• filled in said 3 windows, but replaced them with a 6′x1′ transom window, complete with new header and wall
• tore down the 25′x15′ plaster-and-lath living room ceiling (messiest thing I’ve ever done in my life)
• filled 29 50-gallon garbage bags with 1,500 lbs of plaster, nails, and other debris
• blew through 8 different dust masks in the process and one pair of cargo shorts
• removed ~100′ of old knob-and-tube wiring and replaced it with ~300′ of new wiring
• used up a 100-count pack of electrical staples to hold the new wiring in place
• put in 9 recessed lights and 5 dome lights totaling 1,140 watts of new light in 2 rooms (for only 247 watts of actual electricity, thank you, CFLs)
• 6 new double-gang outlets with wiring
• 2 new 20A circuits on the panel in the basement
• new sheetrock on the ripped-out window wall and on the entire ceiling (~634 sq ft)
• applied 25 gallons and 2 sacks of drywall compound
• used up 5 rolls of Frog (green), blue, and white masking tape
• slapped 7 gallons of paint on ceilings, walls, and trim
• ripped up 600 square feet of hardwood floor in 3′ by 2″ pieces (1,200 pieces, approximately)
• pulled approximately 10,000 finish nails (at least it FELT like that many…)
• went through 1.5 rolls of insulation, a can of expanding foam, a roll of plastic, and 5 tubes of caulk to seal up errant drafts
• stapled down 16 sheets of underlayment
• rolled out 6 rolls of padding
• snapped 27 boxes (378 planks) of laminate flooring together
• air-gunned 423 feet of quarter-round trim
• troweled on a gallon of mastic, cut and squished 16 sheets of tile, and sponged on 2 gallons of grout

I’m pretty tired.

© Nathan Pralle for PhilosYphia, 2011. | Permalink | One comment. One lonely comment looking for a friend. | Subscribe RSS

“Gee, how exciting, ” you all say in unison.

Well, OK; so perhaps getting a load of rock dumped on your driveway (is that a euphemism?) isn’t anywhere close to the top on the Wonderful Orgasm Scale.    In fact, it probably sits right above taking off a pair of soiled underwear in terms of excitement.   That all being said, it’s a big event around this household, mostly because of two reasons:

#1 — I traded my old 1996 Dodge Intrepid for it, which has been sitting in a non-running state on our lawn for THREE YEARS, a time span which I thought had probably rendered it useless for anything other than wasp nests and raccoons.

#2 — Due to our driveway being mostly dirt, every rain, spring shower, or sloppy snowfall the entire thing would turn into a maze of puddles and gunky crap and general frustration.   This was a home improvement we had always hoped to do but really, when you have some spare cash, does gravel immediately come to mind?  NO.

So I traded, even up — car for new rock.    And boy is it nice.    Thanks to the awesome help of my father on Sunday, we got it spread and now it just needs a bit of tamping down during rains and driving on it to be simply great.    Below is photographic evidence thereof:

© Nathan Pralle for PhilosYphia, 2010. | Permalink | 3 little comments jumping on the bed. | Subscribe RSS

This is one of those stories.

Our kitchen sink has been, for some time, crappy at best.    It was probably white porcelain at one point in its life but had since regressed to a brownish-creamy color that no amount of bleach or acid short of Medusa spit would ever render clean again.     In addition to this attractive palette, the cast iron bowl of it was pulling away from the metal edge, resulting in a sinking sink that had to be regularly caulked on the edges and propped up from below with a 2×6 in order to keep it from simply falling out of our countertop.    Add onto this a somewhat leaky faucet and an extremely leaky drain and it was a grisly nightmare to behold.

We made do for awhile.

This past weekend I finally put my handyman foot down and said, “Forsooth, foul basin!   I shall have words with thee!” and then promptly jumped upon my horse and rode to the Temple of Menards to consult with the deities and to pick out some Real Nice Stuff™.

The theme of the day was, “Cheap x 3″ for this basic reason:   At some point or another we are going to participate in the marriage stability challenge that is complete kitchen renovation.   Cupboards, countertops, lights, ceiling, paint, knobs, the whole 9 yards.   However, we simply don’t have the funds on-hand to get into that right now, so…

• 1 stainless steel two-bowl sink — completely free via Freecycle about 2 years ago
• 1 chromed metal and plastic faucet and spray hose kit — $40
• 2 chrome drain baskets on sale — $18
• 1 PVC drain plumbing set — $7
• 2 tubes of silicone caulk — $6
• 2 packages of clips, neither of which worked — $6
• 2 braided 9″ hoses — $14
• 3 brass reducer couplings — $9
• 1 can of triple-expanding foam — $2.50

Total Spent:  $102.50

Results?    A much sexier-looking sink and a ‘bye’ on full-out kitchen renovation for a few years, at least.

View the evidence below!

© Nathan Pralle for PhilosYphia, 2010. | Permalink | 2 little comments jumping on the bed. | Subscribe RSS

To start, I used a rope attached by a slip knot to a pole to mark an inner circle; this would be the size of the inside of the pit where the fire would burn. It would then be ringed by a flagstone wall to enclose it. For the time being, I shoved a bunch of stakes (actually pieces of 1/2″ CPVC water piping I had spare) into the ground around the perimeter of the pit so I would know where my edges were. Then Sam and I manned some shovels and cleared out the sod in a ring around it approximately a foot and a half wide.

Here is Sam, proud of his digging ability (which was pretty darn good). You can see that the sod has been removed and the underlying soil leveled with some raking and hoeing.

Here is some of the flagstone that we used, but in reality we went through probably 4 times this amount.

The pile of sod after we cleared out the flange of the fire pit. At first, I was going to use it to fill in places around the lawn that were a bit…unwell…but I think the bulk will make it into the compost pile to provide inspiration to the rotting process.

Here we have fit all the flange stone into the ground ontop of a sand base to try to prevent drainage and flexing issues. Shortly after this we mixed up standard pre-mix mortar concerte mix to a slightly-more-than-sloppy consistency and used it to fill in all the spaces between the rock. The application of some fingers and shaping and it came out pretty well.

