columbus, meet edison

Sometimes, a little knowledge can be an embarrassing thing.

Darrel and I started working our way through our handyman chore list this week (the joys of home ownership) -- with some help.

Antonio and Lupe (the pool guys) repaired the float in my pool's overflow tank on Monday. That remedied the well pump's refusal to shut off.

Darrel and I fashioned a new handle for the tank's cover using bicycle lock cable, two clamps, and a fashionably yellow piece of hose.

I already told you how I resolved the Netflix problem. Apparently, whenever we have a power surge, the voltage regulator does something that keeps Netflix from loading movies. (I know that does not sound logical, but there you are.) Unplugging everything from the regulator, then unplugging the regulator from the wall, and waiting for about 30 seconds re-sets whatever needs to be re-set.

We still have not bought a piece of glass to replace the cracked shelf. We have been too busy amusing ourselves with relenting games of Mexican train. But I can find glass at quite a few shops. It is just a matter of doing it.

That left us with one open item -- the power failure in the bodega and the pool bathroom. It turns out the problem was more wide-spread. The stair lights to the terrace and the sconces on the terrace wall would not light.

We also thought there was an additional power outage. Three of the copper star lights would not illumine. I took a gamble that the bulbs were burnt out. They were. So, another task was completed.

But there was still that pesky outage in the two rooms. After checking all of the circuit breakers, we bought a circuit tester to determine if any of the breakers had failed. They had not.

We then called in the big guns. On Tuesday night, I had met a woman who works at Rooster's. She told me her husband, Efrain, was a handyman and could help us. Through my friend Oswaldo, we arranged for Efrian to show up at the house.

He did. As we walked him through the house explaining the problem, we became more confused. There was absolutely no power getting to the light switches in the bodgea. The pool pump is in that room, and it worked fine. As did the bulb that lights up the pump area.

I got down on my knees to throw that switch. When I looked around the corner I saw what you have seen at the top of this post -- another circuit box. Darrel and I had looked through the house for something similar (including in every closet and cabinet), and had found nothing.

But, there it was. Almost in plain sight.

Of course, one of the switches (the one on the far left) had been thrown. Probably in the same power surge that had tripped the television's voltage regulator.

Efrain and I thought it was funny that we had missed such an obvious solution. Darrel paid him some hush money for his time, and we all went on our merry way.

What I got out of the  episode was some additional knowledge about my house -- and a great story. That I now share with you.