(Readership?  It is all in the title……………..)

I have the fun cart on the lower tracks.  It is almost complete.  I still need to put on a reinforcing cross-strut that had to be measured in situ but it is all largely done and strong – almost ready to work.  And it is as heavy as an engine block.  OMG!  Thankfully, it also rolls as easily as a champion soap-box.  So far, it is working out. I am pleased.

‘Course, I am premature in that feeling of pleasure.  The difficult part is done (’cause I had to cobble the thing together using ‘found’ steel and apply beginner’s lesson #2 of my welding course – self taught). So, I am definitely happy about that.

LOWER FUNICULAR CART FABRICATED ON THE BACK DECK

But now comes the impossible part.  And that means it is even harder.

I have to wire that puppy up to the motor controller and the stop and go system.  It would be easier for me to re-wire a rat’s brain (since I don’t really care about the rat but I care about my funicular and the expensive parts that need to be employed) – even though neither are likely to ever work properly again once I have gotten involved.

CART DISASSEMBLED FOR TRANSPORTING DOWN TO THE LOWER DECK ON THE UPPERFUNICULAR

I’ve got a gazillion electronic wires going from one box to another and wiring diagrams are a complete mystery to me.  I have wiring cognitive disorder (WCD).  OK, basic, old-guy, cognitive disorder, if you must.  But I am also extra challenged in all things electrical, our working house and funicular notwithstanding.

Direct current, I almost get…almost.  But Alternating current?  That’s complete magic to me.  Conceptually, just-plain-whacked.  Total confusion reigns just thinking about it.  It results in complete ignorance for me at anything above the light switch stage and even that is taken on faith alone.  Shaky faith, I must confess.

It’s a miracle can blog about it.  (Sob.  It’really shouldn’t be such an emotional thing, ya know?)

REASSEMBLING CART IN SITU

As I have mentioned before; all printed wiring diagrams show wires going in straight lines and turning nicely rounded right-angled turns to go to hieroglyphic-like symbols instead of what is really there.  In reality, there is a jumble of wires (none straight and going in all different directions with a rainbow of colours and thicknesses).  They are going to weird looking plastic boxes most of them with a lightning bolt decal on the side.  Some have a decal image of a guy flying backwards through the air in one of those red circles with a line through it.  They are saying: “Do not touch this or you will die!”

ALMOST DONE

So, this is beyond difficult for me.  This is scary.  This is geek territory.  And given that geekdom is only for the young, I have to find a young twenty-something skinny guy with a pocket protector who writes software for fun and has a degree from MIT.  Or BCIT at least.  And who likes camping.

You will be surprised to learn that I have found two, maybe three of them.  But, like all geeks, they are busy wiring stuff together somewhere else and taking their smartphones apart in front of young women to impress them.  I am just not a priority.  Even with the allure of camping in a rustic cabin thrown in, I cannot compete with a smartphone.

Sadly, neither can she.

THE CART WILL BE PULLED UP THE TRACKS BY AN ELECTRIC MOTOR AND WINCH AND STOP LEVEL WITH THE DECK (ALL GOING WELL)

Maybe all three ingredients…?

And, even tho I found them, they have not necessarily found me.  We have yet to make a deal.  Part of the problem with geeks is that they assume that I have all the necessary parts and further, that there are geek-oriented instructions included.  The truth is that I don’t know what parts are necessary (if I did, would I need a geek?) and further, I am marrying odd things together and cobbling all from bits and pieces so there really is no overall instruction or plan.  There is only a goal to be wished for, a system to be imagined. I bring that and a beer and a sandwich to the equation.  Inventing and assembling is for the geeks.

They don’t seem to get that right from the get-go.  They process old doofus-speak slowly, it seems.  I have to allow a bit of time for the ‘cobble’ part of the geek brain to kick in.

So we currently have a gap in the geek-project continuum and I am the one who has to try to fill it. Then, and only then, will the geek deign to dive into the rat’s nest of wires in which to weave his evil magic. I need all the parts.  I need diagrams or at least exploded schematics of the insides of the black boxes and I need all the tools and wires and connectors whatever they may be.

Then he has to want to come to play.

To me, it is a classic Catch-22 that will probably electrocute me while driving me crazy. Ergo:F-U-N cart.    .