With the flange stones finished and cemented in place, we cleared out the middle of the pit to even it out and make it smooth.

We started putting stones around the inner pit circle by mortaring them to the inner part of the flange, which took a holy-hell-awful lot of mortar to get things evened out.

Sam Jacobs: He will, He will, ROCK YOU.

Three layers done! As we went, we’d leave various gaps in the wall for ventilation to the fire (air holes, that is). This actually turned out to be a really good design decision, as they look completely natural (like a natural crevice) and they helped us make some fitting decisions, where we couldn’t get some stones to line up quite right — more than once we stepped back and went, “Ok — air hole!” You can see one such hole underneath the large flat stone in the foreground.

We were fairly sloppy with the mortar as we went (you can see that evidence on this picture), but we cleaned up after we got done each day. You can also see some of the rock that we cut (far side, bright, straight line on the inner rock face) with a masonary blade on the circular saw. Usually we could just score it halfway through and then use a hammer and cold chisel to make it break along the line. This helped tremendously as we were able to adjust some stones that would have otherwise been unusable, and it’s a lot more accurate than just whacking them with a hammer and hoping for a good break.

After five layers, we had an inspector show up to check out the project. He was a pretty critical little guy, checking out the construction, the mortar, and whether it was sturdy, but in the end he gave it his seal of approval. (My son, Keston.)

Six layers of rock later, we have a finished product! It’s about a foot and a half high, give or take, and about 4.5 – 5 feet across. As it turns out from our testing last night by starting a big-ass fire in it, it’s the perfect size.

The bottom of the actual fire pit itself we lined with small chunks of broken flagstone, all of a similar thickness and shape. The idea was to keep it open so rainwater would drain away quickly and not create a “bowl” where the water would collect, but still give a firmer surface than just dirt on which to build a fire. So far, I’m terribly pleased with how this both looks and performs with a fire.

FIRE! Heh-heh…FIRE! It was, if I can use the term, a raging success.

With a bit of camera magic (slowing down the shutter speed), you can see the placement of the ring in the backyard and how it looks to human eyes that are adjusted. Fits in perfectly.

One of the ventilation holes that we purposely (or creatively) built into the wall with some glowing embers behind.

Look at those coals! Lovely, and perfect for a set of s’mores, which we gave a shot last evening and declared a perfect victory.

So that’s our new fire pit — if you’re ever in the area, you’ll have to come by and sit a spell! A HUGE thanks to the awesome and talented Sam for all his help!

© Nathan Pralle for PhilosYphia, 2009. | Permalink | 3 little comments jumping on the bed. | Subscribe RSS

While, yes, we could have repaired that coil (new ones are about $65 + the time to install it), we knew we’d need a new range sooner than later and it seemed to be rather prophetic, so we took the hint, went to Menards, and got a Whirlpool model WFG361LV in “silver” which means half silver, half black.

AND IT’S GAS!    Glory and trumpets!    I’ve lusted after gas stoves ever since I found out how nice they are to cook with vs. electric and have always said some day I’d get one.    Despite my wife’s trepidations about learning to cook on a gas appliance, I encouraged her and finally won her heart in the matter and we got the shiny beast with the help of my father and hooked her up 2 nights ago.

And boy, what a difference!    Like I had mentioned to Yolanda, anything newer than 30 years old would be an improvement, but this is a huge difference.   Even, gentle cooking, no harsh or weird temperatures, and the instant-on, instant-off wonders of gas.    I haven’t really done much cooking with it yet, but the pizzas tonight turned out wonderfully, and that’s a good starter.

Hopefully the next time we replace a major appliance it will be because we’ve decided to do so versus being forced, but in this case, I think it’s turned out to be a win-win all around.

© Nathan Pralle for PhilosYphia, 2009. | Permalink | 6 little comments jumping on the bed. | Subscribe RSS

Nonetheless, it was incredibly unpleasant to clean up.   Many brave towels gave their lives in the war.   The upstairs toilet had been acting up for a long time, having a disturbing trend of sinking slowly into the floor and resembling the leaning tower of Pisa minus the gawking tourists.   We knew the time was coming quickly when we would have to do something about it (or deal with shooting columns of liquipoop), but this sealed the deal — we had to do something.  The house had a royal flush and we were holding a pair of nines.   Time to be handy.

So, at 5:30pm on Friday night I dug into the task of removing the offending appliance and seeing what I was up against.   Removing the toilet presented a huge amount of rotted floor below it, which explained the problem of the leaning latrine, but didn’t exactly help my confidence in solving the problem.

To my rescue came my father, Wayne, who graciously dropped whatever he was going to do that evening and came over with his tools to help me figure out the best way to redo the flooring since it had rotten out all around the base of the toilet.   After a few hours of fiddling and fitting, we had a new floor in place.     At 8:30pm we took off for Mason City and Menards and, after looking at all the options and pricing privies that were out-of-stock (grrr…), we settled on an Eljer Titan elongated. It has a 10+ rating on flushability (one-flush solves all), 1.6 gallons per flush (eco-friendly), a 16 1/8″ seat height (ADA-approved), and a 3″ flush valve so things move quickly. It was pricey, but our best option for long-term relaxing and enjoyment.

Another couple of hours and I had it installed and working by 12:45am.     It’s a huge, beautiful thing compared to the old piece of junk.   The flushing sequence is quick and fast — you press the lever and there’s a Whooosh–GLUGUGUG! and that’s it.   Done.   Everything you can think to deposit in that bowl gets whisked away to the great sewer in the sky in about a second.   It is very impressive, and I don’t get a kick out of a bog very often.

Below you can see the pictures of our adventure.     And yes, I really did throw the old toilet out of the 2nd-story window.   It was damned fun and highly recommended entertainment.

