Another hot wet day.\u00a0 Probably.<\/p>\n
Yesterday was stormy all morning and into the early afternoon.\u00a0 It looks like we got 2-3 inches of rain in a few hours based on what was in the buckets in the yard.\u00a0 We lost power a couple of times and there was a ton of lightning and thunder, very close by.\u00a0 Despite the storm it stayed hot most of the day until eventually the rain stopped and it got cooler.<\/p>\n
I spent the morning doing lots of nothing on the computer.\u00a0 Spent the early afternoon picking up some auction items.\u00a0 Then finally the weather was cooler so I did a couple of other things around the house.\u00a0 Fixed the toilet fill valve in the master.\u00a0 It should have taken a minute, and involved just cleaning some surfaces in the valve, but I broke off a plastic nipple for the bowl fill hose.\u00a0 That meant replacing the valve.\u00a0 Since I just got a dual flush conversion and fill valve in an auction, I tried that.\u00a0 Valve went in easy but the flapper replacement was too small.\u00a0 The Toto has a massive hole from the tank to the bowl and needs a special flapper.\u00a0 The replacement wouldn’t fill the opening. . . so I put the flapper back and will save the dual flush for something else.\u00a0 It was still cheaper than just the valve.\u00a0 I figure the plastic was brittle and the thing needed to be replaced eventually, so I just got ahead of the problem.\u00a0 [Yeah, I meant<\/em> to do that, I’m proactive<\/em>.\u00a0 Yeah.]\u00a0 Also had to tighten the stem packing nut on the supply line.\u00a0 It was dripping after turning the water on and off and on and off a few times.<\/p>\n Since it was cool enough to get into the attic where I keep all my plumbing parts, I also replaced the pump soap dispenser in the kitchen.\u00a0\u00a0 It has been limping along for a while.\u00a0 We use Dawn dish soap in the dispenser for dishwashing and hand washing.\u00a0\u00a0 One, two quick pumps and you’re good to go.\u00a0 The rinse will soap up any dishes in the sink too.<\/p>\n And finally, I got out a strap and pulled a fence post.\u00a0 The post was for a chain link fence and gate that made a dog run behind the garage.\u00a0 I pulled the fence fabric out long ago but couldn’t budge the post in the middle of the space.\u00a0 I bought a high lift jack (old school, for lifting cars when they had steel bumpers and weighed 2 tons) a few months back with this project in mind.\u00a0 I finally had soggy ground, lower temps, the jack, and time all at the same time and place.\u00a0 The reason I couldn’t budge it by hand turned out to be 2 ft of concrete holding the post in the ground.\u00a0\u00a0 The jack made it slow but easy to pull it straight up.\u00a0 I cut off and saved about 4ft of pipe, and put the concrete out for heavy trash.\u00a0 A high lift jack is super handy, and you’ll find uses for it.\u00a0 It also got used when we assembled the pool, to lift a couple of posts and put blocks under them to level the pool rail.\u00a0 Mine is not an actual HiLift jack, it is just like this one.<\/a><\/p>\n What’s the point of all that trivia?\u00a0 Prepping.\u00a0 Having the tools and supplies on hand.\u00a0 Working smarter as your body gets older.\u00a0\u00a0 I had a replacement for the soap dispenser.\u00a0 I had a toilet fill valve in the attic (which I didn’t use, but it was there.)\u00a0 I picked up a specialized tool to make a job easier, and found other uses for it too.\u00a0 (And that I’m a clumsy, impatient dumb@ss sometimes, turning a one minute job into a half hour job by breaking something.)\u00a0\u00a0 I could have gone to HomeDepot but I’d already stocked up on things that I knew I’d eventually need.\u00a0 I could have dug a hole to get that post out, but the jack made it almost zero effort, and using a hand truck to move the concrete to the curb was way smarter and easier than carrying it.<\/p>\n Two of those jobs had been nagging at me for months so it felt good to get them done, even if they weren’t life or death.\u00a0 And I justified having spare parts on hand, and the purchase of a tool \ud83d\ude42\u00a0 Who doesn’t think THAT’S a win?<\/p>\n Now I need to crank through about 50 similar little projects…<\/p>\n Dinner was hamburgers on the grill from a frozen ‘chub’.*\u00a0 Canned corn. Canned refried beans (wife’s choice), and Lay’s Potato Chips,\u00a0 Classic style of course.<\/p>\n Hospitalizations continue to increase in number and pace in many areas, and some places are thinking about reinstating\u00a0 restrictions or delaying their removal.\u00a0 I know what I’m doing.\u00a0 Time to pull back in.<\/p>\n Seattle says that now that people are getting killed in the ghetto, they’re going to work to dismantle it.\u00a0 Good luck with that.<\/p>\n Gangbangers and the diversite’ are also emboldened and driving up the body count in our formerly great cities.\u00a0 That’s not getting better anytime soon.\u00a0 Judging from the number of videos of white people losing their *ahem* composure<\/em> and screaming at random black people, yellow people, and brown people, some folks are getting fed up and have about had it with some other people.\u00a0 Once that hits critical mass, there’ll be no putting the genie back in the bottle.\u00a0 It isn’t going to be pretty.\u00a0 Spicy time approacheth.<\/p>\n Elsewhere in the world, wuflu continues to rack up a body count and devastation on a large scale.\u00a0 Korea thinks they’re seeing a second wave.\u00a0 Many countries are still on their first wave, and some are really just taking off exponentially.<\/p>\n China and Russia are both flexing their military might and expansionist plans.\u00a0\u00a0 That has gotten worse, not better.\u00a0 Could be it’s all distraction for the folks watching at home, or it could be they think they can get away with it at the moment.\u00a0 Or embrace the power of ‘and’.\u00a0 No reason it can’t be both.\u00a0 In any case, another factor to watch, and consider in your medium and long term planning, and more evidence for me that we are in a period of big changes and global realignment.<\/p>\n So, what are you doing about it?\u00a0 You can’t change those other people, but you can choose how you’ll react.\u00a0 I’m stacking.\u00a0 Hope you do too.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n nick<\/p>\n *’Chub’ in this context means a plastic tube o meat.\u00a0 I’d never heard that term before, but that’s how it appeared on my receipt.\u00a0 “Chub” of hamburger.\u00a0 Learn something new every day. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Another hot wet day.\u00a0 Probably.<\/p>\n Yesterday was stormy all morning and into the early afternoon.\u00a0 It looks like we got 2-3 inches of rain in a few hours based on what was in the buckets in the yard.\u00a0 We lost power a couple of times and there was a ton of lightning and thunder, very close by.\u00a0 Despite the storm it stayed hot most of the day until eventually the rain stopped and it got cooler.<\/p>\n
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