Cobbler's Children's Shoes

Well, I know what I'm likely to be spending most of my day doing. Apparently the fan is out on the power supply for the old computer I use as a print and scanner and weather station server. Alarms started going off VERY late last night and I just sat and stared at it wondering what the heck it was till I figured out it was the overheat alarm. What a drag.

At least I was still up (working on the background info for the project that I've decided to take on as part of NaNoWriMo). It would have been even more of a drag to have been woken up by those rather obnoxious alarms. Of course, now I can't really print until I get this thing taken care of.

I don't fool myself though - the job is not really just as simple as changing out the power supply. This is the second time in about a year I'll have had to do that so clearly something else is up. Which means, of course, that unless I want to keep changing out power supplies and risking further damage, I'm going to have to take the time to figure out what is up and do it pretty darned soon.

I don't exactly have a great track record there though - like many techies, I tend to have my systems running closer to the edge (at least for my own capabilities, if not always the true edge) than really works to keep it all running in top condition, which means my equipment regularly crosses the line into inoperable or barely-operable-using-annoying-workarounds. And I don't always take the time to fix it right, just fix it enough to get it back operational again. It's a case of the cobbler's children having no shoes. Such minor problems invariably are simply larger problems waiting to happen.

On the good side, when the larger problems raise their heads, I usually recognize that I myself am the root cause for ignoring the earlier warning signs I and don't go looking to point blame anywhere else. Strange how the reality that things are FUBAR and it's all my own fault should be in any way a good thing. Hmmm, maybe I can prepay for a trip to de Nile.

I'm curious how you approach important, non-urgent issues and hope you'll send some thoughts to me at techsurvivor@soaringmountain.com. And if you happen to know what (besides replacing the whole box) could readily be done to fix whatever keeps sending my power supplies into never-never land, go ahead and let me know that too.

What are you putting off today that could become a serious issue tomorrow?