Diary of an ASD Squirrel. Day 484 , Sunday 23/02/2025
TL:DR Repair Shop eat your heart out!
Also computing & how many ways can I bore the pants off people in the weeks & months to come - you wanna see autistic hyperfocus in action, watch this space & you may well see it!
Sunday started at around 04:40 in the very AM! Dunno what woke me up but I got little pockets of sleep interspersed with listening to my audiobook until 8am when I at last gave in & got up.
Made breakfast & emptied the dishwasher (more about this below) & then watched ‘Winterwatch’ with Mrs S & Sophie & Alice - who adore Chris Packham!
Mrs S vanished into her room to read, as is her wont, I had a shower then made the bed.
It was a wet & windy morning & my muscles were still complaining about yesterday so I decided a day inside would be appropriate!
Mrs S had asked me to look at her digital watch which had stopped working - it’s only a cheap is Timex™, her choice not mine, & I suspected a new battery was in order. I too it apart on Friday, gave it a bit of a clean & ordered a pack of the relevant batteries - our battery draw is fast becoming as well stocked as some shops!
The batteries arrived yesterday so after my shower I dug out my watchmakers kit & set to fitting the new battery.
It’s fiddly work, with teeny, tiny screws that require a special screwdriver & tweezers to remove & fit again but there is nothing hard about it, anyone with enough patience & some vaguely fine motor skills can do it. The biggest problem I have is that I have to put my glasses on to do the macro work - like releasing the new battery from its ‘child-proof’ packaging - more like everyone proof! I managed to slice my finger when cutting open the stupid thing! Then I have to take my glasses off to do the fine work.
Anyway it’s done now.
11:50 Ahh the power of the internet!
So I noticed the other day when I had the dishwasher on it’s monthly cleaning cycle that there was a weird noise - when the cycle had finished I found the container with the cleaner in it had gone walkabout so I assumed that was the cause.
Then I happened to accidentally start the dishwasher last night (we normally run it on a timer to catch the E7 discount so I’m normally in the land of nod when it runs.) & the noise was still there - like a rattly/ grinding noise coming from the pump!
I put the dishwasher on its normal cycle overnight just to check if it was still cleaning the dishes & when I got down this morning everything was clean (thankfully Mrs S has done her usual ‘selective’ empty of just the stuff she needed - normally this pisses me off but today it meant I could actually check the state of the dishes.).
I turned the machine on again & again there was the noise - the water pump was not happy!
I psyched myself up to do a full dismantle - not an easy thing given the location of the dishwasher & the way the plumbing is routed.
Before I started I thought it wise to see if I could get my hands on a service manual but while Miele happily provide a user manual online getting hold of a service manual needs one to part with cold, hard cash!
On the off chance that others may have encountered the same problem I did a DDG search for noisy Miele dishwashers & found a YT vid by a lass called Veronica, with the exact same noise. She demonstrated a technique to get at the pump from the inside of the machine & she found a part off the middle basket - like a very small long cap - seems it was a part off the middle tray assembly.
I followed the same procedure & found a similar shaped item in the pump cavity! In our case it was a protective cap that covers the tines along the edge of the bottom & middle baskets - I added these several years ago to help stop the plastic cover being damaged & corrosion setting in. (Them baskets are flipping expensive!!)
So suck on that all you JD Vance / Orange Oaf types who deride the ability’s of the women of the world, maybe one day you will join the rest of the human race in understanding that ability transcends all the DEI differences you scorn!
I take my hat off to Veronica & am so grateful to her for saving me hours of swearing & effort!
So now I’m sitting back listing to the whisper quiet sounds of the dishwasher as it goes thru a short test cycle!
12:27 Seems the dishwasher noise problem is solved! Yay to the power of folk like Veronica who have the nounce to a) solve such problems & b) make a video of her fix & explain it in short words for those of us with lesser abilities!
Wondering if I should do scrambled egg & beans for lunch - I have a hankering, that said we have some frozen ham that needs eating up so the scrambled egg may have to wait.
Ah Mrs S is moving about upstairs, no doubt feeling that I should be making her some lunch about now too.
Caught up on a few more of Mrs S’s tv shows this afternoon.
Pie & flipping salad for tea, not even a different salad, oh for an original choice 
Mrs S has discovered ‘The Tower’ cop series - which is ok but we binge watched series one & have started series 2. Enough already!
Final Thoughts.
Started reading J Clark Scott’s ‘But How Do It Work?’ as part of my re-discovery of computing basics & feel my deep abiding love for computing returning with a vengeance!
Oh I can leave most lay-people standing, & am a total nerd, but I last studied computing at college & although the bare basics are the same computing as a whole has come on leaps an bounds.
My expert knowledge used to be in Mainframe configuration & storage, but since one needs an inconveniently large room & some very specialised environmental kit to own one (not to mention a heap of money) then I needs must choose a smaller platform to work with. I have chosen Linux as there is a wealth of knowledge out there & it is easy & cheap to get a Linux box up & running (indeed I have UBUNTU installed on my old 2009 MBP) so all I really need is to get my hands on reference material & dig up the motivation to pursue my studies.
There is no motive here other than to learn - which is a new approach for me. I am sitting no targets & I have no great expectations at the end of the exercise.
I might even get into coding again, but for that I need a project so that will be down the line.
Yes @NormanDunbar I may well get an Arduino kit & use that along with your book as the basis of any future programming project, just bare with me my friend, with everything going off in my head it is going to take a little time to get there!
I might even be brave & get your books on using assembly language (when you finish them
) - but one step at a time!
I have already said thanks to @amiserabilist for pointing me at the book that is proving to be the catalyst for revisiting computing in its most fundamental forms but such thanks bares repeating! Thank you
Thank you to all those who are helping me on this journey, in a myriad different ways. I am thankful to each & every one of you!
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