Unplugged (general personal junk)
I'm having another running battle with my ISP(s), Bright House and Earthlink. The nice thing about dialup was that I only had to deal with one ISP, so they didn't have anyone to point fingers at. As it stands now, our home network is dead, and Lili's computer has other troubles. So the cable modem is plugged directly into my machine, and the cable folks claim my signal levels are fine and they aren't dropping packets. I guess I'll have to get back on the horn with Earthlink and figure out if they have us misconfigured somehow, or if I have magically done something to mess up the connection.
I haven't got time for this crud; we're having a party in about 30 hours. Anyway, this is why I haven't been around online much.
At least the plumbing works! That was another ridiculous story. Three weeks ago, the seal on our downstairs toilet failed. Water would run out around the base when we flushed it. OK, so I turned it off and resolved to deal with it later. A few days after that, we drained the tub and then found that most of the water from the tub had ended up on the floor downstairs. "That ain't right!" I exclaimed, and called in local plumbers, selected more or less at random, to reseat the toilet. They said our drain line was plugged, but they couldn't fix it because their sewer machine wouldn't fit into the room, and maybe we should have the septic tank pumped. Then they reseated and resealed the toilet anyway. I think they ended up charging $180, or maybe that was what it cost for the previous visit, when all they did was put on a new supply line and new gaskets for the tank.
OK, so I called a local septic-tank contractor. They came out, dug down to the tank, and told us that not only was the tank not full, it apparently wasn't filling at all. On the bright side, since they couldn't actually pump anything, they only charged us $75 for a (useless) service call instead of $195 for tank service (am I in the wrong business?).
Meanwhile, the toilet, instead of leaking clear water around the base, started filling with sewage when we flushed the upstairs toilet or drained the tub. Every time one of us flushed the toilet, I went downstairs to scoop and bail so that it could be flushed again without flooding. "Ewwwww, gross!" doesn't begin to cover it. Zen and magickal training works, though: I supressed my gag reflex and just kept bailing.
I finally had an inspiration. I called the local hardware store, where people are pretty smart about such things, and asked them to refer me to "the Sherlock Holmes of drain-side plumbing." After getting some of the details, the man there referred me to a local master plumber, who it turns out had served many long years with Roto-Rooter before going out on his own. The guy came out with a helper, and they put about 12 man-hours into our drain problem. Apparently, the lady we bought the house from didn't know about drain and septic tank treatments, and just kept flushing any old stuff down. Our plumber-savant told me there was a plug in the main drain, a good fifteen feet long, composed mostly of undigested toilet paper. It's clear now. We can flush, we can shower. Best yet, we can party!
Oh, yeah: he charged us $175 for all that work. Just under $15 an hour, probably about what plumbers made when the house was built.
I haven't got time for this crud; we're having a party in about 30 hours. Anyway, this is why I haven't been around online much.
At least the plumbing works! That was another ridiculous story. Three weeks ago, the seal on our downstairs toilet failed. Water would run out around the base when we flushed it. OK, so I turned it off and resolved to deal with it later. A few days after that, we drained the tub and then found that most of the water from the tub had ended up on the floor downstairs. "That ain't right!" I exclaimed, and called in local plumbers, selected more or less at random, to reseat the toilet. They said our drain line was plugged, but they couldn't fix it because their sewer machine wouldn't fit into the room, and maybe we should have the septic tank pumped. Then they reseated and resealed the toilet anyway. I think they ended up charging $180, or maybe that was what it cost for the previous visit, when all they did was put on a new supply line and new gaskets for the tank.
OK, so I called a local septic-tank contractor. They came out, dug down to the tank, and told us that not only was the tank not full, it apparently wasn't filling at all. On the bright side, since they couldn't actually pump anything, they only charged us $75 for a (useless) service call instead of $195 for tank service (am I in the wrong business?).
Meanwhile, the toilet, instead of leaking clear water around the base, started filling with sewage when we flushed the upstairs toilet or drained the tub. Every time one of us flushed the toilet, I went downstairs to scoop and bail so that it could be flushed again without flooding. "Ewwwww, gross!" doesn't begin to cover it. Zen and magickal training works, though: I supressed my gag reflex and just kept bailing.
I finally had an inspiration. I called the local hardware store, where people are pretty smart about such things, and asked them to refer me to "the Sherlock Holmes of drain-side plumbing." After getting some of the details, the man there referred me to a local master plumber, who it turns out had served many long years with Roto-Rooter before going out on his own. The guy came out with a helper, and they put about 12 man-hours into our drain problem. Apparently, the lady we bought the house from didn't know about drain and septic tank treatments, and just kept flushing any old stuff down. Our plumber-savant told me there was a plug in the main drain, a good fifteen feet long, composed mostly of undigested toilet paper. It's clear now. We can flush, we can shower. Best yet, we can party!
Oh, yeah: he charged us $175 for all that work. Just under $15 an hour, probably about what plumbers made when the house was built.