White water, faster, part two, beneath my thumb
I left work early on Friday to meet up with guy installing our new water equipment. I was surprised when he told me it normally doesn’t take him more than hour to do so. Hey told me he was 15 minutes away. By the time I got home 30 minutes later he already had all the old stuff on it’s side in the yard and the new stuff on the concrete pad.
The installers name was Danny and he has been doing water related work pretty much his entire adult life. I hung out there with him as he worked.
The new system does not have a large holding tank like our old system did. Instead it just has a sulfur removal unit and a softener unit, both of which look very similar. It also does not require it’s own pump like the old stuff did, instead it relies on the pressure from the well pump.
Remember I said I might try to resell the old equipment? Well that plan was out the window when I saw the old softener in pieces in the yard. Danny just assumed the old stuff was going to be trashed. I told him it was no big deal and I pulled out a couple key components from the system that I was going to offer to my Michigan neighbor since he has the same old water equipment as we did.
True to his word, Danny was done in about an hour. He gave me very brief instructions on the equipment which was basically how to set the clocks. If I wouldn’t have asked him for a manual I don’t think I would have gotten one.
So far our initial experience with the new equipment has been positive. Our water looks as good as I can ever remember it looking before. I partially filled the tub and was pleased to have it not look like I just took a leak into it.
By the time he left it was still only between 3 and 4 so I jumped right into knocking out some stuff with Ali. I helped her in the garden and then moved onto weeding the property. I raked the old softener resin into the grass. Danny assured me the rain would dissolve it quickly. He also told me that the old rusty tank that he drug out to the road would be gone shortly, as someone will grab it to recycle as scrap for a few bucks. He was right, the tank was gone within the hour.
My Saturday followed a very similar template to a week ago. I again got up at 4:45 am to meet up for the 6:00 am group run. This time I again wound up running with someone that is significantly faster than I am and I again set a new personal best, averaging an 8:45 pace over the 7 mile run.
I then once again headed into work to redo the second rack of servers. Luckily going through the same process the week before allowed us to work a bit more efficiently this time around, we had everything wrapped up about 1:30.
When I got home I jumped into several more household chores. Ali was not feeling great and was sick of the 90 degree heat, rather hot for this time of year. One of the things I wanted to do was set up the new running club shelters. This basically meant unboxing each one, expanding the frame and then attaching the cover to the frame.
Initially I planned to do it out on the driveway. I asked Ali if she could help me set them up. The idea of sweating out in the sun some more was not appealing to her. She asked if we could try to set the tents up indoors in the AC. Initially I told Ali they would not fit in the great room without rearranging a bunch of furniture. She still asked if we could at least try it. Even though I knew it wouldn’t work, I agreed to try.
When I brought the frame inside Ali had moved the recliner and ottoman out of the way, clearing a nice big square on the floor. Imagine my surprise when we were able to actually fully extend the frame. I had to admit I was wrong much to Ali’s enjoyment. We set up the other 3 tents in the same manner in the cool AC.
Unfortunately there was no AC involved when I then had the mundane task of cutting up the mountains of cardboard so it fit in the recycle bin. By the time I was done hacking and slashing with my utility knife I was a sweaty mess. Sadie was happy this resulted in my jumping in the pool and granting her a splashy splash session.
Saturday during the day I found myself getting yapped at as usual by the annoying chihuahuas next door. I decided to do some of my own “training”. I walked over to my sonic bark arresting birdhouse and “woofed” at it each time the dumb dogs screeched at me, firing off the device. Within a couple minutes the dogs stopped their barking and actually retreated to their little area within the garage. It frustrated me because it shows that sonic correction would work if the the bark from the dogs wasn’t so high pitched.
This frustration led to me doing some more searching on the internet, I was curious if someone made a sonic bark arrestor with a REMOTE CONTROL. Having a remote control would allow me to administer correction with a simple press of the thumb, regardless of the pitch level of the bark. Imagine my excitement when I found such a thing exists.
