License to Drain

Mary got her license this past weekend.

I took the afternoon off on Friday to drive her down to Hastings, to the 3rd-party Driver Testing Facility located in that tiny little village (because the one over in the town of Wyoming was shut down a few months back), and she did her Parking Test and her Driving Test. She endured the pressure of parallel parking and the tension of emergency vehicles suddenly appearing and the baffling decision of one driver to push his out-of-gas vehicle right through the middle of a busy intersection. And she passed.

Now all of our children are licensed drivers, and we adults need never run off to the grocery store to fetch a gallon of milk again. Right? That is the true Right and Privilege of the New Driver: to boldly go where everyone has gone before, fetching items of inestimable value from the store at all hours of the day and night, on the whim of those who have been driving for thirty-plus years and have nothing to prove to anyone.

Well ... we'll see. Mary is not one to suffer fools (or foolish requests) gladly, and rightfully demands proper justification for any errand. She is glad to help out when help is really needed, but woe unto those who make frivolous demands upon her precious time! She is really quite discerning when it comes to such things. We pray that she continues to be as discerning in all her activities.

It was a relief to be done with it. Cheryl took her to the Secretary of State first thing Saturday morning to obtain the actual license. They didn't actually give her the official plastic license with the picture on it; instead, they gave her a temporary paper copy which will serve the purpose until the real one arrives in the mail. Things must've gotten very complicated with those licenses nowadays, what with embedded chips and fraud detection and all that. It now takes a couple weeks to produce them! But she's OK with the paper copy for now.

If she only had a car...

Her car -- that is, the car we've traditionally provided to the youngest driver -- has a few issues that need to be resolved prior to her taking possession. The brakes are worn out; one drive axle boot is cracked and needs replacing; there's a slight radiator leak (again); and the body is rusting away faster than I can replace it. We'd be better off finding her another car, but that's not in the finances right now. I'm down two cars and don't have the time to fix them. If Cheryl had her druthers, they'd be sold off for scrap, but I have it in mind to magically put them back together in my Shop of Wonders (like Caractacus Potts in Chitty Chitty Bang Bang) and fly them around the world to rescue little children -- no, wait, that's the movie plot -- I mean, to drive them around the countryside in good weather and bad, in snow and sun, rain or shine. Mary likes the red Subaru, but I'm going to have to do some serious body work before it's really road-ready again.  And my other green one still needs the engine installed. And the exhaust system replaced. And a new fuel pump. And new brakes. Oh, golly, more money...

Meanwhile, the basement work goes slowly. Cheryl is painting doors. I'm putting up the drop ceiling. And if it weren't for the other things that keep falling apart ...

Saturday night, I took apart the kitchen drain to find out why it was clogged. I had assumed the clog was in the P-trap. Wrong! It was past the P-trap, back into the wall. Beyond the reach of my snake, even. We tried the "natural" chemical treatments: salt, followed by baking soda, followed by vinegar (which bubbles nicely!), but several applications of those were insufficient to push out the offending material. We also tried the Clog Cannon, but it didn't do anything except cause water to spray out of every connector in the sink.

On Sunday, Mary and I stopped by the store on the way home from church and picked up some Industrial Strength Liquid Plumr (I wish they'd learn to spell!) and I took out all the pipes back to the wall drain and poured 3 doses (2 cups per dose) right into it, and then it finally cleared.  Finally!

And then I took a long nap, because I've been feeling extremely exhausted for the last couple of days. And achy all over. Like I'm coming down with something.

Probably a case of "I need a summer vacation".

Hondattitude

I finally finished working on the Honda Accord.

Time to get back to Real Life (aka The Basement).

And sleep.

But first, I want to bore you to tears with a long-winded explanation of the "fun" I've been having with this little project.

It belongs to a friend of mine who was given the car by her grandparents in order to have transportation to/from work and school (college). But it had a little problem. Something was leaking. Knowing I'm a bit of a car geek, she asked me to take a look at it. Which I did.

Turns out, it had not one leak, but two.

First, some idiot had replace the oil drain plug with a "universal" plug that works kind of like a toggle bolt.  You know, the stupid things people put in drywall to hold up cabinets and mirrors instead of using a stud like a normal person. The problem with these universal plugs, from what I've read on-line (very recently, because I'd never heard of them before) is that they tend to loosen over time due to the fact that the metal cross-piece inside the oil pan bends, so it has to be re-tightened occasionally. And then one must be careful not to overtighten, which can break off the cross-piece and leave it inside the oil pan.

