Repair Day

We have three water heaters.

It's not that we really really really like hot water (which we do). Nor are we lovers of foolish waste, consuming mass quantities of natural resources for no apparent reason (which we are).

The house was formerly a group home and so they required a steady flow of hot water to keep everyone clean and happy.
We have only been operating on two water heaters. There is the one main water heater which used to be set up in tandem and then there is another water hater which runs the laundry primarily.

A while back I noticed the carpet in the basement was a tad dampish.

Closer investigation revealed a leaking water heater. I decided it was time to pull it out and replace it with the one we disconnected years ago in anticipation of just such a need.

So I made note of how it was connected to the water lines, and where the electrical connection was.

Then it was just a matter of draining the old tank, moving it out of the way and replacing all the fittings and wires onto the reserve tank. Simple!

"Ha!", I say unto thee, "Ha!"

I connected the hose to the drain outlet and had a great deal of difficulty getting any water to come out. I eventually had to call my Emergency Help Friend Jerry (E.H.F.) to give me some advice.

He suggested I try sticking a coat hanger up the valve as it is probably caked thick with calcium from our hard water.

I wanted to get everything back up and running before Susan returned from church where she was helping prepare Meals on Wheels for Easter Sunday. So I managed to move the full water heater out of the way and proceeded in an orderly fashion to efficiently and correctly reattach that which I had detached.

That all went well and we currently have hot water.

I man handled the old water heater into the laundry room and over to the proximity of the floor drain. After a good deal of struggle and toil, I managed to fish a coat hanger into the faucet outlet and, sure enough, got a stream of water draining from the tank, along with a great deal of calcium chips. It took a good long time and I had to occasionally adjust my wire in and out to get an new stream going.

The tank is now drained and waiting for a strong friend to stop by in the future who I can wrangle into helping my lift this bitch out of the basement.

So for now, I'm pretty pleased with myself and am ready to have a beer as a reward.

April Fools Post

It's Sunday and we have just returned from a busy morning at church. Susan is co-Chair of the Committee to Feed People on Sundays Committee and we had to feed some people today.

It's a very complicated algorithm but on months with five Sundays in them, we have a potluck after the service on the fifth Sunday. Today is the first Sunday and April Fools to boot so we moved it to today.

So that took up most of our morning. Now we are home and have a few hours to do as we please.

Not so for Susan though, as she has to work at the Arena tonight for a continuing Hockey Playoff Game. This is the time of year where she roots from them to lose.

I'm not sure what I'm going to do. It rainy out so there's not a lot of planned outdoor activity. It was so nice last Sunday and then followed by a week of rain. I think we had one of the wettest March's on record.

I'll report back in a little bit and update any exciting or even less than exciting progress I have made on anything.
4:48PM: It is a windy day but it has turned into a sunny day. It's still pretty cold with the wind.

I was out in the yard and came across a positive sign of Spring. Hops!

Both vines are starting to produce shoots. I'm going to have to cut back to three shoots a column. Otherwise they are really thick and they grow slower.

9:24PM: I been doing some odd jobs around the house but for the most part, it has been a lazy day.

I took a nice twilight picture of the house that I like.

I also got this shot with the house and the moon. I love the house and the moon shots. I have lots of them.

I guess that's it for today. Someday soon, I'll talk about the house.

Weekend Weather Wonderland

Saturday we skied. It was a nice day with a thin cloud layer that kind of let the sun through, but not completely. It was a good to be on the mountain and we definitely felt it afterwards.

Sunday the sun came out in force. It was a wonderful spring day with the temperature hitting the 60's. I worked out in the yard a little bit while Susan did some stripping in the kitchen. I later told her to put her clothes back on because the neighbors where watching.

No! That's not right. She was stripping the paint off the door jam between the kitchen and the hallway. I later removed the trim on the kitchen side of the door jam. That was a bitch because it was in a couple of pieces.

Anyway, it was such a nice day that I pulled out my bike and went for a little ride. I was even considering riding to work the next day. The weather made the decision for me.

A record rainfall was set yesterday. The Weather Service says .62" fell but I had .67" on my WeatherStation 2000. I can tell you that a shit load of rain fell yesterday. They say more is on the way but it's quite nice right now.

Mo' Sno

A wet heavy snow has been falling most of the night. I woke up to use the bathroom at about 4 and it was snowing and sticking but not to the streets or sidewalks. By 6:15, everything was white.

