The 2021 Ice Storm / Plumbing Madness / End of Eras
Earlier this month, we had a pretty serious snow and ice storm. It was worse north of here, but it was still a major event. Probably the worst snow/ice storm to hit the Portland area since the crazy 2008 two-week snowstorm event. It started with a couple days of snow that turned to freezing rain which weighed down everything. Around our newly adopted hamlet of McMinnville (We've been living here for two months now and this is the first time I mention the name of the city apparently) there was a 3/4-inch layer of ice on every outdoor surface. All plants and trees were weighed down. For days, tree branches everywhere were snapping and crashing to the earth. We took a walk with Chip and every few minutes you would hear the snapping of a high branch in the tall evergreens that border the area. You'd hear the strange knock of breaking wood then moments later the floosh of it landing in the snow. It was a mess. One of our neighbors had every tree in their berm snap and have to be cut down. Across the street another neighbor has yet to finish clearing their yard of monstrous branches from their tall trees. My buddy Bryan living in Portland had his power out for something like nine days when it was all said and done. They lost everything in their fridge and freezer. Nicole and I didn't lose power ourselves and it was a pretty mild event for us especially since I'm still telecommuting but a strange storm nonetheless.
This house is a needy little whiner. A few weeks ago I replaced a leaky device under the kitchen sink and ever since the hot water to the sink was slow. Weirdest thing. Worse, new leaks developed and the drain totally clogged up completely. It was pretty bad and I contemplated calling an emergency plumber. Thankfully, however, I took the whole sink apart and replaced a bunch of valves plus cleaned out the lines. I discovered that the slow hot water was because a plastic o-ring on the shut-off valve shattered and clogged the faucet. That solved leaks too. As for the plugged drain, we bought a 25-foot "drain snake" but the block was beyond that. Out of frustration, I followed some Internet advice and attacked the drain with a common toilet plunger. Right before I was about to give up, the clog got pushed loose and the drain was saved! That was a glorious day for us in terms of living in this house and truly succeeding in the things we have to do to survive here on our own.
Speaking of the house, over the last month Nicole and I have had a few rough moments where the despair of the problems with this aging house got to us. We sometimes even wonder if we should have left our Wilsonville apartment at all and just continued to rent forever. Thankfully, we do realize that we're better off now, and we've invented a game to help: "Things we don't miss about the apartment". If we remember something that we loathed about our past apartment lives, we mention it aloud prefaced with that phrase. It really works to remind us that we hated apartment life and it's a good thing we're done with renting.
Just last week, we saw the end of a couple eras. Daft Punk (The electronic music duo) broke up and Fry's Electronics (A discount computer department store chain) closed down suddenly and for good. Back to back these two things hit with a day of each other and it brought on waves of nostalgia. Fry's has been around for a couple decades with just the one location in Wilsonville serving the whole Portland area and I remember many wonderful pilgrimages to the superstore with friends and family. Back in the days when I lived with family in Hillsboro, making the 40-mile drive to Wilsonville to go to Fry's was an awesome, magical, all-day adventure. So many wonderful memories of the shopping experience. For me being a hobbyist computer geek, finding cheap bits and pieces (And even Mac stuff) anywhere locally was a godsend. The place was huge and had everything. In 1996, it's where I got issue number one of MacAddict magazine which started my collection and led to me making a couple games that ultimately got published in one of their magazine CDs back in the late '90s. When Mac OS 8 came out in 1997, my dad took me down there to see a demo and presentation. We got pin buttons and bumper stickers and it was like being an insider. Whenever one of my buddies had the urge to build a new PC from scratch, we'd make the trip to Fry's to agonize over every part from the case to the keyboard. My brother, Ryan, and I even applied to work there in the '00s and even got offers but but thankfully we opted out after a long think. We'd heard horror stories from employees and became worried that working there could sour us on the place which would make us not want to actually shop there anymore. It was that important and magical a place for us and now it's gone. Even though I lived in Wilsonville for four years up until a couple months ago, visiting Fry's became less and less of a thing. We needed what they sold less and less, we made our computers last longer, and we never went there for much else anyway. I think the last thing I bought from them was a Super Mario power block keychain for $1. Even though I haven't been a serious customer of theirs since I modded that Power Mac G4 case and needed bits and pieces, it's still sad. Now there's really nowhere in Portland to go for those bits and pieces. And to top it all off, Daft Punk broke up so what's the third TRON movie gonna sound like?!?
This house is a needy little whiner. A few weeks ago I replaced a leaky device under the kitchen sink and ever since the hot water to the sink was slow. Weirdest thing. Worse, new leaks developed and the drain totally clogged up completely. It was pretty bad and I contemplated calling an emergency plumber. Thankfully, however, I took the whole sink apart and replaced a bunch of valves plus cleaned out the lines. I discovered that the slow hot water was because a plastic o-ring on the shut-off valve shattered and clogged the faucet. That solved leaks too. As for the plugged drain, we bought a 25-foot "drain snake" but the block was beyond that. Out of frustration, I followed some Internet advice and attacked the drain with a common toilet plunger. Right before I was about to give up, the clog got pushed loose and the drain was saved! That was a glorious day for us in terms of living in this house and truly succeeding in the things we have to do to survive here on our own.
Speaking of the house, over the last month Nicole and I have had a few rough moments where the despair of the problems with this aging house got to us. We sometimes even wonder if we should have left our Wilsonville apartment at all and just continued to rent forever. Thankfully, we do realize that we're better off now, and we've invented a game to help: "Things we don't miss about the apartment". If we remember something that we loathed about our past apartment lives, we mention it aloud prefaced with that phrase. It really works to remind us that we hated apartment life and it's a good thing we're done with renting.
Just last week, we saw the end of a couple eras. Daft Punk (The electronic music duo) broke up and Fry's Electronics (A discount computer department store chain) closed down suddenly and for good. Back to back these two things hit with a day of each other and it brought on waves of nostalgia. Fry's has been around for a couple decades with just the one location in Wilsonville serving the whole Portland area and I remember many wonderful pilgrimages to the superstore with friends and family. Back in the days when I lived with family in Hillsboro, making the 40-mile drive to Wilsonville to go to Fry's was an awesome, magical, all-day adventure. So many wonderful memories of the shopping experience. For me being a hobbyist computer geek, finding cheap bits and pieces (And even Mac stuff) anywhere locally was a godsend. The place was huge and had everything. In 1996, it's where I got issue number one of MacAddict magazine which started my collection and led to me making a couple games that ultimately got published in one of their magazine CDs back in the late '90s. When Mac OS 8 came out in 1997, my dad took me down there to see a demo and presentation. We got pin buttons and bumper stickers and it was like being an insider. Whenever one of my buddies had the urge to build a new PC from scratch, we'd make the trip to Fry's to agonize over every part from the case to the keyboard. My brother, Ryan, and I even applied to work there in the '00s and even got offers but but thankfully we opted out after a long think. We'd heard horror stories from employees and became worried that working there could sour us on the place which would make us not want to actually shop there anymore. It was that important and magical a place for us and now it's gone. Even though I lived in Wilsonville for four years up until a couple months ago, visiting Fry's became less and less of a thing. We needed what they sold less and less, we made our computers last longer, and we never went there for much else anyway. I think the last thing I bought from them was a Super Mario power block keychain for $1. Even though I haven't been a serious customer of theirs since I modded that Power Mac G4 case and needed bits and pieces, it's still sad. Now there's really nowhere in Portland to go for those bits and pieces. And to top it all off, Daft Punk broke up so what's the third TRON movie gonna sound like?!?