© Nathan Pralle for PhilosYphia, 2009. | Permalink | 10 little comments jumping on the bed. | Subscribe RSS

© Nathan Pralle for PhilosYphia, 2008. | Permalink | 6 little comments jumping on the bed. | Subscribe RSS

Until now, that is. Maybe the perils of age come with a few pearls of glory.

My father came over with his overpowered tiller on Sunday afternoon and proceeded to beat the tar out of the soil that had lain dormant over the long winter, cussing slightly because I had thought it best to drown it in a few inches of compost, leaves, and grass clippings for good measure. But the old bear of a tiller was the victor in the long run, slapping it into submission, and by evening I had a good plot going.

Normally I would let it sit there for a few days, but I thought I should get a jump on it and tossed handfuls of seeds into hoed trenches, all the while attempting to space them correctly but not so accurately that I would be chagrined for being a pompous anal git.

In this pursuit I discovered a wonderful invention — seed tape. For the uninitiated (as I was, prior to this season), seed tape is where they take something very similar to toilet paper and lay the small seeds of some unfortunate plant (a lettuce mix in this case) between the layers, pre-spaced and pre-mixed for your pleasure. And pleasure I did as it took a ton of frustration out of the process and instead replaced it with maniacal glee at the prospect of planting an entire row of lettuce in 30 seconds or less.

In total, I laid down 4 rows of peas, 3 of yellow onions, 2 of lettuce salad mix, 2 of parsnip, 1 of peanuts, and 3 of green beans. For markers I tried something new, hacking foot-and-a-half lengths of 1/2″ PVC pipe with a saw and hammering them into the ground at the head of each row. That took up about half of the length of the garden.

For the rest, I was planning on planting our usual OMG array of tomato plants. We found out the first year that the red fruit grows extremely well in our soil and, since we love doing things with them, they are our typical “bumper crop” item. However, we buy plants, not seeds, and I had yet to obtain them.

Tuesday evening after work, I decided to find a greenhouse I had seen advertised in Charles City where I work. Since the alternative was either Wal*Mart or a local greenhouse about 15 minutes from home, I thought it couldn’t hurt to check it out.

I tell ya, I’ve found my new favorite greenhouse.

The place is immaculate with this huge array of absolutely gorgeous flowers that makes me want to terraform my entire backyard and house into perpetual flowerbeds. I wandered up and down the aisle just taking in the flood of colors and scents, pure candy to the eyes.

The vegetable section was small, but the quality was not diminished and I was able to pick up 32 tomato plants of 3 different varieties, pay my $17.50 for them, and head on home. Upon arriving home, I checked the darkening sky and radar and decided that I could make a run for it. Over the next half hour I ran, sweated, dug, shoved, planted, and covered all of the plants and still had 5 minutes to stand and watch the sky before the floodgates opened and dumped one of the most gorgeous rains ontop of us.

I love rains like those…start in the evening, done by morning, and a steady yet full downpour that really soaks and settles the ground, cleans the air, and generally makes everything go from simply greenish to GREEN.

And, for the first time, my garden was completely in the ground, leaves and dreams turned towards the skies, taking in that first deep soaking. I smiled to myself as I exited the house this morning, glancing towards my well-saturated garden, and internally patted myself on the back for figuring out the game like the gardeners that I admired. I might not have it all figured out, and the weeds are just as likely to grow this year as any, but I’ve won the first round. Bring on the summer!

© Nathan Pralle for PhilosYphia, 2008. | Permalink | 7 little comments jumping on the bed. | Subscribe RSS

I, and no doubt many others in this area of the country, appreciate your overwhelming optimism and unbridled enthusiasm at the prospect of upcoming warm weather and copious amounts of sunshine.

I do, however, question the depth of your judgement at already having put forth the effort to crack out giant buds on the ends of your branches. A bit early in the season, perhaps? Maybe you’ve overlooked the fact that, not a dozen feet away, the lawn is currently buried in five fucking feet of snow such that when I tread upon it, I am now standing level with the top of the picnic table.

This does not bode well for your success.

I only say this out of love and concern for your well-being. I am as encouraged by the brief teasings of weather as you are, but you don’t see me sticking my willy out in it just yet, do you?

I highly recommend instead a Disney vacation and a return to local climes somewhere around mid-April.

Cordially yours,

Nathan

© Nathan Pralle for PhilosYphia, 2008. | Permalink | 4 little comments jumping on the bed. | Subscribe RSS

No, I harbor no ill will towards my neighbors or passer-bys, but when I exit the house, my right nad looks at the other and says, “So, Left, headin’ north for the winter?” “Damned straight,” says Left, and then both proceed to snuggle up tightly against my kidneys and pull out War and Peace. This sort of do-see-do by my giggleberries makes me think that, instead of laboring for hours outside, I’m better off just gunning the car and hoping it makes it out of the driveway yet again, compacting another layer of freshly fallen frozen headache onto the one below it. And no, it’s not even really cold out yet, but the sensation of blotchy-red skin and tingling extremities has its downsides, too. I’m just trying to be practical.

When it comes to snow clearning, I’m apparently in denial.

Actually, I am supposed to call a local snow removal service to come take care of it for me. Their rates are very reasonable (something like $15 for heavy snow, $8 for light) so it’s very worth it to me (and my bits) to take advantage of it. Personally, I have better things to do in my day than to deal with snow removal. I wonder at their reaction when they come by the first time and note that some dickhead has been creating a layered fossil record of the snows of winters past and they have to chip through a half-foot of industrial ice to get down to the ground. Somehow I suspect that the work I’ve done so far will be around till spring.

I went out earlier today to give it the old college try at making a dent on the piles, but all I really managed to do was get a somewhat decent workout. There I was, swinging a garden hoe like I was John Henry and the weather was fine for building railroad, and the all the ice did was glance up from its crossword and give me a nasty frown. I at least cleared the steps and scraped the top off of the mound of snow so generously piled at the foot of my driveway by the snowplows; otherwise, I wasn’t making hardly any progress so tossed in the towel, figuring that I wasn’t going to make much of an impact and by now my boys had had a long enough tropical vacation.