The drive to work this morning wasn't too bad. It just sloppy everywhere. I passed a trailerless semi truck that was off the side of the freeway and facing the wrong direction. I'm not sure how that came to be but it took some finesse.

Beyond these reflections, it appears I hav nothing further to say. There goes a minute of your life you'll never get back.

Welcome Vern

Our old friend Vernal Equinox showed up last night and in honor of his visit, he brought snow this morning. That just adds to our crazy non-winter...soon to be late winter. You've heard of Christmas in July? It looks like we are having Winter in Spring.

Of course, it is not unusual for snow to fall in Spring. I can remember a Bloomsday several years back where it snowed lightly the morning of, and that's in May.

But Vern is here now and it's time he act like he cares.

We have had a lackluster week of no accomplishments around the house but lots of meetings to attend. Susan and I are spread out all over the place. We don't really care. But we want to finish the hallway so we can move on to getting the living room ceiling sheet rocked before the Solstice.

So we have a whole season. You wait, I say that now and we'll be scrambling come Solstice time.

Fabulous Holiday Weekend

As the header suggests, we have just completed a Fabulous Holiday Weekend. St. Patrick's Day fell on a Saturday this year and there was fun and festive festiveness all about. We slept in until 9 and then had breakfast at Dolly's Cafe with some friends.
We then went downtown to check out the St. Paddy's Day Parade. This is an event that requires no pre-requisite to be involved. The Sons of Norway trailered their Viking Ship through the parade route. We watched for about half an hour before heading out to drink some green beer.

This weekend has been planned for for quite a while. It is our traditional amnesty weekend where we go off the diet. I weighed in at 210.9 this morning. That's only a pound or so up. I'm trying to get to a flat 200 pounds. These last ten will be the tough ones.

Saturday afternoon we headed east for Wallace, Idaho. Wallace is a sleepy little North Idaho mining town with a rich ribald history that one might expect from a community populated by miners. One of the huge mines was recently shut down for six months by the Bureau of Mines of some government entity like that in order to reinforce the mine's integrity.

As such, the already depressed economy of the Silver Valley is even worse off. You can buy a fairly decent little house in Wallace for $40,000.00.

The only thing the area has going for it right now is the area. It's gorgeous country with lots of outdoor activities to enjoy. We were there to ski. In the summer, there are bike trails you can't believe.

Here are my collection of pictures from skiing this weekend.

This 9is a shot from the top of a run called Marmot looking down into the far east end of the Silver Valley.  Montana is to the east at right.

This shot is at the bottom of the Marmot run. I took the previous picture from waaaaaaay up at the top.

This is the same picture that I cannot seem to delete.

This is the picture that should have been above there. It's taken from the same spot but looking west towards the Silver Valley. Wallace and Mullan are out there somewhere and you can see I-90 which takes you there.

Saturday Night Concert

One of the many gifts Susan gave me for my birthday was tickets to see comedian Adam Carolla. The concert was last night. After a day of working on our various projects, we headed downtown to the Knitting Factory. 


It was the first visit to the Knitting Factory for both of us. We got down there about 20 minutes before the show and managed to find a pair of decent seats. I got into the 15 minute bar line to get us a couple of plastic cups of $6.50 wine. Each!

When I returned I found I was seated next to  a group of  six 30 something guys who had been drinking heavily already. When they returned from the bar, Susan said they each had three beers.


I was lucky enough to be seated next to the largest of these guys. I managed to move my chair a little bit out of his girth zone. He wasn't fat, he was solid. And...he was drunk.

The concert began with all of these guys feeling compelled to share thoughts with Adam. They all felt the show would be much better with their contributions. I know this because I used to be one of these Douche Bags.

Anyway, the guy was an affable enough drunk, at one point inviting everyone in our section to a party at his house after the show located at 151 Bacardi Lane or something like that.

It really wasn't too bad until the last 20 minutes of the show when the solid affable douche next to me started to fall asleep. At one point, he cupped his hands behind his head and his elbow slowly sank onto my shoulder. I know his friends noticed. I would roll out of his way and startle him back to consciousness, only for him to slip back towards his friend and then follow with a tide change back to me.

We had a good time and Adam Carolla put on a totally different show than I expected. I think he is usually pretty extemporaneous except when he goes to a place he has never been. It was clearly a thought out presentation with plenty of room to riff and respond to Douche Land next to me.

I thought he would be too crude for Susan...and he was crude. But, he was just plain funny too. I'm glad I went and I will go again.

