H2Whoa

Over the last week, I've noticed a small patch of water on the carpet at the foot of the basement stairs. As I have frequently said, you really shouldn't ignore water. You can hope that it'll go away, but when water goes away, it usually takes things with it. I watched it for awhile, not really sure what to make of it. The water heater (not the one we just had replaced) is there, as is the furnace for the back of the house. I talked to my dad and the plan was for him to look at it on Monday when he came over to do some more work on the deck. Well, the weather didn't cooperate so that didn't happen. It seemed to be getting mildly worse - or at least no better - so I put in a service call to American Home Shield to have someone come look at it.

I had done a little bit of research and thought that maybe the drip pan in the bottom of the furnace was cracked or overflowing, but this morning, when the furnace guys came, they confirmed it was NOT that. It's also not the water heater, as it would have probably been leaking a lot more and all the time. Honestly, I was hoping for something a little more definitive for my 60 bucks, but hey, you take what you get.

So plan B - I ripped up the admittedly crappy carpet in the area to see if there was a crack in the concrete through which water might be coming up. It's been a rainy spring - we're basically caught in the same wet pattern we were all winter only it's rain now instead of the mountains of snow and ice. After moderate amounts of cussing and having to find a sharper knife, I got it pulled up and while there's no crack, drying it off with a towel seemed to do the trick. I set up a fan down there to dry out some carpet that I can't get to with my knife and so far so good. I just checked it and it seems to be doing the trick. Here's hoping for the best.

It's times like these that I would trade the character of an old house in for the predictability of newer construction. People say, "oh, your house is so nice! It has so much character" which is true - I love our house, even though it's probably too big for us (when we moved to Ames, we were still thinking we might have more kids.) I've never been a huge fan of the sterility that seems to dominate so much new construction, instead preferring old houses with their all their idiosyncrasies. But whenever people admire the character of our house, I always want to say "yeah, and it's so much work!" The garage needs a new roof next summer (as well as a new paint job) and as I have detailed many a time, the yard is just beyond my ability.

But it's all worth it to live on a tree-lined street, even though I'll be complaining (mildly) about the leaf raking come October.

(the title of the post comes from a great Simpsons episode that we were just talking about last week thanks to the drop slide at the new Ames pool.)

Chrissy

So can you tell I'm not on vacation any longer? Gone are the days of 2 posts a day and we're back to the once a week blogging that seems to be customary these days. Vacation was good - not stress free by any stretch of the imagination - but still good. In many ways, it was good to be back at work.

The biggest unintended excitement of last week was the demise of one of our water heaters. Mid week last week while I was washing the dishes, I noticed that while the faucet was only half way between hot and cold and the water was so hot that I couldn't put my hand under it. Now I don't know much about things like this, but I do know that wild fluctuations in water temperature are a sign that the water heater is about to go. It seemed to calm down over the course of the week, but by the weekend, there was no hot water on that side of the house. It came back eventually, but it was intermittent throughout the weekend. Also telling was the presence of a water around the base of the heater. It was leaking and yeah, it was dying.

So we put a call in to the plumber to have them come take a look at it. It didn't take long for us to get the diagnosis - new water heater needed. Before too long , we had a new water heater to replace the old dying one and all was back to normal. I really didn't know how old the other one was - I just knew that it was OLD - so I asked the plumber to look up and see how old it was. Turns out it was installed in 1972! That's right, the year I was born, making it 38 years old. The fact that a water heater lasted 38 years just tells me that they don't make 'em like they used to.

Of course, I have only one association with 38 years. For those in the dark, that's how long Dorothy and Stan Zbornak's marriage lasted before ending in a bitter divorce. Dorothy references the length of her marriage in many a Golden Girls episode, so it's only natural that it's the first thing I would think of. When Heidi e-mailed me to inform me of the new water heater, I e-mailed back with "38 years of memories and laughter and fighting!" Man, that show still holds up after all these years.