I was afraid that it had been installed because the idiot ruined the threads of the original plug, but my fears were unfounded. One new Honda-certified oil pan drain plug later ($4.99 from AutoZone) and the oil leak is no more!

Second, the power steering fluid reservoir was nearly empty. I purchased some fluid and filled up the reservoir, then started the car to see what would happen.

It leaked.

Specifically, the high-pressure steering pump output hose was leaking at the metal/rubber joint. This is typical of power steering hoses. Because joining metal and rubber in a high-pressure hydraulic line is a tricky thing, and the metal joint which has been clamped around the rubber eventually loses its grip on the rubber and the fluid starts coming out.

Honda had the part for $400.  The local shop was willing to put it in for an additional $400. I balked. Especially when I found the part on-line for $30. And I thought I could handle the job of getting the silly hose off the car.

All I had to do, was to remove 4 bolts and the flare nut on the steering column.

The first two bolts were easy. Right out in the open, on top of the steering pump. Easy-peasy.

The next two bolts were extremely difficult. Because they were the bolts which clamped the metal hydraulic line to the framing cross-piece under the car. Between the engine and the frame. With no room for any tools or hands to reach.  The only way to reach either one, in fact, was to remove all the extraneous hoses, lines, and couplings from the back side of the engine in order to make enough room for hands and tools.

After a couple days of back-breaking effort, I managed to get both of the clamping bolts off.

Then it was time for the flare nut, which was also impossibly located between the engine and the framing cross-piece. With barely enough room to get a tool on it, but not enough room to get a tool with an extension on it.

There was absolutely no room to manuever back down there; and though I tried a flare wrench and a clenching wrench and even a pair of vise grips, it was no dice. The nut was too rusted to budge (even after four or five doses of lubricant), and there was no way I could get proper leverage on it. And my greatest fear was that the nut or the hose would snap off, and then I would have to take the entire steering mechanism apart.

So I cleaned up what I could, put the new part in the trunk of the car, and gave the car back to the young lady, with instructions to take the car to the best mechanic she could find, and see if they'd be willing to put the part on for her.

{Most shops will not install parts they did not obtain themselves, which is why I instructed her to talk to them first. In my experience, many shops have a bad habit of overcharging for parts. It would be very nice if she could find one that was willing to only charge her for the labor to install it.}

And that was the end of my Honda Adventure.

And Lord help me if I ever touch a Honda again. That was the stupidest, anti-maintenance design I've ever worked on. Routing the power steering line through inaccessible crevices is just mean.

The only way to remove the hydraulic line properly would require removal of the engine as a prerequisite.

Had it been my car, with unlimited time, that is what I would've done. And I would've cleaned up all the rusted parts along the way.

But not today.

Another Year Gone By

Written on Tuesday, June 14th. Posted Sunday, June 19th

Measurement of time is a curious thing. We used to measure it by the date we wrote on our checks (remember those?) and the dates we wrote at the top of our papers in school. It always took a while before our fingers would remember to use the correct year, even more so when we switched over from the old century to the new century, and the two-digit shorthand we'd used for so long somehow just didn't feel like enough.

It's hard to believe that it has been sixteen years since those two digits rolled over to snake-eyes. Years ago, I calculated that I would be thirty-seven in the year 2000. And I remember thinking how incredibly old that would be. ("I'm only thirty-seven. I'm not old!") And how there was so much time before that happened.

Sixteen years from twenty-one, and now sixteen years further on. You do the math. But it's just math. It's not how I feel. It's not how I think.

At work, I look around at all the people and think that they are so much older than me, even the ones whose hair is so much darker than mine. They act older. They act like responsible adults. They act like the things they are doing are making a big difference in the world. And, of course, they are. They are creating wonderful software and hardware that goes into airplanes and makes them safer and better. And I suppose I'm part of that world, too. But it doesn't feel like it. It feels like every day at work is theater, a play that someone is putting on, and I play my part and say my lines like I'm supposed to do. But it is not real. Real is what happens after I walk out of the office and climb into my car and drive out of the parking lot. Real is going home and being with my family. Work is just a dream, a dream that happens when the sun is out. It doesn't really mean anything because who in their right mind would ever think that I'm grown up enough to handle responsibility like that?

Is it the same way for everyone? Do you all feel so much younger than your age would indicate? It's much harder when your body starts falling apart; being reminded of your physical frailties have have a huge effect on your state of mind. And there are days when the years creep up on me, turning my mind and my attitude into a wrinkled prune of "get off my lawn"-ness.

