I remembered the harmonic convergence as having something to do with the planets being aligned. Something that happens only rarely, as the various planets circle the sun according to their own orbits and velocities. I visualized it in terms of sine waves of various frequencies.
Ever so often the various peaks align, and we have a really good day or week. Of course it works the other way as well. We all know the feeling of one bad thing leading to another. This is what happens when the troughs align. But this week was a good one.
I googled "harmonic convergence" and found that the term really applies to a New Agey event back in 1987. The planets being aligned seems to have been almost incidental. But the term has been picked up and used in numerous ways since then. So I feel OK about using it here.
A number of annoying little things had been going wrong for me in the past month. I couldn't find my reading glasses. A frequent problem, but usually temporary. This time they were staying lost. Two pairs, actually. Prescription reading glasses, which I normally use when I can find them, and a cheap pair of nonprescription reading glasses that I keep as back up. I was just about ready to go back to Walmart and order a new pair. (Something I had done once before.)
Our router had stopped working. We had a thunderstorm week before last, and the router has not worked since. We could plug either computer directly into the cable modem and it could access the Internet. We could plug both computers and the printer into the router, and both computers could print, but neither could access the Internet. Looks like the uplink port on the router is broken. We have a spare router, but I was not looking forward to setting it up and trying to get everything to work again.
Shortly after getting a rebuilt engine for the truck, the truck had just about stopped running. On cool damp mornings, it was very rough and had almost no power. I took it back to the shop that replaced the engine and explained the problem. The problem is a difficult one, because the truck runs more or less OK when it is warm.
This week, just as I was beginning to dispair of my trusted local mechanic ever getting it fixed, and was about to give up and look for another mechanic, I got the word that it was ready. Really ready. It had been "almost" ready multiple times, and something new had always come up. I picked it up, and it ran pretty well. I was pleased.
And then there was the garage door problem. A week ago, the garage door stopped going down properly. If would go up fine. But when you pushed the button to make it go down, it would start down and then immediately stop. Fortunately, it would go down if you held the button down. But this trick only works on the wired switch inside the garage. Using the remote control in a car, you could raise the door but you couldn't lower it. Which means that when you go somewhere in the car that is kept in the garage, you open the door, back the car out of the garage, then get out of the car, go inside, lower the door with the wired switch, then go back out to the car and now you can actually go somewhere.
We had seen this problem several times before. It was always associated with the sensor that detects obstacles blocking the door. A light beam goes across the door opening near the floor and hits a sensor on the opposite side. When anything blocks the beam, the door won't go down. Usually the problem is that some piece of garage junk has gotten too close to the door. The other cause is that a wire has come loose on either the light source or the sensor. Neither of these turned out to be the case this time. I was about ready to call the garage door guy to come out an fix it. Then, on Thursday, it simply started working again. I swear that I didn't do anything to it. It just started working. I have no idea what was wrong or what happened to fix it.
There was a similar problem with the water cooler. Same week. I filled a cup from the hot water dispenser to make tea, and the hot water turned out to be just luke warm. And then Sherry noticed water on the table that the cooler sits on. And then a puddle on the floor below it. Clearly something was wrong with the machine. This is when you are glad the machine is rented. Sherry called up the water people and they brought out a replacement the next day. But it turned out to be the wrong model. No hot water dispenser. The water guy was fairly sure that the water than had leaked out onto the tabletop and the floor was due to a crack in the bottle, or a tiny hole that we couldn't see. He gave us a free replacement bottle and said that he would be back Friday with the right machine.
Meanwhile the cordless telephone that sits beside the water dispenser has stopped working. Acts like the battery won't hold a charge. Probably needs a new battery.
But wait! The telephone plugs into the same electrical outlet as the water dispenser. No power in the telephone. No hot water from the water dispenser. Could this be a coincidence? Maybe the real problem is the power outlet. Sherry starts preparing me for electrical work.
