Zzzz… Barely conscious, I registered the short flight – I think the stewardess announced Ottawa? People filed in, and I fell back into a slumber…
… To groggily awaken to loud toddlers having a lot of fun and the stewardess explaining that they were waiting for “papers”. Hmm… At least the kids have quieted down now, but we’ve been here for a couple hours…
Perhaps I’ll have time to catch up on sleep *and* read my travel book!
My flight to Paris was delayed 3.5 hours. Thankfully I found out via the web before heading to the airport. All hail the Internet!
I could have spent more time outside, but I fell prey to the staff’s admonishment that everyone else was already in, and that I’d best hurry… 2.5 hours before departure. Dragging my feet, I slided through security and was at my gate 30 minutes later. I think I gave myself advice after flying last time to always ignore the X hours rule, and yet here I am. :p
If this really is the passenger list, it’s surprisingly small. Perhaps I’ll have a row to myself? Hey, I see a plane pulling close… Now the walkway is stretching out to meet it… Yay! I wonder what the seats are like?
My lovely 8-month old Optoma DV10 projector is toast. I put in the old black and white movie, “Great Expectations”, and 10 minutes in, it began a horrendous, shuddering noise.
After repeated applications of compressed air failed to dislodge the suspected lint build-up, I began dissassembly. Naturally, this voids my warranty, but I have no idea where the receipt is anyway – and I’d have to send it to the USA.
After lengthy dissection, pondering such questions as “how does this part come off?” and “it all looks OK…?”, and briefly considering applying some WD40 (thankfully I did not), I discovered that somehow, a part of the colour wheel had shattered.
I won’t go into detail on what a colour wheel is for, but is essentially a plastic ring, with segments of the ring that are different colours (e.g. yellow, red, clear) used to control the display of light on screen. One of the segments had broken off, and the shuddering noise was the wind resistance on jagged plastic whirling around at 9000 RPM.
I’m a little upset that this expensive piece of equiment, which should have lasted me years, cut out after months – especially considering it was stationary! I am left with an enormous projector screen, but no projector!
On the other hand, I’m glad I figured out what the problem is, and I can go on my vacation without an open problem on my mind. When I get back (and make it through Christmas and New Year’s season), I’ll have to see if I can buy a replacement colour wheel and fix it.
This projector has been a rather expensive and time-consuming “leisure activity”…