The cure for me is to spend as much time as possible with the youngsters in the Sunday School at church, singing and teaching and reading and studying and learning and acting as goofy as it is possible to get away with. It is the saving grace of children: they don't care how stupid you act, so long as they know you are there to take care of them, to play with them, to keep them safe.

Today was a good day. Time at home with the family, time on the phone with dearly loved people, time to forget the stress and anxiety of Life for a little while and focus on what really matters.

And cake!

Non-Electric Sunday

Sunday was just weird. It started out weird. Well, it actually started out kind of benign, with the usual cat wake-me-up at 5:30 am and fetching the paper and making the coffee and Mary and I heading out to church to get things set up for Sunday School. But then it got weird.

Right at the moment when I got inside and flicked the light switch in the 3-year olds’ room, the power went out.

It wasn’t me! I didn't do anything! It was just a bizarre coincidence.

A storm had come through earlier, with thunder and lightning, and apparently there was a hit on a the neighborhood transformer that knocked the power half-way out. That’s important: it was only half knocked out. Not all the way. If you know anything about transformers, there are three 'legs' on the output, and they can still operate if one ‘leg’ of the transformer is crippled. But it makes for bizarre symptoms. 

Especially when part of our church is wired on one leg, and part on another.

So, anyway, the power was out. Mary and I tried to figure out what was going on, along with the maintenance guy and one of the deacons (the same ones from the oven incident). Mary was the only one prepared to wander through the darkened building: she had her iPhone as a flashlight. We adults were (as always) stumbling around in the dark.

We looked at all the breaker panels we could find (and there are a LOT in the building, owing to the fact that it has been sub-paneled and expanded and superseded like crazy) but found nothing amiss. The odd thing was that there was some power in the new auditorium, at least partially. Some lights, some plugs. The sound system was partially working. Remember that transformer? It appears that part of the new addition (added on actually over 12 years ago) was wired to one leg and part of it was wired to the other. So we were getting a few of the 115-volt circuits but none of the 240-volt circuits.

Which meant no air conditioning.

The air was warming up nicely inside the building, thanks to the sun beating down on the cloud cover and dissipating it like rain on cotton candy, so some folks ran out and grabbed some box fans to try and keep things cool with the few working plugs we had. And Mary and I lit some candles to take into the bathrooms so people wouldn’t be stumbling around in the Inner Sanctums.

Then it was a mad scramble to figure out where to have our classes. We couldn’t use any of the inner classrooms because we didn’t have flashlights or nearly enough candles, so we packed ‘em into the rooms on the outside walls with windows and did what we could with natural light. I got the elementary-age kids through our normal worship, then took the older kids (3^rd/4^th/5^th) into the gym and did Sunday School by the entry way.

Just as we finished class, the lights came back on.

Lights! Power! Air-conditioning! We were saved!

Mostly.

The main service was able to go on, and things resumed their normal course. People were able to have their coffee and eat the cookies we’d brought and sing the songs and listen to the sermon through the amplified speaker system and it was almost like a regular Sunday.

Except … we had discovered that very few of the emergency lights worked. And we don’t have any emergency equipment (candles, flashlights, etc) ready. And no one (apparently) understands the wiring completely in order to track down where a problem might be coming from.

It was a good test of the Emergency Handling System, and we didn’t do as well as we could have. So we’ll be implementing some changes. Very soon.

Because it will happen again. Some day.

Graduation Open House 2016

[Note: Written on Saturday, Posted on Wednesday]

It was Friday night, the night before the Graduation Open House, and two men were standing in the church kitchen, apologizing profusely for the fact that the oven wasn't working.

I had gone to the church to make sure that everything was going to be ready for the party on Saturday, specifically that the tables and chairs were set out and the kitchen was ready for our use, as Cheryl wanted to bake all the cookies on the industrial-sized oven rather than our little one.  I had also brought over the cake (from Costco) and the ice cream sandwiches and the punch concentrate which we would later combine with ginger ale.

There weren't supposed to be any complications, not at this late hour.

But there they stood, the maintenance guy and one of the deacons, and it was obvious from the way the pilot light covers were lying on the floor that they were having a problem. They tried to explain what was going on, but their voices were blending in a cacophony of verbiage that made no sense. Only after a few minutes was my brain able to filter the noise from the signal and comprehend what they were talking about.

