A Slow News Week

To me, here--A slow news week. To other parts of the country, the catastrophes rolled on, from hurricanes to train wrecks. I guess it's a good thing to be right here in a slow news area now that I think about it.

I came home one day this week--Wednesday I think--And found Alan the landlord on the roof with a pressure washer. My truck (yes, the one that I had just washed last weekend) was covered with shit that he had blown off it. The roof has been in bad need of attention, and he probably didn't know exactly how much he was getting into. Anyway, he spent that day and the next two days working the place over. He did the roof, the walls, the driveways--EVERYTHING. He was truly giving the washer a good workout. He came with his boy yesterday and finished it up, and included trimming all the shrubs, trees, and ivy too. He even cleaned off the fence in my backyard that had green on its north side since before I had moved in here. Maybe he had just bought the pressure washer? I know when you start using a pressure washer it's hard to stop. He showed all the signs. At any rate, I'm glad he did it all. He did a great job--The place looks better than it ever has!

Suz and I were futzing around on her hot tub yesterday. She had a hot tub repair guy that she knows and trusts come out one day and his diagnosis was a fuse blown on the circuit board. Initially, it wasn't blown--We're sure of that--Because when we first set up the tub everything worked except that it didn't get hot. Later on when Tony did some electrical work everything ceased to work. No pump, no light, no nothing. Chances are something got bumped and blew the fuse during that time. The fuse was made to be "not replaceable" by John Q. Public. It was soldered to the board so you would have to spend $200-$300 on a new circuit board. Instead, we removed the board, desoldered the blown fuse and soldered a heavy-duty fuse holder in its place. Next time it blows we can just unscrew it and put another fuse in. We also put a new heater element in it, which was likely the original problem back when it was first set up.

We spent quite a while wandering around from store to store gathering up all the supplies that we needed. When we got back to her house I started by putting the new heater unit because with that finished we could start refilling the tub. It worked out well because by the time I had the circuit board repaired and reinstalled the tub was almost full. After a false start (the circuit breaker GFI was tripped) we were greeted by full operational status! One of the things she bought during our shopping was a floating thermometer. When she filled the tub it was 62 degrees. We spent a couple hours at Denny's house up the street having dinner and playing Wii bowling (fun stuff!), and by that time it had risen to over 70. By now it's probably almost up to optimum temperature.

Looks like a little tubbing tonight!