08:15 – It was 66F (20C) when I took Colin out at 0630, sunny and clear.
We didn’t get much done yesterday after I posted. The electrician showed up mid-morning. When we walked downstairs, there was a pool of sewage from the downstairs toilet overflowing. Oddly, there was no strong odor. I couldn’t smell anything. Even Barbara, with her much more sensitive, non-smoking snout, said there was a very, very slight sewage odor, but nothing she noticed until she went downstairs. I called Shaw Brothers immediately to let them know we needed help.
The toilet had suffered a volcanic eruption, spraying sewage and toilet paper all over the bathroom floor and out into the den area, where it soaked the bottom books in the many stacks of books still on the floor. Barbara bagged all those up yesterday and took them to the dump.
At that point, we were hoping that it was just the drain for that toilet that was plugged up. We’d used a bunch of old towels to soak up the sewage on the floor, and I made the mistake of carrying them upstairs and putting them in the washer, with plenty of detergent and chlorine bleach. I soon realized my error, as Barbara shouted up that the bathtub and downstairs sink was backing up. So I killed the wash cycle.
To make a very long story short, a backhoe is to show up this morning to dig up the septic tank. No matter what the problem turns out to be, I want them to pump it out as long as they have it uncovered.
When we first moved up here, I was surprised that there were no pump-out pipes sticking up on any of the septic systems we saw. Back 40+ years ago, I had many friends up in Pennsylvania who lived on rural properties. Most of them had a pipe sticking up from the septic tank. Those few that didn’t turned out to have a metal hatch cover buried under only a few inches of soil. Down here, they bury the septic tanks, and they have to be dug out when they need to be pumped.
Let that be a lesson to me. A year or more ago, I’d just about convinced myself to preemptively pump out our septic tank. But I talked to several people, who all said the same thing. That a lot of people had septic tanks that had worked just fine for 30 or 40 years. But I want this pumped out now. We’re in our early 60’s, and I don’t want to be dealing with this 10 or 20 years from now.
Fortunately, part of being prepared for things in general means we’re also prepared for this. We got the bedside commode down from the attic and set it up in the master bathroom upstairs. We have thousands of those t-shirt/thank-you bags, which fit over the bucket in the potty chair.
We can’t run any water down the drains until the situation is resolved, so Barbara brought up three of the 3-gallon dishpans from downstairs. There’s now one in each side of the kitchen sink and one on the counter to the side, so we can now wash dishes if we need to. The water still runs, but even if it didn’t we have plenty of bottled water to hold us.
The upshot is that being prepared makes this situation a lot more bearable that it might have been. We still can’t take showers, but Barbara can shower at the gym if necessary. I’ll just sponge-bathe if it comes to that.
toilet had suffered a volcanic eruption
A shitty situation for certain.
But I want this pumped out now
Best hope it is just that. Tank is full. The problem may be the leach field lines not allowing the fluid to drain out of the tank. That would be a major mess and expense.
We had to have our sewer line replaced. Old line was crumbling so we had it dug up to replace with schedule 40 stuff. While they were digging for the new line one rear tire of their back hoe fell into the old septic tank in the front yard. They got it out with no problems. But now I had to pay to have the old tank filled with rock and gravel and covered with concrete slabs.
When the city put in the sewer line they made it mandatory that everyone on the line connect to the sewer and abandon the septic tank. Apparently the prior owners just connected without properly filling the old tank. That little oversight cost me several thousand dollars.
Good luck with your mess. Hope it is just a full tank and nothing else.
Indications are that the original owner installed a new septic tank in September 2005. If so, the plumber who was out yesterday said he suspected the problem was the filters that are included with recent septic tanks. He said they now know not to install those filters because they plug up and cause problems. He thinks it’s quite possible that the only problem is a plugged filter, which they can simply pull to solve the problem. We’ll see.
Yikes, what a mess.
Hope it’s simple and inexpensive.
Homeownership is one long series of writing checks and doing physical work. I don’t think most people realize that. Buying new construction doesn’t help, and may be worse. There is probably a sweet spot, where all the new construction defects are fixed, and none of the systems have worn out yet, but I certainly didn’t find it yet.
nick
Yep.
I’ve had Shaw Brothers on my speed dial since soon after we moved in. They’re general contractors, so they do pretty much everything we need done here other than HVAC. Actually, they probably do that as well.
Elaine is their office manager, and we talk so often that we recognize each other’s voices when we call each other. When we were talking yesterday, she commented that she couldn’t believe I was so calm with what had been happening here for the last couple of months. She said she’d long ago have been running in circles and screaming.
I told her that I’d always been that way. I’m calm to start with, and the worse things get the calmer I get. That has to be a good quality for a prepper.
What’s surprised me is that Barbara is also dealing with things very well. In the past, she tended to get flustered whenever we had a problem. Lately, she’s been dealing with major problems pretty calmly.
Perhaps because her overall load is lower, leaving more ‘slack’ in her system?
n
Might be. Her job was pretty stressful. When she retired 9/30/15, I saw a pretty immediate change. Losing her salary and medical insurance put us in a worse situation financially, obviously, but she’s worked all her life and deserved to take it easier. She still works in our business and volunteering locally, but that’s what she wanted to do so her stress level is way down.
From Greg Norton, yesterday:
“….. but I don’t trust TimeWarner/Spectrum for voice.”
I could not be happier with them. They are the only ll phone service with Nomorobo, free stopping a large majority of robo/automated calls.
And this is an excellent example of how prepping pays off even when there’s just a minor problem. She commented yesterday that she’d just have to walk down to the convenience store across the road to use the bathroom. I told her no way, and immediately got the bedside commode in place and ready to use. So now we’re basically camping out at home.
I read where a Baltimore police officer was caught planting evidence. Seems he did not realize his body camera recorded the prior 30 seconds before he activates the camera. Now 53 cases he was a witness will be reviewed and I suspect tossed because of reasonable doubt.