The pilot lights on the oven would not light. The top burners were fine, but they couldn’t get the oven to work. And Cheryl had specifically requested that the oven be working. She was adamant about that. Explaining to her that it wasn't working, was not going to be pleasant. The two men shrugged sympathetically at me; they were just glad they weren't going to have to do it.

That was my job.

Oh, well. Might as well get it over with. We wouldn't be able to bake the cookies in bulk like she'd planned; we'd have to do them at home, and take a bit more time, and carefully transport them from the house to the church. It wasn't going to kill us, just make things more difficult.

Cheryl would be upset, of course. It had been a long week – a long couple of weeks – leading up to the Open House and there was very little patience left in her repertoire. She was on edge, a tender branch ready to snap.  I was not looking forward to that little conversation.

{We’ll skip the chaos that ensued at home when the announcement was made...}

After dinner, Adam and I escaped drove did some shopping to purchase additional items (cookie plates and frozen treats and huge quantities of ginger ale) and then took them over to the church. The two gentlemen from before were gone. We stuffed the available refrigerators and freezers with our booty. 

Then, succumbing to a sudden curiosity, I took the oven apart to see if I could determine what was wrong and perhaps get the pilot lights to light. The first thing I discovered was that it is practically impossible to get the pilot light going unless the bottom deflector plate inside the oven is removed, exposing the pilot jet and the gas jets. Once they were open to view, it was trivial to get the pilot light going. Hmmm. The maintenance guy had been trying to light it from beneath the stove, with the deflector plate still on. And that hadn't worked. Hmmm. I put everything back together, expecting the light to go out -- but it didn't. Hmmm again. Perhaps ... perhaps the maintenance guy just didn't understand how to light pilot jets?

Occam's razor: when in doubt, go with the simplest explanation. The oven was working; I let it go at that. Besides, it didn't matter at this point. With the oven working, Cheryl could do what she wanted to do. And I could rest easier.

We went home to do just that.

::

Saturday was a lovely morning, but we were all in a panic to get everything ready so we didn’t waste any time sleeping in. I was in a hurry to get to the building, worried that someone might find my oven “fix” and try to un-“fix” it!  Luckily, no one had. It still worked. Then it occurred to me that we had forgotten about putting a sign out front so that people would know that there was an Open House here. So off to the store again, this time for poster board and stakes and big, fat Sharpies. When I got back, Cheryl and Mary arrived to start putting things together. Mary took care of the signs. I started setting up tables. Then remembered that we had no ice! So it was off to the store. Again.

Finally, it was two o’clock, time for the festivities to begin. People started arriving. Not many. Not nearly enough to make a dent in all those cookies Cheryl had made. Or the gallons of punch. Or the sheet cake.

Oh, well. In the couple of hours we were “open for business”, thirty or forty people showed up. It wasn’t the crowds we'd been hoping for, but it was a decent showing. Probably just right for a bunch of introverts like us. We enjoyed getting into deep conversations with the people who had shown up. And Deb had a good time with her friends.

After it was all over, we cleaned up and packed everything away. And then it hit us: What on earth are we going to do with all this extra food & drink?

Looks like there’ll be cookies to go with the coffee at church tomorrow.

The Post-Graduation Life

I had to take a caffeine pill today because my brain was shutting down in the middle of work. One doesn't recover from a Memorial Day / Graduation weekend quickly; it takes a while for the world to return to normal.

It's Wednesday, but it feels like Thursday. Monday was a blur. Was it really a holiday? Not really. Is it ever? Not really. One of these years, it would be nice to "do the right thing" and spend the day thinking about the men and women who gave their lives to defend our country; as things go with our busy lives, there's barely time to turn around before the day is over and it's time to think about the next day, a workday, and all the things that need to be done before bed.

Today was Wednesday, and it was busy, but not terribly busy, but it was still necessary to infuse my blood with extra stimulants because the sleep hasn't been restful, the nights have been too short, and day comes too soon (mostly thanks to the cat). The effect is not perfect. It's like giving large quantities of coffee to a drunk; the tipsiness doesn't subside, it is merely accompanied by a sensation of being wide-awake. That is, the eyes are open but they aren't actually seeing anything. Oh, well. It got me through the work hours, and through dinner. But when it came time to head downstairs and do some work on the cabinets, my alertness deserted me, leaving nothing but vapor in its wake.

I'll need the extra sleep tonight, though. Tomorrow is Orientation Day at GVSU, where Deb is going to college. And since Cheryl's job is not one that can be easily skipped, I'm the designated parent who will attend to find out the answer to the big question of How Are We Supposed to Pay For This.

