I'm in hot water! *sigh*

I just changed restaurant locations a couple of weeks ago, so in order to determine the true strengths and weaknesses of the new location I worked a week of night shifts. This means that Saturday I went to work at 6:30 pm and got home Sunday at 5:15 am. After sleeping 3 hours I got my butt out of bed so that I could spend my day off doing things for work that can only be done at home. (I had some sandblasting and brazing of various parts that needed to be completed.)

During the process of setting up the sand blaster I heard a strange hissing noise at the corner of the house. Upon closer inspection I found a steady stream of water rolling out from under the wood paneling that covers the outside of the home. I went inside and found a big wet patch of drywall (kind of oxymoronic, eh?) and a puddle forming on the floor. Just what I needed.... a leak inside of the wall.

I grabbed my sheetrock hole-saw from my truck and cut out a nice square patch around the wet spot and was immediately greeted by a jet of water gushing from a hole in the copper pipe. It was the hot water return line leaking, so we should have been able to at least have cold water for coffee making and toilet flushing while I worked on repairing the bad pipe. Hah. Fat chance. The freakin' cheap valve that they put on the inlet refused to turn completely off..... the water would have to be shut off at the meter.* (I really hate those cheap valves. Hate them!)

So I gathered up the wife and kids and it was off to Lowe's. I really like Lowe's :)

Since I had enough 1/2" pipe in the shop, all I really needed were a pair of couplings. But I figured that as long as the water was off, I should go ahead and replace the cheap valve with a nice ball valve that will outlast the water heater, and perhaps even the house itself. I didn't have any 3/4" pipe or fittings on hand, so I ended up spending about $40 total for two 1/2" couplings, four 3/4" elbows, a 24" length of 3/4" copper pipe and some emery cloth for cleaning all of the connections for soldering. Everything else I needed I already had.

Next step- cut the offending valve out of the line and drain enough water from the heater to make sure it wasn't in the way of the soldering. I also vacuumed out the lower pipes with the shop vacuum before I started working with the heat. If you don't have adequate space between any water in the line and the heat source steam is created which will absolutely prevent a solid solder joint from being able to form. I cut and dry fit all parts, then pulled them out and cleaned / fluxed everything before putting it back together. Fifteen minutes later it was time to turn on the water main and check for leaks.

No leaks! None! ~happy dance~ Disaster averted, and I'm figuring that since it's Sunday if I had called a plumber the bill would have come in at roughly $230 give or take a few.

I like not spending money I don't have to :)

*The funny thing here? A couple of weeks ago I spent a few hours in the shop making a big wrench for turning off the water main. Yes, you can buy them for next to nothing, but I enjoyed making it. When I showed it to the wife she says "What would you possibly need a water wrench for?". I reminded her of that today :)

Consolidation

I am working on a new movement. It will save countless millions of dollars for the country and every municipality in it! The movement could possibly be considered a stroke of genius due to the simplicity and effectiveness of the idea.

The concept came to me while I was working. It was supposed to be a normal morning but it seemed unusually slow for a Saturday. This meant that it would be very busy later in the day. I asked the crew if anything was happening in the area that would explain the slow start and they told me that there was an MLK parade happening in a nearby municipality. Last Saturday there was an MLK parade in the town where we are located and it was CRAZY busy. We were in for another crazy day.

Then I started thinking.... why the hell do they have separate parades on different days? It's not like the parades are money makers for the towns. On the contrary- they cost the towns tons of money when you consider blocking the roads, police presence required, emergency personnel presence required, stores losing business while the parade is going on because no one can get to them, etc, etc.

So why not just have "Parade Day" every year? On January 1st (while the children are out of school, many parents are off, etc.) each city could have as many parades as they care to fit into the day. After that, no more parades for the rest of the year. That would give them a solid time frame to budget for each year, businesses would be able to plan for that day, and by wrapping all celebrations into one day across the nation billions of dollars would be saved.

Just consider it.... you could have the Christmas parade, followed by MLK parades, Superbowl parades, Mardi Gras parades, and wrap it all up with a New Year's parade. Towns and cities close to each other could have alternating events so that everyone has a chance to see whatever flavor of parade they care to watch.

And when it's over you've paid overtime to the Police one time, you've inconvenienced Emergency personnel one time, you've paid to have the streets cleaned one time- and then it's done for the year.

Next move: Consolidate holidays :)

Do it right the first time.

I understand that there are times when you just have to take shortcuts. I have no issue with this if you go back at some point in the near future to make sure whatever you have rigged is done properly.