I have long felt and stated that if an officer pulls over someone they don’t like they will ask to search the car and they will find drugs. Drugs they have planted. If the person does not consent to the search a dog will be summoned, such dog alerting on a signal from the handler thus allowing the police to search the vehicle without the driver’s permission. They will find drugs, drugs I suspect they plant in a more than a few cases.
Police officers don’t like to lose and will do what they can to make the person’s life miserable. Sort of like the IRS.
I resent anyone other than me making puns!
Preach it. All our lives we’ve been told the propaganda that home ownership is the most reliable way to become rich. I have my doubts. Sure, if you rent you’re giving someone else money every month. But if you own, you have a constant series of expenses, and you’re paying property taxes. And if you own, you have a constant series of demands on your time.
We lived in rural OK for several years. One day we got a flyer from a septic pumping co. saying “We last pumped the tank at this address XX years ago and would be happy to offer you a 20% discount to pump it out this year.” Great advertising and we took them up on the offer. The team they sent out used a metal detector to quickly find the steel access hatch in the buried tank and performed the nasty job for us. They left us some documents on how to treat your septic system to keep problems down. That was great as we had never lived with a septic system before so we needed the education.
The “get rich” part only works if you time it right.
My parents have a big chunk of net worth in their home. It’s a nice house, in a little village south of chicongo. It USED to be a nice place to live. Now its formerly quaint and safe downtown street is one long mess of hair braiding parlors, barbers, and chicken shacks, and that’s no sh!t. 40 minutes by car, and with regular bus service to downtown sh!tcago, many people used to live there and work in the city. Many more lived there and worked in the mills and supporting industry of chicago and northwest indiana. Various social policies that pushed the multigenerational welfare recipients OUT of the city (so that housing projects on lakefront property could be redeveloped into upscale condos) combined with an aging population that was too short-sighted to spend on infrastructure, and some dubious decisions to build apartments and subsidized housing (first for elderly), combined to cause a sudden and almost complete collapse in home values. Now you can’t GIVE AWAY houses on my parent’s street.
So the ‘sell your family home to fund retirement/EOL care’ plan fails spectacularly if you don’t actually DO IT when you should. They thought about selling and moving, but for one reason or another, never did. Now they can’t, and it seems unlikely that they will be able to get anything out of the house in the next 10-20 years.
And that’s a cryin’ shame.
n
Down here, they bury the septic tanks, and they have to be dug out when they need to be pumped.
The septic tanks I have experience with in Florida were buried deep and sealed without easy access. I always figured it had something to do with the water table being high south of Gainesville, but you don’t have that issue where you live.
We moved into our house in March 2014, and we’re still dealing with various problems as they pop up. Nothing as dramatic as yours (knock wood), but the house is 22 years old.
We experienced one persistent water leak into our master bedroom closet that stumped two plumbers; a third found a hairline crack in the toilet drain from a tile crew wrenching the base down into place after the previous owner had the bathroom remodeled. The water ran under the floor tiles into the closet.
“Police officers don’t like to lose and will do what they can to make the person’s life miserable. Sort of like the IRS.”
It’s all about credibility and authority. They must lie when wrong; they cannot be truthful and admit mistake as they will lose credibility and authority will be impacted.
Now, how about Mpls cop, Mohammed, shooting Australian woman through driver’s window from passenger seat? Refuses to be interviewed by authorities.
Mohammed says he was startled by the woman running up to the car in her PJ’s. That will soon morph into “I feared for my life.” He will be “let go” with no charges. What are the chances he will be tried for murder?
Here’s a bit of a strange story, cable TV tech caught on camera cutting fibers, arrested, and then charges dropped and case sealed.
http://www.cablinginstall.com/articles/pt/2017/07/striking-spectrum-cabling-tech-arrested-for-vandalizing-100-fiber-optic-cables-in-nyc-charges-droppe.html
Anyone wanna speculate that his union buddies said they’d escalate if he didn’t walk??
n
“Mohammed says he was startled by the woman running up to the car in her PJ’s. That will soon morph into “I feared for my life.” He will be “let go” with no charges. What are the chances he will be tried for murder?”
Reportedly, there was some sort of loud noise sometime contemporaneous to her approach. I can /almost/ sympathize with an assessment of threat, however, considering the time to perform a draw stroke and fire from the passenger side, without positive ID of a weapon, and there is no doubt in my mind that Mr. Mohammed overreacted. I predict he will have to dust off his biz degree and seek new employment and the taxpayers will cough up a generous settlement. No one will be happy in the end.
He didn’t have to draw; he was holding the pistol in his lap.
“considering the time to perform a draw stroke and fire from the passenger side, ”
it’s likely that Mo had his weapon drawn and in his hand. I’ve been in that seat and it’s so tight with the console, computer, radios, etc that there is no way to do a fast draw with the seatbelt on. It’s freaking claustrophobic it’s so tight.
n
I had a similar event to your wake-up a couple of years ago, at my wife’s house in New Brunswick. The backup peaked on 1 July (Canada Day) 2015, but the contractor (actually the owner) was willing to come out and pump out the tank, which should have been about 1 1/2 hours since we knew where the tank was. Unfortunately, the tank collapsed while he uncovered it, requiring a new tank. He laid out the requirement for a new tank, and the costs. Since it was a holiday, we expected him to finish with “and I’ll be back tomorrow”. Nope, he called one of his people to bring a new tank, slated for another job at that, and had it onsite about 2 hours later, giving him time to excavate the old tank and prep for the new one. And time for us to feed him lunch, since he hadn’t expected to be here for the day. Tank arrives, he drops it in, connects and backfills. Done. Again, this was a holiday, the owner came out and also didn’t charge extra for the holiday call. Love the Maritimes.
“He didn’t have to draw; he was holding the pistol in his lap.”
Yecch! Even worse. Then they shoulda had their cameras on. If it had been you or me, prison would be the /best/ we could look forward to.