Not only does this thing have a remote control, it has a longer range and uses a variety of ultrasonic sounds guaranteed to annoy a dog. It even has an option to run off AC to ensure that it’s sound is always delivered at full strength.
Ali was initially not thrilled when I showed it to her since we already dropped close to $80 on the sonic birdhouse. This new find costs $100. Although I agreed with her that is indeed ridiculous to spend another $100 on a problem that is entirely the neighbor’s creation, it was a small price to pay for my sanity.
The neighbor has proven to me that her words are basically meaningless. Through out this dog drama she has told me a number of remediation items she was going to do and she hasn’t completed a single one. So my choice is either continued to be annoyed until I go Dexter on her ass or invest in the device that will keep a blast of dog silencing sonic goodness only a thumb press away.
I ended any further financial discussion on the purchase by transferring “MY” money to pay for it. I am anxiously awaiting it’s arrival.
On Sunday we went to the water park early. While I went out on a bike ride Ali ran and then met up with Christy for some bike drills. Ali again fell during the balance drills. To minimize future injury she had me dig out her old volleyball knee pads later in the day.
I took my Dawes out on the ride. Despite the Dawes being much heavier and having significantly lower end equipment than my free Trek it has one thing the Trek doesn’t, a frame that fits me more or less.
Earlier in the week I had attached my aero bars to the Dawes to see how they felt. When I would use the bars on my Trek it was very uncomfortable as it felt like I had to bend down much lower than I should need to. On the ride Sunday I was into a headwind the entire way back. I was on my aero bars the entire time and felt comfortable there, something I would never be able to do for that amount of distance on the Trek. Despite the wind I put in a solid ride, averaging 18 mph.
I then headed into the pool to do some swim training. I felt pretty weak in the swim despite putting in a total of 1600 meters. My 400 times were slow, closer to the 9 minute mark instead of the 8:15’s I can do with consistent work.
After swimming we ate lunch and then hung under one of the big umbrellas for awhile. I didn’t read or play with my phone, I was pooped and just laid there with my eyes closed. I may have dozed off a little bit here and there but was more like deep resting, there is just too much noise to really sleep. I found myself constantly tuning in to some annoying Brit behind us that was complaining about various things, like he thought it was ridiculous that the bathrooms had a smell when he had to pay 10 whole dollars to get into the park. Oh yea, how dare they not outlaw people from taking shits at the water park…. Dumb ass.
When we got back Ali suggested that we take the girls out for one of their favorite things, a ride in the party van. I told her there was some stuff I could get at Home Depot so that was a good excuse. I grabbed a few items there, one of which was a toilet seat.
Although I have spent many hours on the toilets over our decade in the house, I evidently did not have a firm grasp of what type of seats they are. I was SURE that our bowl was elongated as opposed to the other option, circular. Well when I attempted to attach the new seat Ali immediately noticed it was extending several inches over the end of the bowl. I cursed myself as I realized my mistake. The bowl really looks more oval than anything to me. I suppose I have a return trip to the store in my future.
Ali made two really good dinners both Saturday and Sunday night. Saturday she found a recipe to use our brussel sprouts, on Sunday she used our onions and tomatoes as part of a sauce for pasta. She has really been on a hot streak with meal preparation lately.
I dotted my Sunday with a few chores here and there but overall it wasn’t anything extreme.
One of the things I did was play some more Mortal Kombat in story mode. Although I find story mode fun, there is one extremely annoying aspect to it. Story mode mixes in lengthy cinematics with the actual fighting action. There is no on demand save option for story mode. Basically whenever you win a fight, it saves at that point. You have no say in it. Well after each victory is typically a cinematic, some of these are very, very long.
I was stuck in a fight that I had a difficult time winning, I got frustrated so I turned it off and came back to it later. Well this fight came after a long cinematic, at least 5 minutes long. Well when I came back to the game I had to sit through this entire cinematic again before I got to fight again, there was absolutely no way to skip it, even though I seen it before. This is just plain dumb. Fix it please.
I guess The Rapture was a bust huh? Sucks to be one of those people that wholesaled their entire lives betting on this fictional event. Sucks to be you.