One Day to Solstice Party

We have been scurrying around the house busily preparing for the Winter Solstice, a pagan ritual which we observe every six months. It gives us an excellent excuse for having a party. It also forces us to clean the house...at least to the best of our abilities, considering the many unfinished remodeling projects throughout the house.

Worst of all for this season, Susan has added stress due to a cold. She has felt like shit for the past few days but hasn't really taken the opportunity to slow down and try to get better. She may spend the Solstice in bed.

I really need to do something about that moss.

Sloppy Sloppiness in SlopTown

After all those days of single digit temperatures last week, we finally get some moisture and everything warms up. We still have snow on the ground but it's sloppy and freezy and ...well, wintry. What the hell am I complaining about?!

Susan is starting to feel under the weather. This is bad because she already feels enough stress. Illness will not keep her down until it is killing her. She needs to take a break and relax but that will only add more stress. It's a vicious cycle. The more stressed she gets, the more she needs to relax. If she relaxes, she'll feel more stress.

I'm trying to help but I am useless when it comes to decorating the house. I don't know what goes where. If I attempt to put what where, I will more than likely be wrong. However, certain stressed people may have to accept that.

And that adds to the stress.

Ten Days to Go

We woke up this morning to our first real snowfall of the season. I would guess there was about 3 to 4 inches. It was enough to get out there and give the neighborhood a blow.

It felt great to get out there again with the big green snow machine. It was a little resistant to starting. I must admit that I haven't treated it well since last season. I just drained the gas tank and let it sit all summer.

Anyway, the Snow Blower was hesitant to start but I coaxed it along and it finally fired up and ran like a champ. I need to get it some oil which I will do tonight.

Once again, I covered the neighborhood. I do it partly because of the Spider-Man credo which says that with Great Power comes Great Responsibility. The Snow Blower is Great Power. And
I do not take the responsibility lightly.

The other reason I do it is because I shove a lot of snow into the yard of my neighbor across the alley. Doing his walk is a peace offering.To end, here is a lovely early morning shot of the house after the first pristine snowfall of the 2009 winter.

Little Bastard Free For All

We are finally finished with the skywalk system of downtown Spokaloo and we are painting no mo!

It's amazing how much something like that will drain you over the course of a couple of weeks. Of course, we are no spring chickens and I am even less springy and more chickeny than Susan.

But it is finished now and all we have to do is go around and fix the endless vandalism that is occurring everywhere because little bastards feel the need to express themselves. I have taken a jar of paint down to the people who organized this and they have people that will go around and touch things up.

We now have to concentrate on the up coming Solstice Party, set for this Saturday Night. We have some cleaning to do and some decorating to do.

Last night was the Corbin Park Carriage Ride. It was successful but not as well attended as in the past. That might be because of a neighbor who recently moved away. They always had a big party on that night and invited a ton of their friends. It kind of clogged up the ride.

Okay, off the roast chestnuts or decorate cookies or some holiday tradition. Tah!

The Last Flake

The picture above depicts what I believe to be the last snow flake of the Skywalk Painting Season.

Sub-Zero

I woke up this morning to three degrees below zero. I got one cat to go out but that lasted about two minutes.

Last night, we were painting in a skywalk that slowly cooled as the night went on. Actually, it cooled pretty fast. It got to a point where I couldn't smooth out and roller my painted image before the paint froze. I would have taken a picture but it was too cold.

Marathon Painting Day Two

Out of the three skywalks we painted on Sunday, two were heated. We did the cold one first and happily got that out of the way. That was the skywalk at the STA Bus Plaza. This is usually an easy one because the little shits that inhabit the bus depot vandalize our painting. To combat that, I just paint outlines of the skating silhouettes rather than fill them in.

My calculations indicate that Susan and I each earned $34.00 per hour this weekend. The house remodeling budget will appreciate that even though it doesn't feel very impressive to me. But then, I think about people who aren't earning any money per hour right now and I feel much luckier.

This would not be a good time of year to be homeless in Spokaloo.