In the future, when bankruptcy is the norm, I suspect the patrol model of policing will go the way of the dodo. Dispatch will come from mini-stations scattered around town more in a fire station model. Probably have long endurance drones doing the patrolling, weather permitting.
Anyone wanna speculate that his union buddies said they’d escalate if he didn’t walk??
Next year is a strike year at AT&T. You’ll see more cable cutting/spking antics like that, especially in CA.
In the 2009 strike year, a mystery party cut the fiber bundle to the south end of San Jose, running up and over the mountains from Gilroy. Among other tech casualties, Cisco’s campus lost high speed service in the outage.
AT&T broke the union’s will later that summer, but that was nearly a decade ago. CA went on strike for at least a few days in 2012 IIRC.
huh, when did realVNC change their model to cloud based?
Is TightVNC still a good alternative?
n
If it had been up to me, I’d have taken all costs out of the next union contract, and publicized how much and why. And made sure that everyone knew that if there was a repeat the union would be locked out. Considering the hack jobs I’ve watched a lot of unionized telecom “work”ers do, it can’t be that hard to train someone up to take his place. A non-unionized someone.
Dang it all, I can’t use the pc I planned on using as my security cam NVR. I tried running it just now and the frame rate dropped to 2 FPS on all the cams.
Not gonna work, and the CPU was running at 80-90% with network maxed at 90-100%.
Guess I better sell some stuff and raise some money….
n
Down here, they bury the septic tanks, and they have to be dug out when they need to be pumped.
I have never understood this. My septic tank at the office is 2,500 gallons and uses a two stage separator with a fan blowing in air to aid in the solids dissolving. The last stage has chlorine tablets and a pump with two sprinklers. I would not play in these sprinklers. The three tanks have two foot diameter concrete lids that can easily be picked up (just 50 lbs each).
I had it pumped out two and a half years ago for $465. I may do it again real soon as toilet paper does not dissolve no matter what they say. And we’ve got 15 to 20 people using the five toilets around here regularly.
Since I am commercial, I have to pay $295 per year for a guy to come by quarterly to check it out and add more chlorine tablets. Plus he fixes anything else that goes wrong like the two aerator fans that I have replaced for $600 each. He is so busy that two of his nephews work with him full time.
CPU was running at 80-90% with network maxed at 90-100%
Time to move beyond the Intel 286. Processors have gotten much faster since the 1980’s.
Seriously, video takes a lot of CPU. I created a slideshow on my main computer (Intel I7, 8 cores), a five minute show with about 100 pictures with motion added. On the main computer the show was rendered in about 3 minutes. On my Surface Pro the same show took just a little over 30 minutes to render. CPU maxed out the entire time, fans came on, back of case was warm, battery dropped 25%, nothing else running.
“Mueller Expands Probe to Trump Business Transactions”
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-07-20/mueller-is-said-to-expand-probe-to-trump-business-transactions
Your tax dollars at work. If you hire a witch hunter, they will find witches no matter what extremes they have to go to.
Trump needs to fire Mueller.
“Time to move beyond the Intel 286. Processors have gotten much faster since the 1980’s.”
Hah, the reason I need to move it to a standalone machine is that it maxes THIS pc out, with the 100MB network at 90-100% and the CPU at 75-95%
This machine is i7-4770 which is 8 cores at 3.4GHz with 16G memory
I get frame rates of 6-8 fps on this machine.
Multiple 3Mpx cameras, and a couple of 2mpx cameras are a lot of net traffic and video.
The plan was to have the cams and pc on their own GB switch, and get the traffic off my general network… which is not entirely doable if I need the doorbell on wifi, unless I put an AP on the same switch just for the doorbell.
Still evolving….
n
Perhaps the reason it’s not buried up here is because the ground freezes, and the danger of an “accident” digging out the clean-out is a lot higher with frozen ground.
After 25 years we just had ours pumped out. For the 10 years before I got married, and the 5 years before that, Grampa and I just let it run. When the wife moved in & we had kids, a lot more TP went down there. So this year she called in a friend to pump it out.
I’m glad it wasn’t buried. Even 30 minutes with a backhoe is more money than I want to spend. The lid is cheaper and easier, and we always remember where it is so as to never drive on it.
And our Emma turns 10 at 4:39 pm today. I am one lucky man.
Indications are that the original owner installed a new septic tank in September 2005. If so, the plumber who was out yesterday said he suspected the problem was the filters that are included with recent septic tanks. He said they now know not to install those filters because they plug up and cause problems. He thinks it’s quite possible that the only problem is a plugged filter, which they can simply pull to solve the problem. We’ll see.
Filters in gravity fed devices are a bad idea. Especially buried gravity fed devices. I am assuming that you do not have a sewer lift pump.
“CPU was running at 80-90% with network maxed at 90-100%”
Time to move beyond the Intel 286. Processors have gotten much faster since the 1980’s.
AMD will release Ryzen 3 at the end of the month — overclockable, quad core, $100. I may look at one for our home server.
“a mystery party cut the fiber bundle to the south end of San Jose”
If it had been up to me, I’d have taken all costs out of the next union contract, and publicized how much and why. And made sure that everyone knew that if there was a repeat the union would be locked out. Considering the hack jobs I’ve watched a lot of unionized telecom “work”ers do, it can’t be that hard to train someone up to take his place. A non-unionized someone.
Don’t worry. AT&T management smacked down the union hard later that Summer. I still don’t think they have recovered in the legacy Ameritech companies. Too many parties, including Steve Jobs, had a vested interest in preventing a strike in 2009.
I’ve had my septic tank back up twice in the 17 years we have been here. Both times it was the line between the tank and the drain field – it is an old system. I replaced the original cast iron with PVC last year so hopefully it is not a problem again. No Fun to deal with sewage, even if it is your own. Fortunately the backups did not happen in the middle of winter. One septic pumper told me they build a big pile of charcoal and burn it for a day or 3 to get the ground thawed enough to dig up the tank cover when that happens. Our pump out cover is now at ground level (after the hearing the frozen ground story) but there is a smaller cover that gives access to the tank outlet and is about 4 feet below ground level.
