MISWIRING

We've been having some wet and wild weather the past 15 hours, starting during my last Chinese painting class of the session, perhaps the last ever: our teacher is considering retirement and may or may not teach another class in January. (She says I must do lots of painting in China...I can sell paintings at the Great Wall. A Westerner selling Chinese paintings. "They'll be amazed. You can make money.")

We thought the class might not even continue through the evening...lots and lots of dramatic lightning and thunder, not common for Hawaii, and the rain and flashing skies continued during my drive home like some short circuitry in the heavens. The security guard at the art school advised us not to use the elevators. There were power outages and traffic jams all over the Island. "I don't want anyone stuck in the elevator," he said. We shared our end-of-class potluck with him and eventually left, no problems.

Driving out of town, I had to wait at a corner where traffic was being delicately directed through an intersection where the traffic signals had failed. Then, once on the freeway, coincident with a shocking burst of energy in the sky, my iPod, running through yet another new car radio, choked to a halt. I got a message on the radio display: "Miswiring. Check wiring and then restart unit." How disappointing. I was getting some good practice with the tones of Mandarin in a language course MP3. Ta ma de!

The new radio, installed over the past weekend was to replace the other new one (stored in the trunk for two years before installation) that got soaked and drowned in a storm on April 15. After nine months, I had finally gotten used to its excessive obsessive control features and had learned a lot, mainly using it for Teaching Company CD lectures. I ordered a cheaper simpler replacement from Crutchfield (highly recommended, great customer service) and the Wizard installed it last weekend, a little more easily this time since he had repaired the reckless damage the thieves had done previously. Easier to use, and a bit more economical, and more attractive, really, it sounds just the same and took me less time to figure out how to set the clock than the old new one.

But if it's not theives, it's what? "The lightning had nothing to do with it," the Wizard assured me. And he should know. "I switched the right and left speaker wires...I think that's what the problem is. Try to reset it, and if it doesn't work, I'll look at it later." Still it seems spooky that at that particular moment...miswiring indeed. This is the fifth radio I have had installed in TAO 61. Perhaps I should just get used to the sound of silence again. And the thunder.