As I write this entry at 6:30AM on Monday morning, the temperature is ten (10) {dix} degrees outside. I am through talking to anyone about Global Warming.

Marathon Paint Day One

I had to work at Scotty's Bar & Grill this morning but I managed to get someone (Kristina) to come in and take over for me at 10AM. That got me home by 10:30 and Susan and I hauled ourselves downtown to commence to painting at 11:30AM. We left at 9:30PM. My math tells me we worked for 10 hours. That's $600.00 more into the remodeling fund.

I don't feel too terribly bad. I am a little bit sore but surprisingly chipper. I expected to feel worse. We are going to try for three skywalks tomorrow. We need to be down there at 9AM. I should feel like total crap by this time tomorrow.

I must say that even though we are under the gun to get these skywalks painted, it's not like anyone is breathing down our backs. The pressure t0 get them done in coming from us. I mean, it's the holiday season and we have shit to do.

I did find myself enjoying the painting today. I'm talking about the actual process of standing there with brush in hand and just being creative...even if I'm being creative on a template. I have to remember that this can be fun. There is no rason I shouldn't be enjoying myself.

The major problem we had today was that the second skywalk we worked in was unheated. We might as well have been painting outside. That is until I went outside and felt how really cold it was out there. They say it will be cold tonight. The temperature right now at 11:21PM is 26 degrees. The forecasters are calling for it to drop to 10 or 12 degrees tonight.

I hope we have heated skywalks tomorrow.

One Third of the Way to the Finish Line

As I sit here in front of the computer at the end of a long day of working and painting, drinking what might possibly be the best tasting beer ever, I feel a bit of remorse over my last entry. It sounded like we were beat down and tired after just getting started with the painting. Then, we went out to paint last night and only worked for a couple of hours, having a very nice relaxing evening.

We finished the City Hall Skywalk that we started on Monday night. I was planning on continuing to another venue and Susan kind of intimated that we should call it a night. Ever the Lazy Slob, I wasted no time in backing up the bags and getting the hell outta thar.

Tonight we painted in a skywalk that is not quite as long as the others and the time went pleasantly swift. We will do another shorty tomorrow and then take Friday off due to Susan having to work a hockey game and Tile Master Ron visiting to complete his task of two weeks ago.

We will be back to painting mode this weekend and a marathon event it will be. We will be attempting to complete two skywalks on Saturday and two more on Sundurday. Our progress will of course be related here with much unneccessary and flowery wordery...a veritable assault on the Kings English.

In the meantime, here is a cool picture I took tonight of the front of the house with a bitchin' full moon on the rise.

No Time to Blog

Their is know thyme two right write now. Not even time to correct grammatical or syntactical errors.

We are in Skywalk Painting Mode and it looks like we will remain in that mode for at least another week. That also means that we will be in Grumpy Mode for at least another week. Susan and I aren't taking it out on each other but we're trying very hard to be in good humor.

The task of working all day and then painting into the evening is already taking its toll on us...well, at least me! And it's only Tuesday!

As of today, we have three skywalks completed and se7en to go. The possibility exists that a couple more will be added. I assuage my consternation (Captain Thesaurus) by remembering to keep my eye on the prize...namely; all the remodeling money that will be coming our way.

Thanksgiving Eve

Thanksgiving has to be one of the best holidays in the holiday lexicon. Susan and I like it because of Thanksgiving Eve. That is the Wednesday night before Thanksgiving which is really a Friday night. We like to go to a place called Blues at the Bend. We gather many friends together and have a wonderful evening and you don't have to worry about getting up or feeling small in the morning.

Last night was no exception. We got there about 6 in order to procure a good table. Gonzaga played a championship tourney game in Hawaii against Cincinnati. They were behind most of the game but won by a point in O.T. It was a great game and the crowd was into it even when the band was playing.

We got up this morning and got our painting duds together. We painted two spots, which is our Thanksgiving tradition.

This is just the start of many more days and nights of painting to come.