The last backup happened with a house full of guests on a Sunday morning. I was out in the yard digging up the tank in my bathrobe. Not a good experience…
Here, the county requires you to either have an inspection or pump out every 3 years. Everyone just gets it pumped – but not needed at that cadence typically. Cost is around $190.00 and takes about 10 minutes. It is black gold for the pumpers. One of my colleagues and I talk about leaving our engineering jobs and going into the pumping business. We both have Ph.D’s in engineering but it looks like we might be able to do better pumping tanks. Pick a service no one else wants to do and cash in! Of course, trash and sewage market is not easy to break into – there is a good old boy network.
Had over 7″ of rain last night in something like 1.5 hrs. Lighting hit the house and took out a fuse for the well pump – easy fix but had me concerned for a bit. Need to keep extra fuses on hand! Basement is very wet, took the day off to deal with that. Have never seen this much rain this fast around here…
Wow Bill, lucky that lightning didn’t mess you up.
I usually disconnect my antennas if I’m home and it’s thundering, but not always.
LOTS of things plugged in that a lightning strike would kill.
One of my clients (in the country) gets something taken out by lightning about every 6 months. $1200 camera, 200 UPS, in the last year. His neighbor lost 3 outdoor cams….
nick
Mentioned I was getting all the ‘sucker list’ newsletters and spam since I have been entering contests. The reason I decided to go ahead and enter is stuff like this:
1 in 18000 is a LOT better odds than you get with most contests, and there is a nice payoff. Most of the gun give a ways I enter have similar odds, although some are bigger.
n
Taking a cool down break from working in the garage. Only 103 in the driveway today.
n
Frys has the da Vinci desktop 3d printer on sale, $250.
Stuff is getting cheap!
http://images.frys.com/art/email/072017_thu897fdg_maker/Maker_web.html?promocode=3745079
Here, the county requires you to either have an inspection or pump out every 3 years.
That is probably a good idea. My county requires that all new septic systems be the two stage aeration systems with power controls, an aerator, a pump, and sprinklers. About $8,000 installed.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aerobic_treatment_system
Taking a cool down break from working in the garage. Only 103 in the driveway today.
Definitely. I saw 100 F on my truck thermometer earlier today.
back inside.
did I mention it’s HOT?
fan going, shaded garage, still–
Found some costco lemonade. about a year past due, cloudy and darker. Smells like lemon juice. Might be safe, but taste and appearance have def been affected. Not gonna try it. Will use bottle for water though. Thrifty, that’s me.
n
added- i’m sorting thru a pile, stuff going out of the garage, stuff returning to my office, stuff needs fixing, stuff for ebay, and stuff ready to sell.
So far I’ve only dug thru one pile, 2x3ft and 4 ft high.
Government regulation may be an acceptable idea for rental property, or if in some other way your property could affect someone else.
If it’s just your home and just your family, what business is it of the government’s whether you check your septic every month or not at all?
This house was built in 1980. All the county knows is that yeah, there’s a septic system and a house with X sq ft.. No plans or anything. About 15 years ago we called a septic company. No problems but hey, my sister stayed here for a couple of years with three daughters while she’s getting divorced. So Preventative Maintenance and all that.
He found the tank with a metal detector. After he dug a 4ft deep hole, he pumped it out. Said “oh man, lot of groceries in here!”. I know, “ick!” but funny at the same time. Then he put a piece of black plastic tubing (like culvert pipe) cut to ground level and that is where the tank’s lid sits. Not attractive, would not fly in the front yard in Austin, but here, it’s in the back yard. I’ve half a mind to buy one of those cheesy windmills from HEB. Not.
A few years later we had the “flush potty and water comes up in the tub” thing. Which is nuts because this house pier and beam on a slope, so, about 3ft above ground on the back side. And two people living here. Had the tank pumped. No joy. Then had about half of the lateral line dug out…. ah, well, good bye peach tree. Solid roots in the pipe. Pretty much just 30 feet of lateral line… Never a problem since.
Now we have a couple of sprinkler valve boxes and a cap to pull off to see the water flowing. More like a heavy drip than a flow actually.
The crazy part to me is that the two times this tank has been pumped, it didn’t stink. Smelly yes, like walking downwind of where Missy the 105# dog just did her thing. The house in Austin? OH HELL. Ya gotta use a pillow for an air filter over your face INSIDE the house and the windows are closed. Same thing when next door was pumped. And the next house over. And the house across the street.
We’re good. Everything works.
Annnd it’s 106F on the shady north side of the house.
If it’s just your home and just your family, what business is it of the government’s whether you check your septic every month or not at all?
My wife’s father’s family farm in upper state New York is on a hill. The septic tank is below the house. A stream is below the septic tank. When the septic tank overflows, it overflows into the stream. It has overflowed many times according to the wife.
“If it’s just your home and just your family, what business is it of the government’s whether you check your septic every month or not at all?”
I think it is mainly to check the drain field. We have a lot of sand under ours, so it is still fine after 40 years, but many around here are in clay and loose function over time. Raw sewage could be going out if someone is a dumba$$ and has a badly installed / functioning system. So I sort of don’t mind the county checking on this…
I agree that in general the govt needs to stay out – but there are times they are useful. Just hate when the bad 1% causes the rest of us rules we don’t need…
And, regarding lighting – it is the one thing that I have become increasing afraid of as I live my life. A couple of years ago, I was in bed and my wife was in the kitchen. There was a flash-bang to wake the dead. My wife said she saw a ball of lighting run through the house. It actually opened some drawers. We never found any damage. Last night – same thing – FLASH-BANG. Took out one leg of the well pump 220V. Have not found any other damage. One of my college friends was made a paraplegic by a lighting strike during a football game. It gets more frightening the more you are around it…
Then had about half of the lateral line dug out…. ah, well, good bye peach tree. Solid roots in the pipe. Pretty much just 30 feet of lateral line… Never a problem since.
