Rant #3,188: Machines

It is crazy how things work—or don’t work.

Yesterday, I told you about my old air conditioner, which I felt had sprouted its last breath of cold air on Wednesday night into Thursday morning with water cascading out its front end.

I personally was ready to go out and buy another air conditioner, but I figured I would give it one last try just to make sure that that night’s performance wasn’t just a blip.

So I put it on late yesterday afternoon after I was done with my work, and from 4:30 p.m. to 6:30 a.m. it was on—

And it purred like a kitten.

No drips no drops, just cool air.

I can’t explain it, but it ran last night as if it was 1999.

We might just have a situation like we have with the computer that I am typing out this Rant on.

As regular readers of this blog know all too well about, I have had trouble booting up this computer every morning for many, many months; sometimes it goes right on, other times, I have to take the plug out and try to get it going multiple times for it to come to the home screen.

In fact, today was one its better days, taking me just two times to get it going.

Now our air conditioner might be in the same position.

Maybe it will work to perfection on some days and nights,, maybe on other days and nights it will perform like it did the other night.

It is hard to tell, but I can live with that, just like I have with the computer for these past many months.

Both are eventually going to go to the electronics graveyard, but I will milk these things until they do.

And what about my family’s pool, the center of my total summer consternation a year ago, when the water was reminiscent of pea soup no matter what we did to it to make it clear and swimmable?

It has been great this year.

Changing over to salt water—and employing a whole new mechanism to handle the changeover from chlorine--we have gone into the pool numerous times, and the pea soup of last season has been replaced by cool, crisp and clear water—

Up until the other day.

Doing my weekly pool maintenance, I poured some algaecide into the pool this past Sunday, and for whatever reason, what we got the very next day was something that resembled a Mr. Bubble bubble bath.

It was soap-y all over, and my wife actually tried to remove as much of the bubbly mass as she could.

So today, after not having to bother with the pool pretty much at all during the length of the summer, I have to bring in a water sample to the pool store to test if the pool is still swimmable.

I know that they are going to prescribe more chemicals to be thrown into the pool, but the season is just about over—we have the pool scheduled to be closed down in about a month—so if I do put any more chemicals into it, it will hopefully be a slight amount.

It just doesn’t pay at this point to go whole hog on this, not with maybe a week or two more of possible swimming, based on other years’ experience.

So maybe the filter is befuddled, maybe some other electronic mechanism on the pool is not working—who knows?

Machines … when they work well, they make life so much better, but when they don’t work and give you problems, they are such a massive headache that you wish you didn’t have to rely on them as much as you do.

This whole thing is best said in a mid-1960s song by the British Invasion rock group Manfred Mann.

They had a number of worldwide hits in the mid to late 1960s—“The Might Quinn” and “Do Wah Diddy” among them--but the song I am referring to wasn’t one of them—although I think it is one of their best songs, and fits the theme of this blog entry perfectly.

It is a song called “Machines,” and with lyrics supplied by AZ Lyrics.com, I think you just might agree:

“Machines, machines
They keep right on movin'
Machines, machines
They keep right on movin'

But I am weak
I want to go on home
Too tired to speak
But they won't let me alone, yeah

Machines, machines
They keep right on going'
Machines, machines
They keep right on going'

I've got to find
A place to rest my head
Machine, he smiles at me and says
"I'm gonna be your bed, yeah"
Oh, yeah

Machines, machines
We made them to serve us
Machines, machines
We built them to serve us

But 'til the day
I'm buried in my grave
Yes, right until that day, I know
I'll always be your slave
A slave, a slave, a slave

To the machines, machines
They keep right on winning
Machines, machines
They keep right on winning”

You can listen to the song at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VQNC2Qx9S9g

I think I will leave it at that.

Have a great weekend, and I will speak to you again on Monday.

“Clank … drip … bang … smash … pea soup … bubble bath …

Stop!!!!!