Post date: Oct 11, 2015 3:20:32 AM
Today I didn’t work on my own house today. I wired up a motion-sensitive switch for the community barn and added a switched outlet. People had been leaving the light ‘on’ and the nearest neighbor (who noticed this) donated a switch that they had never installed. So now the light comes one when you walk into the barn. That is good, because it has only one window. Then, a few minutes after you leave, the light goes off automatically.
Later in the morning I installed a DSL modem for some friends. Actually, the installation was very simple (plug in a few wires), but the configuration, which was supposed to happen automatically, required waiting on the phone for three different helpers (all in India, inferred from the time lags in the conversations) to manually configure it. That took well over an hour. So now they have Internet connections without having to walk to my house or the Common House. They took me to lunch at the newly remodeled and expanded Gutiz restaurant, which was more than ample (and totally unexpected) compensation.
Then I made a hole in the barbed wire fence that forced these folks to walk down a rough dirt driveway and back on the other side of the fence. They were also expecting a load of furniture, and the moving van would never have made it in that driveway, much less out again!