We used to live in Sweetwater, Texas (west of Abilene). We had the flush problem with the sewage rising in the bathtub. I put a container of root killer in the potty and flushed it. The forty foot Magnolia tree in the backyard died over the next week or so.
“MAXINE 2020? Waters appearance in NH on Sunday”
http://www.theamericanmirror.com/maxine-2020-waters-appearance-nh-sunday/
Run Maxine, run ! Please, please, please !
I can just see her in Texas. Or any southern state.
Hat tip to:
http://drudgereport.com/
I was out in the yard digging up the tank in my bathrobe. Not a good experience…
For you or the neighbors.
“For you or the neighbors.”
very true, but I was not in a position to care 🙂
I worked with a guy in the oil field, he was very fastidious. One Sunday morning he flushed his only toilet in the house and a hand towel fell in and promptly plugged it. His mother in law was going to show up toot sweet. So he pulled the toilet, and carried it out to the front yard (small house and summer so a good place to work, I guess). Of course, he had been in his cups the night before (standard oil field procedure), so he proceeded to puke in the yard, with the toilet in his arms, as his mother in law drove up. Not a fun morning.
I don’t know why I told that story, other than it is my classic “plumbing gone wrong” tale…
“My county requires that all new septic systems be the two stage aeration systems with power controls, an aerator, a pump, and sprinklers. About $8,000 installed.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aerobic_treatment_system”
Same here – I have a gravity system; installed in the 70’s. No issues (other than than the 2 pipe plugs discussed above), Easy to understand and zero pumps/filters to deal with. I don’t know why they don’t allow gravity systems now if you have a good drain field geology. In North Dakota, they are now requiring a new system, similar to what you linked, if you buy an old farm house. Even if it has a fully functioning system in place – if the deed changes, you need a new “certified” system…
I don’t know why they don’t allow gravity systems now if you have a good drain field geology.
We have clay soil. The first sand layer is down 80 ft. The second sand layer is down 150 ft. The third sand layer is down 240 ft (that is where my water well pumps from).
Plus, the third tank has chlorine in it to kill all XXX most XXXX some of the bad guys in the sewer water that is getting ready to be sprinklered over the nearby landscape.
Plus, there are now 750,000 people living in Fort Bend County and they are worried about contaminating the ground water.
Makes total sense in your situation Lynn. Wondering why the same is needed in North Dakota when the farm houses are a mile apart 🙂
Makes total sense in your situation Lynn. Wondering why the same is needed in North Dakota when the farm houses are a mile apart
I’m just wondering how you keep the septic tanks from freezing up in North Dakota.
All these sewage stories reminds me of De Niro’s revenge scene in “Brazil” for the Central Services repairmen. Ick!
Once upon a Super Bowl Sunday time the property supervisor sent a very reluctant maintenance man across town to fix a plugged toilet. Well, tenants: the several guys, watching the game, laughed at the maintenance guy when he found the toilet filled to the brim. Well, maintenance guys: I don’t recall the rationale but the guy decided to pull the toilet and replace it with one on board his truck (instead of augering out the line). When he got the still full toilet into the living room (on some type of cart) had a quite deliberate oopsie and dumped it on the carpet. He had the last laugh.
Lots of TOILET and SEPTIC TANK talk today.
I miss the old days of talking about FLASHLIGHTS…..
“I miss the old days of talking about FLASHLIGHTS…..”
“I miss the old days of talking about FLASHLIGHTS…..”
10-4. and I got one of those Fenix tactical ones based on a suggestion here about 15 years ago.
“I’m just wondering how you keep the septic tanks from freezing up in North Dakota.”
AFAIK, the tanks in North Dakota are typically about 6 feet down (at the top). Frost line is around 6 or 7 feet in a typical winter. I lived up there for many years but never had a septic tank then – although my wife’s family farm has one that is still working fine many decades after installation.
Here, in central Wisconsin, it seems to be about 3 to 4 feet. The tank top here is about 4 feet below grade. I have never seen the snow melt above a tank so they must know how deep to bury them per climate…
Lots of potty talk from all the pottymouths, you mean.
@Steve:
I was just trying to be polite. But, maybe that is not common enough around here, so perhaps your ‘fix’ will be better understood.
Someone said poor sanitation killed more people than war.
I’m gonna say septic is more survivable than being at the bottom of the hill with a lift station when the power goes out…..
n
just made some muffins from mix, just add milk. Delicious and almost exactly a year past best by date….
Martha White in a plastic pouch, Blueberry and Cheesecake flavor.
n
Couple things from one of my newsletters–
Everyone is finally coming around to tourniquets for trauma-
https://www.interagencyboard.org/sites/default/files/publications/Training%20Trigger%20-%20Tourniquet%20Use%20Under%20Medical%20Protocols.pdf
People are going nuts about the coming eclipse
emphasis added.
n
Late-night greetings, salutations and felicitations, sportsfans!
A full day of driving, meeting with the VA voc rehab guy, and then the vets group this afternoon.
The VA will approve me going two-plus years at many thousands of dollars for a Master’s in Clinical Mental Health Counseling specializing in Addictions/Substance Abuse. Who better, I say? Smoker of weed and hash and dropping acid quite a few times in my younger years, heroin addict for a while, and professional-level hardcore drinker for forty years. They will also pay me a monthly stipend, roughly 3/4 of what they’re already paying me for disability. I’ll be ROLLING in cash!
So I gotta do the application stuff online and also make an appointment with the veterans counselor at the college; Johnson State College, in Johnson, VT, beautiful hilltop campus and the town is also home to Johnson Woolen Mills. Outstanding but pricey heavy winter clothing there. I’ll be on that tomorrow while wife works on the kitchen, etc.