So in honor of that, I've named the new water heater "Chrissy" because that was the name of the woman for whom Stan left Dorothy after 38 years. Let's hope that our relationship with this Chrissy lasts longer than Stan & Chrissy's relationship on the show did.

My rhythm's (not) mow mow mow

We know that it's officially spring because tonight, I mowed the yard for the first time.

I'm a bit late to the party the year as far as mowing goes. I have a couple friends who have mowed a couple of times. My neighbor has mowed his yard at least that. Apparently on Sunday, when I was at work, the whole neighborhood was filled with the sound of mowers cutting grass. Heidi told me she felt like going out and starting the lawn mower just as a show of neighborhood solidarity.

It's not news that I hate mowing. I get no satisfaction out of it AT ALL. All things being equal, I'd rather be snowblowing - and after the winter we just had, that's a very strong statement. Part of the trouble is that lawn mowing in April is deceiving. Sure, it's all fine and dandy now when it's 65 degrees and 10% humidity. If it were like this all summer, mowing would just be a minor irritant. But give it another 6 weeks and I can guarantee you that I'll want to be mowing naked because I will be mowing in Dagobah. It never fails - one hour of mowing and I am a completely soaked and sweaty mess at the end of it.

I also think that a lot of my disdain for mowing has to do with my yard. We don't have the greatest yard ever, and I would say that it's not for lack of trying except that it really IS for lack of trying. Much like mowing, I get no satisfaction out of yard work of any kind. Mostly, I'm just hot and sweaty (again) and then add in dirty. Where do I sign up? Heidi used to do a lot of that, but with her pain issues, we're really leery of her doing that kind of work, so it falls to me. We also have this front yard that has what I refer to as the grass equivalent of a comb over. Grass barely grows because it's so shady so consequently when you mow, the grass isn't really tall enough to give you any indication as to what's been mowed and what hasn't. So what you end up doing is trying to get as much of it as you can and hope for the best. The good news is that the lilies of the valley that Heidi planted are finally starting to spread like the weed that they are, so our front yard actually looks better this year than it has in years!

I was worried about the mower as well - first of all because I couldn't remember the oil to gas ratio needed for the two cycle engine. I wrote down the model number and manufacturer and went in to do a Google search which gave me nothing. I went back out to look to see if there was a serial number on it and, lo and behold, the directions for mixing oil and gas were right there on the mower. Also, toward the end of the season last year, the mower started getting very temperamental - mostly in the form of not starting. Well, I'm happy to report that not only did the mower start this year, but it started on the very first pull of the cord.

No matter how hard I try, I'll never be a yard geek.

(and while we're at it, let's see the video for the song that inspired the title of this post)

Watch where you walk 'cause the sidewalks talk

About a week ago, I got a letter from the city saying that there was one block of my sidewalk that constituted a safety hazard. I keep wanting to refer to it a public health hazard, but knew that wasn't the term they used. It's not like the sidewalk had H1N1 or something. As near as I can figure, the reason it got flagged as a safety hazard was because of how uneven it was which would make it treacherous for just about anyone I suppose.

I figured that this was more than I could do on my own (duh), but I called my dad to see if this is a job he could help me with or if I needed to hire someone to do it. He expressly forbade me from hiring someone, saying that it was a one-day job that we could do together. Time was a bit on the short side as they're getting ready to take off to Arizona for 3 weeks next week, but he found time in his schedule to come help me with this. For someone who is retired, he works harder than a lot of working people I know!

The first step was to get the concrete out of the ground, which proved to be quite a bit more difficult than we anticipated. For one thing, it's hard to tell from the picture but the square is HUGE. It's at least twice as big as your standard sidewalk square. It also went much deeper into the ground than I thought it would - nearly 4 inches. That's a damn lot of concrete. My dad had a masonry blade for his saw (they look like little 45rpm records!) and cut through a good bit of the far end of the sidewalk. However, this was getting us nowhere fast because the saw kept overheating and we weren't even half way down through the depth of the sidewalk. We ended up going out to the rental place and renting a cement chipper tool (basically a bit on the end of a long pole that uses momentum to break the concrete) which helped carve out just enough that we could get a 4X4 piece of wood in. After that, we used an axe to break up the rest. These photos kind of give you an idea.

