Grab some coffee, this will take awhile

Before I start I need to know, what happened to Merlin Olsen? Does he still do NFL games? As I was watching some of the football action yesterday I realized that I haven’t heard Merlin for a long time, and I missed him.

It seems like I have been off for more than 4 days, a lot of stuff came and went during that time period. Well I guess I’ll just try to go chronologically and hope I don’t forget much.

I was off on my birthday, Thursday, originally because my sister was visiting and I thought we would be doing stuff during the day possibly. It turns out her and my Mom were just going to the beach. It worked out well because I had the electrician scheduled to show up on Thursday to do the power work for the pool heater. I was going to do it myself, but figured eh, it’s electricity, I don’t want to risk burning my house down to save a few bucks. I already bought the 60 amp breaker I assumed we would need. I envisioned it as a simple job. Simply swap out the 20 amp breaker that is being used for the pool pump with a 60 amp breaker and then tie into the existing power line outside. The contractor arrived and I was immediately impressed with the professionalism. He laid a big red doormat in front of the door so he wouldn’t track dirt in. He was a clean cut guy from Texas. I showed him the pool heater and explained to him what I thought had to be done. I could tell he was politely ignoring what I was suggesting. He got out his book and showed me what it would cost. Over 500 BUCKS! What the??? I was taken back because I figured a hundred, maybe 200 dollars, tops. I went over the figures with him and again asked him about my idea of just beefing up the breaker and using the existing wiring out to the pump. He explained that if the pool equipment would have been set up with an external breaker box to start with, that would have been an option, but since there is none, he would have to run an entirely new circuit. Because of the amps the heater pulls he would not be able to run the wire through the existing conduit, it would be too narrow. I asked the guy to wait for a bit while I called Ali. I wanted to digest what he told me and calling Ali would give me a few minutes to make the decision. She was taken back by the price as well but was unable to talk and basically left it up to me. With the avalanche of holiday expenses that are already on top of me, the thought of dropping another 5 bills just to get power to the heater was not an appealing thought. However, I didn’t think the guy was pulling my leg about what was necessary so I gulped hard and told him to go ahead and do it. He did a nice job, was very thorough and at the end of 2 or 3 hours, my pool heater was flashing FLO, meaning it was alive but didn’t have any water flow. Good deal.

This expense made my call from a person that was friends with a woman whom I did computer work for, well timed. Her daughter’s computer was totally useless due to spyware. She asked me to come out to fix it. I went to the address and was floored by this home. It was literally a mansion, just an incredible residence. The hallway was long enough to fit a bowling alley. It was the nicest place I have ever stepped foot into. The computer had an army of spyware on it, compounded by several trojan download viruses. After a couple hours of uninstalling, scanning and cleaning I had 95% of it gone but the trojans were being very stubborn. I asked the woman if there was anything important on the system and she said there wasn’t so I told her I would simply redo the system for her, it would take less time. So the little side job helped pay for almost half of the electrician bill, a small consolation.

Thursday night, me, Ali, my sister and mom went out for a birthday dinner. We went to one of my favorite places, Carrabba’s. When I went to the bathroom they arranged to have the staff come out and sing happy birthday in italian, another Carrabba’s staple. It was a nice time, although I wish I wasn’t the one who had to drive, I would have liked to have pounded a few more back. Another birthday in the books.

Friday morning, a friend of mine who is in the pool business came out to do the second part of the pool heater installation, the part where it gets tied into the pool plumbing. Shortly after he arrived he noticed a major problem. The heater was missing a couple flange parts that are needed to connect it to the water. Damn it. He said he would look for replacements and stop back Saturday. I was bummed, I was hoping to get it all done Friday so my sis could possibly use the pool on Saturday. I was a bit grumpy. Friday night we did yet another dinner out, this time at another favorite, Watermark. Our waitress seemed almost clinically shy, an odd personality trait for someone in her position.

On Saturday my sister was with us all day as my mom had to work. In the morning, my buddy came back and after 2 or 3 hours of tough work he got the heater hooked in and functional. He set the thermostat to 90 and let it run. At the start, the water temperature was clocking in at a chilly 67 degrees so I was anxious to see how quickly it would heat things up. We all watched the 3 hour Apprentice finale on Tivo(my sis is a big fan) Thankfully with the Tivo we could cut it down to closer to 2 hours but it still went on way too long. After that we decided to take a run out to Everglades City. Ali had never seen it and Torrin was ok with it. Everglades City is a very small, very old (by Florida standards) town whose main focus is fishing and air boat tours. Many of the houses are tiny and date back to the 50’s. With the crush of development down here, it is sort of time capsule of what a lot of Florida used to be like. Everglades City is only a couple miles away from the nation’s smallest post office so we took Torrin there as well. I snapped a pic of Ali & Nicki while we were there. Torrin seemed underwhelmed with the trip so after a brief drive through town we headed back home.

Throughout the day I was checking on the pool temperature every few hours. Everytime I checked the temp was up a degree or two so I was happy that my pool heater purchase wasn’t a bust.