She was happy for me today, but not so much later, as her employers in Mordor were/are desperate for somebody to take a gig in Paramus, NJ next week and she was hoping for two weeks off. She said she’d go if they couldn’t find anybody else, seriously, and if they Fed-Ex her latest check to her TODAY. So they did, supposedly. Because my SS was totally spent on the vet bill for our mutt; $1,100. Holy fuck. This is what they charge nowadays for even minor procedures.
When she gets back for a day or so, she is then driving her 89-year-old mom up to the cottage in New Brunswick and staying there for a week, I think, and then I’ll have to get her in Moh-ree-all at the airport and a day later she has another gig somewhere.
Meanwhile I’ll be the point man throughout on all the house and yard and tax and bill stuff. Per usual, while also working on the college thing.
I’ll be taking Saturday, August 5th, off, however, to slide on down to Waterbury (about an hour southeast of here) and Parro’s gun shop, because Ruger reps will be there with new shit for us to play with on the range. And at least one of my fellow vet group guys will be there, too. I have two Ruger SA revolvers, a Mini-30, and an American bolt .308. Maybe I’ll look at the SR556.
This afternoon we had the vets group, and me and Don, the oldest guy, who served in Laos in circa 1961-3 with the 11th Airborne, had positive nooz during “check-in.” Then it went downhill fast, as our young guy (back for six years from the Suck and the Sandbox both) is really in crisis and near rock-bottom, with a young wife and three little kids and us as his only anchors to the real world right now. He has to go out to Syracuse, NY for a court deposition next WRT his disability filing; luckily he finally got hold of a lawyer who is also an Afghan war vet. Then our lone jarhead told us he’s just dreading the phone call letting him know one or both of his sons are dead; they’re both junkies, like he was, and all three of them have done hard time. They have two ways to go: quit or die, and he says he doesn’t see any movement at all to the first choice. In their early 30s and probably not gonna last much longer. When that time comes, it’s likely to kill our boy; he’s had a rough, rough time; first with the Marines in ‘Nam and then many years of drug addiction, and gone through six wives.
And this is what we deal with in just one meeting a week. It ended OK today, though; more joking around and a lot of laughing. I count that as a success.
And…a bit of intel today….
On the way down to White River Junction, VT, I witnessed, at around 08:45, on I-89, in Middlesex, roughly halfway down, a convoy of about forty (40) desert sand Army trucks and humvees traveling at approximately the speed limit of 65 MPH, many equipped with long radio antennas, and the troops were in desert sand camo. If I hadn’t had the appointment to get to, I would have happily trailed them just to see where they were going. Also more OD green chopper traffic overhead here.
Next younger brother reports USAF special operations aircraft and low-flying mil-spec choppers over his AO in eastern MA the last few nights. Supposedly training missions in conjunction w/law enforcement down below.
We use an app called Flightradar24 on our phones, and it usually includes the aircraft type, tail number, altitude, direction, speed in knots, time in the air, and a little pic of it; the little planes on the screen move, too. Good to know what’s overhead at any given time; most peeps never look up.
Your tax pesos at work…
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-07-21/coast-guard-spends-300k-searching-for-man-who-faked-death/8730784
I can just see her in Texas. Or any southern state.
They would fete Maxine Waters like a conquering Roman Empire general in Travis County. San Antonio too, but the event would have to be carefully controlled, limiting tickets to the known entity brown shirts in town.
@Dave/OFD, congratulations on the new job. IMHO the best folks to help folks are the ones who have “been there and done that”.
People are going nuts about the coming eclipse
I already have my eclipse glasses. Paid $10.00 for ones with plastic frames and plastic rather than film lenses. Eclipse will be close to me, not a total where I live. So I have plans to travel about 45 miles to Spring City TN which is in the direct center of totality of the eclipse. Most of the news stations around here are flaunting other locations such as Sweetwater TN. I suspect that a lot of people will be going to those areas which will have totality but are not on the center path. I plan to leave about 10:00AM, arrive about 11:15, have lunch, set up the chairs and wait.
I was in a total eclipse in 1970 while stationed at Langley AFB in Virginia. It is an amazing experience. Very odd to have darkness arrive, then leave that quickly. I can certainly understand that people of long ago with limited or no knowledge of solar system would think the world was coming to end.
The glasses I got have the darkest lens material I have ever seen. You can see nothing through them unless you look directly at the sun. Even shining a Surefire high power flashlight directly at them just produces a small dot of light where the LED is located. Block 100% of UV and infrared light. You can get glasses with paper frames for under a dollar. I suspect some company will get some printed with their branding and give them. Somebody like Coca Cola or Burger King will be offering the glasses for free with their branding. Cheap marketing.
Yes, Dave, congratulations on the approval for you to get your masters in something that you’re eminently qualified to do. Unfortunately, there’s certainly no shortage of vets that need you and people like you to help them.
[snip] and then many years of drug addiction, and gone through six wives. [snip]
I’m not sure who’s more foolish – the woman willing to marry a man who is already a five time loser, or the man, who, having been married & divorced five times, thinks “Yeah, I’ll try again.”
“…Unfortunately, there’s certainly no shortage of vets that need you and people like you to help them.”
That is correct. Thanks. We’ll see how the application process pans out; they’re not gonna get the three recommendations they want from college profs; those people are long since retired or dead by now. I’ll discuss that with the vets counselor there; I’m sure that’s not the first time it’s come up.
“…or the man, who, having been married & divorced five times, thinks “Yeah, I’ll try again.”
He knows he’s been pretty effin foolish through most of his life. He’s by no means stupid but he is also not the sharpest knife in the drawer. And he’s also a liberal, I guess. Heart of gold but the Marine infantry gig back in those jungles really fucked up his head. Half a century ago.
