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November 18, 2016 - 11:23 p.m.
smoke alarm madness

Hey Journal!

What a terrible night's sleep I had last night. It was so bad. I went to bed late, as you know, and I was already not too happy about that. At about 2:00am II was sleeping soundly and then I was woken by a piercing alarm noise! It wasn't the alarm, it was a smoke detector. Ugh!

I was confused because the Nest detectors talk before they beep -- it wasn't that. It was the hard-wired detector downstairs. I was confused and I didn't want to go downstairs so I called Dan. He was just getting back to his hotel and about to get in the shower so it was good timing. He was lucky it was three hours earlier for him so I didn't wake him up!

When I went down it was definitely the hard-wired detector. It's old looking, and was there when we moved in, so I have no way of knowing exactly how old it really is. I really don't think it was a carbon monoxide detector, and none of the Nest Protects were going off, so I was confident that there was something wrong with this thing. I tried to take it off the ceiling but I had several issues. First, I couldn't reach it. I tried to stand on a chair but that wasn't good enough. I had to pull the couch over and stand on it. It wasn't the best way to do it but I really had no choice!

The instructions on the thing said to twist to the left to remove. It had arrows and everything. I tried. It would not budge. At first I was trying to be gentle but I quickly got irritated and was trying with all my might. I even tried using a knife to separate it from the baseplate and the knife broke.

The little sharp part of the blade was stuck in it so I was afraid it was going to fall on the floor and someone would step on it!

I took the cover off and there was nothing I could do from the inside, either.

Anyway, I was up for over an hour trying to do this. I looked up instruction manuals online and couldn't find anything specifically about this model online. I found a picture of a First Alert one that was kinda similar but there was no manual online. Also, mine doesn't have any branding on it. It's kinda weird. Some time during all of this, it stopped beeping.

I went back to bed around 3:30, not fully convinced that it wasn't going to go off again. I didn't get to sleep until about 4am, so of course my whole night was messed up.

It was good the rest of the night. When I got up, I got an adjustable wrench from the basement and I grabbed onto the little clips for the cover and yanked it. At first it didn't budge but I tried the other clips and it finally came loose. I was so mad at this stupid thing. I finally got it off, unhooked it and then on my way to work I stopped at Home Depot to get a new one.

Home Depot had a lot of Kidde models which looked like they would be good -- the only problem was they have a different type of connector for the power. It wouldn't have been crazy to redo that little connector but it's a lot easier to just swap out the detector and leave the power cord. I left Home Depot and went to Lowe's and found the First Alert/BRK models that were the same connector type.

I got one that is also a carbon monoxide detector. It was a little more money but I really like having an alternative to the Nest Protects JUST IN CASE they don't work for some reason, so it's good to have a backup.

After that I headed to work and stopped at the PO Box to collect the CPC mail.

The day was quiet and I enjoyed having the office to myself. Dan's dad is up hunting this weekend and Steve didn't come in today.

For lunch I had two cups of Grilled Chicken and Rice soup. It was really good but after having it I didn't have any appetite for anything else for lunch.

I tried to complete two reconciliations on our credit cards but couldn't because of weird errors. I did make a little progress, though.

I left work at 4:30 and headed home. Dan and I arrived at home at about the exact same time. His flight landed around 4:15 or so and he was right here at MacArthur.

We had planned to go to Lotus East for dinner Dan was tired from all of his travels and just wanted to say home and catch up on the TV shows we missed while he was away.

For dinner we made the Lasagna from Price Club and it came out really good.

When I first home home I set up the ladder and tried to install the new smoke detector / co alarm that I bought this morning. It was easy to install since it had the same little clip thingy. I just had to change out the base and then connect it up. The box says the sensor should last about 10 years so maybe that's what happened to the old one. I mean, it's feasible that it was there for 10 years!

Anyway, we watched The Real O'Neals, The Middle, The Flash, and HTGAWM! It was the "winter finale" of HTGAWM which is a joke because it's not winter yet. I mean, the show will come back on January 19th which is less than one month after winter BEGINS. So... how is this a winter finale? Anyway, we found out that WES was under the sheet. I bet when I look back at this entry in a few years I'll be like "who the heck was Wes and what was I even talking about!?" That happens whenever I look back at when I write about TV shows.

We also fit in an episode of Judge Judy and tonight's Shark Tank.

I re-washed our bed sheets this evening since they smelled a little weird and now they seem much better.

I'm exhausted now and I have to get to sleep. We have to be up early tomorrow which is a real pain in the ass since I had such a bad night's sleep last night. No rest for me. It's like going to work but getting to bed late! UGH!

Until tomorrow...

Goodnight. :)