Cooterinos, let me tell you about my three-day weekend thus far. Yesterday I awoke at 8 am after a long night of Dude's Night Out, fed the cats and took a nap on the couch until 11. Okay, so Dude's Night Out consisted of dinner, a game of darts and a couple games of pool. There was no debauchery, no run-ins with the law (unless you count the parking "note" M-to-the-C got) , nope it was simply a night out with the dudes.It's Getting Wette in Herre
Yesterday morning I was lounging with a crossword puzzle after an exhausting breakfast when HECOW called with a plumbing emergency. He was pretty sure that water wasn't supposed to be dripping from the downstairs bathroom ceiling, and needed a hand keeping water on the inside of a couple of pipes. Well, I wasn't getting anywhere with that puzzle and some human contact wouldn't kill me, so I loaded up the Lesbacy with my plumbing gear and headed over.
By the time I got there, HECOW had determined where the problem was. "Yup, right there where the water is spilling over the top of those pipes you cut." I confirmed. The real problem was that the shutoff valve only half-assing its one purpose in life: to shut off water, and water was trickling ever-so-slowly. After some time we were able to get the old one freed and the new one went it almost too easily. Hmm, I hope it's not dripping.
After that, we decided that maybe those pipes should be capped (please pass the 1/2" plug sweat). This was the perfect opportunity for HECOW to learn how to sweat pipes. If the new shutoff held, these caps would see no action so there was little likelihood of failure. It was no professional job, but I think he learned the technique.
By the time the first one was on, he already had the smoke detector going off. ECOW solved the age old problem of smoke detector noise by removing the battery and we were back in business.
End result: the new shutoff opens and closes and the caps in the upstairs bathroom keep the water in the pipes and out of the ceiling. Check and check.
Note: HECOW splurged on shutoffs with bleeder valves, something many people cheap out on only to wish they hadn't when they need to get the water out of the pipes to fix something. Well done, HECOW.Saturday AM
This morning I awoke at a more reasonable hour. I put my new el cheapo vacuum to use in the kitchen, mopped the floor and, inspired by HECOW's plumbing, fixed the handle on my kitchen sink. Let me set the stage for you...
Several years ago I replaced the kitchen sink (amongst many other things), and had a bitch of a time getting the hot and cold water handles on properly. Over time they loosened up to the point where you almost had to hold the base still while you turn the handle. That's fine for me because I know how it works, but anyone else who uses it cranks the hell out of the handle because it doesn't feel like it's turning off. Well Cooterinos, today I took that damn thing apart (no small task), packed the base with plumber's putty like I should have done three years ago, reassembled it and PLADOW! it works great. Check and Check.Off the Injured Reserve List
Monday night I had that overuse injury sideline me for a few days. I was worried it might be a stress fracture, so I really laid off it. Today I went out for a couple of miles to test out my recovery. I even told myself that no matter how I felt I had to keep it to 3 miles MAX! Sho nuff, it felt pretty good and I finished the run at 3.02 miles. Perfect. I'm probably going to ibuprofen it and maybe do some stretching just to make sure it's properly healed, but I think I'm good to go.
For those of you who've wrestled with shin splints (Abbey, are you listening?) the one activity (besides rest) that has twice solved the problem for me is so simple you'll think I'm lying. You sit in a chair with your foot off the floor. A recliner works well for this. Moving just your foot (from the ankle), write the letters of the alphabet in the air with your toes. I did this a couple of times a day and the results are amazing; the pain and swelling is gone in next to no time. There's no test, so if your toewriting is poor the benefits are the same.
Ideally, one should do this regularly to prevent shin splints, but history has shown that I won't. I am not proactive when it comes to my own health and well-being.
Well, hopefully I'll holler at y'all on the morrow.
Over and Out,
Old Coot
Saturday, January 26, 2008
Mid Weekend Update
Monday, September 24, 2007
Weekend Update
Raining on my Parade
The other night (Friday, I believe) I decided it was just plain wrong of me to leave the faucet in my tub dripping. I opened the access panel in the closet behind the tub in search of a shutoff valve, and found none. Why would someone put in a shutoff valve next to a fixture? The genius who plumbed my house had zero foresight. And I know he wasn't a real plumber because the pipe joints are sloppily soldered, the sign of a real novice.
Off I went to the basement in search of the nearest shutoff valve. Unfortunately for me, the plumbing in the basement is a rat's nest of kluged-together plumbing remnants. I'm sure the way they planned the job went something like this:
Cletus: Okay Vern, we have 12' of 1/2" flexible tubing, 8'3" of 3/16" hard copper, 13 elbows, 7 tees, a gallon of solder and a hair dryer. How much you figger we can git done?
Vern: I'd say the whole thing.
And that's how they did it. There are so many pipes running this way and that, that had they planned what they were doing would have been unnecessary. But I'm a little ahead of myself here.
While looking for shutoff valves for the shower, I came across a wet spot on the floor. It wasn't coming in from a wall, the dehumidifier wasn't leaking, and a cursory inspection of the nearby pipes came up negative. I even smelled it, thinking it might be cat pee. Nope, this was water.
Then, a drip landed on my head. I gave the pipes above me a thorough look-see and there was water on my gas line. "Ruh-roh". "Please be condensation, please be condensation." It turned out it was the pipe above the gas line that was leaking; I was mildly relieved. What sucks is that it's not a solder joint, but right smack in the middle of the pipe. I peeled back the asbestos-looking pipe wrap to find a series of small corrosion spots on the pipe. One was leaking and the others looked to be not far behind. I put some emergency leak stopping wrap over the pipe which succeeded only in making it drip further down. Damn!