The VA will approve me going two-plus years at many thousands of dollars for a Master’s in Clinical Mental Health Counseling specializing in Addictions/Substance Abuse. Who better, I say? Smoker of weed and hash and dropping acid quite a few times in my younger years, heroin addict for a while, and professional-level hardcore drinker for forty years. They will also pay me a monthly stipend, roughly 3/4 of what they’re already paying me for disability. I’ll be ROLLING in cash!
Congrats ! Almost sounds like they qualified you for the GI Bill again.
Dude, I hate to spoil your dream of rolling in cash but, one word. IRS.
Then our lone jarhead told us he’s just dreading the phone call letting him know one or both of his sons are dead; they’re both junkies, like he was, and all three of them have done hard time. They have two ways to go: quit or die, and he says he doesn’t see any movement at all to the first choice. In their early 30s and probably not gonna last much longer.
I know that I have said it before but, I hate the War on Drugs ™. I am of the firm belief that the War on Drugs has killed and maimed more people than illegal / legal drug usage has.
Hell, before the Harrison Act, a high percentage of American women were were opium addicts, from taking patent menstrual cramp pills. Did them no harm, as long as they had a readily-available supply.
[snip] and then many years of drug addiction, and gone through six wives. [snip]
I’m not sure who’s more foolish – the woman willing to marry a man who is already a five time loser, or the man, who, having been married & divorced five times, thinks “Yeah, I’ll try again.”
One word. Companionship.
I am watching my 84 year old father-in-law and his 93 year old girl friend deal with his three plus year stay in a nursing home. She says that she does not love him and she comes over to spend time with him as her Christian duty. Bull honky, she is in love and drives over to see him every day. People want companionship. Even if all they can do is sit together for two hours and hold hands. She gets as much out of it as he does. She even told my wife the other day that she hopes to die first so she does not have go through the pain of burying another man in her life.
Another word. Desperation.
I already have my eclipse glasses. Paid $10.00 for ones with plastic frames and plastic rather than film lenses.
URL ?
I can just see her in Texas. Or any southern state.
They would fete Maxine Waters like a conquering Roman Empire general in Travis County. San Antonio too, but the event would have to be carefully controlled, limiting tickets to the known entity brown shirts in town.
Yup, you are correct. Houston too. They all did it for Obola and Killary.
“Almost sounds like they qualified you for the GI Bill again.”
That’s about the size of it, only at the graduate level and at about twice what I got from them in 1975. Regardless of spousal income.
“…I hate to spoil your dream of rolling in cash but, one word. IRS.”
That’s three words, actually, but yeah, I was just being facetious. I’m guessing that one or another gummint entity will see its way to chopping at one or the other of my “handout” streams, whether SS, VA disability, or the VA education stipend. In other words, chopping at those of us with the least income, per usual.
“I am of the firm belief that the War on Drugs has killed and maimed more people than illegal / legal drug usage has.”
Indeed. As has booze, a legal drug. Far, far more. That was an example of “conservative” virtue signaling, paid for by us serfs out here to little or zero avail, like most programs of its ilk.
Congrats, Dave.
If you need help digging up the old bats from your former college programs, let me know. I have a shovel and won’t scruple to pulling their hands out to hold a pen and write a glowing recommendation for you.
Best of luck on a new career to my buddy Mr. OFD. There is no lack of people needing emotional counseling in this country. We can blame the Commie-No-Shots-Fired takeover of the FUSA. Plus the pussification of males.
I hope I get up to Vermont on a gig soon so we can meet up Dave.
URL ?
I do not remember. Just do a google search. There are lots of places. Just make certain the glasses are certified as safe. Lot of crappy counterfeits out there.
Shortly after this eclipse I expect a lot of people will be having eye problems because they failed to take steps to protect their eyes. Happened in 1970 in Virginia when the eclipse occurred.
For complete safety, use a projection rig. That can be as simple as a piece of cardboard with a hole punched in it and a sheet of white paper as the projection screen.
Thanks for the good wishes, guys. We’ll see how the application process goes; besides the paperwork there will be an interview down the road.
I’m thinking it’s a win-win-win deal for them, the VA and me. But we’ll see.
Yes, MrAtoz, tell MrsAtoz to line up a gig in the beeyooteeful Green Mountain State; hope all the green doesn’t blow yer minds, though. Lotta educational stuff going on here.
Cool, I just used the word egregious in an email to an employee. It is his favorite word.
I need to take a nap now.
Shortly after this eclipse I expect a lot of people will be having eye problems because they failed to take steps to protect their eyes.
I already have eye problems, does that count ? The right eye has not focused in years. I have a mass of floaters three times the diameter (not uniformly) of the lens between the lens and the retina. I have seen a retina surgeon and he begged me not do anything until I am 60 and the old age process has finished.
The cataract surgeon wants to do the cataract surgery first since he says that the floater surgery (Vitrectomy eye surgery) will cause my baby cataract to become a major cataract quickly (6 to 18 months). And he says that the cataract surgery after the floater surgery is problematic since they replace the vitreous fluid with saline.
I needed extra pages to do my medical history for the ophthalmologist. I won’t be looking at the sun. Last one I watched with a pinhole and a sheet of paper. Traced the outline and path, probably still have it somewhere.
Not the same as looking at it with your naked eye.
I’m guessing that at full, you can look briefly, since the sun is hidden, but they can’t admit that because- idiots…
n
For complete safety, use a projection rig. That can be as simple as a piece of cardboard with a hole punched in it and a sheet of white paper as the projection screen.
I remember doing that some years ago with my daughter. It was a partial and you could see a nice crescent sun. Then we look over at the ground under the shade tree and there where hundred of them on the ground where the light dappled through the canopy of the tree.
“I’m guessing that at full, you can look briefly, since the sun is hidden, but they can’t admit that because- idiots…”
NO! ABSOLUTELY NOT! The corona is bright enough to damage your eyes.
We may set up our 10″ telescope to view it.