Tile Conundrum

I am soooooo happy that I invited my friend Brian over tonight so he could witness the process of beer making with his own self in the proximity of the beer making equipment in order to totally screw up my entryway tile project.

Perhaps I should explain.

My friend and fraternity brother Brian has become interested in home brewing because he has tasted my home brew and thereby been sucked into the brewing brotherhood. And while he has made the effort to buy some introductory equipment into the endeavor, he has not yet brewed.

Brian has planned a festive holiday party for the early part of the festive holiday season to be held at his festive holiday home located in the festive Glenrose region of the Spok-Anal Area. I offered to make a keg of beer for his festive gathering. He wanted to break his Brewing Cherry on my dime so I invited him over to observe the festive brewing process.

While here, he commented on my entry way tile project and how festively fabulous it was. Then came the issue of the transition into the TV room. I was planning on placing tile there. Tile Master Ron was planning on placing tile there. Susan said that she thought there should be wood in that spot rather than tile. I said, "Oh Susan. Poor poor little Susan. How can you be so misguided?!"

But tonight, Brian said, "You don't want tile there. If you are in the TV Room, with the door closed, you would see tile. You want to see wood until it transitions under the door."

I should say at this point that Brian is an ASSHOLE! Oh sure, he may be a correct asshole...but an asshole nonetheless.

Why is Brian an asshole? Because now, thanks to his un-invited critique, Susan is doing the victory dance around the tile and I have no choice but to admit defeat. WHY?! Because I was wrong!

If you will note in the picture above, the red dotted line indicates where the door will be when it is closed. It is clear to me now that the area from the wood to the tile should be filled with wood...not tile. It took an outsider to point this out to me.

Now here is the important point to get from this. "Always listen to your wife!"

Here is an alternate, less emasculating way to look at it. People need to come through your house and look at your projects and give their opinions. Nine hundred and ninety-nine times out of fifty their opinions will suck. But occasionally, a Brian (Asshole) will come through and hurt your short term pride in order to save you from a lifetime of humiliation.

I can clearly see now that Brian (and Susan) was correct. Fortunately, I have not written this down anywhere will people will find out about it.

Snow Day

This was the picture outside when we woke up this morning. The forecasters had threatened us with a snowfall but I often think they do that just to cover their asses. They made a lot of noise about winter storm warnings. But there was really nothing to worry about. This was the scene when we returned from church. I didn't even get a chance to break out the snow shovel.

Lazy day around the ranch today. I'm sitting here at the keyboard and Susan is scraping the stairs...trying to remove some of the stain so we can get that stalled project under way again. Perhaps I should go help. I think it's helpful to sit here and write about it.

Tile and Beer

For the rest of the week, I'll be writing more about the installation of the tile and how cool it looks. This is due to the fact that I can't do anything else until we get more tile. I should have an update on that soon but in the meantime, there's other stuff to talk about.

You may recall that I grew a couple of hops vines over the past summer. One of the dangers of growing hops is having to harvest hops and then do something with your harvest. Yesterday we did something.

Tile Master Ron also grew hops and we decided that along with the tile project, we would make some beer. It's a recipe I haven't tried before but it specifically calls for Sterling hops, which is what we grew. Talk about co-inky-dink!

So in between slopping down mortar and placing tile, we measured hops and boiled wort. it was quite a busy day. I know, it looks similar to making some sort of drug deal. Well, it is a drug deal. We're making beer and beer contains alcohol and alcohol is the most widely distributed drug in my bloodstream. And it's Legal!The beer was bubbling nicely as I left for work this morning and will be ready in a couple of weeks. I need to get on the beer ball and get another batch going for a party in early December.

We are about to hit our busy season. Painting skywalks, working on the house, and our general partying schedule will keep us very busy.

So Close and yet...

Because I am an idiot and incapable of counting correctly, I am one half of one tile short in completing the entry way. It could have been much worse.