(you can see the cement chipper tool we rented in the bottom right hand corner)

After using an axe this afternoon, I can say with great certainty that I would make a shitty ax murderer because I would likely just drive the axe into the wall next to my intended victim. But anyway, we got all the concrete broken up, cleared out and prepped the hole for the new concrete.

Even though he had brought something like 500 pounds of concrete along with him, it wasn't enough to do just this ONE square. So off I went to Lowe's in his Jeep (which, with the top off and the windows down was great fun to drive) to buy more. I bought 400 more pounds of concrete. We used all but 80 pounds of what I bought. So yes, one square of sidewalk = ~820 pounds of concrete.

You've already seen me breaking the concrete, now here I am edging the wet concrete, a more delicate but no less important job.

So as you can see, I worked my ass off today. But don't kid yourself - I did probably less than 50% of the work. My dad mixed the concrete, shoveled the concrete and did a large portion of the filling in and smoothing of it. When it was all said and done, it was about a 4 hour job. And we got lucky with how easily the old concrete came out. That could have been 4 hours by itself. Four hours of work doesn't seem so bad, but concrete work is HARD WORK - don't let anyone tell you any different. Words cannot possibly express how happy I am that I do not have to do this kind of manual labor for a living. I would be dead if I had to. I am sore and tired tonight. But the satisfaction I got from it is priceless.

Here's our finished project - still a bit wet, but Anna, Dad and I all put our handprints in it, because you can't do a concrete job without doing something like this.

Step by step

I've posted these pictures on Facebook, but the overlap between here and there is not 100% and besides, if I'm good for anything, it's telling a story over and over again.

We noticed last fall that our front steps were dangerously loose and close to falling apart. One look at the photo below and you can see what I mean.


Whenever we would walk up them, we got in the habit of treading rather carefully so as not to put a foot through the wood. They were not treated and God only knows how old they were. Anyway, last fall, my dad brought over some torque screws and we reinforced them as best we could, hoping to get us through till we could actually replace them. It worked quite well but as the summer progressed, I noticed that they were getting pretty loose again and I was waiting for someone to fall through them. So we decided it was time to fix them.

Now, I say we, but really, it's my dad. He is, much like Sylvester McMonkey McBean, the fix-it-up chappie - only he doesn't go around bilking us out of money, nor does he deal in belly stars. Left to my own devices, I would have no idea how to even attempt this kind of project. Imagine my surprise when, about a month ago, we went to Lowe's and purchased the wood for the project, I found out that the wood was already precut! They sold risers already! And pieces of lumber cut for the precise purpose of being stairs. Will wonders never cease.

One of his big stipulations of the job is that we not buy the material and do the job on the same day. So about a month passed before we seriously got down to business last Sunday. He brought over all his tools (except for a crowbar - he says that he always forgets one thing) and we set to ripping the steps out.

There they are, completely removed and ready for the new risers. Nothing ever goes quite according to plan in a job like this, and we had to head to Lowe's for braces for the risers and they had to go in a slightly different place than the original stairs. For me, this is a "oh shit" moment. My father relishes the challenge. And he rose to the challenge quite well. I helped out and actually did learn a lot from the process, but as you can see, I was clearly mostly around to make things pretty.

But I did do real work as well!

All in all, we were able to get everything but the railing done that day. We were planning to use the original railing as the wood was not rotten, but we had made enough alterations from the original design that it needed to be recut on a table saw, which I decidedly do not have. My dad came back yesterday to finish the job, just as I was about to get ready for work. As I recall, his words to me were "you get to work and make my Social Security, I'll finish the steps." That seems like a good deal to me!