Now…where did I put those tire chains?

© Nathan Pralle for PhilosYphia, 2007. | Permalink | One comment. One lonely comment looking for a friend. | Subscribe RSS

My refrigerator has a bad seal. I first noticed this one night when getting something out and seeing that, upon shutting the door, I was still able to look into the fridge with the door closed. The corners on both the top and bottom of the main door had been compressed so much that they no longer contacted the metal of the fridge. I had wondered why it had been running so much lately — now I knew. The cold air was pouring out at both corners.

So, I headed over to RepairClinic.com, an online appliance parts supplier where I’ve ordered bits and pieces for my various appliances before. They always seem to have parts for my freaking-old machines, which I like. I looked up my refrigerator, a General Electric Model TBX18ZFC. I easily found the door gasket, but it cost $60, and at the moment, that’s something we don’t have to spend, so I had to make do with something else.

Instead, after examining the seal a good deal, I decided that some cleaning and some softening and reshaping would probably help the seal last a few more months until I could properly fix it. Here is the procedure I went through to do this:

First, a bit of a warning and warranty: You perform any and all actions at your own risk. These instructions are for educational purposes only. I am not liable for any damages to you or property as a result of attempting any of these repairs and adjustments.

These instructions apply to my model of refrigerator and may or may not work with yours; I assume you’re smart enough to read through and figure out if they would or not. Tools you will probably need:

• A 1/4″ nut driver. Preferably this would be on an electric drill or screwdriver, as there are a lot of screws holding the seal on the door and your hand/arm would get tired in a hurry if you had to do it by hand, but if you want to go ahead, be my guest.
• A 5/16″ nut driver, box wrench, or socket. This is to take the doors on and off with.
• Some place to fill with very hot water to soak the seal in. A sink works ok if it’s big enough.
• Dishwashing soap or some sort of all-purpose cleaning solution like Mr. Clean. This is not one of those applications where gasoline is a useful cleaning agent.
• Hot water — this is very important. You have to have water hot enough to get the seal to soften up after years of being cold. That being said, you shouldn’t have it so hot such that you can’t pull the seal out of the water and wash it while the rest stays in there. My hot water heater is set at 140F so it worked fine, but you may want to put hot water in your sink and add a pot or two of boiling water to get the temp up.
• Floor space to lay the door out and work on it.

Steps:

1. Shut off your refrigerator. This is usually accomplished by turning the temperature knob inside the fridge to “OFF” or the warmest setting. You might have to hunt for it. At the worst, pull the plug or shut off the breaker.
2. Remove all items from the door(s) of the fridge. In the next few steps, we’ll be taking the door or doors off and laying them flat on the floor, so having something sitting inside of them will make them extra heavy and plus it’ll go all over the place. This is probably a good time to clean them, too, since you’ve been too lazy before now to get to it.
3. It will get warmer than normal during this procedure, so make sure you don’t have anything very temperature sensitive inside. However, nothing will get warm — this procedure takes approximately 30 minutes or less.
4. Take off the door or doors in question. To get the main fridge door off, I had to also remove the freezer door as it stacks on top of the fridge door. You may or may not have to do this.
5. Remove any handles on the fridge door so you can lay it flat on its outside face on the floor. My handle came off by removing the top two screws, one screw hidden behind a filler panel in the middle, and a 5/16″ nut on the bottom.
6. Lay the door flat on the floor on its outside face. WARNING: If you do not remove the door and lay it down, removing the screws to take the gasket off will cause the door to become warped and out of square! The same screws that hold the gasket on also screw the inside of the door to the outside!
7. Pull back the gasket (might be tough to do) and find the gasket bracket with the screws in it. This bracket grabs onto a “bump” on the gasket and holds it to the door — the screws only hold the bracket onto the door (and the door together); they don’t actually go through the gasket itself.
8. Examine how the bracket holds onto the gasket. This is important, because you’re going to have to put it back together, observe it while it’s already correctly done so you don’t forget how it goes when you try to reassemble.
9. LOOSEN the screws. DO NOT remove them! If you remove them, you’ll really screw things up (no pun) because you’ll be taking the two halves of the door apart. My understanding is that getting these back together properly is an effort in profanity proficiency.
10. Remove the gasket gently by pulling it away from the bracket. Don’t tear or stretch it more than you have to.
11. Dunk the gasket into the sink or container full of very hot water. Let it sit for 5 to 10 minutes to heat up and loosen the gunk that you’ll have to clean up.
12. Taking a sponge or rough cloth, pull a part of the gasket out of the water and, with a well-soaped implement, start scrubbing the gasket. It has a lot of grooves and niches and so forth that hold gunk and dirt and is a real pain to get into to clean it, but trust me — you want to do this correctly. Take the time. While you are cleaning it, make sure to gently pull the gasket out to stretch it — pull the magnetic side away from the bracket side so it spreads out. This will help rejuvenate the gasket so it works better when you put it back on.
13. Once you have cleaned the entire gasket, let it soak for another minute or two to make sure it is of even temperature.
14. Take the gasket out of the water and immediately to the fridge door while it is still warm. Lay it down on top of the bracket all the way around and then start pushing it underneath the bracket so that the “bump” of the gasket locks underneath the bracket. This is the hardest part — you may have to loosen or tighten the bracket to make it grab the seal correctly — use your judgment — just do NOT take the screws on the bracket all the way out.
15. You will probably have to shift the gasket as you put it in so it is even over the entire door — when I put mine on, I found that I had stretched it too much on the top and the bottom was hanging low, so I had to tug it around. DO NOT tighten the bracket all the way until you get the gasket locked under it all the way around first. You’ll wish you hadn’t if you do, trust me.
16. My gasket has an outer “lip” that has to sit flat against the metal of the door. This was tucked under after I got the gasket underneath the bracket and I had to pull the it towards the inside of the door to make that lip “flip out”. This is on the OUTSIDE of the seal rubber, not the inside where the bracket grabs the gasket.
17. Tighten all screws on the brackets all the way around the door. Make sure the gasket is properly locked underneath the bracket and isn’t pinched.
18. Put the doors back on, align them properly, and tighten them down. Many doors are adjustable; make sure yours swings correctly before declaring it done.
19. Check your seal along all edges of the door. Fate willing, it’s better than it was. If not, you get to spend $60. Mine is significantly better, but it will only last for a few more months and then I’ll have to shell out, but that’s fine in my opinion.