The way I had arranged the tile in my plan, I figured I needed 27 square feet...27 tiles. I bought 30 thinking I would have enough to cover the inevitable mistakes. As we were coming to the end of the project today, I started counting tiles and realized we were going to be short.

Actually, I'm being a little hard on myself. We would have been perfect except that one of the tiles broke. However, I can't figure out how I miscounted so badly. Instead of needing 27, I needed 33. Ron ended up redesigning the way we put the tile down. It saved us lots of cuts and somehow, it used less tile. That is why we have Ron.

So, we are not quite done yet. I need to buy another 5 tiles. But, even so, it looks fabulous. Here are the pictures. Get ready! You will soon be sporting a tremendous woody.

You can see the area we still need to tile. One of the things that I totally missed is the sliver of floor in the new door on the right side of the pictures. I did not take that into account when I was miscounting how much tile I needed.

It goes without saying (and yet, I'm going to say it) that Susan and I are thrilled. It really looks good. The colors are just right and it looks like it belongs there. It makes you want to come in and do something elegant...have a snifter of cognac, talk down to the servants and chat about the opera.

Lame Snowfall Report

Yesterday's snow fall turned out to be totally unimpressive. I feel embarrassed to have wasted the time here talking about it. It snowed for a couple of hours but never stuck or accumulated to the expected two inches. That is just as well. I still have a few leaves I would like to get cleaned up and it is not helpful when they're covered by snow.

I did notice some whiteness on the south hill as I drove to the bar this morning. There was also some snow on the hills above the valley. A couple of hundred feet makes a big difference.

I worked at the bar today and now I have to get ready to work some benefit thing that I agreed to do with my friend, Mark. I really shouldn't have agreed to do this because after I bar tend for eight hours, my body starts to freeze up and doesn't want to do any more work. All I'm doing is pouring wine so it shouldn't be too bad. Still, I would much prefer to sit here in the house and pour wine...for ME.

I'm getting excited because tomorrow is tile day. Ron is coming at tenish and he fully expects to have the project done by the end of the day. I will of course, have extensive photographic and wordal evidence here.

Later that Night: I returned from the charity event at about 8:30. It went well and I really had very little to do other than stand there and drink beer...really, the perfect kind of charity event for me. The event was to benefit a group called the Olive or the Olive Group or something like that. They help with adoptions and abused kids.

Anyway, I arrived home and decided it was a good night for a stump fire. It was about 17 degrees and I had a good collection of stuff to burn. The debris was cold and frosty and slightly wet so I gave it a little boost with some gasoline. I must have put a little too much on because when I through the match on it, it literally knocked me backwards. There was the initial spark and then a big "Fooom" sound that exploded in front of me. It was really cool!

I really like this picture. You can see heat vapors rising out of the flames. It gives you an indication of how cold it was. In short, a delightful night by the Stump.

First Snow Fall

I don't normally blog during my work day (or if I do, I don't admit it). But I feel important to note that at 1:58 PM on November, Friday the 13th, the first official snow fall of the season began a fallin'!

Mo' Leveler

Tile Master Ron came by last night and we added another layer of leveling compound to the entry way floor. It still has a hump in the middle but it's not as bad as it was. There is a definite downhill feel to the floor as you walk in. The subliminal sense will be to make you feel more welcome as you enter because you come in really really fast.
I have picked up the tile and it is in our possession. I have spoken with Tile Master Ron concerning his availability for Sunday and he has confirmed his availability-ness. We will be making a tile entry this weekend. That is a definite possible maybe!

Trip to the Dump

I arose from a Sunday Night/Mondy Morning Slumber and got the week started at the dump. I arrived at the Sullivan Road Transfer Station just after se7en and proceeded to make myself all sweaty.

Again, at least 100 pounds of water was dumped. Total cost for dumping all my leaves this weekend: $16.85. That does not include the gas for Rob's truck or the cost of hosing it out and returning it to it's pristine state. That's my job at lunch.

Above is a nice shot of my pickup load of wet leaves at the dump this morning.