Here's the finished project.

That's the cool thing about my dad - he is always willing to help me with just about any project that I have. He has this uncanny ability to do these house things that for whatever reason, I just don't have the knowledge base to get them done. For that, I am more grateful than words can ever express. But since he helped me with this, I can honestly say that I could probably replace those steps myself if I had to. Too bad that they way they're built now, they should last another 20 years!

My dad says that if you become a specialist (as in, you specialize your knowledge and get really good at one thing), it's almost impossible to be a generalist. Life today does not really train generalists or jacks-of-all-trades. Part of that is because the days of the shade tree auto mechanic and other such things are long gone. But my goal is to try to learn as much as I can so that I can do some of this stuff on my own.

Next up: quarter round.

Deck and Darth

Over the last few weeks, my father has been helping me rebuild rebuilding my deck. It was in kind of bad shape when we bought the house, but that's what happens when you buy an old house. During the last 5 years, he has replaced boards that have threatened to give way and ones that have. This summer, though, it was apparent that there were more bad spots in the current deck than there were good ones, so a concerted effort to replace the lion's share of the boards was made.

Well, as of yesterday the work for 2008 is completed. And it looks fan-effing-tastic. Take a look:

Now we want to have people over just to sit on the deck!

I wish I had a "before" picture to show the dramatic transformation of the deck. However, we didn't do the entire deck. So this picture kind of shows what it used to look like vs. how great it looks now.

The top portion of the deck and the outward facing boards are on the 2009 schedule. But for now, we are no longer in danger of falling through the deck whenever we step out onto it.

And what became of all that rotted deck wood? Well, Heidi and I became complete sweat bombs this morning and loaded most of it into the back of the pickup. The longer boards that didn't fit are piled up neatly in the yard. I have grand designs of cutting them up into smaller boards and fitting them into the back of the pickup as well, but we'll see. For now, that's where they are, awaiting a better paycheck (the next one) to be taken to the physical plant for burning. Please note that there are multiple opportunities for tetanus now in the back of my pickup.

It looks so good, and I can't thank my father enough. He came over on days that I wasn't even home to do the work! Every time I tell him that he doesn't have to come and do upkeep on my house while I'm at work, he says that he's just earning all the Social Security that I'm paying right now! Well, however he wants to look at it. He rocks.

When he came over yesterday to finish the work, he also brought my Darth Vader Collector Case that I had been looking for when we were back home for Mom and Dad's 40th. Mom must have found it and it still has 99% of the figures in there. The only ones missing are Leia Organa and Jawa. Many of them are broken or missing pieces (too much time in the sandbox most likely) but they were well loved.

It has been, all in all, a good day off - not to mention a productive one. Not only did we move all that wood but I also cleaned out the grossest utility sink in all of creation and hooked up the converter box for the TV since we have no plans to get cable prior to the great Digital Switchover in February of 2009. We now get three PBS channels.

Not sure what the rest of the day holds, but it has been just the kind of day I needed. But it is 2:05PM and I still have not showered. I need to remedy that very soon.

Parties and ladders

Today has been a bit of a lazy day. I have spent a ton of time sitting on the front porch with the laptop reading TKT's novel (about half way through now) while listening to Joni Mitchell (a blog post all on its own.) This was kind of needed as we had folks over last night as kind of the last hurrah for my birthday this year. One thing I really wanted this year was to have some people over just for fun and drinks and whatever might happen. It was a fun night with some of the people closest to me and those that are not quite as close but are well on their way. My mom took a lot of pictures but I don't think I'll post them as I don't think it's fair to post pictures of people on the internet without their permission (except for Heidi and Anna, naturally.) So that having been said, here's a picture that was taken of Heidi and me last night.

And here's one of Anna with the ever popular mini-Coke bottles. She was so sad that there were none left over last night we went out to the store and bought another six-pack today.

