Not a fantastic image by any stretch of the imagination. It’s just that I have not seen red eggs for a very long time. The eggs are meant to signify fertility and the red is just for prosperity and good luck.

* * *

It’s nearly 2am in the morning and I’m still wide awake. Today was the first time in a very long time I felt like I was doing something exciting at work. Needed to prepare some various reports for the whole financial year, and I needed to prepare formulas in Excel to get the reports to auto populate itself. I miss having to do this sort of problem solving and I’m starting to wonder if I could be contributing more in a different sense. I just feel like I’m winding the springs of a giant clock to keep it ticking, instead of designing the cog wheels that would make it run more smoothly.

The added sense of value carried on to when I got home, and I decided to tackle the convection oven where the knob had become loose and one could not tell what temperature the dial was facing. Being inquisitive as I was, i saw the screws that held the oven to the slot it was in. Took those off and saw a few more screws to reveal the panel where the knobs were attached to.

Apparently the electrical ‘box’ that held the knob switch had come loose so when you turn the knob, the box turned with it. You see, the box is supposed to be stationary so that when you turn the knob, it’s pointing at the correct function. I’m not sure if it was originally glued in place or whether someone had cut corners and didn’t install the screws to fasten the ‘box’ in place.

So I had found my problem, and needed to find a solution to it. At first I tried gaffer tape to stick the ‘box’ in place, but as you turned the knob, the force from the turn would loosen the tape and dislodge the box. Tried a few layers of tape to see if it would hold, but to no avail.

Then I had a better idea and got some of the cardboard packaging from my coffee machine that acted as padding. I got a thick enough fold of the cardboard, and slotted it below the ‘box’ to wedge it in place. Tied some gaffer tape to it and the ‘box’ is now quite securely stuck in place so you have a pretty accurate idea where the dial is pointing when you turn the knob. The cardboard wedge prevents the ‘box’ from turning with the knob when you twist it.

Cleaned up the panel a bit from all the grease left over from cooking and installed the oven unit back to the opening slot.

* * *

Fast forward to midnight, decided to clear up the kitchen a bit. Heh, it seems to be in a perpetual mess but we do try to keep it as neat as possible. After dumping some garbage, decided to wash my car.

Loaded up a bucket with soap and water, took the car washing mitt to the basement garage and started wiping my car clean. As with the cardboard solution, it’s not the most thorough cleaning I could do on my car. Given that I’d like to save water and used only about 5 or so buckets of water to clean the exterior, it was clean enough. Driving on the highway to Beechworth left plenty of dead bugs on my car and I decided I couldn’t stand it no longer, hence the need to wash the car.

* * *

I guess humans are very good self motivators if they are doing what they wanted to do. I wish work was as motivating and as much as I’d like to not complain about external factors, they dampen my spirit to perform to the best of my ability at my job.

Heh, a story for another day. The weekend has started, so time to turn in so I can get up earlier and make the most of it.