Last week on my Insta I bragged about the power never going out as John and I replaced Big Blue’s, our generator, computer brain. That was hubris. After almost eight years of living off-grid, you’d think I would know that. Clearly, I have not learned my lesson…
You may have read that February is a rather special month around here. Today was Miss Polly’s birthday. It’s a VERY special day for me. Three years ago, my water broke out here in The Hills, a day before a scheduled induction, and we had to race to Providence Hospital (a 2 1/2 hour drive away). Every traffic light, every slow driver, I would yell at John: “Drive! Drive! This isn’t like poop; I can’t hold it in!! DRIVE!” We were almost like that couple who had their baby at the Tesoro gas station at mile 99 (friends of ours), or that couple that had their baby in the Lowe’s parking lot in Wasilla. John offered to stop at Matsu Regional, but I made it clear that I would rather have a baby delivered by a Zulu witchdoctor in the African wilds full of lions and hyenas than go to Death Valley Hospital, so onward we drove to Providence! Anyway, it was Polly’s birthday today. Happy birthday, my extra special girl!
Yesterday, on MY birthday, things were hectic. I had to get John packed and out the door for work, on top of all the regular things, so I reckoned today I would take it easy. Our battery bank was loaded enough, and I wasn’t planning on washing clothes, so I set HAL9000 (our asshole inverter) to “auto” mode and watched Gremlins 2 with the children. That is the second greatest comedy movie ever made, besides Blazing Saddles, of course. If you don’t believe me, consider this: It tells you that it is a Warner Brother’s cartoon from the get-go, and it features a New York real estate developer named Clamp, who is obviously Trump, back when both he and everyone else thought it was fine to have a laugh about him. This Youtuber explains it better than I can:
So I trusted that HAL9000 would just kick up the generator when the voltage of the batteries dipped low, as John programmed him to do so. I trusted that our fresh computer brain on Big Blue would listen. I was mistaken. We went dark (and when I say “dark” at 23:00 in the deep boondocks of Alaska with no grid light anywhere nearby, I mean DARK).
No biggie. I always have a flashlight at the ready out here, especially in Winter. I just sauntered over to Big Blue, the generator outside in the garage and turned her on manually. Then I had to reset HAL9000 the evil inverter, while holding down the bypass button on the new battery bank. Easy Japanesy! Except you need to be a gymnast with ridiculously long limbs to do this. Fortunately, I was the undefeated gymnastics champion of Northern North Holland from 1989 until 1994 and I have limbs for daaaaaays.
Champion Gymnast. 
Limbs Longer than an Orang Utan!
I reset HAL, but… something is wrong. HAL thinks he’s charging the batteries, but our TriMetric reader tells me he is NOT doing so!!
Hal9000 says he’s charging… 
…but he is NOT!
Fuck, fuck, fuckety fuck! This is NOT good, folks. And one of our sexy new batteries is flashing orange… (that means it’s low charge)
I frantically call John, who is in Anchorage for work this week. He was asleep and is groggy and cranky. I explain the situation, and tell him he needs to walk me through reprogramming HAL9000, because clearly something is wrong. As we are on the phone, we go dark again, one of my house batteries now VERY angry with me. I have one finger of my right hand on the battery bypass button as John talks me through reprogramming HAL for which I’m using my left hand, whilst my legs are in a split between a chair and our old battery case. And yes, folks, John is the one who programs all the computer brains of the house. I defer to him for that. Come on… if you were a gambling man/woman/other, and you had to pick someone to program anything with a computer brain, who would you pick?!
*Disclaimer: please don’t be butthurt by this joke; I made it on purpose. In OUR case it is true. John is the technological genius and I am the invertebrate biology and biochemistry expert, mmmkay!? I can’t program a YSI probe, but he can. He wouldn’t know what to do with the readings, but I do! Equality, hooray!
So, I appear to be back in business. Big Blue is on, HAL9000 thinks he’s charging and *is* actually charging, because our Trimetric reader confirms it is so. Still, I am awake now, because I’m keeping an eye on things. Nessun Dorma; no one sleeps. At least not me, tonight.
