Steve's "McGuyver Moment"

Yesterday was a rough day. Dana and Maria left for the U.S. I got laughed at while running (again). Yeah, it was rough. But it got worse. Later yesterday evening, I checked my fancy-schmancy running geek GPS watch and realized the battery needed charging. So, I got out the power supply, hooked it up and plugged it in like I always do. And what happens? Nothing. There was no indication of charging at all. After a quick bit of troubleshooting, my blood ran cold as I realized my power supply was dead!

Running Geek with no GPS - "Oh the humanity!"

What was I going to do? This power supply is a special power supply that came with my fancy-schmancy GPS watch. How will I find one in Bucharest? Am I doomed? Will I never know the precise distance and speed of my runs without "measuring" the distance the old way? Will this running geek ever get to use his mapping and graphing software ever again???

Suddenly, a thought came to mind - Bucur Obur Market. Yes! They have everything from fresh fruit to mountain bikes. From stereos to live chickens. We profiled Bucur Obur in our family blog on April 15 HERE. So, I headed to the market after work today. Since Bird Flu is a big news story here, I decided to skip the live chickens and just focus on the power supply.

Mixed Results and technical decision making 101

Well, with a little luck, I found a booth with a bunch of power supplies. Unfortunately, there was no exact match. I needed a 400 mili-amps with 5 volts. The closest one I found there was 500 mili-amps and 4.5 volts. After a serious 30 second technical evaluation, I figured "What's 100 mili-amps and 0.5 volts between friends?" So I bought the power supply anyway and headed home. This is where things got interesting...

Before I finish, those who don't know me very well need a little background to fully appreciate what happened next. Anyone who knows me, knows that I have very little hands-on mechanical ability. And the only thing worse than my hands-on mechanical ability, is my hands-on electrical ability. That's what makes this next part so amazing.

All jacked up with no place to plug

Ok, so I got home with high hopes and opened up my new power supply. Right away, I noticed the problem. The dead power supply has a specially shaped jack which plugs into a special receptacle on my fancy-schmancy GPS watch. This way, the company which makes the fancy-schmancy GPS watch forces most running geeks to buy their fancy-schmancy power supply also. None of the jacks on my newly purchased ($6) power supply matched. So, get this: I actually came up with a plan to cut the cords on both power supplies and splice the dead power supply jack with the new power supply cord. With nothing but a pocket knife and a rusty pair of pliers, I went to work...And...(I know the suspense must be killing you) Here is the result:

That my friends, is the sight of a happily charging fancy-schmancy GPS watch and the tools Steve used to make it happen. McGuyver's got nothin' on me - nothin' I say.

Stay tuned for the next episode when our hero, Steve J, returns to Bucur Obur Market for electrical tape and battles the evil bird-flu powered live chickens....(to be continued...ok I'm kidding on that).