So long, and thanks for the Fish Tape

Before we went out earlier I threw out some trash, and as I threw it into the dumpster I saw an extremely long strip of narrow metal and I thought, that looks like a Fish Tape. Liz doesn't like me Dumpster Diving and as she was already in the car with Amber I knew I had no chance of checking out my hunch, so out we went.

When we returned and put Amber to bed she had a poopy diaper, so I took it straight out to the dumpster (rather than leave it in our bin in the kitchen all night to stink our house up) and when I lifted the lid of the dumpster, there was my Fish Tape. In I went and as soon as I grabbed the tape I knew my hunch was correct. I managed to pull it out and the only problem with it was the handle had come off the side so the Fish Tape couldn't be wound back into the case.

No problem. There was still a square bit where the handle had been attached (it looks more like the handle slips on and off this square, so maybe they just lost the handle) and I have spanners, so I took the Fish Tape into the garage, took out a 1/2" spanner, which fit the square perfectly, and using the spanner as a handle I wound the Fish Tape back into the case.

I was going to buy a Fish Tape because at some point I want to run the Internet/Cable TV cables down the inside of family room wall behind the TV, and I'll need Fish Tape to do that. But it's worth the trouble of doing that because that will look a damn sight more professional than what we currently have; cables emerging from the closet, running across the wall, over the top of the door frame, and in behind the TV. Yep, now I can do a professional cable install...but when I'm ready and not a moment before :P

Actually my sister & her husband will be here later this year, and he's an Electrical Engineer. Not quite the same as an Electrician, but damn close to it. I might enlist his help with this little project ;)

* EDIT *

Fish Tape is a thin, narrow, strip of metal with a hook of some kind on the end; in my case, it has a spiral of wire akin to a spring. The fish tape is fed down into the space inside a wall, between the drywall and the studs, until it reaches the hole you've cut in the drywall for your TV cable to come through. You then attach a thin piece of wire to the hook (wire spring) and reel in the Fish Tape, which pulls the wire up along with it. You now have a piece of thin wire in your attic running down inside the wall to the hole in the drywall which is where you'll put your TV cable outlet. In the attic is also your Cable TV cable, which you attach to the thin piece of wire. You then pull the wire back down which pulls the Cable TV cable along with it, and now, you have a small hole in your drywall with your Cable TV cables coming out of it. Finally you feed the Cable TV cable through the hole in your outlet plate, attach the plate to the wall, and you have a professionally installed (or so it would seem) Cable TV outlet where none existed before.
You do this so you don't have cables emerging from your closet and running around the floor and through doorways and across ceilings.