We left the show and had a couple more glasses of wine at a new spot we found downtown.

We finished the night at home with a dip in the hot tub and then off to bed to prepare for the change to Daylight Savings Time.

No Agenda

I'm not sure why I'm writing today. I think it will come to me but right now I don't have an agenda, an direction or an subject...just poor syntax. In any event, it is clear to me from this opening paragram that this is going to be my Best Post Ever. So let's begin.

Not much work has been going on at the house over the last few days as we have been steeped in concentration over my birthday, which was yesterday.

Susan showered me with gifts all week. On the first day of my birthday week she gave me a version of Freecell on the new Macbook. Freecell is my favorite computer game and Susan is becoming a fan as well.

On the second day of my birthday week, I got a pair of movie tickets.

On the third day of my birthday week, I got a gift certificate to replace my windshield. It has a big crack in it but nothing that's really blocking my view. It'll be nice to get that fixed but I'm going to wait until after the spring gravel season.

The fourth day of my birthday week, I received a gift certificate to my favorite store, Jim's Home Brew.

On the fifth day of my birthday week, my true love gave to me...
I can't remember. I'll figure it out.

On the sixth day of my birthday week I was invited to join Susan at the Hercules Inn in Wallace, Idaho.

On my birthday, I received tickets to see comedian Adam Carolla this weekend. I also got a bottle a wine, which we drank, and a wonderful dinner.

I'm 55 now and it is time I grow up and take on some responsibility. But probably not.

I have an App on my iPod called the Death Clock. You answer a bunch of questions about yourself and then it calculates how much longer you have to live. As of today, I have until age 74. The actual countdown I have available to me as I write this is 18 years, 11 months, 28 days, 23 hours and 54 minutes. Oops! Make that 53 minutes.

You know, if I make to 74, I think that's a pretty good run. I'll be happy with that!

In the meantime, I have to start planning. How much beer could I drink between then and now?

208.3

Today is the end of Phase One of the South Beach Diet, which means I drink again. This is especially important in view of this very special day from whence I sprang forth from my mothers' loins not but two score and a tricade ago.

I made up tricade to denote 15 years. I like it. I think it works. I'm going to get into some on-line dictionary. Then, after having it copy writed and registered it with ASCAP and BMI, I can sit back and rest on the income it will generate every time somebody uses it in a sentence.

After work, I went to the Hub where Lee Nordstrom showed up, along with Robba, Olga, Steve and another guy. I had more than one beer which was bad.

But it's my birthday and that's good enough for me.

Is it Summer?

It has been a busy and productive weekend around here. We both worked on our separate projects and we both made great progress.

Susan was busy painting everything in the back hallway needed to be painted. I think she is just about ready to start the wall papering. One other project I have to get going on is the mirror we took out of the hallway. The frame needs to be stripped and then re-painted. Susan will be wanting that mirror up when she's done with the wall paper.

While she was stuck inside, I was out and about and all around the yard. My main focus was to continue with the stripping of the trim. But in between waiting for the stripper to do its work, I bounced around the yard and did a few things there.

I raked up some leaves. I fertilized the hot tub with it's assorted chemicals. I got out the leaf blower and gave the deck a nice blow job. I fed some squirrels. I trimmed the grape vines. And I stripped and scraped.

It was a beautiful day where I saw the temperature at the house get up to 64 degrees, maybe even a few degrees higher. The record for this day was 63 degrees, set back in 1987. I don't know if we reached it or beat it, but it was a nice day to be out.

I got a few shot of the house along with some squirrel pictures.

Here is my large clamp that I got for Christmas being used for the first time. It did what it is supposed to do and made my work a little easier.

I have only one more board to strip. That's it on the left of all those other boards. I have stripped a total of ten boards, plus the three I have already re-installed around the dining room door.

It's a hell of a lot of work and now I understand why those strippers are always so tired.

In Like a Little Lion

The massive snow storm that has been forecasted for the last couple of days never turned into anything to get excited about. I think they got some great snow in the mountains. Mt Spokane got a foot and Schweitzer got 18 inches. But nothing ever stuck very long down here in the low lands. The snow expected for today just never really happened.


We have some people coming in to the house for estimates on a couple of future projects. One project is to get a decent rain gutter across the front of the house. I'm hoping to spend less than $500.00 on this project...which seems like a lot to me for something like rain gutters.