We drank a lot of booze. As Heidi said, we could have done with twice the booze and half the pop, but it's all good. We took all the bottles back today, got gas for the car and cat food for the felines. All riveting stuff, let me tell you. But the highlight of the day was the changing of the burnt out floodlights on the garage.

Several years ago (at least two winters ago, by Heidi's estimation) the floodlights on the garage burned out. Heidi went out and bought compact fluorescent replacements, but they have languished in the cupboard since their purchase. It has never been high on my priority list, even though I knew that it would be an easy job. Truth be told, I didn't want to get on the ladder.

But today I decided that I needed to say that I accomplished SOMETHING (especially after Heidi almost single handedly transformed our kitchen last week), so for reasons unexplained, I decided to tackle the floodlights. I went over to my neighbor's house and asked him if I could borrow his extension ladder. I brought it home and after a bit of trial and error, figured out how to extend it. I got it set up against the garage and then came the really hard part: climbing the ladder.

I am not particularly afraid of heights, but for some reason, being on a ladder scares the ever loving shit out of me. I must have fallen off of one in a previous lifetime because there is certainly no logical reason for it. The small step ladders you use in the house don't bother me much because you really don't get that high on those, but extension ladders and any ladder that you can use to get on a roof is just really too much for me. Add to this the fact that I had to not only carry the new light bulb with me while climbing, but then had to unscrew the old one and then change it out. The descent on the ladder, carrying the old bulb, about did these 36 year old nerves in. Even with Heidi down at the bottom steadying the ladder, all I could see were visions of my broken body on the cement below. I pretty much sweat bullets the entire time.

That's the thing about phobias though. They don't make sense. As Heidi pointed out to me, a fall of that ladder would probably just break my leg or arm or both. Inconvenient, yes, but hardly life threatening. Still, I did not enjoy my time on the ladder. I am glad those damn bulbs are changed though. One more goddamn monkey off my back.

The couple that paints together stays together

But not without tense moments!

It is 2:21 AM and we are still conscious, although barely. We have been painting all night. I wish I could say we have been painting happy little trees, but no. It has been a MUCH bigger job than happy little trees. I had pictures of us painting tonight that I was going to post but I can't just yet.

All will be revealed very soon. For now, I am going to try to sleep, which shouldn't be too difficult!

Adventures in garage door openers

There are nice things about living in an older house vs. living in brand new construction. There's the character of a non-cookie cutter style house, as well asthe likelihood that you'll live on a tree-lined street vs. one with just saplings. But let me tell you, upkeep is a bitch with a capital B.

Last night we realized that our garage door opener remote control had definitely seen better days. It's kind of been one of those slow deaths that finds us always able to eke out one more use from the remote, and then pray that it works again to open the door the next day. Anyway, since last night it was so completely uncooperative, Heidi was out at Lowe's today and picked up a replacement one for 25 bucks that promised to work on all Genie garage door openers pre-1995. A good look at ours leaves very little room for doubt that it's pre-1995.

I was proud of myself, I figured out how to program it and everything. I pushed the button. Nothing. I looked again and tried a few different things with it. Still nothing. I tried looking REALLY MEAN at it, and still nothing. So I went and did some Google searching. As it turns out, the garage door opener remotes on the market of the era covered by this new remote all use this 390 MHz frequency. From what I was able to glean, it started in about 1983. A bit more searching turned up this little tidbit:

Our particular model of garage door opener was manufactured in the 1960s.

For the love of all that's sacred, that's a 40+ year old garage door opener I've got out there!

So needless to say, I think we're in the market for a new one. The bright side? American Home Shield covers garage door openers. Once again, that AHS home warranty is worth the 40 bucks a month I pay for it.

Naturally, the whole time I was doing this project, I couldn't help but think of Violet Newstead installing the garage door opener, yet Franklin Hart still refers to her as his "girl." Just more proof that nearly any situation in life can be satisfied by a quote from 9 to 5.