One of those days:Joystick woes.

[Obie303]

Here's the senario:  

Wife at home, doing some chores on the weekend.  
Me at work, pulling a double.  1500 to 0700 hours.
Wife is vacuuming a small rug by the desktop PC.  (Not that our house is even remotely close to being ever that dirty!)
Wife runs ove my microphone and joystick cords with the vacuume.  (now here take a little imagination.  Imagine my wife, pulling the joystick cord and mic cords out from under the vacuume rotating head thingy.)
Wife puts everything back in order.  Nothing appears to be wrong and the house now smells like Autumn Sunset or something like that.  This was on Sunday.  Now, I had no idea this had happened.

I finish a very long week of overtime, court, and regular stuff at work today.  I turn on the PC.  We're good.  Starting to feel the stress leave my soul.  I plug in the mic.  Ahhhh.  Getting better.  I plug in the joystick to the USB port; nothing.  I check the power cord.  Plugged in.  I re-check the USB port.  Plugged in.  Panic starts to set in.  I start to check the cords running to the joystick.  To my shock I find that the joystick cable is cut in about four different places.  GOD IN HEAVEN!  SOMEBODY IS GOING TO PAY!!!!!

I calm down by chugging the beer I had just opened and sit and stare at my now broken paperweight.  I then get the brilliant idea that I can fix this.  So down to the basement with my pride and joy cradled under my arm.  (Oh a side note, this is a Microsoft Force Feedback 2 that I've owned for about 10 years and never had one issue with it.)  
I break out the electrical tape, wire cutters, wire strippers, and settle in to operate.  I re-splice all the wires and tape the hell out of the USB cable so that my handy work doesn't come apart.  I run back up to the PC to check out the repairs.  
Turned everything on and it looks like I'm back in business.  I start to settle in with another beer as I go to the TA for a quick flight just to check things out.  I up a Dora and help Yanksfan out with some sound recordings.  The flight goes alright but I'm noticing that the force feedback now has a vibration.  I turn down the force feedback with dispair.  And another issue, every time I key my mic, nothing.  Now since I've already experienced the splicing hell I was just in, I figured not my mic too.  Yep, you guessed it.  Mic is cut in four places too!  WHY ME?????  I chug the second beer and start eyeing the bottle of vodka on the counter.

Frustrated that my joystick is now deformed and my mic is out of commission, I resigned myself to sharing this lovely story with everyone.  

Well, I now have a major dilemma.  To prevent this from happening again I've decided to either get rid of my wife or the vacuume.  Its a coin toss at this point.

Even more joy.  The wife just got home and I asked her about the joystick.  Her reply, "I didn't think it was that big of a deal.  It's just a game."   VODKA, RUM, TEQUILA, SOMETHING!!!! I need shots of something!!!!!  

I guess that my rant is now done and I have a good buzz going on, I would like to thank everyone for taking the time to read this and let this be a warning to everyone, Make sure you have enough booze for emergencies!

Oh yeah, the reason why I started this thread is while I search Ebay for a new joystick, anyone have a suggestion for a reliable back up for the time being?


Obie:aok

[Kermit de frog]

Great write-up.

Look for the MS Precision Pro w/o Force feedback.

It will work for 10 years.

Look on ebay.

[REP0MAN]

PM on the way Obie!

[DamnedRen]

Yer not gonna believe this but it seems like every garage sale I go to there's some sort of older joystick for sale at prices from $2-5. I've seen a few sidewinders out there but never paid em much mind. Perhaps I should start buying them up for the guys here

[Ghosth]

My wife has been bringing home MS sidewinder Prec Pro's from the second hand store for years now. Ussually pays about 2$ each for them.

I just shipped a pair of them off to a needy AHer.

However, my advice is this.


1 Forget about FF

2 This is your chance to have your wife buy you a new Hotas and Headset.
She broke it, she replaces it.

3 If she doesn't, take the vacumn hostage, threaten to use a shotgun, black powder, or other explosives on it till she cough's up the dough for the goodies. When you can fly again, she can clean again.

4 Vacumn is NEVER allowed into the same room as the computer without you there to watch. Some things its actually better to do yourself, this is one of them.

My "office" is my sanctum sanctorium, she may run the rest of the house. But she consults me on anything to do with the office.  She has even learned not to try to be in there on a squad night.  

If you absolutely have to have the FF make her spend the time searching Ebay daily until she finds and successfully bids on one. You simply refuse to do ANYTHING she asks until she has fixed what she broke. Trust me, in a week she'd have one special delivered to your door.  

ps I went to AH con in 2001, came home to a spotlessly clean office, couldn't find ANYTHING.  I ended up cutting the cords off of 3 fans, 2 lights and a vacumn before she came begging for forgiveness. Every day something died, every day it was worse than the day before. Then I went to the hardware store, bought a handfull of cord ends and spent a day fixing things.  
The war is over now, and its MY office  

[The Fugitive]

Originally posted by Ghosth
My wife has been bringing home MS sidewinder Prec Pro's from the second hand store for years now. Ussually pays about 2$ each for them.

