Because a story is always better with a dog, here is the incident summary of "Titan's Big Adventure." Because, whether you are troubleshooting a computer or mayhem in your house, a clear list showing cause, effect and solution is required.
Titan arrives at my house Thursday night, for a weekend at Nanny's dogsitting camp and performs his traditional "holy crap" panic pee on the floor.
At bedtime, Titan paces the floor crying until I realize he has no real fur coat, no body fat, and is freezing.
Friday the house gets colder and colder until the furnace finally gives up.
LOML is working another double shift.
The furnace, which is in the attic, can only be accessed by pull down attic stairs. Previous furnace repairpersons have refused to work on it. Calls to repairpersons are not returned.
Ornaments removed after midnight when LOML arrives home. He will leave again at 7 AM to return to work.
"Sort of" dirty air filter removed. VOILA.
Takes time for house to warm up. Electric heaters on.
Put on electric tea kettle.
TV signal lost. Set Top Box not communicating.
Go to internet, follow set top box troubleshooting steps.
Half hour to untangle and organize wires.
Troubleshoot set top box, no result, go back to internet instructions.
Call brother in law — is your Cable/Internet down? Nope, it is just me.
Whatever happened to my tea? I need a break.
Teapot cold. No power in kitchen.
(lightbulb emoji!). Blown circuit breaker, realize Cable/Internet box in attic must be wired on that circuit.
Titan (the pup whose adventure this is) watches from under blankets on couch.
Especially that one that used to always go when we tried to run the air conditioner and the microwave.
That one that looks like it is still on even though it isn't.
Play circuit breaker roulette. Offending breaker marked with red nail polish. VOILA!
Tea, toasted bagel, TV and WiFi. Apple for Titan; he listened to my complaining and didn't make remarks about the dirty furnace filter and the overloaded circuit.
Realize that non-tv/cable wires are still in a ball behind the TV.
LOML is still at work.
The End? Still another day left in the weekend.
Filed under: Expanded troubleshooting steps for TV/WiFi/Tea Kettle/Random Lights outages.