Meaning to Life | Exotic Caribbean

Archive for the ‘TV maintenance’ Category

Thursday, October 28, 2004
Our regular visitors and those with good memories of our blog entries (see Aug. 31st last year) will know that over the years we have been assailed by more than our fair share of technical breakdowns here at Playa Vista and that each time a piece of equipment chooses not to work, the diagnosis frustratingly and almost invariably touches partly or wholly on the problem of the corrosive salt-sea air around us. Our latest tribulation involved a second breakdown of one of our two Philips TVs. The immediate irony was that it chose to pack up functioning on the very day we finally installed our newly acquired digital projector to provide a giant screen in the bar area. For specification aficionados our screen measures an impressive 10 feet by 10 feet and right now we surely must be able to claim it to be the biggest in Boca Chica!
Anyway, as we clapped our hands in delight at the introduction of our movie-style new screen we had to groan with dismay as our supporting conventional bar TV completely gave up the ghost. We whisked it into a specialist Philips repair center in Santo Domingo where they had successfully repaired it after its first breakdown about a year ago together with its identical twin which by another coincidence had ceased to function in the very same week.
We gleefully picked up the “fixed” TV, returned it to Boca Chica and plugged it in. A fully functioning full-color screen appeared but once the audio and video jacks were connected up to integrate it into our extended cable and satellite TV system we were confronted with a very disillusioning dull hissing sound. We cursed under our breath… thanks, you no good amateur technician, for fixing the screen and completely ruining the stereo input and outlet facility! What kind of professional wouldn’t check that all features worked fully before returning it to the poor unsuspecting customer?
The momentary gloom was followed by a swift enlightening spark of ingenuity from Eduardo, our chief maintenance man, who suggested that the internal video and audio leads may simply have been mistakenly reversed by the technician. We hunted around for the very special Philips tool, inexplicably necessary, for releasing the TV cover and then loudly cheered Eduardo as his theory was proven entirely correct. However, it was only by the grace of having our handy man handy and him having the inspiration to imagine how the service center technician could have ended up doing what he did that we avoided journeying all the way back to the service center and having a full blown argument as to the injustice of the treatment we had been given.
We quickly turned the victory into a rout because the inspiration overflowed now and focused on that previously mentioned second TV that had not had a properly functioning stereo sound since it underwent “repair” those 12 months ago. Bingo; on removing its cover we found the identical spaded wire connectors inserted in the identical wrong sequence!
The very same service center had made the very same error 12 months apart and so we now bathe in the full luxury of two fully functioning Philips stereo TVs: not to forget the 10 feet by 10 feet giant screen now afforded by our Hewlett Packard projector! Extraordinary how true consistency can help you out of a mess, isn’t it?

Meanwhile seven years later:
Unfortunately salt air wear and tear is one of the things you learn to live with when you have a business right next to the Caribbean Sea but such hardship is softened by some of the exotic redeeming features the same Caribbean scene affords.