I just shipped a pair of them off to a needy AHer.

However, my advice is this.


1 Forget about FF

2 This is your chance to have your wife buy you a new Hotas and Headset.
She broke it, she replaces it.

3 If she doesn't, take the vacumn hostage, threaten to use a shotgun, black powder, or other explosives on it till she cough's up the dough for the goodies. When you can fly again, she can clean again.

4 Vacumn is NEVER allowed into the same room as the computer without you there to watch. Some things its actually better to do yourself, this is one of them.

My "office" is my sanctum sanctorium, she may run the rest of the house. But she consults me on anything to do with the office.  She has even learned not to try to be in there on a squad night.  

If you absolutely have to have the FF make her spend the time searching Ebay daily until she finds and successfully bids on one. You simply refuse to do ANYTHING she asks until she has fixed what she broke. Trust me, in a week she'd have one special delivered to your door.  

ps I went to AH con in 2001, came home to a spotlessly clean office, couldn't find ANYTHING.  I ended up cutting the cords off of 3 fans, 2 lights and a vacumn before she came begging for forgiveness. Every day something died, every day it was worse than the day before. Then I went to the hardware store, bought a handfull of cord ends and spent a day fixing things.  
The war is over now, and its MY office  

While Ghost usually has great suggestions I think he has gone overboard with this set a bit.

Punishing the wife isn't something you EVER want to get into. Instead, I like to call these kinds of catastrophe "Upgrade Opportunities" I find it is much better to work on the "guilt" than to possibly get their temper fired up.  Plus this trick works over and over. A few months down the road she'll forget what happen, and if your lucky she may screw something else up and you can upgrade again. On the other hand, if you tick her off, she will NEVER forget !!!:D

As for the stick, you can run down the street from your "office" and pick up a cheapy to get you by at Walmart. On the other hand, shipping from Provantage is pretty quick, and you can't go wrong with a full CH set up.

Take the plunge neighbor !!!

[Obie303]

Thanks everyone for the PM's.  I found a new stick that'll be coming within a week.  This little fiasco has definately taught me a lesson though.  I used to have the Microsoft Presision Pro that I gave to somebody many years ago when I upgraded to the MS FF2.  Never get rid of anything!

Ghosth, Fugitive is right.  In the past I've done some real bonehead stuff and the wife STILL brings them up after 8 years!  Something about a grill and gasoline comes to mind.  

Making her pay for it?Never going to happen.  We have an agreement that goes way back.  You see, I have one of those jobs that requires me to work weekends, holidays, and I'm basically on call 24/7.  The agreement was that if I miss a family function, she gets double presents for any upcoming holiday or birthday.  Needless to say, I STILL owe her!!!!!  (We just celebrated our anniversary and I'll finally starting to get out of the dog house!)  

I also found the same mic that I was using and that should be here by the end of the week.  Things are starting to look up for the time being.  I really wish I could swing buying the CH stuff.  But unfortunately paying around 300 dollars would DEFINATELY have me sleeping in the guest bedroom for a month!

Thanks again everyone!
!

Obie:aok

[Ghosth]

LOL well some of that was a bit tongue in cheek.

[Meatwad]

You should share the grill and gasolene story

[Obie303]

Originally posted by Meatwad
You should share the grill and gasolene story

I plead the 5th on that one!:D   I will say that I now know what a back draft looks like, hair smells real bad when it's burnt, and re-building part of a deck is alot harder than it looks!

Obie:aok

[The Fugitive]

So THAT was what that plume of smoke just west of here was all about !!!  

[FBplmmr]

Originally posted by Obie303
I plead the 5th on that one!:D   I will say that I now know what a back draft looks like, hair smells real bad when it's burnt, and re-building part of a deck is alot harder than it looks!

Obie:aok

pictures of the alleged incident would be good:D


my old room-mate would start the grill like this--

1) keep lid closed
2) turn on gas
3) go get a cold beverage
4) twist up a piece of newspaper and light the end
5) poke lit newspaper into or near the hole in side of the grill where a rotisserie rod would go.

whooompfff!


6) laugh like a madman



the grill lights and conveniently the lid opens automatically.

[pervert]

you could just get a new usb lead crack open the sidewinder ff2 and resolder it like the orignal bridging a wire 4 times is bound to affect it.

[SkyRock]

Originally posted by Obie303


Oh yeah, the reason why I started this thread is while I search Ebay for a new joystick, anyone have a suggestion for a reliable back up for the time being?


Obie:aok

Get in touch with Pacerr, he has plenty of extra stiks he'll sell you one.

[morfiend]

Fair is fair,just break her favorite Joystick.....