[snip] One word. Companionship. … Another word. Desperation. [snip]
I certainly understand those words, but marriage is per se an entangling alliance. If you’ve failed at it more than once, IMHO you really ought to look long & hard at what’s causing the failures, and address those problems first. (FWIW: I’m 52, and have never been married.) Your father in law’s girlfriend can be a wonderful companion without having been an actual wife. And yes, part of the entangling alliance aspect is the government’s interference. Married isn’t defined as “A and B stood up, pledged their eternal love, and merged their lives, finances, etc.” It’s defined as “A and B went to a courthouse, filled out a form, and paid a tax.” In Florida at least, it’s actually illegal for someone to perform a marriage ceremony in the absence of that piece of paper granting formal permission from the State.
As an ordained minister, I’d marry anyone who asked me to marry them. The government has nothing to say about it.
Your father in law’s girlfriend can be a wonderful companion without having been an actual wife.
My father in law has buried two wives. He has asked his girlfriend to be his third wife but she has refused, saying that she does not want to nurse another old man on his deathbed. Nor does she want to fall in love. That ship has obviously sailed as they have been together for 15 years.
As an ordained minister, I’d marry anyone who asked me to marry them.
Not sure why I’d want to marry you. Are you very very rich?
A Sugar Daddy could be fun. 55 foot SeaRay Sundancer kind of fun.
”
NO! ABSOLUTELY NOT! The corona is bright enough to damage your eyes.”
But millions of people look at the sun every day. I did it just this morning.
n
55 foot SeaRay Sundancer kind of fun.
No freaking way. We had a 41 ft Morgan Out Island sloop when I was a teenager in the 70s. My dad bought it with three of his friends so we each got one weekend a month. Each hour of sailing required at least ten hours of maintenance. Sometimes twenty hours. Sometimes fifty hours. The Arcturus had a 60 hp Ford tractor diesel motor that gave us unending grief. The “engine room” was 4 ft tall, 6 ft long, and the width of the boat. It contained the engine, the generator (you gotta have A/C in Galveston bay plus the microwave), a 140 gallon diesel tank, and a 170 gallon fresh water tank. I’ll bet that I changed 20 fuel pumps and fuel filters out in that cramped, hot, dieselly space. And then there was the anaerobic bacteria bloom in the diesel tank where yours truly had to drain the diesel tank 2 gallons at a time into a bucket and carry it out onto the dock. And swabbing the deck after a long day sailing with a sunburn is not as much fun as it sounds. And washing and folding up the sails is a total blast. Never again.
http://www.boatus.com/boatreviews/sail/OutIsland41.asp
Oh yeah, my classic brush with death. The four captains and their first 15 year old first mate (me) decided to take the Arcturus from Galveston to Corpus Christi via the Gulf of Mexico. Two days to get there and I am driving the boat at 2 am running about 8 knots on the sails. Everyone else is asleep. All of sudden, I see red lights forward of us of the left side. I could not see anything on the right since we had a 160% jib (sail area) that blocked dead ahead to about 45 degrees. Then I hear waves hitting rocks on the right side. I look around the jib and see that we are going down a channel with a jetty about 200 or 300 ft off to the right. I yell downstairs and got some of the captains up. My uncle goes up to the bow, looks ahead (2 am !), swears loudly, and yells “come about”. The red lights that I had seen were on power lines crossing the bay about 50 ft off the water. The top of our mast was 65 ft off the water. We were about 300 or 400 yards from the power lines. We came about, went back out, and anchored in shallow water (our anchor only had 200 ft of cable). I had thought that we were still in the Gulf, we were in a bay next to Corpus Christi. We went in to the proper bay the next morning in the sunlight.
The only instruments that we had on that boat was a depth gauge, a speed gauge, and a compass. No GPS (it was 1975, way before time), no radar (expensive!). Oh yeah, a sextant. No autopilot. I had been told to maintain a compass heading and did so. Whoever in the captains had calculated our position in the evening had been off by well over 50 miles. We were way closer to Corpus Christi than anyone had imagined.
The cataract surgeon wants to do the cataract surgery first since he says that the floater surgery (Vitrectomy eye surgery) will cause my baby cataract to become a major cataract quickly (6 to 18 months).
And that is indeed the case. I had the vitrectomy done in both eyes. About six months after that I needed cataract surgery. The vitrectomy procedure is something to behold. They start an IV, knock you out to deaden the eye by going behind the eye to get the nerve, apparently extremely painful if you not out. Then they wake you up for the procedure, you get to watch.
Three openings in the eye, one to suck, one to replace, one for the light. No discomfort but strange watching it happen. The saline they use is replaced with vitreous gel over time.
The change in vision is remarkable with no floaters, none.
If the surgeon is going to laser the retina as they did on mine ask if they can do that procedure while you are having the vitrectomy done. I did not do that on the first eye and each laser blast to the retina was like being hit in the brain with a tiny hammer. The second eye the surgeon did it immediately after the vitrectomy and it was much nicer as they knocked me out again.
The procedure is trivial in the scheme of things. No discomfort. Remarkable improvement in vision.
For cataract surgery the results are even more remarkable and the procedure is even less invasive. When I had the first eye done the next day I asked the surgeon to do the other eye as quickly as possible. Colors were brighter, blues more blue, everything was crisper. Highly recommended if needed.
Horrific story Lynn – that may have put me off of boats for good. My experiences were better – I was born in Denver but my dad was an engineer and we moved down to a town close to New Orleans because he was working at Michoud for the moon missions in the Apollo days. Anyway, I learned to love sailing down there. Still have a sail boat in a landlocked pond off of the Mississippi river here.
The strange part is that sailing gave me my fascination for diesel engines. I wanted to fuel the sail boat up and start/listen/run the engine as much as the sails… But, the diesel smelled better back then, before the low sulfur regulations. Not to say that was a bad regulation…
Enjoyed your story – It can get scary out on the water!