Wednesday, December 17, 2003

I Need A Vacation
Each year I save some vacation time so that I can skip the office holiday party.

It used to be on December 24th each year (the day before the holiday), but in recent years they have been moving it farther from the actual holiday, this year it's on the 18th (a Thursday). Wouldn't you know that I requested every day from the 19th to the 24 as vacation, although I was allowed to ask for the 18th off and I got it.

I think I will actually take off the 18th and the 19th, then come in the rest of the year.

Monday, December 08, 2003

Plumber?
Just an update on the Plumbing, the acid didn't work, in fact I got acid all over me in an accident I'd rather not go into. I'm just glad that I knew that Baking Soda neutralizes Sulfuric Acid or things could have really gotten messy ... and not in a good way!

I did eventually get the clog opened up, using a snake (auger).

But, to repeat myself from a few entries back, I'm not a plumber.

Neighbors
We have new neighbors, they seem nice. It's a man and a woman (no kids that I know of yet), we share a driveway with them.

Wednesday, December 03, 2003

Plumbing
I'm afraid I must once again concede defeat to another plumbing task.

This time it was the kitchen sink which has defeated me so soundly. Although I'm going to get a secret weapon tonight, Sulfuric Acid! I'd like to shake the hand of the clog that can stand up to that! {evil grin with maniacal laugh}

When you do poorly at something, you just have to pull out the big guns to get the job done (maybe that's what everybody else does and they just don't admit it!).

NOTE: Don't put potato skins or bean sprouts down a disposal, those seam to clog things up extremely fast!

Tuesday, December 02, 2003

Bad Weather

Tornado
A little over a year ago a category F1 tornado went about a block and a half North of my house.

We heard the tornado sirens and got in our basement.

The rain and wind was getting stronger, then (as if someone flipped a switch) it just stopped. After a minute or so I went up stairs and everything seemed OK.

My wife went and sat in the living room looking out the window and asked, "where are all those people going?" I went out and saw some trees down a little over a block to the North, that's when we knew something had really happened.

Not the only incident
A few years before that a Micro Burst (which is almost a tornado, but the wind goes in a straight line) came right through our block. The worst of it hit about 150 feet north of us. It came out of nowhere, the weather was very nice otherwise. The tornado sirens sounded less than a minute or two before it hit.

Both of those left a very visible trail of destruction, neither of them sounded like a train.