One more dinner on Saturday night with Sis before she headed out very early Sunday morning. She flew back to Arizona. She is going to school for oriental medicine as well as helping with her husband’s construction business. I hadn’t seen her since her wedding 2 summers ago so it was cool to spend time with her again.

On Sunday I wanted to get some things done before Eagles football at 1. One of those things was to move the salt tank to the front of the concrete pad. The reason I wanted to do this was because the plumbing for the pool heater was right in front of the salt tank. That plumbing would not react favorably to being accidentally kicked or tripped over while filling the tank so I figured I would move it. I looked in the tank and it was only maybe a third full so I figured I could move it. Salt is heavy, very heavy. The tank easily weighed more than 100 pounds and with the limited space I had to work with, it was going to be a multi-step extraction procedure. I first plopped the tank on top of the one air pressure tank. Then I got in front of all the equipment and was trying to lift the tank over the water line to the front. For whatever reason I didn’t take notice of the one valve that was jutting out right in front of me. All of a sudden I heard a pop and was immediately soaked. There was a mini-geyser pouring out from the hole where the pressure valve used to be. It was quite cool outside, barely 60. So I was totally soaked, cold and froze there for a second while the water pounded me. Then I realized to stop the flow I had to reach around the back and unplug everything. So I balanced the salt tank again, reached through the geyser and pulled the 4 plugs. After a few seconds the flood stopped and I surveyed the damage. The pipe that broke was a small plastic one. I was unsure how hard or easy it would be to find a replacement. So I took the broken piece out and took it to the hardware store where I was lucky enough to score a brass replacement part. Before I repaired it, I heaved the salt tank to where I wanted it. The broken off valve actually made it easier. The brass part fit well, didn’t leak and all was well again. Here is a pic of the repair, look at the gray box sitting on top of the brass pipe.

The Eagles game was another struggle but the end result was secondary to the injury to TO. The good news is he has close to a month till they will need him but the jury is still out on exactly how serious it is. It sure looked bad. The Birds won ugly again for the second week in a row. 13-1, the best start ever, the first time a team beat everyone in the NFC east, twice and the first time the Eagles ever won 13 games. This will be a regular season that will probably never be repeated for us Eagle fans, I just hope it has a happy ending.

Here are the latest pics, at the bottom of the page. Included is a pic of the best home appliance I have purchased , the Roomba. I just love that thing.

As I was at the gym today I noticed some guy that I never saw before. He was wearing a t-shirt and windbreaker pants that looked ridiculous. He was leaning on a machine, on his cell phone. 5 minutes before I finished my 50 minute workout, he got off his phone. He stood there for 45 minutes, leaning on a machine, talking on his phone. That shit annoys me.

I saw The Bourne Supremacy. It was an entertaining, action filled flick, much like the first one. I had one big question. Half the world is looking for Matt Damon and want to capture/kill him. He is some sort uf uber-super-agent that is trained in all aspects of covert activity. However, for some reason he never ever attempts to disguise himself in any manner throughout the story. Maybe that wasn’t part of his training. Fun view none the less.

By the time last night rolled around the pool was up to 86 or 87 degrees. I told Ali we should go in it for a little bit just to do it. She reluctantly agreed. The air was cool, it was around 61. So we ran out, pulled back the pool cover a bit and I stepped in. The first step felt very warm compared to the air. However once I got in waist high the water while mild, didn’t feel warm enough to stay in it with such cool air. I think another 4 or 5 degrees might be necessary. Ali never made it in any further than the second step. I conceded we would be too cold and quickly covered the pool back up. The heater raised the temperature of the water almost 20 degrees in a little more than a day so it works well. Mom is coming over Christmas Eve and some friends of ours are coming over for Christmas dinner so I will crank the heat way up for their visit.

One of my birthday presents was the boombox for my Sirius satellite radio. My plan was to use it at work to listen in my office. My office has no windows so I knew I would have to do some creative cabling on the antenna, I wasn’t aware of how creative. I tried putting the antenna in the windows of my 2 co-workers offices that have windows, but a big concrete overhang prevented me from getting any signal. I surveyed the building and tried to devise a plan. One plan had me using a wireless fm transmitter to broadcast to my regular radio, another one had me running a very lengthy cable extension to the back of the building and then standing on the railing of the loading dock while stretching to attach the antenna to the existing satellite dish. None of these plans were easy or cheap but there was no way I was going to not use this boombox. Then over lunch I had the idea to simply put the antenna up into the drop ceiling. Hmmm, I had a little signal! So I stuck my head up into the drop ceiling and looked for my best option. I wonld up sticking the antenna on top of an AC duct over the office next to me. I’ve had solid signal for the past 2 hours. I’m hoping it stays solid throughout the day. Sirius satellites do a figure 8 pattern across the country so there is a chance that what works now might not work at a different time of day. We’ll see. I’m listening to NFL radio right now as I type, it’s sweet.

Wow Christmas hits in 5 days. December has just rocketed by. Next week I’ll have to post my recap of 2004 and my forecast for 05. Should be compelling stuff, or at least something to do while you are trying to look busy at work.

Happy Birthday to the Teen Beat Boy of the Month.