(no subject)

N's mother called this morning and said all the outlets in the basement of her house were suddenly not working, so I went over with the electrical bag to take a look. No voltage at all in the outlets, 120V on the output of the breaker, so there's something open in the wiring itself. There's a big junction box on the side of the house that feeds the basement, clearly a new addition, and I opened that up to see if I could find a clue. Well, I found some live wasps. But one look in there told me that she needs a licensed electrician. Instead of nice civilized runs of live, neutral, and ground, there is a bundle of separate wires of multiple colors running into the box, then connecting to wires of different colors and disappearing into the hole that leads to the basement lights and outlets. Most of the basement is served by two three-conductor wires. Three-conductor wire is supposed to be used for switched lights, not for power distribution. Nope, not touching that: even if I figured out what was going on in the jbox, I might not know what's going on in the rest of it, and this is the kind of wiring that starts fires, and I don't have liability insurance.
So, no help there.
Then I came home and pulled off the front wheel, caliper, and brake disc on my car, intending to replace it to see if that'll stop the horrible grinding noise associated with the brakes, and once I removed the brake disc I could actually measure it with a micrometer. Because of the dust shield on the back and how the disc is worn, I couldn't previously, but it sure looked like it was badly worn. Not really: it's still well within specifications. I get to take that to the shop and let them deal with it, after three months of off-and-on poking at it and worrying about it. Yeah, I should have just taken it in when it first started making horrible noises, but, ugh, I hate pouring more money into that poor old thing.

So, not a very successful day.