These are the general steps to do a fridge such as mine. As they say, your mileage can and probably will vary depending on your model and brand. Here’s hoping you have good luck with it!

© Nathan Pralle for PhilosYphia, 2007. | Permalink | One comment. One lonely comment looking for a friend. | Subscribe RSS

How about 40 or so 3.5″ floppy drives?

28 modem cards? No? Damn.

My poor basement has found itself for the last few months to be the repository of a massive amount of computer equipment as I have gathered it from all corners of the globe, dumped it there, and promptly ignored it while life flew by me in a fit of fury. Two and a half tables of computer parts from the old Hampton Middle School, plus a load of computers from my day job, plus other random parts — all in jumbled piles in the middle room, barely enough space left to sashay by.

Now that my schedule has somewhat cleared up (not by my choosing) and with the Little One on the way, I decided it was high time to really attack the pile and thrash it into submission.

One of the big problems with collecting masses of computers is what to do with all of them. I got them all because the price was right, and parts are parts — they’re always good to have around. It has also been my experience that, unless you have great contacts and/or unlimited amounts of money, for computer collectors to find true treasures, you have to take a lot of trash, too.

And so, I’m left to dig through mountains of computers, monitors, keyboards, mice, cards, accessories, printers, and the like. You also can no longer throw anything with circuit boards or CRTs (picture tubes) in the trash; they figured out that the chemicals in them (like lead and mercury) aren’t terribly friendly to the environment and it gives Mother Nature a rash that, frankly, you don’t want the old girl to have.

The downside to that is that disposal of said nefarious objects usually costs a pretty fair cent at the dump, on the order of $13 per monitor and various other prices for other things. Unless they come with a hidden Benjamin in the disk drive, these things aren’t exactly money-makers.

So, I’m trying an experiment: I’m breaking down all the parts I want to get rid of into plastic, metal, and electronics. The metal I’m going to have my dad haul up to the metal recyclers, the plastic will go in the trash, and the electronics (now much smaller and compact than they were before) will be stockpiled until I find a good way to get rid of them without spending a billion dollars. It will, at any rate, give me much more room.

Some of this stuff will be eBayed, as is proper when there’s some value, but I’m building up a good stockpile first before starting into that as, once you do, it’s a constant workload to get done and shipped and out the door. eBay can be profitable but, like whoring, you have to strap on the fishnets and slap the stilettos up and down the street a few times before getting any cash.

Despite all the work involved, I am having some decent fun in finding out what I all got in my hauls. Half of taking on a haul is just shoving whatever boxes and cartons of stuff you have into your car, thanking the person you got them from, and getting the hell out of there. Much like The Gambler, you never count your money while you’re sitting at the table, there’ll be time enough for countin’ when the dealin’s done.

So I have a few interesting pieces in the mess to drool over when I get some spare time (I’ll post pictures sometime sooner than later), but my mission is not to sit and fondle at this point, it’s to get the job done.

And doing it I am — I’m getting rid of a lot of the regular old PCs that I’ve been keeping over the years, finally realizing that although that 386 looks neat and has some interesting, old hardware in it, in reality it’s just an old, common computer and isn’t that remarkable. Much like the rock that looked really pretty when you saw it in the stream, once dried out it loses its luster. I’m making room for the REALLY interesting computers for once.

This is, of course, all an effort to get the swell under control before the Small Kicker arrives, so when I have some limited time to “play”, I can actually do something instead of wading through piles of parts and dangerously-leaning stacks of crap. I’d like to keep a bouncy seat down there, too, so the ankle biter can come along and geek out with Dad, but I’m not about to submit the fruit of my loins to possible injury by the Leaning Tower of PCs.

All in all, I’m getting some time into my computer room(s) and my collection, so I’m happy about that, and my wife is happy at the idea of being able to see all four walls again in those rooms. (Love you, babe!) After all, if diving into your collection doesn’t involve a little adventure, what’s the point, right?

Now….can I interest you in a few dozen power cables?

© Nathan Pralle for PhilosYphia, 2007. | Permalink | 3 little comments jumping on the bed. | Subscribe RSS

For as long as I can remember, I’ve adored my daily showers. I have one soon after I get up and have one shortly before I go to bed most days, although weekends are a bit more flexible. The morning one dissolves the film of sleep from my protesting eyes, brings my brain back from its wanderings in the woods of fantasy, and gets my body converted into “vertical mode” . The evening one caps off the day, allowing me to relax in the hot water and steam, letting the muscles and nerves that have propelled me through the day to untwist and unclench, allowing me to fall asleep much faster.

Plus, I’m just a clean freak, dontcha know?

The pursuit of a great, warm, powerful stream of water is not without its trials and tribulations, however. There are precious few units anywhere in the world that can produce the sort of pleasure-stream that I really enjoy, so I take great interest in attempting to make my own environment as ideal as possible.

Love can be found on an online dating website because many people meet others that may not in normal circumstances and online dating is a great way to meet new friends too.

To this end, I have discovered a method by which (for now) I can get a really great shower:

1. I buy myself a white Rainmaker Classic II, which is a plastic, low-flow shower head of a decent yet cheap quality, but has no-clog rubber jet nipples and a fairly wide head.
2. I open this up and remove the low-flow, tree-huggin’ hardware — the screen, restrictor, etc. I appreciate Mother Earth and all, but this is my shower we’re talking about. I’ll save water by not giving the grass a drink or something.
3. I then take a 1/2″ drill bit and use it to drill out the inside bore of the shower head until I have a large, straight, high-flow conduit for the water to blast through.
4. Install in the shower and test. Ooooohh….floodwaters from on high!
5. The last step is to make sure my water heater is set very high — right now, mine is kicking out water around 145°F or so. I’ll have to lower that in awhile to prevent anything from happening to my soon-to-arrive child, but for now, it allows me to get 30 to 45 minute showers without using up the heater’s worth.

