New “Heard in the Dare house” quotes

Take Your Children to Work Day – April 26, 2012

We finally put a program together for the kids for BYC2W day this year.  We started with having the kids get their pictures taken by the visitor’s kiosk which generated a visitor badge they could take home.  After an overview of Level 3, what we do and how we support different customers, we took them downstairs to tour the NOC and switch.  We gave the kids some pre-made cups and strings to teach them about basic telephony and later played a game where bits of a message were ‘packetized’ in easter eggs they had to get from one point to another to unscramble.  We did a video conference with our Rochester, NY office and quizzed the kids on Level3.  Took pictures, had snacks, colored telecom pages, did word searches and more.  Everyone seemed to have a good time and enjoy themselves.  Even better, no one got hurt and no kid yanked any fibers out of a rack at the switch to take down the internet.

No Dial tone on other phones after U-Verse Install?

Hey all – I was helping a family member a few weeks ago with their U-verse install. They ordered the gateway, had the service “turned on” and opted to do the self-install.  Everything pretty much worked fine (internet, dial tone on main phone and wi-fi) but we couldn’t get dial tone to the other phones in the house.  I read several very helpful message boards and troubleshooting sites and finally figured out what I needed to do. The main line needs to come into the house and go directly to the jack that you’re going to plug the green cable into that then plugs into the gateway.  Then from there, you’ll need to run a standard phone line out of the back of the gateway from the “Phone 1 and 2″ jack to a new jack that you’ll install near the main jack the green cable goes to. This new jack should run down to your basement (depending on how you have your house wired of course) and connect to a simple wiring junction box that ties all of your other phone lines together. That should give them all dial tone. You should be able to plug a phone into the “Aux” jack on the back of the gateway as well if you wanted a phone near your gateway (not to call AT&T as that will just make you mad ). Here’s a simple diagram to show what I did -

Where I have the yellow (Ethernet), green (U-verse) and black (RJ11 phone line) lines going on the back of the gateway, in my diagram above is not exact.  I’ll make sure to check where I terminated the two RJ11 lines next time I’m at this house as I might have put the phone into the “Aux” jack and the new jack that goes back to the basement into the “Phone 1&2″ jack on the gateway.  If you don’t get dial tone when you do this, just swap those two cables on the back of the gateway and it should work.  Obviously put the Ethernet cable in the first Ethernet jack it will go into and match the green cable to the green jack on the gateway.  You can get any wiring you need, the simple RJ11 junction box and any splitters you need at any department store or one of the big boxes for about $5-$10.

If you have any problems, drop me a comment and I’d be glad to walk you through it.

Dare Kids Presidential Reports

Back on the week of February 20th, we had the kids each pick one U.S. President to research and write a report on for school.  Here are their reports in order from oldest to youngest (children, not presidents) -

Peter’s report on Chester Arthur (yes, an actual President of the U.S.)

Naomi on John Tyler

Josh on George Washington

Anna on Abraham Lincoln

Dryer not drying clothes?

Is your gas dryer turning on, tumbling and seemingly working completely fine but just not drying clothes at all?  It might be your ignitor.  One hair-line crack can render the ignitor useless.  I just replaced mine and it fixed the issue.  The heat was back immediately, big ole flame and the clothes were dry in no time.  Here’s what I did.  I’m NOT a professional and any help from this post is purely coincidental.  I cannot be responsible if you break your dryer or hurt or kill yourself.  Seriously though, unplug your dryer and shut OFF the gas before you do any repairs, OK?

I only had to remove the lower access panel to my dryer to get to the burner assembly -

I went ahead and removed the big black vent cover to make room for loosening screws on and around the burner assembly -

I first took off the flame sensor and tested it with a multi-meter to make sure it wasn’t fried.  It was working fine.

Then I took the ignitor off and removed it – It looked like the culprit.  It looked to be especially white (usually an indication of uneven burning) in one particular spot and it looked to be cracked so if that was the case, this would be the reason I wasn’t getting any heat -

Unfortunately, after I had the ignitor out, I then dropped it and (because they are extremely fragile) it shattered in six pieces!  Anyway, I called Northside Hardware and they encouraged me to bring it in (love those guys!)

The guys at Northside are awesome!  So helpful and they always give you tips on what to try and what to be careful about.  For instance, DON’T TOUCH your new ignitor on the actual filament.  The oil on your hands can cause it to burn unevenly (like a halogen car head light bulb) and burn out.

When I got back home and was installing the new ignitor, I must have either bumped it or put some kind of pressure on it and it broke!  Northside’s manager was so gracious, he gave me a replacement!  I certainly didn’t expect that and was very thankful!

When I got back home and put the second ignitor (shown above) in (only one screw holds mine on the burner assembly), I plugged the dryer back in once everything else was back in place (flame sensor, black vent cover, etc) and bam, I had flame.

What a glorious fix!  Much better than having to go shopping for a new dryer!  Even Lowes can’t beat this price: $35 + tax for a new ignitor!

-paul

**This fix only strictly applies to my dryer’s make and model, but I’m sure there are some pointer here that might help you troubleshoot, diagnose and fix yours.  I have a Kenmore Elite -

Our Funny Kids

At least we think they are funny (and pretty clever!) LOL.

First, Josh is caught trying to hang up his coat.  Except he hadn’t taken it off yet!

Then Anna disappears into her room for an hour or so to shoot some instructional videos.  We believe this is the best one that emerged from that session!