Chaos

Never let a Computer Geek near a machete - bush knife

Posted by: Samiuela LV Taufa on November 01, 2005 3:25:40 PM

OK,

Can't go putting the blame on TCC / Tonfon for this one.

What you can see in the picture is the end result of letting a wanna be geek near a machete / Hele-pelu.

What happened ?

Cut the wire We have this bush, actually a few of them, in the yard, and one of them had some creapers crawling all over them from an overhanging bread-fruit branch. Ha, that looks like an easy thing to resolve, so getting out mum's 1/2 size blade machete, dad walks over confidently to the bush to give it a bit of a trim.

Maybe I can put the blame on this to the feet of TCC/Shoreline? Anyhow, during the last major winds the telephone pole leaned over and is currently being held up by fence. The end result of that incidence that we and our neighbor now have telephone and electrical lines that droop lower than previously, and in this case we had a telephone line that was now drooping in two bushes and with this one the creapers were all over the bush and telephone line.

Back to the machete-wielding geek ? So, flashing the blade back and forth seemed easy enough and we obviously start low to clear out some of this stuff since it looks like we haven't tended to this problem for well over six months. Whack whack whack and the lower part of the bush is 'nice' and trimmed. Moving up to the middle part of the bush seemed pointless until we could get rid of some of those creapers in the way, so raise the machete up towards the sections of the bush just under the wire.

Whack, whack, slooosh, ooops. Hmmm, that one whack seemed to have felt different, and surprise, yes it looks like it made a clean slice of the telephone wire !!!! Yeah !!! Ok, deal with that later (debug the situation later) let's get the primary job out of the way.

Whack, whack, whack, somemore and the line is somewhat cleared away from the bush and with some space. After a number of tug events at the fence we have now cut the creaper from its main source of nutrition (i.e. sliced near the foot of the creaper.)

Back to the wire, in Tonga your first inclination is to grab that phone and call your Hinkle Town Hero cousin working at the phone company. Grab that UCALL mobile, Ooops, no ones answering the phone at home.

Hardware Problem

Hey, wait a second, I'm a geek, I should be able to solve this problem. It's only a "hardware" problem.

Think through it, we have wires, all I need to do is connect them some way and then seal off the connection from nature. Now, what tools do I have at the house.

I don't have a wire stripper, but I do have a nice big set of pliers (i.e. like using a machete to butter bread, it can be done ...) I don't have electricians tape, but I've got el-cheapo (will not stick) sticky tape from the chinese shop. I think there's more than enough here to fix this thing.

OK, no step ladder so have to do this with stretched up hands.

Fortunately, because of the majorly big 'slack' on the wire there is plenty of give so I just pull the ends together and tie a knot on the support/metal cable to keep the wire loose. I now take the machete out and strip away more of the insulation plastic around the wires (making sure I don't cut myself/again.)

1, 2, 3, 4, and she's all done.

It isn't pretty, but the 'rubber-band' solution with cheapo sticky-tape has lasted three more major rainstorms. Of course, keep that mobile phone handy and I do have to make that call tonight to the cousin working at the phone company.