I built out a restaurant- my own. With the experience gained from years of working in food I made sure to spend a little extra up front so that I wouldn't have issues years down the road. When I put in the cooler, I put in two cooling units instead of just one. This had a dual effect: the units didn't have to work as hard to keep the cooler at temp, and when one of them went down (as will happen with refrigeration) the other was perfectly capable of holding temp while the other was being repaired. When the AC units were installed, I made sure that the drain lines had cleanouts on them that were easy to access since the slime and muck builds up quickly here in the south. All of the water supplies inside had ball valves instead of the little cheap kind they put on everything now so I wouldn't ever have to worry about replacing a leaky on/off valve. The electric lines were run to the breaker panel and hooked up in specific order so that quadrants of the panels controlled quadrants of the store. (Electricians usually just run all of the wires to the panel, hook them up, and then figure out what each breaker controls.) The bottom 18" of every wall in the store was 1/2" pressure treated plywood instead of sheetrock so that I would never have to worry about water damage. I used expanding foam insulation on the bottom 18", and standard fiberglass in the rest of the wall space to negate the possibility of mold if water did get in. There were many other small things that I did while I was building it out to insure that I wouldn't have to spend money on repairs in the future.

Which brings me to the house I'm currently in.

When I got here, there was a non-working wireless doorbell system decorating the walls. So when I did some repair work on the front of the house I ran wire for a proper doorbell. When I went to install the doorbell, I discovered live wires in a hole in the hallway where a doorbell should go. I asked the wife why her ex hadn't installed a proper doorbell, and she said that he told her that there weren't enough wires to make it work. (There were two wires, all you need is two wires.) So I traced the wires to the source and found the transformer which was fully functional, put in the new doorbell, and everything works as it should. Cost? $12.00 for the doorbell and button, as opposed to the $19-$24 someone spent on a useless wireless system. Do it right the first time.

Last weekend I decided that I should check to see if the dryer vent and element needed cleaning. I asked the wife when they were cleaned last, to which she responded "It was installed 12 years ago, and since it was new I'm pretty sure it was clean then." I was astounded when I opened the unit. There was an 8" layer of lint in the bottom of the dryer, and a 2" heat blackened layer on top of the heating element. A fire waiting to happen. Clean your dryer annually! It's very easy to do and doesn't take that long.

This weekend the wife told me that she was worried that someone would break into the dungeon (computer room) through the window where the AC unit is housed. I tried to tell her that any burglar with a modicum of intelligence would simply tap out a window pane and open any other window rather than move the air conditioner unit but she would not be swayed. So after replacing the rotted support structure with pressure treated wood (which will likely outlast the AC unit) I removed the rotted plywood that was duct taped on each side of the unit and custom cut two pieces of 1/4" steel to fit the spaces. Sanded, primed, painted and drilled the steel. Screwed the panels in place making it a 30 minute job to remove everything when the AC dies and has to be replaced, but the wife is happy since a burglar definitely won't break into this window. I also put in a vapor barrier to keep the steel from rusting due to condensation, and then I insulated and put in custom plexiglass panels on top of the insulation to make it all air tight and aesthetically pleasing on the inside. Do it right the first time.

So many other little things that would alleviate issues as a home ages.... like using proper lags and screws on the thresholds instead of just trying to glue them down. Buying drain pipes that are long enough instead of forcing what you had into place when the garbage disposal was installed (improperly, at that.) Leaving enough line for the dishwasher to be pulled out without having to unhook it first. Label the breaker panel, put drip loops in the cable lines that were run. Do it right the first time.

Oh well, at least I have things to work on, and I like the feeling of satisfaction I get when I make things right. But I'd really rather that everyone would do it right the first time ;)

Le Sigh and a Solenoid

Ok, so the posting isn't a continuous stream. Not that I am lacking things to post about... it's just that a few factors prevent most posts from ever reaching my blog.

1: I usually think of something great to post about while I'm working, then promptly forget about it by the time I get home.

2: Many of the posts would be work related and I'm hesitant to put anything like that in a public medium considering the depth to which many companies now dig. One never knows how any particular statement will be taken by a prospective ( or current ) employer.

3: Some parts of my life would be really, really funny but I refuse to post about them on this blog since it's listed on my Facebook account and there are things that I don't care to have casual acquaintances knowing about me.

If it weren't for those three things, I'd have a new post or two every day!

On other fronts....

When I moved in with my wife, the ice maker/dispenser was broken. That was back in 2009 and judging from the condition it was in when I first checked it out it had been that way for quite some time. (The wife says '08, possibly '07 that it quit working.) So I looked at it on and off for a couple of years while my brain tried to figure out how the thing was put together. At first, I thought that the door had to be dismantled from the inside. But while I was cleaning the coils on the fridge I ran across the water solenoid in a panel on the back of the unit. This made me realize that it probably came apart from the outside rather than the inside.