On Thursday the water guy returns with another dispenser and is preparing to set it up. Sherry discusses the power problems. Maybe there was nothing wrong with the water dispenser. The water guy says not to worry about it. They really should take the machines back for service every few years anyway. That one had been here four years. They check the electrical outlet. Sure enough, no power. Then they check the other outlet at the opposite end of the counter, where the toaster is plugged in. The toaster doesn't work either.
Then Sherry notices a little red button on the outlet where the toaster is plugged in. This outlet has a ground fault circuit interrupter (GFCI). Standard practice in recent decades for outlets in the vicinity of water. The GFCI had popped for some reason. It's similar to a circuit breaker. Push the red button and the outlet starts to work again. The outlet that the water dispenser was plugged into doesn't have a GFCI, but it is undoubtedly on the same circuit as the toaster outlet. So with the GFCI reset, both outlets start working again. We don't know what caused the original problem. Perhaps it was connected with the water leak. But both outlets are OK now, with no cost and no repair work. The phone starts working again, and the water dispenser again provides hot water.
Meanwhile on Thursday I am closing in on a weeklong problem at work. I needed a key to a storage room near one of the classrooms in which I teach. The classroom is in BSN, the Business Administration Building, about a quarter of a mile across campus from my office in Engineering. We want to keep a cart full of laptop computers there near the classroom as an alternative to pushing the cart back and forth between my office and the classroom. I had gotten permission to use the storage room. Just needed a key. At USF, all keys are issued by the Buildings and Grounds people, and new keys have to be made in their key shop. A key had been requested a week before, but I had heard nothing from the key people. I had called the key shop toward the end of the previous week and they had not received the request. I call the woman who is responsible for the storage room and she says that she has sent the request.
We have $20,000 worth of laptops languishing, mostly unused, for lack of a key. So on Thursday, I go to the key shop and confront the key guy in person. "Do you have the request?" He checks the computer. No sign of a key request for me. "Could it be in the mail?" He checks the day's mail, still unsorted on the counter. No request. But what about yesterday's mail? Also, still unsorted. Rummages around in a pile of paper. Aha! There it is. "Could you please expidite this request? I have work being held up until I get this key." (Which is true.) He agrees. But he doesn't seem enthusiastic.
Friday is a good day. After my 10:45 class, I find my prescription reading glasses on the table beside the podium. They had probably been there for the last three weeks.
I wait until 4:00 PM and then go back to the key shop, hoping to be able to pick up the key. But the key key guy isn't there. He is out picking up the mail from the post office. The assistant asks me to have a seat. He will be back soon. Fortunately I have brought a book.
The key guy returns after about ten minutes. He remembers me from yesterday. Checks on the computer. The job is started, but not yet finished. I take that to mean that they have entered the order into their computer system, but have not made the key. I ask him if he can finish the job while I wait. He agrees. It takes all of two minutes to make the key. I return to my office with the precious key in my pocket.
Before pushing the laptop cart over to BSN, I walk over and test the key. Amazingly, it works. With the help of my TA, who has been waiting for me to get the key, I push the cart over to BSN and lock the laptops up in the storage room. Monday we can start to issue them to students for my class. A major victory!
And it was a good week for running. Thursday, Michael and I ran our normal 3.1 mile loop in 29 minutes and 19 seconds. Best time in more than a year. It was a very nice cool morning. That undoubtedly helped. Then Saturday we ran our old six mile loop. Not fast, but at least we finished. First time we have done that in over a year also.
Today, Sunday, I replaced the router. It turned out to be no hassle. I found a spare that was identical to the one we had been using. Just plugged it in, hooked up the cables, and everything worked. And in the process of straightening up the cables I found my other reading glasses.
How could so many things go so well in the same week? Harmonic convergence? Just the periodic alignment of a bunch of sine waves, each running independently according to its own equation? I don't think so. I think Wall Street has sucked up all of the evil from the entire country.