(There's actually a session with that title. GVSU's administration has a sense of humor. Black humor, but humor nonetheless.)

::

We ran into some interesting issues whilst attempting to install the kitchenette cabinets while Mom and Dad were out here. The cabinet top was not an exact fit, not even for the cabinets which went underneath. They were off by about half an inch. Not sure how that happened, since they were supposed to be paired together in the original design. But Dad came up with a solution that allowed the lower cabinets to fit underneath the countertop, so it was cool. (He's a genius, you know.)

There was another issue, too, related to the fact that the left-hand corner isn't exactly straight. (Don't blame me! It was the original wall, not one I built!) This time, it was down to an eighth of an inch. Too wide. Dad had to trim the cabinet by an eighth of an inch to fit. And the countertop had to be notched in order to fit.

Well, like Dad was saying, you learn something every time you work on a house.

When it came time to work on the upper cabinets, the same issue came up again. Which makes sense, due to the fact that the wall hadn't changed, and the upper cabinets are the same width as the lower cabinets. So I'm going to need to shave an eighth of an inch off the side in order for it to fit.

But not tonight. I'm too tired tonight.

::

Speaking of "things you learn" when doing a house -- well, maybe not something learned, but a fact of life that keeps re-appearing lately -- the old adage, "When it rains, it pours" keeps coming to mind.

In the midst of all the family coming for graduation and our efforts to get the house ready, you may recall from my last entry that there was this little issue of a "gas leak".

Well.

The plumber came over and fixed the leak. And told us that we can't fit a tankless water heater in the basement because there's no free "lane" (i.e. joist) available for the 4"-diameter exhaust pipe. And that the backflow valve could not be checked because it was broken. Because I had not managed to get all the water out of it before winter, and the water inside froze and then cracked the iron. And they'd need to replace the valve.

For $300.

So. They charged me $60 just to show up at the door. Then they charged me $172 to fix the gas leak (which involved applying sealant to the threads of a pipe). Then they wanted to charge me another $300 to replace the backflow valve.

The backflow valve is $60 on-line. It screws onto the copper irrigation pipe very easily with a wrench. So they were going to charge me $240 labor to screw it onto the pipe??! NOT. I said no, don't bother, I'll take care of it myself.

That would've been great. If. If I hadn't already paid them $80 to check the backflow valve. And if Cheryl hadn't noticed a couple days later that the gas pipe was still leaking.

We called the gas company again and they came by and checked it. Sure enough, it was leaking again. So the $172 had been paid for nothing. And they still owed me $80. I called them and told them I wasn't happy. That I didn't want them coming back to fix it; I'd fix it myself. And I want my money back. They argued. They wanted the chance to come back and "make it right". But frankly I don't care what they want. I am furious at their ridiculous prices. I feel cheated. And I don't want to deal with them at all.

They appear to think they have all the homeowners around here over a barrel because the City requires the backflow valves to be checked. And they charge nearly twice as much as any other plumber around here to perform the check. I could've gotten one of the other plumbers for anywhere from $39 to $59, but went with them based on a recommendation from a friend. My friend got lucky; we did not.

I managed to seal off the leaking pipe in time for the family visit. But even after a week or more, I'm still angry about the price gouging.

That's the kind of thing that makes me want to do all my own work, because "professionals" just can't be trusted.

::

Deb's graduation went off very well. It was a wonderful evening, weather-wise. Near the beginning of the week, the weatherman was predicting a high probability of rain, but it had disappeared by Thursday and the evening was clear with only a slight breeze. That kept the mosquitoes at bay.

Still hard to believe she's graduated. The ceremony didn't feel very long, but we've already been through it twice before, so it felt very familiar. There were some poignant moments, especially when the teacher retirement announcements were made. Doc Sawyer, the kids' Band Director, is retiring. He's been in public education for 40 years, and at the high school for 15 of those years. The kids love him. And he's a good friend. But he feels the need to move on into retirement while he can still enjoy the things he likes to do, while his body is still in (relatively) good shape for the world-traveling he and his wife have planned.

Deb is so glad to be done with high school, and is so looking forward to college. She has enjoyed her taste of dual-enrollment, with the few college classes she's already completed. Next fall, hopefully, she'll be living in the dorm and doing the full-time college thing. And her life will get really interesting.

And things around here will get (hopefully) really, really dull, with just the three of us (or four of us) living at home and dealing with the quiet. And the completed basement.