I can hear you now….30 to 45 minute showers? Yes, on occasion they’re like that, but they’re rarely below 15 minutes on a normal day. You see, I rather like my showers. They’re relaxing, fulfilling, enjoyable. Perhaps it’s because of my loving-water nature or maybe it’s because I don’t get much solitude except in a good, warm deluge twice a day, but for whatever reason, they go long. And I’m ok with that.

This, naturally, drove my parents up a wall when I was growing up. They couldn’t conceive as to what I could possibly be doing for that long besides screwing around. They came up with a system of stomping on the floor to warn me that I was taking too long (the shower was in the basement), then eventually they’d start flashing the lights to let me know I had reached the end of my cleansing journey. At this point, continuing in my bathing was risking having the lights shut off entirely, leaving me to finish in the dark (which I did a few times) and endure a tongue-lashing when I got upstairs again. “What could you POSSIBLY be doing in there for THIRTY FREAKING MINUTES???” *sigh*

So, now that I am grown, on my own, in my own house, and paying my own bills, I have however long of a shower I damned well feel like, and some of them are truly incredible (just ask my wife). We often shower together, which I think is a lovely activity for couples (sexual reasons aside), but results in someone always freezing their ass off while the other one is enjoying the warmth. I have it in my plans to construct a new shower sooner than later and, when I do, it will have double showerheads and controls so we can shower together and both keep our tips from falling off.

So…the question remains: What do I do in such a long shower?

Well, after I get in, there’s usually 5 minutes or so of a phase called, “Getting Wet, Warm, and Relaxed”. I just let the water play over me, making sure it hits all parts, and get the water temperature adjusted correctly. Then I’ll often stand, back to the stream, and let it splay over me for awhile, watching the water droplets fly and rivulets of warmth run down my arms and chest.

After this, I’ll usually start washing, top-down. Hair is first, since it’s so oily anyway, then I grab the bar and soap up with that directly (don’t use a washcloth unless there’s scrubbing needed), then my face (including ears) is usually last. At some point in this procedure, my glasses get washed and re-hung on a hook to drip. And I spot-check various places, including the twig and giggleberries and other nether-regional crevices; I’m a big fan of being spotless when possible.

Rinsing off is a big one. I don’t like the feeling of ANY soap on me whatsoever and will spend a lot of time rinsing to ensure that there’s no possible way that any remains. For this reason and others, things like conditioner, hair spray, lotions, and any other cleaning product that leaves something behind drives me nutty. (Yes, I do wear deodorant and cologne, but that’s about my limit.)

After the rinse-fest might come another period of standing there and letting the water hit me while I think, it depends on how rushed I am at the time. My shower is my think tank — many of these blog postings get their origination in the shower, and I work out a lot of mental issues while under the warming spray. I don’t know what it is about being naked, wet, and warm, but it gets the old brain juices flowing for some reason.

It may very well be a property of the water itself, which I have endless fascination with. I will often fold my arms and let the water build up in the “pond” built against my chest, or let the streams play across my arms and hands, watching how the water flows and follows, eventually to leap away to slam into the concrete at my feet. I’m simply mesmerized by it all.

Finally, when I’ve pruned up enough and feel rinsed and relaxed enough, I’ll make a decision, shut off the shower, and jump out for a toweling-off.

While my shower time may not be typical of most people, I think there are probably a fair whack of people out there that love their showers just as much as I do, if nothing else, for the solitude and relaxation it provides in a busy day. A good, long, hot shower ranks up right there with buying the fluffy toilet paper, in my book. Life is too short to a) take short, cold, unpleasant showers and b) wipe with toilet paper that scours your bits. I’ll gladly pay for the water/gas bill to get a good experience because it’s very much worth to me what I get out of it in mental satisfaction.

Plus, I’m just a clean freak, dontcha know?

© Nathan Pralle for PhilosYphia, 2007. | Permalink | One comment. One lonely comment looking for a friend. | Subscribe RSS

Some of you may have the Laundry Leprechaun.    Or the Dishwashing Dauphin.     Maybe the Toilet Medusa comes by on occasion and freshens the place up a bit?

We have the Ice Fairy.   Her coming was foretold of old, and she blesses the holy ice trays with her succulent, frozen essence.

While her glory is highly adored and her grace accepted liberally, her reliability is somewhat…variable.

*creak*   *rattle*   *growl*

"There’s no ice left!"

"Didn’t the Ice Fairy come and bless us?"

"No, she had the weekend off, thank you very much.  Plus, can’t she get some assistance around here on occasion?"

"It’s the Ice Fairy, I try not to mess with her territory."

"I suggest a coalition with the Fairy the next time or you’ll both find yourselves on ice."

"Isn’t that kind of her home territory?"

© Nathan Pralle for PhilosYphia, 2007. | Permalink | No comments....YET! Make one! | Subscribe RSS

A bit of a rundown of various random things on my mind and that for which I have photographic evidence:

My Cat is on Grass

Many moons ago when my mother-in-law was over here visiting from Australia, she bought my cat, Leo, a “cat grass” kit from Wal*Mart. Now, I’ve never seen anything like this before, but it’s a self-contained kit to grow…waaaaaaait for it…GRASS. Yeah, I know. But apparently it’s supposed to be “cat friendly” grass that they’ll want and desire to eat.

And what’s funnier is that he actually does like to eat it — so much that he horked it all over the kitchen floor the other day and then looked up at me as if to say, “Well, it was nice, but the bleu cheese dressing was a bit tangy.”

