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