First Blog

Repair then and now. I recall listening to a lecture by the great physicist Richard Feynman* where he talked about his teen-years, neighborhood repair business (1930’s) for radios and the like.   He said mostly he just looked for a loose wire or burned tube.   Presto, he fixed it.   He could repair because repair was easy and because he was real smart.   I recall the (very) old Maytag washer/dryer commercials on TV featuring a repairman lamenting he never had any work, because Maytag’s never broke down.   Great add. Great reassurance in the beginning age of home machinery.   I recall myself in the 60’s of stripping my TV of its tubes and taking them to the local drugstore where they had a tester.   Burned ones were replaced and the screen glowed again. Beyond that required an an actual TV repairman - expensive! Today, note whenever you buy anything electronic or mechanical, the seller offers to sell you insurance policies against damage and breakage. Sooooo… What do you wa

Problem solving... Decades ago, my garbage disposal stopped working.  Turned the switch - got just a hummm.  Bummer.  I was distressed, because at the time I hadn't the cash to buy a replacement.  This is notwithstanding the simple fact I didn't know how to install one.    Nonetheless, I called my local appliance dealer to come and fix it.  He took one look.  He pulled from his kit a giant screw driver and plunged it down, deep into the disposal and nudged the blades just a bit.  It then worked fine for the time I lived in the home - on Berkeley Street.  But I remembered this trick.  In all the intervening years I had no problems with garbage disposals until today.  Dad-gum thing stopped working!  My solution:  I went to my garage, loaded with unused tools of all sorts, fetched up a giant screw driver, plunged it deep-down, and nudged the blades just a bit.  It now works again, just as it did before.  Thus, t'was a simple application of Archimedes' law of