Archive: I love my repairman - Thanksgiving is saved!

Originally posted Nov. 19, 2007
My oven is back in business , thanks to my resident repairman--my son--pictured above. (Two days ago, I almost had a Chernobyl--my oven wouldn't shut off!)

Friday night, he searched the internet and ordered the parts. Today, the parts arrived. Tonight, he fixed the oven. Thanksgiving is saved!

By the way, I take no credit for his abilities. We never formally studied electronics in the 13 years I taught him. He just was interested and I had the good sense to get out of his way.

My husband and I always encouraged our son to do real work at an early age though, and he taught our son quite a bit about electricity and volt meters etc. while doing work around the house.

I think kids can do far more than we give them credit for. We tend to insulate them and keep them in the play workshop world too long instead of letting them do real jobs (with close supervision, of course).

Here is the culprit--a small, innocent looking relay--that because of its failure, could have burned down the house!

The surprising thing was that they were German made. We were expecting them to be of Chinese origin. Both were replaced*, so the oven is back in business.

My final Thanksgiving food tip is to cook the turkey upside down.

I have done this for years and it results in very juicy white meat. I usually start it upside down for at least 1 1/2 - 2 hours. Since we don't carve the bird at the table, presentation is not an issue, so I left it upside down 1 hour longer last year. If you have those new silicone hot mitts, you can just grab the turkey and turn it back right side up after the allotted time and let it finish baking. If you don't have the mitts, turning can be a little challenging--but worth it in juicy white meat.

Maybe tomorrow I will get back to blogging about 4K**. I needed to take a break and talk about more pleasant things for a bit, so thanks for bearing with me. The recipes also gave me a chance to try out an older laptop that came my way with the remote desktop feature on my computer. That was fun!

UPDATES: *Since this post was written, these relays failed again in 2010 and needed to be replaced.

**We thought we killed 4K back in 2007 when I originally wrote this post , but here we are in 2010 bringing it up again as a money maker for the Elmbrook School district.

Links: Practically Speaking, Betterbrookfield, RandyMelchert, Jay Weber, Vicki McKenna, The Right View Wisconsin, CNS News, Mark Levin, Breitbart BigGovernment, The Heritage Foundation