I hope I get to pick up my tile today. I will find out shortly. It's only 30 tiles so it won't be any big deal to get it...providing it has arrived.

I found some interesting damage to the hardwood floor right in front of the stairway. There is an end piece of wood that chipped off it's plank. The end piece adjacent to it also has a big chip that flicked off. The wood underneath the chip is dirty looking which leads me to believe this is old damage.

Rainy Sunday

The forecast called for rain and it didn't disappoint. It rained pretty much all day. It rained in various strength and amounts but it suffices to say that it was wet ot der.

That severely interfered with our plans for yard leaf removal. We were hoping the rain would hold off until late in the day. Nonetheless, we went forth with our plans and were successful in the effort. I made a trip to the dump with a heavily laden pickup truck and I have another load ready to go for the morning on my way to work.

I have wondered this before and will do it again, I'm sure. How much of my dump fee went to pay for water that was in my leaves? The city makes a nice little sum of money on rainy days, I suspect.

The yard is nice and clean and most of the leaves are out of the trees so I think we are done with leaves for the season. I do have a side yard that we didn't get to but the leaves are mostly in what passes for our flower beds so I'm not going to worry too much.

Bring on the Snow! We be ready!

Shoppers make last minute dash for Halloween costumes

I had a link here to a video of the house that was on the news but I'm told that the station is charging 99 cents to view it. Never mind!

Halloween Hang Over

The nice thing about preparing for Halloween all day, and then suddenly being caught up in all the activity, and then winding down afterwards and eventually lumbering off to bed is we got a whole extra hour of sleep time in. It's the return to Standard Time in the Pacific Northwest and it came at a great time.

We spent the day in the process of de-Halloweenization. We did pretty well. Everything is down and almost everthing has been properly stowed away. I even got the lawn mower put away and got some stuff out to prepare for snow.

We were visited yesterday by a News Crew from KXLY TV. They shot part of a story about Halloween in our front yard. I have it linked but it's the next post after this one. It's nothing special but it does show the house and a little bit of me.

In the meantime, here are some more pictures.

H-A-L-L-O-W-E-E-E-E-E-N

Unofficial Count: 844! No words, Just Pictures!!

One Day Until Halloween

Tonight was our Annual Treaters Treat Night. Many of the neighbors get together and do a progressive dinner at three different houses in the neighborhood.

We started with hors d'oeuvres at Marg and Tami's. Then we went for dinner at a house we haven't been in before. The owners are new to the hood...Ashley and Dave, and they have a very cool house. They did some major remodeling before moving in. Their kitchen is killer.

We finished with dessert down the street from us at the Lamanna's, another house we haven't been in. It's a great house with lots of wood and it is all finished. Susan did some major coveting tonight as she is jealous of these people with finished houses.

At left is our costumed get ups for the night.

Three Days Until Halloween

We completed our carving last night. Pictured below is the batch of punkins we completed. Here is a herd of our punkins ready to scare the living shit out of any little child who dares to come to our house begging for candy. Halloween is tough. The sooner you learn that, the better off you'll be.

It has come to our attention that due to our tremendous talent for crafting truly excellent wines, wines with character, clarity and a touch of animosity, we have won some money from the fair. I thought that there were no premiums given for wine or beer but it appears that has changed.

For our various entries we have been presented a check for $21.00! It's like our Gate Fees and our first Elephant Ears were FREE this year!...or next year.

Crap Load O'Lantern

I have been trying to load a video tour of the Haunted House but it must be too big because it takes 4 EVER to download. So instead, I'll throw up a picture of last nights carving efforts.
We are pretty pleased with our efforts so far. We have four more to carve tonight. That will give us 14 real pumpkins on top of the 18 artificial pumpkins we have. That should lead to a well regulated throng of pumpkins.

Six Days to Halloween

The Punkin Party was a success except for one small item. We invite our friends over to help us carve the pumpkins we have purchased to put in the yard. Part of our Halloween display is a huge number of Jack-O-Lanterns in the yard. After everybody left, we had fewer pumpkins. Some people (kids-and I know who they are) took them home with them cuz they were so pleased with their results.