Lo and behold, upon further study I found how to dismantle the control panel to trouble shoot the damned thing. I got the ice maker working with a few tweaks, and moved on to the dispenser portion of the unit. Behind several layers of plastic and screws was a solenoid that opened the dispenser flap for the ice to flow through the door. It was solid rust. I pulled it out, took a wire wheel to it until I could read the part numbers again, and ordered another one.

The part was at the front door when I got home. Fifteen minutes to install it and it was once again working as it should. That made for a very happy wife. And Choreboys around the world know.... a happy wife is a happy life :)

Now why, you ask, didn't I simply call a repairman and have ice for the last 2 years? I'll tell you why: There have been many times in my life that I have called someone out to fix something only to realize how damned simple it would have been to do it myself. And I kick myself mentally every time I pay someone for things like that because it makes me feel lazy! I respect the people who do repair work, I just respect myself less if I spend my hard-earned money paying them to to something I'm perfectly capable of doing.

With all of that being said, I realize that there are people in the world that wouldn't know which end of a screwdriver to use (or the difference between a phillips and a standard) much less be able to repair something on their own. Those are the people that need repairmen.

Me? I'm grateful for the knack I have for fixing things.

You're kidding, right?

Working in a restaurant has benefits. If you so choose, you can eat anything on the menu fixed any way you want it and it's FREE. On the flip side, you get so tired of eating the same thing every day that it can be a treat to eat food from some other restaurant.

Today was one of those days. We all decided to send someone out to pick up food from other places so that we could have something different.

So I'm in the restaurant busting my butt serving people that feel like eating our food when my cell phone starts to vibrate incessantly. Of course, I can't stop making food to answer the phone so I ignore it. At this point in time the store phone starts ringing, and doesn't stop. Just ring, ring, ring, ring, ring. Fifteen minutes later when the lines were eliminated and everyone was served and happy I ran back to the office and picked up the phone (which had not stopped ringing even once).

It was the guy we had sent out for food. His question to me: "Do you want your chicken wings to be white meat or dark meat?" I said "WHAT?????" "Do you want your wings to be white meat or dark meat?" He was serious! I said "Fred, wings are wings. They only come one way." He says "Well, I always order my wings with white meat, because if you don't specify they give you dark meat."

I did not think it was possible to surprise me with the power of human ignorance, but damn if it didn't happen today.

But will it make a turd?

I love my dear wife, even with her fanaticism concerning weight loss. She often cooks and the food is usually good but at times it can be.... etheral in nature. Today was a special day though :)

I once asked an older gentleman why he didn't like lettuce. He told me that he actually didn't mind the taste of lettuce, but it didn't have enough substance "to make a good turd with". Basically, his idea of good food was anything that would "make a turd" the next morning.

Breakfast today was good food.

We had real bacon- fried on the stove top, not precooked/devoid of fat stuff reheated in the microwave or oven. Then while the wife scrambled her artificial egg whites from a carton I fried three real eggs (fresh from the shell) in the bacon grease as eggs *should* be cooked. While I was working on the bacon and eggs, Amanda was busy cooking grits with a one pound block of Monterrey Jack cheese in them and loads of butter, and big horkin' biscuits that were soon filled with tons of butter and jelly.

If you've never had a breakfast this good you should understand that this kind of meal will generally hold you through lunch, and depending on what time you eat it could even tide you over until dinner. This is the kind of breakfast that I used to eat as a kid, or on camping trips. I think it is sad that people don't have the time to cook a real breakfast anymore.

Especially the kind of breakfast that will make a turd :)

My own gravity field...

Wow. I've done it. I quit smoking, quit using nicotine gum, and quit staying at a reasonable weight. I am now heavier than I have ever been in my life. I weighed myself today and came in at a whopping 196.5 lbs, give or take a pound (it's a cheap scale). The most I remember weighing in the past was the last time I quit smoking and that was 194 lbs.

Fortunately I'm fairly tall at 6'1" and with a loose shirt the tire around my midsection doesn't appear to be as large as I perceive it to be.

The wife, however, insists on cooking loads and loads of foods that cause one to gain weight simply by smelling them. This wouldn't be so bad if she would assist in eating some of these foods, but she is trying to reach her goal weight and eats like a canary. She just cooks the fattening stuff to live vicariously watching others eat it. I personally believe that she's trying to make me obese so that she looks tiny when she's with me. She barely weighs the same as a box of crayons as it is!

I suppose I'm going to have to begin a regimen of exercise like I did previously. I used to run 5k every morning before work, and sometimes again when I would get off late at night. It would probably make me feel better to do so but I'm having a hard time getting motivated to start running once more.

To be honest? I'm not into building muscle, I just want to look reasonable in my clothes. That, and not have my own gravity field.