low_delta

Just realized I forgot to cross-post a few from LJ. This is from a week ago Friday.

Cindy woke me up at 6:30 to report that the water wasn't running. I called the place I usually call, and they said they'd be out between 1 and 2:00. The guy arrived around 1:30, and we had water back by 3:00. Cost $600. People always talk like having your own well is cheaper than being on city water, and that's usually true, but there are costs.

I was worried the pump was out, but it turned out to be a relay, so he replaced the control box on the wall. I told him we had been having trouble with air in the lines, so he replaced the pressure valve. That was cheap, but the pressure tank is 21 years old, so it probably doesn't have a lot of life left in it. He had replaced the well pump in 2005, I think. He said the lifespan of a pump is highly variable, so it may have a lot of life left in it.

Not having water in the morning is no fun. No showers, no flushing toilets. We had some distilled water to brush our teeth with, and then Cindy needed to go to the grocery store, so she picked up a jug of drinking water. I mostly used it to wash my hands. I got a bucket of water from the rain barrel to use for flushing the toilet. It was very green.

Good thing I had planned on being home today. I had taken today off anyway, so it wasn't a problem to wait around for the plumber. Cindy actually left for the weekend, after lunch. I guess she'll take a shower when she gets there.

Milwaukee Electric Tool Co. makes the best tools. Or at least that's their reputation. Because of that, and also because they're a local company, I've always desired them. I have a router, and it's the best power tool I own. The company has gotten very big in the last few years, largely because they're moving to cordless tools. They're remaking every tool they already made in a plug-in variety, and along the way are inventing new tools. I've kinda wanted to go work for them. Anyway...

I recently decided I need a pole saw, to help trim the trees, especially the birch tree. And then the locust tree decided to be dramatic, so I went out and got one. I could have gotten away with a cheap one, considering how seldom I'll use it, but I wanted a Milwaukee. And also, the tool attachments are interchangeable on the cordless power head, so I could also get a string trimmer and go cordless with that. And then a leaf blower. So once I've invested in the basic package, I can get more tools.

I get tired of dragging a 75 foot extension cord around the yard when I'm doing the edging. I thought a cordless trimmer would be great. Unfortunately, there are some issues. I'm going to have to use it for a while to see which ones are just a matter of getting used to the new thing, and which are really a problem. First, the thing is very heavy. It has a lot of momentum, and I'm worried about hitting my trees. It has a long reach, and it's hard to maneuver because of the angle, so that's kind of a double-whammy. The string is a much heavier gauge than my old trimmer, and they're a couple inches longer. It doesn't actually cut the grass as well - sometimes it just lays the grass over, rather than cutting. Plus, the string head is bigger than on my old trimmer. So it doesn't cut as close to the ground, and often leaves marks on the ground, tearing up the grass. In short, it's a lot bigger trimmer than I need. It seems to be made for some heavy duty cutting on large areas.

And then the pole saw... It's a small chainsaw on the end of a pole. It works great. The only problem is that there's no way to close the valve that feeds oil to the chain. So it all leaks out. I'll have to refill it and then drain it with every use. I can't figure that one out.

So I've got expensive tools that, while they seem very well-built, they are sub-optimal for me.

Tuesday I went to Chicago. Well, first I went way out to Crystal Lake to buy whisky. Then I drove into the city to buy more whisky. I had hoped to buy the whisky, then spend the afternoon in the city doing whatever I felt like doing in the city, but by the time I had picked up all the whisky, I only had two hours left, which included driving to where I needed to be.

First I walked over to a nearby bridge. Then I decided to kill the remaining time by visiting a cemetery. Unfortunately, Graceland was the only one open past 5:00. It is nice, but I had hoped to see a new one. On my way there, I passed Delilahs, a whisky bar, so I stopped there for a wee dram or two. Then Graceland. I had about half an hour there, and reached my destination just in time.

I picked up a friend after work, and we went to a Persian place for dinner. Good food, but I don't think I even ate half of it! Was stuffed, so we went for a walk afterwards, got a little bit lost.

I had bought the whisky for our next big tasting. The theme is The Women Master Distillers of Scotch Whisky. I was happy that I was able to get all the whisky on Tuesday because (aside from saving me another trip), I was meeting with the other whisky masters on Wednesday night, to work on the tasting. We tasted all the whiskies and wrote tasting notes. That was a late night (unlike the previous).

The previous weekend, I had intended to grill hot dogs for the gaming guys, but the grill wasn't working. Thursday night I got a new canister of gas, but it didn't help. So Friday night I went to the hardware store to buy a new grill. I found the one I wanted, but it wouldn't fit in the trunk of our car, so I asked for one that was yet unassembled. The guy said they assemble and deliver for free, but I needed it the next day, which was a Saturday. They couldn't do that, so he went to find one still in the box. There were none, so I bought the display model. Since they didn't have to assemble it, they said they could deliver it the next day, a Saturday.

It arrived about half an hour before our company was to arrive. They were late, which gave me time to do the initial set-up before cooking on it. We invited some photographer friends for dinner. We've known them for a while, but had never gotten together outside of the group, so that was nice. They hung out for the evening and we shared some food and drink.

Earlier in the day I went out to Waukesha for the Highland Games. I didn't stick around too long, just to kinda see what was going on, and hang out with a friend in his booth, and then work the club's booth. I could have stayed longer, but we had to be back for our guests.

That same afternoon, our new expensive photo printer arrived. We set it up on Sunday, but still haven't really tried getting a real print out of it. I think the ink cartridges that were included were only enough to do set-up.