I still have three more pumpkins that need to be carved. I'll get that done during the week. A good TV watching activity.

In the meantime, here are some pictures.

We got up a lot of leaves, just in time before the rain comes.The Crowd O'CarversThe Pumpkin Carving Award Winners

Punkin Party Time

It's been a quiet week on Lake Waverly Place...at least as far as Tile Work is concerned. I am still waiting for my "contractor", Brian, to get things arranged so I can pick up the marble tile. Since he isn't really a contractor, I'm not high on his priority list. The thing is, I need him but he don't need me. It's not like he's making any money on this. But he can save me about $150.00 on the tile.

Now Halloween is approaching (Se7en Days away) and we probably won't install the tile until after that holiday is in the rear view. I don't want to have a whole bunch of traffic on the new tile right after its installation.

Tonight is our annual Pumpkin Carving Party. I really don't have time to sit here and make this entry. I should be doing something else to get ready for the party. So don't tell Susan I'm up here typing away.

Oh wow! I just looked at the time and it's less than an hour before people start arriving. I guess I better get going. I'll have all the exciting party info tomorrow.

Getting Ready for Tile

The one main obstacle that must be overcome before we lay the tile in the entryway involves humping. Well, de-humping actually. The floor is not level. Here's the deal.

The area we are tiling is 87" x 72". The foundation of the house sits almost in the middle of that area. It's a little closer to the door than the middle. Over a period of 100 years, the house has had time to settle, as you might expect a house to do. The area from the foundation to the front door (approx. 25") has a huge dip...almost an inch and a half.

So here's a series of pictures showing the process of the sub floor going down and then the self leveling compound being forced into self leveling.

So, with the help of my Tile Mentor Ron, we laid a sub floor yesterday and then filled in the dip with mud. It's a self leveling compound that turned out to be very effective. The only thing now is that when you walk in the door, you definitely feel a downward slope as you enter.Above is my mock up of how this all should look when it's finished. The top of the picture is the front door and the bottom transitions to the hardwood floor. The colors still look a little off compared to the real thing but it's a good enough representation to show what we have planned.

Finally, here's a picture showing the results of one of the cats trying to help out.

Tile Arrival

Even though it was Columbus Day yesterday, a day in which the U.S. Postal Service does not deliver, I was very excited to arrive home and find a large rolled bundle of tile joy on the front porch.

I dragged it inside and hid it from Susan because we were going to dinner at Mom's and I wanted to surprise her when we returned.

So we returned and hauled it out. Excited, she was! I carefully cut through the packaging. This mosaic is 50" x 36" so I assumed it would come in pieces that we assemble. I quickly realized that it was all one piece. With great anticipation and a slight fear that it would not be what we ordered, I unrolled the tile to expose its wondrous beauty.

Now I need to get in contact with my Tile Expert, Ron T. Tilexpert. (The "T" stands for "The") I'm hoping we can do an install this coming Sunday. For that to happen, we need to spend a lot of money. We still have to buy the tile that surrounds it. Plus, we need grout, thin set, trowels, ceramic sealer, gopher wedges, smack daddy's, creamo-wheatsters, flange evapuscules, and beer.

Old Wine

When Susan and I got married 4 years, 51 weeks and four days ago, we made a batch of wine to serve at the reception. We called it Matrimonial Merlot. It came from a kit and was a very nice wine. everyone who tried it was amazed at our wine making prowess. Kit wines generally do not have a long shelf life. They do not age and improve over the years. They reach their peak after about two years and start to decline from there.

We gave a bottle to our friend Mark, to whom I delivered a door he bought from us. While at his house, I noticed the bottle of "Mat Mer" in his wine rack and told him it was well past time to drink it. So he brought it over for dinner last night and we opened it.
It was a little off, kind of musty smelling and slightly alcoholic. But after breathing for about 15 minutes, it was very drinkable. We managed to choke it down with no problemo.