I trimmed it tonight, thinking that perhaps it had grown a bit hairy, and since we put it up on the cupboard to keep Leo from snarfing it down like a vegan bulemic it has grown considerably. This very well may kill it off, as it appears to be some form of oats or similar — probably something exotic like, “mouse weed”, or similar, that has a flavor like a speeding rodent.

BANG! Thump, thump, thump is not a normal sound effect

The thing that never ceases to amaze me is that once you have a bit of money in your possession, something happens to sap it out of your wallet just as fast as it came to exist there. Really, my bank is just a pass-through for funds, not a stopping grounds, as nothing ever sits there long enough to even cool off.

Saturday as we sped up I-35 to the wedding reception of my cousin, I went to pass a guy in the left-hand lane and loud racket erupted from the rear of my car. Originally, my mind went, “You cut off a biker, you idiot.” and then proceeded towards, “No, you blew out a muffler. Nice.” The reality eventually crept into my head — “It’s a tire, it has to be a tire. Dammit.”

I pulled over to the side of the road and sure enough, the rear driver’s side tire was completely deflated and sitting on the rim. Shit. We tried calling my father, thinking that he might be behind us, but he had turned his cellphone off for the wedding. I tried to find my roadside assistance number, but even though I pay $7/month for the damned thing, I don’t appear to have the number actually on me. It dawned to me that I should probably just bite the bullet and change the tire myself, which I did in about 8 minutes, no problems, and put on the “donut” spare, then proceeded to drive 50mph for the rest of the night (its rated speed limit).

This is on my 2003 Mitsubishi Eclipse, which hasn’t even turned over 50,000 miles yet — clearly a lot of tread and wear was killed off in its early life.   The tires are P215/50R17 90Vs and the current ones are Eagle RS-As,which have been great for me when driving, but…

The pictures are not doubles, nor are they pictures of the same damage — the tire blew out in two places, or at least one place and the other ripped once I started driving on it, unknown about that. So I have been searching and I believe I get to drop $260+ on two new tires come Monday. Yay. ~

Toilet Herbs

Everyone has heard of an herb garden full of pot — but this is a pot full of an herb garden. Perhaps you remember my posting about our old house being destroyed. Well, before it was flattened I went through and stripped tons of useful items from it. One of the very last things I grabbed was our old toilet.

Now, I hear you saying to your computer screen (as your spouse wonders how long you’ve been crazy, and why you don’t take your meds), “Nathan, what in fuck do you want a toilet for???”

Well, I thought since it had been through so much shit with us, it deserved to come along and keep sharing the experience. However, I knew that it was time for a career change for the water closet, and so I have turned it into my herb garden by filling the bowl with dirt and planting some sweet basil and Italian oregano in there.

Think of the advantage — it’s self-watering! You just flush it and voila! Instant wet dirt. Too much water? No problem, it’ll just flow out the trap. I’m planning on eventually redirecting the output of the downspout into it to provide plenty of good rainwater reserve for those dry days of summer.

Think of the humor! You’re cooking for friends and need some spices and so you just say, “I’ll go to the toilet and get some oregano!” The look on their faces will be precious, really. Plus, it should be a great conversation piece once it gets going.

Never say that something can’t be recycled — even if it’s in “crappy” condition!

© Nathan Pralle for PhilosYphia, 2007. | Permalink | 2 little comments jumping on the bed. | Subscribe RSS

Alas, I, too, fall under this spell each year and succumb to the calling of the “Garden Centre” at our local SomethingMart to browse amongst the aisles of green, my fingers lightly brushing the fronds like a delicate lover, seeking the best seeds and plants to garnish my little plot of dirt this year. Everyone dreams big in the Spring; it can be worse than wedding design.

I think there’s some sort of ego boost that we get when we make something grow, even though it has very little to do with us whatsoever, but it’s the concept that we started something and made it come alive — that’s a rush. It’s almost a god-like feeling when you take a little something very dead looking, drop it into the ground where most things rot, and in a few days to a week something sprouts forth and reaches upwards to catch the sun. That, in and of itself, is extremely cool.

So far, I’ve only partially exercised my abilities as Initiator, since we haven’t yet made our comprehensive garden supply run as of yet. However, I have managed to plant a big block of red sweet corn (yes, red — almost a burgandy) and sowed the wildflowers in the front flower beds, so that’s done. I also went and spread $15 worth of grass seed on the lawn so that I can spend the rest of the summer removing grass from the garden. (We’re funny creatures, aren’t we?)

Also, I found a few cute planting pot kits at Target and Wal*Mart so I picked those up for a buck or twoapiece and followed the directions to wet the soil and plant the seeds (I know, a man reading directions? Who would have thought?) and the radishes are up already.

Yes, I used a kitchen bowl and serving spoon to mix up the soil — Rachel Ray, eat your heart out.

Cute little bastards, aren’t they? We have radishes, basil, oregano, chives, and cherry tomatoes, I think.

I was so disappointed — strawberries in a pot, who could want for more? Just have them all year round! Until I read on the directions that the pots are only temporary holding devices for the plants. Well….phooey. I was kinda looking forward to Christmas strawberry shortcake.

© Nathan Pralle for PhilosYphia, 2007. | Permalink | One comment. One lonely comment looking for a friend. | Subscribe RSS

Of course, things around here have kept me busier than a triple-phallus endowed billygoat, but what else is new?  The mere fact that I stay vertical on a regular basis is something to be proud of, I think.    Note to self:   Gloat to mother figure sometime.

The lawn is growing great guns which means that I will probably be unable to avoid mowing it on the weekend, lest my neighbors form a lynch mob and drag me to the town square.   The pretty, round, yellow flowers are peeking their way above the verdant blades, shining happily to the sun.   I will certainly have a moment of contrition when I push my way into their domain and violently hack them down at the peak of their glorious solar adulation.   I’m such a prick.