Sunday night was gaming, back out in Waukesha. Today, the holiday, I mowed the lawn, then we went out for drinks at the Art*Bar. I had a piece hanging there last month. This month, some friend's of Cindy's were there.

This coming week won't be quite so busy.

Photo from Graceland on Tuesday:


You can see the whole set here: link at Mourning Souls

I had meant to post these earlier.

The curtains. We were a little disappointed that the white was grayer than expected, but we can learn to live with them. Cindy is unhappy with the lack of, I'm not sure what they call it, pleating? They're flat when they're drawn together. An by unhappy, I mean embarrassed. But we have no plans to change them, at this point. So.





And here's the countertop. I cannot get a good photo showing the marbling. You have an idea of what it looks like, though. In person, the pattern is more obvious.

The flooring guys came back in the morning. They rearranged some pieces of the quarter-round molding, and put in the rest. It seems fine now. It's strange what you don't realize is wrong until something changes. I pointed out a piece that had a big gap between the molding and the shoe molding. He showed me that the shoe molding was sticking out in the corner, so that's as good as it gets. Apparently it had been like that all along? There was another piece that was broken, I thought it came from elsewhere, and Cindy was sure it was never broken. But the piece couldn't have come from elsewhere because it's the only one that's that long. And the break isn't new. The guy said all the pieces were numbered, and I saw numbers on some of them. (No idea why his helper couldn't follow the numbers, though.)

He reglued a couple of pieces of the vinyl strips, and put some filler in some of the larger gaps. So I guess we're good.

I took the afternoon off work to get some things done. Did some gardening. Didn't really start on the kitchen stuff until almost supper time.

Installed the new stove. It seems nice, so far. Except it doesn't show the time when the oven is on - just the temperature. Strange. Cindy baked supper in it. The old stove was removed four days ago.

The countertop people had installed the sink, since it's an undermount, attached to the stone countertops. I installed the faucet and soap dispenser, and then the drain plumbing. We have water in the kitchen again, since it was all uninstalled two nights ago. The faucet is really nice. It's a solid build and shiny chrome.

The kitchen table and two of the chairs had been in the family room, so I put them back where they belong. Tomorrow the rest of the cabinets go in (sans doors). It's getting there!

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I put some new lights in the basement workshop. I'd wanted to get rid of the fluorescent tubes. Last year I replaced the one over my workbench with an LED strip, but it used a pull-chain to turn on. I wanted to replace the other fixture with LED, and wire them into the wall switch.

I started at noon, and got done a little before 6:00. Not bad. It was kind of a pain, since I didn't really know what I was doing. I had to figure out where to put them, how to hang them and how to wire them. I'd never done any wiring before, besides replacing switches. I was happily relieved when I turned the breaker back on, and they worked.

I ran Romex. There used to be only one fixture going from the box, but now I wanted three. I only had room for two, so I wired the third fixture from the second one.

I was disappointed because they're dimmer than I expected. They're not as bright as the one LED strip I replaced. I had to replace it, because that fixture had no way to hardwire it to the wall switch (it was only powered by an extension cord, and turned on by the pull-chain). So instead of just two, I'm going to double them in two pairs, and find a brighter replacement for the one over the workbench.

The fixtures have plugs on the end for special extension cords, but those cords are only 14 inches long (they're made to go end-to-end, but I don't have any room in that direction). So I won't have to do more wiring; I'll just put them side-by-side, a foot apart.

I finally got the phone activated, a week after the original one was lost. Apparently they had not updated my account info with the new phone's info. It took tech support 20 minutes to take care of this.

The phone is different. Not too different, just different. It shouldn't take too long to get used to.

My first camera was a Vivitar 110. Cheap little box with a built-in flash. Used film cartridges with narrow film that didn't have very good resolution. I think it was a gift at my eighth grade graduation. I used it through high school.

My first real camera was a Ricoh KR-1 35mm with a 50mm lens. It is fully manual - very simple operation. Only three settings - aperture (f2 to 16), shutter speed (8 to 1000) and ISO. It had a lever you pushed for the self-timer. I usually shot Kodak 400 Gold. I still miss having a hyperfocal scale on the lens. I did a lot of night shooting, so I got a tripod. I only upgraded from that a couple of years ago.

I got it in June 1988. My next camera was a Rebel 2000, so I guess I used the Ricoh for over twelve years. I'm not sure when I got the new Canon, but it was in production from 1999 to 2002. It also used 35mm film. I stopped using it when the labs started messing with my photos too much. They applied a lot of color and lighting "enhancements," so I switched to digital to keep control of my images.

After that, I only bought Canons. The next was a digital Rebel XTi in February 2007 just before our trip to Hawaii. I used the cheap kit lens for a while, an 18-55mm, but upgraded to an 18-270 in 2009. Eventually, the XTi started to have trouble functioning well so I bought a T5i. I got it in 2013, just before my trip to Scotland. Now the lens is giving me hassles, so I need a new one of those.

We've also gone through several little Canon point & shoot digital cameras. Three, I think.

I don't count the phone, since I seldom use it for creative shots. It's mainly just for taking records, or when I don't have the big camera along.

77°, sunny and calm. Showered in the brand new bathroom. Grilled cheese on fresh homemade bread. Life is good.

Ordered new lenses for my glasses. Bought plants (flower and tomato). Bought wine. Bought birdseed. Took a walk around town. Grocery shopping. Worked in the yard. Steaks for supper. Went to the new brewpub.