Since it was late, there was nothing else I could do. Without a trustworthy shutoff valve anywhere in the house, I had to turn off the main line to avoid the inevitable pipe burst in the middle of the night.
Until I get a chance to replace the corroded pipe (and redo the shoddy work the last guy did), I have to plan my water usage so that I can turn the water back on, do what I have to do, and turn it back off again. I do NOT want to come home to a burst pipe!
OH, and while I was inspecting the plumbing, I walked through a spider web and the spider jumped on my head. He may or may not have gnawed on my arm and stomach, but I have a few wicked itchy bites from something.Autumn is Close
The weekend wasn't all leaking pipes and spider bites, it also served as a perfect weekend for bike rides. On Friday I awoke late (recall that I was out on the town until the wee hours of the morning), had breakfast, read a magazine or two in the sunshine, and headed out for a bike ride. My company for this ride had not set ass on a bike in weeks, was undoubtedly tired and hung over from the previous night's debauchery, and had probably not eaten a decent meal all day. Tired, hung over and hungry makes for a bad ride for everyone because you become the weakest link, the person I have to wait for every 1/8th mile.
I try to be forgiving, but at times it's hard. The worst was that when I planned the ride, it was assuming an average speed in the area of 16 MPH. That's slow, but how most group rides go. A 40 mile ride should take about 2.5 hours. However, at 13 MPH with frequent breaks, the ride quickly escalated to nearly 4 hours. I hadn't packed any sandwiches and was getting really hungry and cranky by the end. Lesson learned? Probably not. I prefer company to speed, so the next time I want company I'll probably suffer again.
On the positive side, I did get to take a 4 hour tour of the rolling hills of northern Berkshire county. With the leaves getting ready to change, it was quite the scenic ride.
Over and Out,
Old Coot
Tuesday, September 04, 2007
Parents Weekend
I apologize to all of you who have been sitting at your computers all weekend hitting the refresh button on your favorite web browser, hoping, just hoping to find something new on this here blog. I'm sure there was plenty to share with you, but I was busy entertaining ye olde folkse.Much Ado About Nothing
Okay, I'm going to claim ignorance here and admit that I don't know what "Much ado about nothing" really means, but what I mean is "I did much nothing". I can at least safely say that I know the saying doesn't mean that. If you don't like it, you try coming up with witty headlines day in and day out.
Anyway, aside from the two times my dad fired up the old laptop for some Freecell, it stayed powered down. I have to admit that not checking your e-mail(s), blogging, or browsing in general for a few days is pretty nice. Don't get me wrong, I'm not canceling my DSL any time soon, but it was nice to take a break. I didn't even look at my phone for the whole weekend either (status: no messages).
Instead, we spent the weekend cooking, eating, sunning ourselves in my new lawn chairs, watching my dad pull weeds, making coffee and we threw a campfire in for good measure. I even picked up a few plants (shrubs) at Whitney's Farm, as well as some delicious homemade pies.
I won't get started on the scam that is the autumn shrub sale. Suffice it to say that it excludes every shrub they sell. They even had the sale sign prominently displayed with a plant that it explicitly excluded. It might as well have said "This Plant is Not On Sale". Oops, guess I got started on it.Sunday Driving a La Bike
Actually, it was all weekend except Sunday but I went for a couple of nice bike rides. The first was Saturday morning with a guy from my running/riding crew. He had just done some mega ride last weekend up in the Adirondack's, so he whined the whole time. Meanwhile, I'm in prime hill climbing shape so I barely even noticed the hills.
The ride was slated for 30 miles over to NY and back. After 20 miles I was about warmed up and raring to go. He was tired and ready to be home. Somehow I talked him into taking the long cut back under the guise of avoiding the mountain on Rte 20. It would add about 10 miles and in reality, any way we went there was a mountain between us and home. Instead of taking Rte 20 we swung a north and went up Rte 22, then back over 43 past Brody Mountain. In the end it was a nice easy-paced 40-miler.
I got my first glimpse of the new windmill on Brody Mtn (or Jiminy Peak, wherever it is) that morning. It is truly awesome! Hopefully I can get back out there to get some pictures for y'all so you can appreciate it's splendorousness. I don't know what the naysayers are complaining about, I think it looks wicked cool up on the mountain, rotating ever so slowly.
After my folks left on Monday, I fired ye olde internette machine and saw that there would be a bike ride in 45 minutes. That was it, I cleared my schedule (of planting bushes), changed my clothes and hauled ass to the meeting spot. If I had a spot to put my camera I would have brought it, because we'd be going right past the windmill again. Damn, another perfect day for photographasizing windmilles and I couldn't bring my camera.
In short, yesterday's ride was also awesome. Not only was the weather perfect but my mood was also perfect. I finished up and felt like a million bucks. A quick change of clothes and I set to work planting my new bushes. They look like a million bucks too; ahh, a perfect day.Bathroom Matters
Every time my family gets together, a toilet gets clogged. Usually we can blame my sister, but this time she wouldn't be there. In preparation for the visit, I had been giving the toilet extra flushes every day, trying to keep it limber. The toilet had also been doing calisthenics of its own, in the shape of a leaky valve that kept it running every few seconds. I was NOT about to touch that before having company (since I only have one bathroom), but now I have to get to it. I'll keep y'all posted. Between that and the leaky tub I almost feel guilty with the water I'm wasting.
Almost.
Well, that's the news from here. I'll holler at y'all later.
Over and Out,
Old Coot
