely attached.)
On Wednesday a package came from my US mail forwarder. One of the contents was a replacement handle for our tuna press. Getting it back together was as much of a pain in the butt as taking it apart, but now it’s working again!
Also in the package was a set of gears for our digital camera. Last month Emily decided the zoom lens on the camera looked like a nice hammer and was using it to bang on the table. After that the zoom wouldn’t open or close which made the camera’s software very upset.
Sony wanted TW$4500 (about US$140) to repair it which is getting close to the replacement cost with the prices of digital cameras these days. I took it apart and found that the problem was just one of the plastic gears in the zoom mechanism which had gotten stripped. I found a seller on eBay selling a set of replacement gears for my model of camera and bought them.
I got around to replacing the stripped gear today. The surgery was a success and the camera is now working fine again. As a test I took some pictures of the Landis Hotel which has all the windows boarded up in preparation for the Typhoon, and the small hospital kitty corner to the hotel which had some sandbags set up outside.
The hotel also has large metal gates for the front and side doors which they can bring out if flooding is expected. I saw them doing a practice drill a couple of weeks ago where they boarded up the windows and put up the flood gates. This neighborhood has flooded twice due to typhoons, so I’m a bit worried about the shop.
Anyways, the camera seems to be fine now and will be ready to take any pictures of the neighborhood after the Typhoon goes through.