It was another razor cold night. I think we may have broken a couple of records over the weekend. It feels so luxurious to walk into a warm house. I'm going to have to drop the thermostat here soon. This bill won't be pretty.

Frosty the Fall Season

According the the AccuStan Weather Station perched high atop our roof, the temperature was 14.5 degrees at 6:30 this morning. It's a good thing I ended the Furnace Game when I did.

The nice thing about the freeze is that it knocked a shit load of leaves off the trees out front. They were nice and dry and crisp and my YardVac had no trouble sucking them up. That thing works great when the leaves are dry. There are still several shit loads up there as well as many chestnuts waiting to bonk me on the head. They tried several times today but their aim is off. I'm thinking they are just getting their bearing and biding their time. We hauled out the Halloween decorations today and spent a good portion of the day and evening putting them up. I have to stop writing now and continue up putting the remaining decorations, lights, ghost, ghouls, goblins and assorted things that go bump in the night.

Later: We worked most of the day and into the evening and we still have a long way to go. There's lots of stuff to get out of the Carrage House yet. All that time I spent doing yard work cut into my efficiency, assuming I ever had any.

Hot Tubbery

I haven't talked much about our new hot tub. And when I say new, I mean new to us. It's a 15 year old hot tub that our neighbors gave us. I guess I'll try to bring this up to date.

We moved the tub from our neighbors yard to our yard back in August. I coaxed about 8 people over here on a Sunday and with the help of a Hot Tub Dolly that I rented, we really had no problem making the move and setting it into place. It all went very smoothly and with a minimum of effort.

Then Jerry came over and helped me lay the electrical line for the tub. Essentially, Jerry did everything else once it was in place to get it up and running.

So it has been working for about a month now and we have hardly used it. Of course, we are just now getting into the more intense Hot Tub Use Season.I was in it tonight because I wanted to soak and because I had some maintenance issues to deal with. The unit has two "Moto Massage" features that have a hose that shoots a jet of water at your back while moving up and down. It's pretty nice. You can see the one "Moto Massage" unit in the left corner of the tub in the picture above. The other "Moto Massage unit is in the adjacent corner of the tub shown in the picture at the bottom middle. That one does not work. The hose has come uncoupled from its connection.

So I donned my Diving Mask and Snorkel and probed the depths of the Hot Tub. I managed to get into the unit and remove the hose but I cannot get it re-attached. It looks like I have to remove the fitting that it attaches to and before I do that, I'm going to get some guidance. Guidance keeps me from doing stupid, expensive things. I am thinking I'll have to drain the tub to properly re-install this dealie but I just don't know yet.

I ended up being in the tub for about 45 minutes. I'll probably still be wrinkled tomorrow.

2009 Furnace Game

It has been pretty chilly the past few evenings. Chilly enough to motivate me to reactivate the boiler and turn on the furnace. So, if you had October 7th at about 6:37 in the P.M., you are the winner of this years competition. Unfortunately, nobody had that date and time so the $100,000.00 goes back in my pocket. I was one day short of last years re-activation of October 8th and I believe that remains the record.

I had a couple of issues to straighten out before re-hydrating the system and lighting the pilot light. We have removed two radiators from the systems (temporarily) in order to sand the floor underneath them. I was able to properly cap off all the pipes except one in the hallway.

It is the valve connection going to the radiator in the hall just outside the kitchen and I figured that closing the valve would be enough. It's a good thing I didn't rely on my figuring.

I could not find a cap that would go on the fitting so I came up with this hokey contraption of a rubber hose that clamps over the fitting and then a plastic cap that fits in the other end, both sides being held in place by hose clamps.

As I filled the system, I found some slight leakage around the plastic cap. I got out the socket wrench and tightened that baby down good and...well, you know...tight.

It seems to be holding as of this morning and I assume it is designed to withstand water pressure in a plumbing system. If it happens to blow off, it could be very ugly for the main floor.

There is a LOT of water in them thar pipes.