A good day plumbing

"...is when you're only digging through mud with your hands."

Thus said my plumber as he put back the mud he had dug out in order to fix my sprinkler supply line which, as you all remember from before, was leaking due to an original build-quality issue. He was only supposed to come over today to figure out what he needed to fix it, but he decided to fix it right then. I can now go on vacation without worrying that I will have a geyser in the back yard upon my return.

Joy.

I think this year I will need to buy some fertilizer with iron in it. For some reason, our soil is iron deficient, and you need a special fertilizer with iron in it. But I haven't been using that. And the lawn is not looking as good as the neighbors' (though they have been watering for 2 weeks compared to 2 days for me).

I have decided, though, not to fertilize until we return, as only an idiot puts down a load of fertilizer and then hits the road for a couple weeks. "Hey everybody, lookit me! I'm out of town, and my lawn is 10 inches tall!"

I planted grass seed yesterday in the bare spots. I figure two weeks without the dog or The Childrens might give it a fighting chance. I bought something called "Heat tolerant blue", which turns out to be a mix of tall fescue and Kentucky blue. It said it "aggressively spreads to fill in bare spots." I hope so.

Work is driving me insane. Everyone wants me to finish stuff and give major updates before I leave, but I don't have time for 3 major updates. Maybe 1.

I really need a haircut. My hair is a mess.

Tonight, I went to empty the camera secure digital card, and I discovered the built-in card reader wasn't working. So I rebooted. Still, nothing. So, being an electrical engineer, I opened up the case and unplugged the reader. Then I rebooted the machine without it. Then, I plugged it in again (it's just a USB connection on the motherboard), and the computer wouldn't restart.

Yeah, that's one of those heart-stopping moments.

So I unplugged it again, and only plugged in one of the three cables ("sound"), and the computer started fine. So I shut down and plugged in the second ("front panel USB"), and the computer started fine. So I shut down and plugged in the third cable ("card reader"), and the computer started fine. And the card reader worked. WTF?

I then spend like 15 minutes trying to get the case to go back together. It was tricky. The Mrs. did a lot of rolling of her eyes and sighing.

Afterwords, I got to wondering if all I really needed to do was flip the master power on the back of the case. I noticed that the card reader LED did not shut off if I shut down the computer via Windows or via the front panel button. So to power cycle the card reader, I would have to power cycle the master on the back. Hmmmm....

We shall see soon enough, I imagine.