It's nice to be useful

[wendyzski]

Decided to put the Korean Spa trip off to a less-bleedy time of month, so I was just hanging around with no real plans other than the usual (hit the job boards, pet the bunny, etc).

I was wandering around Facebook when I saw a post from a Faire friend "The toilet's broken - does anyone know a good and cheap plumber?".  Now, I know that she's a teacher and her mom is quite frail, so they don't have a lot of spare cash.  I also know that there are a lot of toilet tank repairs that you can do on your own with a decent home-repair book, a good local hardware store, and a couple of YouTube tutorials.  She also doesn't live all that far from me, so I loaded up my Home Depot 1-2-3 book and headed over.  Turned out that it wasn't something I'd actually done myself, so I took a digital photo of what seemed to be the problem and we headed over to Clark Devon Hardware.  As I'd expected, the guys at the plumbing counter took a look at the viewscreen and handed us the $15 part that was all we needed.  We did need to go back to my place at one point because her pliers weren't big enough to get a good grip on a stuck part, but once those were in-hand it was a 5 minute repair.  She and her mom are thrilled, and it was nice to feel all useful and stuffs.

Then this evening, also while wandering around facebook, I saw a post from another friend that a mutual friend had "done something" and now couldn't see her Facebook page!  Said person has been a real help to me many times, and I know she's disabled and very dependent on Facebook and other sites for her social interaction, so I figured I'd try to get things sorted out.  An e-mail and a couple of phone calls later, I was able to log in as her just fine from here (I was myself in Firefox and her in IE), which meant that it was likely a browser issue rather than a a facebook one.  Not being a Mac person I don't know enough about Safari to fix the actual issue, but was able to suggest that she try another browser.  She was able to get in just fine on Firefox, so at least she's on and connected, and can fiddle with Safari at her leisure.  Feeling slightly smug about managing tech support across 3 platforms and 2 time zones  :)

Comments

[queenmaggie.livejournal.com]

Brava!! ain't it great to feel accomplished?

[stormdog.livejournal.com]

*smiles* Go you! I'm glad you could help out.

[aedifica]

w00t! Go you!

[qnofhrt.livejournal.com]

Bravo! Want to try your hand at fixing the political system next?

[lisagems.livejournal.com]

Well, if you like feeling useful, I'll probably pick your brains about patio gardening. I want to grow greens I can actually eat and my patio is beyond shaded. I don't think there is *any* direct sunlight at any part of the day. So, when do I start? Do I need to start seeds indoors? What the heck am I doing?