"Never again," I said last time
Jun. 18th, 2011 06:28 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
soniaFifteen years ago as a new owner of an old condo, I bravely tackled a dripping bathroom faucet. A long saga and a plumber's help later, there were no more unexpected puddles under the sink from leaky shutoff valves, and I swore off plumbing.
Last night, my kitchen faucet abruptly stopped doing half its job - when I pushed down the handle, the water kept running. I called a plumber this morning, but they wanted $70 just to come out and diagnose the problem, so I started doing research on the internet. There are some helpful step-by-step youtube videos out there!
Three bike trips to A-Boy Plumbing and most of a rainy Saturday later, my kitchen faucet does its whole job, nothing but its job, and the hot and cold are once again on the correct sides. The jury is still out on the shutoff valves under the sink. I'll keep an eye on them, but I don't have the energy to replace them right now. I did buy the parts, but shutting off the water to the house looks unexpectedly difficult.
Downsides: frustration, took all day, really didn't want to make that third bike trip in the rain. Upsides: it works, saved money, I had a free day available, the folks at A-Boy were kind and respectful, I can now expertly disassemble and re-assemble my kitchen faucet. Oh, and the faucet is shiny-clean.
Through it all, I didn't panic, or yell at myself for making mistakes and taking time to figure things out. I took breaks when I got stuck, and asked for help at the store and from the faucet manufacturer. It feels like a non-crisis that could have been a crisis. Spending a day learning how to fix a leaky faucet is part of life, not an interruption.
Last night, my kitchen faucet abruptly stopped doing half its job - when I pushed down the handle, the water kept running. I called a plumber this morning, but they wanted $70 just to come out and diagnose the problem, so I started doing research on the internet. There are some helpful step-by-step youtube videos out there!
Three bike trips to A-Boy Plumbing and most of a rainy Saturday later, my kitchen faucet does its whole job, nothing but its job, and the hot and cold are once again on the correct sides. The jury is still out on the shutoff valves under the sink. I'll keep an eye on them, but I don't have the energy to replace them right now. I did buy the parts, but shutting off the water to the house looks unexpectedly difficult.
Downsides: frustration, took all day, really didn't want to make that third bike trip in the rain. Upsides: it works, saved money, I had a free day available, the folks at A-Boy were kind and respectful, I can now expertly disassemble and re-assemble my kitchen faucet. Oh, and the faucet is shiny-clean.
Through it all, I didn't panic, or yell at myself for making mistakes and taking time to figure things out. I took breaks when I got stuck, and asked for help at the store and from the faucet manufacturer. It feels like a non-crisis that could have been a crisis. Spending a day learning how to fix a leaky faucet is part of life, not an interruption.
no subject
Date: 2011-06-19 02:16 am (UTC)And isn't the internet an incredible learning tool? I admit that I still feel very ambivalent about that element of our modern lives, but I couldn't have imagined even fifteen years ago how accessible knowledge would become. I guess the trick now is to make sure it remains so, and is available to all.
no subject
Date: 2011-06-19 02:25 am (UTC)Yeah, the how-to videos are amazing. Although one bit of this one did lead me astray, it was still great free advice. Mostly I search youtube for dance videos - I'll have to remember that there are other useful demos out there.
I'm curious about your ambivalence about the internet. Care to elaborate?
no subject
Date: 2011-06-19 01:59 pm (UTC)Take the knowledge thing. The sheer wealth on the internet and the 24x7 availability is fantastic! If you've got internet access. There's another knowledge divide developing in society, I'm sure you've heard about it too. This is not good.
And what about the peer review/editing function? For all the historical problems with that (i.e. minority voices being silenced, new valid ideas being ignored), I think it also provided a very useful function of validation, double-checking, and helping keep the complete dreck away from the unwary. I mean, who possibly has the capacity or time to verify every piece of information that comes their way, especially in unfamiliar areas? I like being able to pick up a peer-reviewed scientific journal, say, and know that what I'm reading there is solid. But this function is diluted on the internet--I worry especially about younger people who don't have well-developed bullshit detectors yet.
Social media? I loathe it with a passion. At the same time, I am on Facebook and it's been wonderful for keeping up with friends in other locales. I still loathe it. I take pride in my internal contradictions ^_^.
I think the internet is actually fragile. And in the meantime the earlier knowledge structures (newspapers, print books, public libraries etc.) are continually being weakened by the very presence of the internet. If we lose access to the internet, or if it is taken over by corporate interests, what have we to fall back on? Am I being too fancifully paranoid?
Then there's one of my pet peeves about the younger generation. I'm old enough now to have those. Every person of a certain age needs some, I think. I get concerned that the younger generation, the ones that have grown up with the internet as a fact of life, as a part of the background, are living too much in it. Or rather, that they're not living in the real world. Or doing real stuff. A small example--for some years I was moderator at an oekaki site. Oekaki is a fun and surprisingly sophisticated drawing/painting application on the web. The vast majority of our site members were under 30 years old. Over and over again I would hear "I can't draw if I don't have oekaki or some other digital tool." Excuse me? How about pencil and paper? I'd say over and over again that one's drawing skills are there first, then one learns skill with media. Improve in one media (like maybe a non-electronic one?) and your skills will improve in others. They didn't believe me. I found it terribly sad and frankly scary.
So, maybe I'm just being a fuddy-duddy. What say you?
no subject
Date: 2011-06-19 07:04 pm (UTC)I spend a lot of time online - but I don't have a Facebook account. Every so often I consider it, but my privacy is too important to me.
Agreed about the knowledge divide, and the fragility of the internet. Thing is, the newspapers and TV had already experienced corporate takeover. I think mainstream media, carried by any technology, will be subject to corporate control, and new technologies will continue to pop up. And if the internet breaks in a big way, little newsletters might pop up on paper once again.
As for those young whippersnappers lacking bullshit detectors and drawing skills - I think that's cyclical too. Each generation is losing some competencies and gaining others. I was thinking about pioneers & covered wagons and how adults considerably younger than I am had to build their own houses and figure everything out, without anyone to consult when they got stuck.
no subject
Date: 2011-06-19 11:59 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-06-20 06:58 pm (UTC)