The Home Depot rain gutters I put up last summer did not work because the roof is not built in such a way as to accommodate them. The facia is too far back from the edge of the roof.  The runoff would fall right over the gutters.


Anyway, Susan insisted that the house needed to be cleaned up and frankly, I agreed with her. We've really let it go due to all the plastering and sandering.

A Night of Snow for Leap Day

I got up early this morning to clear the snow that fell during the night. I didn't even break out the snow blower as it was early and the snow that fell was pretty light. I cleared the driveway and the front walk but left the sidewalks untouched. I'll get those tonight.

We have to spend tonight cleaning up the house. We have a guy coming by on Friday to give us an estimate on our fireplace and Susan won't have some stranger tromping through our house the way it is now.

We haven't dusted in weeks. That would be bad in any event but with all the sanding Susan's been doing, it's even worse.

And far be it from us to allow a stranger into the house to look at our fireplace without it being spotless...and that includes the fireplace box.

Celestial Wondermentation

I have been remiss in keeping the Blog current. It's because we've been doing stuff in the real world. Now it's time to visit the Blogosphere and get updated.

There is a great Celestial party going on tonight and I got a couple of crappy pictures of it.

The above picture shows the crescent moon way up high, followed by Jupiter below it and Venus just below the Jup.

 

Here's a closer shot without my neighbors garages in it. These pictures do not come close to doing this view justice as my camera is not really built for this kind of action shot. In any event, it's a cool image and I felt I needed to share it.

I have been continuing my project of stripping and re-staining the trim in the area of our current project. For clarity, let's call this project "The Back Hallway".

I still have four doors that require a new trim job. Wait! There are five doors. I have done the dining room, so that leaves the kitchen, the basement, the bathroom, the TV room, and the closet. That's five!

I am doing my portion of the project in the Carriage House. I usually turn on the radio while I'm in there and listen to whatever catches my attention.

Tonight I decided to turn on the Hillbilly Inter web.

This is my old Midland 40 channel CB Base Station, which is my conduit to the Hillbilly Inter web.

What you get is a bunch of guys (no woman) talking about hunting, their trucks, their radios, and how good or bad everyone else sounds.

It's fascinating! I heard from Pipe Layer, Golden Eagle, and the Falcon. I'm still working on a handle for myself. In the past I have been the TunaBoat) which was more a name for my 67 Bonneville Convertible) and Gutter Monkey. I'm considering V.I.P. for my name. Then I can get on the ray-did-io and talk about my immense V.I.P.ness.

Valenday's Tine

I looked back for the last two years to see what I posted on Valentine's Day. There was nothing last year and only a brief mention in 2010.


So I thought I had better make an entry of note for this year. That's because we have had a wonderful day of Looooove!


It has been a rainy and snowy day. I sent Susan a batch of flowers and a card I made detailing the 50 reasons I love her. She got me a bottle of wine and some chocolates. She also bought the ingredients for a fabulous Valentine dinner. Tri-tip and asparagus with a nice Caesar Salad. I barbecued the meat and the asparagus and it came out pretty good. We opened a bottle of Zinfandel wine from Vineheart winery. 


After dinner, we enjoyed a nice soak in the hot tub. Now the evening is winding down as we watch a little TV and finish the zin.


Hopefully, I left enough information here to be able to remember it next year. We have no idea what we did on Val Day last year.

Trim Work Winging

I spent a good portion of the weekend working on my dining room doorway while Susan continues the seemingly endless task of plastering and sanding, plastering and sanding, plastering and...one gets the point.

I shall begin with the work space.

 This is the Dining Room Entry I am working on. Here you see a view from the kitchen and a view from the hall.

I have stripped all the paint off the wood. Now I have to fix the mortise that used to hold a hinge. There was once a door here but it is long gone, at least it was gone before we took ownership.

So I took a field trip to Windsor Plywood for some advice and they suggested I just use a piece of 2x4 and create a little wafer of wood for the patch.

Well, that seemed like a good idea and so that is what I did.

Here is an old 2x4 I recovered from the garage.

It took several tries but I then began trying to cut a thin wafer of wood from this board with my chop saw.

After a few shots at it, I cut a piece I was happy with.

I trimmed it to size and then, as is often my habit, I marked it with a little information for future treasure hunters.

I then slathered it with wood glue and fit it into place.

I of course copied the above methods for the hinge mortise on the bottom of the door jam.

I let it dry over night and returned on Sunday to sand the Fu...heck outta it.

