This is looking more and more like one of those days I should not have bothered to get out of bed (if I could have slept, that is).

It started around 4:00am when I woke up and couldn’t sleep, although I must have drifted off somewhere south of 5:00am because my alarm finally woke me at 6:00.  Once I got out of bed I discovered that an old foot injury has reappeared, causing me to gimp around (it’s a little better now, but not great).

During my morning routine the bathroom radio quit, so I started looking around and finally figured out that I didn’t have power to any of the outlets in the master bath.  Since the breakers weren’t labeled (I guess that will be my next project) I flipped all of the 20-amps off and back on.  Unfortunately, that didn’t restore power to the bathroom, but it did manage to wedge the Tivo, all of my Squeezebox players, and the FiOS ONT’s internet and TV functions. 

So, I determined that one of the breakers is probably bad.  But since my first meeting of the morning was approaching, I really needed to get the internet access going so I could use my VoIP phone.  After an hour of fidding, unplugging, rebooting, and various diagnostics I figured that it must be the ONT and I called Verizon.  They rebooted the ONT and the phone and TV started working again.    For all of five minutes.    Then everything but the phone went offline and the ONT started beeping (something it had never done before).  After a bit of further fiddling it turned out that the stupid GFCI* outlet in the garage that is used by the ONT had tripped.  Once I reset it, the beeping stopped and the internet and TV started working again.**

I’ve since called the home warranty company and opened a ticket and the electrician is scheduled to come take a look at the breakers tomorrow morning.  But my Squeezeboxes are still discombobulated and are turning themselves on and off at random intervals.    I suspect I’m going to have to go to each one and do a factory reset at some point.  One of these days this sort of thing will sufficiently motivate me to put the Tivo and the Squeezeboxes on UPSes to avoid all of the fuss whenever there’s a momentary power hit.

And to top it off, I really need to go to the store, as I’m running out of a lot of important stuff (like dog biscuits).  But between my foot and my luck, I think I’m just going to order a pizza tonight and stay in.  There’s no sense tempting fate.  Or gimping around more than I have to…

*And why is it that this house has a GFCI outlet in the garage (next to the breaker panel) but none in the bathrooms?  I know that current code requires them in bathrooms, so I’m guessing that the old code didn’t when the house was built in 1986.  But if it didn’t require it in a bathroom, why would there be one in the garage?  If it’s required because there’s a water heater in the garage, then it would seem to have made more sense to put one in the outlet next to the water heater.  But no, that one doesn’t have a GFCI outlet. 

** If you’re considering getting FiOS, you should note that unlike the older copper-line phone service, power for the equipment comes from an outlet in your house (usually in the garage).  The equipment has a battery backup, but the ONT gives preference to the voice service and drops TV and internet services when running on battery for more than a few minutes (it will keep them running for a short time so that you won’t notice small power hits, though).