However, if you are an animal-lover, you will readily appreciate my act of compassion that I had last night.   As we arrived home, the rabbit that lives in our yard and neatly clips any fresh shoot in my garden apparently got unnerved and sprinted across the yard away from us, intending to disappear in my neighbor’s darkened lot, as he does on a regular basis.
Unfortunately for him, the green wire fencing that surrounds 2 sides of our property apparently looks invisible in the low light of night and he plowed into it, fully shoving his body halfway through the small rectangular opening in between wires.

Now, this is a full-size bunny.   These are not rabbit-sized holes in the fence, I assure you — they are roomy for a mouse, tight-fitting for a rat, and a cat wouldn’t be caught dead at a party in one.  So you can probably visualize a rabbit, whose ass is wider than his head, now stuck halfway through the fence.

The rabbit did what any normal, well-mannered wild mammal would do in such a situation:

He FREAKED THE HELL OUT.

In a flurry of fur and fuzz and shaking, the rabbit goes absolutely apeshit  and I was pretty sure there’d be a news story the next day about a coney streaking down the highway at the speed of omgholyshit and dragging a healthy amount of yard border along behind it, poles bouncing on the asphalt.  As it happened, the fence shook a lot, the poor animal made its squealing/screeching noises (nothing like it in the world, I swear), and it resulted in a lot of bouncing around, but no real progress.

So, at first I thought if I just approached it, it would get up the courage to make it the rest of the way through and really get free.    And sure enough — I got close to it and it went totally off its tree trying to get away from me.   If it had actually broken free at that point, it would have streaked forward and torpedoed itself into my neighbor’s siding with a force that would have resulted in a terribly cracked wall and one rather badly-dented bunny.

Then I noticed that it was actually somehow wrapped around the wire of the fence, which meant that in order to get out, it would have to gnaw its own hind legs off — at the butt — and leave its back end hanging there.   While I have no doubt that, given the option between doing so and getting anywhere near a human it would have gladly dragged its own bloodied torso across the yard, I thought I’d try to help it out a bit and avoid such desperate measures.

I retrieved a wire nips and a pliars and returned to the scene where the rabbit was transitioning between  wigging out and panting heavily while resting.    I cut and bent, cut and bent, and finally determined that he had wrapped his legs backwards over the next wire down and his feet (big clodhoppers) were stuck in the hole below his body.   Lovely!

Eventually he calmed down enough to see as my wife held the flashlight and I got the wires clipped and bent and pulled his legs free.   He actually didn’t struggle or move until he was completely out of the fence, and then he made a pretty quick escape to the side of my garage.

So, that’s my good deed for the week.

Mind you, I’ve been telling Landa for ages that I’m going to shoot the damned thing this summer, as it keeps destroying my garden, so I should have just gotten a hammer and clocked it one while it was stuck.    Somehow, though, I kinda felt like the odds were a bit too stacked in my favor, so…congrats, Mr. Bunny.   You get another go at life.   Develop a liking for frozen burritoes (and not my green beans) and we’ll be all good; otherwise, we’ll meet again.

© Nathan Pralle for PhilosYphia, 2007. | Permalink | No comments....YET! Make one! | Subscribe RSS

So I went to drain it out of the stopcock on the bottom of the tank (don’t you just love that word — stopcock? It’s like, “Stop, cock!” Chickens beware!) and instead of water running out, I got water meandering down a grassy path or something of that nature. Clearly, it was blocked up.

Well, no time like the present to wind the entire stopcock (Halt, rooster!) out of the tank and dig out whatever was blocking it. To my chagrin, the entire hole was blocked with what looked like concrete — oh, goodie: LIME!

For those who have perfect water and don’t know about this sort of culprit, lime is a calciferous substance that leaches out of the water of places like Sheffield and, blessed with a higher-than-normal amount of limestone surrounding their local aquifers, leaves a whitish substance not unlike talcum powder on just about every surface that it touches. In hot water heaters, this builds up into tiny balls of rock and then eventually into sheets of rocky substance.

This coats the inside (especially the bottom) of the water heater, forming a layer that progressively gets thicker and harder and can lead to longer heat-up times for the water heater, reduced efficiency, and eventually the death of it as it corrodes the insides and/or fills up an appreciable amount of the space normally reserved for the water.

ANYWHO, my heater was clearly full of it and it needed to be dug out at least from the drain hole, if not more. So off I go to battle it.

Now, the water heater is still full of water, although I have turned off the water at the main shutoff and have also reduced it to lukewarm water by filling the bathtub full before doing any of this. So I’m expecting a geyser as I approach the lime-filled hole with a big F.U. screwdriver. (All handymans need at least one, preferably five, F.U. Screwdrivers. Of course, a liquid screwdriver never hurts, either.) After some digging around and poking, sure enough — I get a formidible stream of water emitting from it, dragging with it a copious amount of lime rocks, balls, particles, and sand.

This continues until the tank is empty (takes awhile, let me tell ya) and then I proceed to spend the next hour digging around in the tank with the screwdriver like some sort of mad surgeon performing a lobotomy on a rabid wildebeast and alternatively turning the water on for brief periods, flushing the effluent out and helping me to dig at it more.

This ends up with the picture that you see on the left, which can only be described as, “The Morning After”. My water heater now has a bachelor’s from the University in projectile vomiting of lime. Pity there wasn’t any margarita in there as well. (Bah-dum! Thank you, thank you, I’m here all week. Tip your waitress.)

A bit of Shop-Vac’ing and refilling of the tank later and I now have a steaming water heater frantically burning gas trying to get up to temperature for my shower. It is, if nothing else, weighing a lot less these days, due to the almost 2 gallons of lime I removed from its innards. (I’m unsure if “gallons” is the correct volumetric measurement for lime, but it works in this situation, I think.)

There’s more extensive things I could have done to it to clear out more lime, but the night is short and I have a shower to get done, so this’ll have to do for now. I think a vinegar attack will be necessary next time, and perhaps a jackhammer. ~

© Nathan Pralle for PhilosYphia, 2007. | Permalink | One comment. One lonely comment looking for a friend. | Subscribe RSS