Wednesday, December 30, 2009

Tuesday, December 22, 2009

Stupid Saturation Coverage

Is it just me, or every time you hear "White Christmas" do you think of Tiger Woods?


...and may all your mistresses be whiiiiite.


Monday, December 21, 2009

The Trepidation

Tomorrow is the big day. The day we've prepared for for weeks, working our fingers to the bone. Yes, tomorrow is when the in-laws arrive for their Christmas visit.

Not just any in-laws, mind you. Of course, Grandmother Moo and Ellie are cherished, but they've been here before and therefore are No Big Deal. The Big Deal is Ellie's new husband. He's never been here before, and thus he doesn't know what slobs we are. Apparently, we want to keep this a big secret, as we've been cleaning and cleaning and cleaning. I even had to put up a bunch of towel bars in some of the bathrooms so that there wouldn't be any draping of towels over shower doors to dry.

Plus, we bought all new towels. And a new toilet seat for the basement bathroom (which is where the guest room is). I even splurged and bought a full tank of gas for the truck.

I'm sure he'll be completely fooled.

Movie Review - Inglorious Basterds

Meh.

Sunday, December 20, 2009

Monday, December 14, 2009

Something Not to Do 21

Tonight was an odd night, as I ate dinner out with one of my old cohorts from Santa Clarabelle who was here to take my job away from me (don't fret - it's a crap job, and I have much better jobs lined up to replace it. As far as you know), plus, The Mrs. had a migraine today. It ended up that all of us had eaten before HannahC got out of gymnastics, but I sat with her while she ate dinner cuz I like to do that.

But it went badly.
HannahC: "Dah, this is something that Momma is going to talk to you about. But, well..."

Me, CherkyB: "Yeah?"

HannahC: "You see, Miss Mickey has this tarantula that she doesn't want anymore, and..."

Me, CherkyB: "No!"

HannahC: "But..."

Me, CherkyB: "Oh, Jesus Christ."
At this point, HannahC burst into tears. That, dear readers, is Something Not to Do.

Update: It has come to my attention that it is not clear to some of my readers what the "something not to do" was in this episode. It was actually a two-fer. First, as a parent, even if you are not particularly religious, you are not supposed to blaspheme in front of your childrens. Second, you're also supposed to be more gentle and not cause your childrens to burst into tears.

Though I suspect that females use the tears thing as a technique for manipulation more than as an expression of emotion.


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Saturday, December 12, 2009

Saving the fishies

During the cold snap we've been having this past week, the front koi pond decided to freeze. That has never happened before, as the combination of the pump running and the floating heater has always kept it going just fine. But during our multi-day sub-zero spell, the pipe from the pump to the waterfall froze, blocking water circulation. Then, we got a nice layer of ice across most of the pond except right around the heater.



Today it finally warmed up (much of the day over 40), so I set about trying to figure out how to get the pond running again. First thing I did was inspect the pump too see WTF.

Well, the old pump inlet was quite clogged with leaves. Plus a 3" crayfish (who perished as a result, sadly). So, I'm guessing that the flow of water was pretty severely restricted, and this was enough to allow a pipe to freeze. I may need to upgrade the pumps to what they call "sewage pumps". Those are designed to pump water that has crap in it, which they just grind up as it passes through. The pumps I have now are water pumps, and they sieve out any foreign matter in the water and thus clog with leaves all the damn time. I don't know how the leaves get in there - the box is covered and there is both a skimmer net and a 1" thick nylon mesh filter that everything has to pass through to get to the pump, yet the pumps clogs a lot.

I got to use my early-Christmas present from moother-in-law insulated waterproof gloves to screw around with the pump. My fingers stayed nice and dry and warm. I can put my hand in boiling water for up to 20 seconds and handle dry ice with these gloves, too. I'll let you know if that comes up.

Restoring the flow on the pump, though, didn't restore flow to the waterfall. Something was definitely frozen downstream. So I dumped a 5-gallon bucket of hot water into the waterfall box. This softened up the filter screens in there enough so that I could remove them, but the water stayed in the box. That box is higher than the pump, so normally if the pump is off, water will flow out of the box back through the pump. Nothing doing.

Next, I got another bucket of hot water and poured it over the ultraviolet sterilizer. It's about a 2-foot long PVC tube with a UV lightbulb down the center. I figured it might freeze given it's not really buried (cuz you have to change the bulb every year), but just has some rocks piled up on it. Still, the water stayed in the waterfall box.

I went inside to refill the 5ga bucket with hot water. When I returned, I noticed that the water level in the waterfall box was suspiciously lower than it had been earlier. Could it be? It couldn't be this easy. Could it?

I poured the hot water into the waterfall box, and I watched the level slowly go down. Sure enough, I could see the water flowing back out of the pump box at the other end of the pond. When it had emptied itself out, I turned on the pump. Voila! Waterfall.

Wednesday, December 09, 2009

A picture is worth 1000 words

But a picture really doesn't capture the real art of a weather report.

Tuesday, December 08, 2009

Something Not to Do 20

Facebook, in my opinion, is pure evil. Now that I've figured that out, I've decided to start blogging again.

Lucky you.

Anyways, having been almost 9 months since the last installment of "Something Not to Do", I believe that we are due for an update. And do I ever have a gem for you today.

See, yesterday I was unloading the dishwasher so that I could load it with the dinner dishes. Nearing the end of the unload, The Mrs. (who had been making an annoyance out of herself all day long - she gets overly worked up around the holidays) swooped in and grabbed a couple Rubbermaid containers (the new ones where the lids snap onto the bottom for easy nesting - cool as hell, really) to put away. These go into a lazy-susan corner cabinet right next to the dishwasher that can't really be opened if the dishwasher door is open. So, The Mrs. shut the dishwasher that I was in the middle of unloading, opened the corner cabinet, and bent down to fiddle with all the storage containers. I stood there, watching, waiting.
The Mrs.: "Don't you have anything better to do than to stand there watching me?"

Me, CherkyB: "Well, I was unloading the dishwasher, but I can't get to it anymore because there is this enormous ass in between it and me."

The Mrs.: "I am tired of you telling me I'm fat all the time!"

Me, CherkyB: "Huh? I wasn't talking about your weight."
That, gentle readers, is Something Not to Do.

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Saturday, December 05, 2009

A long day ahead

HannahC made it to the state gymnastics championship this year, and it's today. We have a nice seat in the bleachers near the door so that when MaxieC gets bored, we can split for a break.

There's a Mardi Gras theme. I don't know why.

I'm trying a new blogger android app called "blogaway". I have no idea where it will put the photo.

Update:

So, apparently I need to activate a picassa web account for my blogger account before I can post pictjures from the phone. But you can't activate it from the phone. Humgub.

Meet is halfway through. HannahC is doing ok, but she's not going to win.

Battery is at only 30%. I am plugged in to an outlet in the cafeteria between events.