The sanding went smoothly and quickly with the help of my new orbital palm sander. That is really a great tool.

Finally , I brought out the three pieces of trim that go around the door to see how they will fit. Because Susan had skim coated the ceiling, the the cross piece of trim buts right up against the aforementioned ceiling, the side pieces would not fit. I am going to have to trim them a bit. Probably no more than the saw blade width...perhaps a touch more. Maybe a whole lot more. Who the hell knows...certainly not me.

I winging it here!

Full Moon Febberrary

The moon is full tonight and we decided to get out and enjoy a nice hot tub under the warm moon glow.

Afterwards, I went out to see if I could capture some good moon pictures of the house. I should have grabbed my tripod. It's difficult to hold the camera steady enough under low light conditions. Nonetheless, I'm satisfied with the photos I got...at least for the purposes of this blog.

Here is my best shot.

Not the greatest shot, but I think it captures the feeling of a cold winter evening...when the werewolves are out.

XLVI

It is another beautiful day in the Inland Northwest. It is also Superbowl Sunday, which has meaning to people who are fans of the New York Giants or the New England Patriots. Neither Susan or I care.

We have a couple of parties to attend today. but first, we have some stuff to do around the homestead. I'm going to try and finish the stripping I was doing yesterday. And then there is just general housekeeping, which has once again gotten away from us.

9:45PM: The Superbowl is history and the Giants have won, 21 to 17. It was a good game this year. It really came down to the last few minutes. Actually, it came down to the last play. Has Tom Brady been able to connect his pass, the Patriots would have won. But there were about 47 guys down in that end zone son there was not a big chance of threading the needle.

We ate a lot of great food. Especially at Party Two, where pork was smoked. Man, it was tasty.

Now it's time to prepare for another week of drudgery and another day closer to death.

We ended up losing around 20 bucks on the various bettings going on.

Spring in Febber Arie

It is February 4th and it might as well be the eighth of May. What a beautiful day. Unfortunately, I have to spend it inside stripping trim. It's just as well. After last night's drinking fest, it's probably best that I stay inside and move very slowly.

Susan is progressing with her mudding and sanding while I am stripping. Here are some pictures to fill the space.

The paint was laid down pretty thick. There was at least two layers and I'm betting more. I have serious doubts about the remodeling credentials of someone who wood paint over stained would.

Friday Night

We have begun the weekend by drinking heavily!


I am planted in front of the TV with the Blues Music Channel on and Susan is napping in the other room. I had an appointment with my Cardiologist today which left my afternoon wide open. I met Susan and her boss, Bill at the Illinois Avenue Tavern and we has lunch. I had an appointment after that at Fast Eddie's and Susan joined me for the Dollar Beer Hour. After that, we moved on to the Hub, the local tavern only a few blocks away.


It appears to have been a full night and it is only 8:45PM. We are light weights.


For news on my Cardiologist appointment, visit my health blog at www.porkymccorpulent.blogspot.com. I try to keep a semi-complete record of my health issues at that blog. It's just me complaining about my health so there is really no need to bother. Really! Don't go there! I'm not kidding! Stop it!


We are at the start of Superbowl Weekend so we are not expecting a lot of progress out of us. We'll do some work on the house tomorrow but that will be about it. Whatever we get done before 5:00 will be the extent of it for the weekend.


We have some tickets to a concert tomorrow night and we are clearly not going to accomplish anything tonight.


Great to talk to you. Geez I feel like shit!

I'm a Weirdo!

The snow that fell a couple of weeks ago is just about gone. It certainly no longer poses a threat to driving or getting around. Most sidewalks are clear although there is the danger of ice in some places as the snow melts and then freezes across an area of pavement.

I don't know why I'm bringing this up other than to update the Ethernet on this sitch. (That's hip InterWeb slang for "Situation")

Here's another useless bit of information I feel compelled to impart. No...not useless information...more like a stupid observation.

I spelled the word "cauterize" today. I used it in an e-mail. I have used it in conversation lots and lots. In fact, I can remember the first time I ever heard the word.

It was on "The Six Million Dollar Man" when Steve Austin was marooned on an island and administered first aid to an injured guy by cauterizing his wound with his bionic finger.

I believe this is the first time in my 54 years that I have spelled the word.

The reason I bring this up is because I think it is interesting (and weird) that this has any significance at all in my memory. I'm a weirdo.

Oh wow! I just found my header.