The Triumph of the Fan

I realize that the last two posts were about a long day spent with Norm, and I was officially there to help out Dan with the wedding stuff (and mom), but, really, Dan and 'Pita really had quite a handle on the whole thing, and we were left to do other things.

Actually, Dan and Richard were left to do other things, and by "other things" I mean household/landlord type fix 'em up things. And, really, the only thing Dan and I did was replace the overhead fan on the living room.

Sure, just replaced the fan. That was it.

But, those words fail to adequately describe the epic battle that was waged with the ceiling, with the wiring, with the forces of electricity and gravity flogging us at every chance, with our own individual helpers of The Amber Wild Turkey and The Clear Beefeaters. Those words fail.

There we were, just the two of us, with an audience of course, so, I guess there were three of us...but...the Two of Us, Dan and I, first laid siege to the old contraption, removing it from its holster attached to the ceiling.

The original fan had lights that stopped working years before upon being hit by an errant dog toy. Actually, they "stopped working" by never dimming and staying as bright as possible constantly, such to the point Dan had them unscrewed but still present, looking like they were just turned off. That's something I couldn't understand: why not just remove the bulbs? But whatever...on this quest I was just a helper.

Now with the naked harness the only thing attached to the ceiling, the hoisted the heavy motor up to the heights, slid it in to the bracket, and started connecting the wires. Confident, we turned the juice back on and tried it out.

Nothing.

After fiddling with it some more, taking it down and putting it back up, again we got nothing.

Dammit.

So, back to the instructions, and we see that there is a switch box and receiver for the remote that was attached on the last motor but here is a separate piece. The cryptic manual says that it needs to be wired into the circuit if you want the remote to function, and in our case, a fan with no chain on/off switches means that Yes, make the damn remote work.

Then what followed was an ever escalating discussion inspired by The Amber and The Clear and egged on by the vociferous laughter of our audience, about how and where the receiver needed to be mounted, or wired into the circuit, or where it could possibly fit into the mounting once we figured out how to wire it properly.

Another three times we attached that heavy bastard to the ceiling only to have it not work.

On the edge of calling a hiatus to our quest, in the hopes that the arrival of sunlight and someone (Richard) who knows wiring better than two, eh, inspired warriors, Dan made the suggestion that we attach the rest of the wiring. There was a coupling that was to be used in the future for lights that as of now were nonexistent, and in our inspired condition we hadn't thought about connecting it.

Oh yeah, you need to complete the circuit to get an idea if it's wired properly. It appeared that my memory had been affected by some force out to thwart our mission.

I returned to the breaker box and fired up the juice...

Success!

We happily spent the next few minutes attaching the fan blades, extolling our conquest over the machinery of the Day.

In the fine breeze that was created by the fan, we celebrated our triumph by taking turns curling up inside a ridiculously oversized box that had been used to send my brother a square-yard's worth of fabric.