I wanted to be... a LUMBERJACK!

Can I just say that I am glad it’s Tuesday and I can be back at work? Yes you’ve read that statement correctly, I am glad that the week can resume as normal and that Labor Day weekend is over. Here is why. Last Friday I discovered that I had already completed the homework that would be required over the weekend and had a rare opportunity to actually do something productive that was not related to school. So the Nikkinator and I comprised a small list of some things that have needed to be done for a while now. Mostly it was some basic maintenance on the cars and my truck and a few things around the house. Of coarse the list grew as time went on like most “To Do” generally do, but still it wasn’t that bad. Nevertheless, the weekend went a little something like this: Saturday morning we slept in a bit and got up around 9:30 or so. Had a small breakfast and then got started on the list. First thing was to run to the parts store and get the filters and such that I’d need. After getting back home, I realized that I was missing a special socket required for disassembling my front axle and that we needed to make a trip up to my dad’s garage to get it. Since we were going to be up there anyway, we decided to stop at DI and get some maternity clothes for the Nikkinator since her other clothes are getting a bit uncomfortable. By the way, I never realized how many high school and college kids shop at DI now. It’s almost become its own brand which is more “vintage” than “second hand”. Anyway, after our little shopping spree we decided it was too hot outside and got a shake at JCW’s since we were right there and then it was time to go home and get started on that list of stuff to do. By the time we got home it was about 2pm and it was quite warm outside. I started working on my truck and sucking down ice water like it was… some kind of sucking vacuum fodder… that really gets sucked down a lot. I don’t know if any of y’all have ever worked with heavy duty 4 wheel drive equipment (such as large axles, large tires, large bugs, etc) but it’s all very heavy and hard work. So I was nearing completion of all the things I needed to do when I started to get a headache. Not only did I get the headache but also I was shaking and felt like I would pass out at any time. It was at this point that I realized I hadn’t eaten anything substantial since 10am and it was now 6pm. So the Nikkinator was kind enough to throw together some dinner and after about 45 minutes of lying on the floor I felt much better. I went back outside and finished working on my truck and called it good. All this time we’ve had plans to make Salsa because of the number of ripe tomatoes sitting on our counter. So we spent most of the rest of the night making Salsa and decided to wait until tomorrow to bottle it since it was like 10pm by the time we finished. Finally, it was time for bed and it was hot… suspiciously hot. In fact it was hot enough that we turned the AC down quite a bit so that we could get to sleep. It didn’t work. The “AC” ran all night long and didn’t change the temperature one bit. The reason for this is that our AC compressor seems to have gone on vacation and left its seemingly useless corpse behind. THIS is great news, especially since the Home Warrantee that we purchased with our home just barely expired and this was one of the things specifically covered under it. So throughout the remainder of this story, keep in mind that the inside of our house is no more than 5 degrees cooler than the outside temperature because all of our windows are open. Anywho, Sunday crops up and church beckons. Not just any church, but of coarse my favorite of all, Fast Sunday Testimony Meeting. Not only that, but I spent the majority of it alone since the Nikkinator was in the library coaching one of the 65 year old techno geniuses who was trying to figure out how to get a DVD player to work. I’ll spare you the details, but soon church was over and I was ready to go home. Fortunately, we don’t have choir practice on the first Sunday of the month so I could get a start on the things I wasn’t able to finish the day before. It started with lunch, I’ll tell you that right now. Yup, a big fast breaking lunch. The Nikkinator had been munching on some delicious smelling sourdough, because pregnant people aren’t supposed to fast I guess (At least that was her excuse. I think if that’s the case it should apply to husbands too.), and it was killing me. With lunch out of the way, it was time to bottle our Salsa and some peaches we discovered on our tree when I was troubleshooting the AC problem. It went well and you’ll all be content to hear that we successfully bottled all but one of our jars. See, one of the smaller jars must have had a crack in it because when it got hot it kind of exploded in a tomato-ey hot watery mess. But anyway, after our freshly bottled stuff was cooling it was on to change the oil in the car, which went fairly smoothly and was over soon. I had hoped to do another chapter of Biology, but by the time everything was finished it was almost bed time and I felt I had earned a little lazy time… which I used to play a bit of Half Life 2. Another hot night went by and it was back “up and at them” (he he, Simpson’s references). Monday’s plans consisted primarily of helping Jamie move to her apartment in Salt Lake so we loaded up the bed we’d been holding for her and headed off. Before too long we were at her new place and struggling to find a parking space large enough so squeeze my truck into. We found one, but I was poking half way out because the covered parking awning wasn’t tall enough to clear the top of my cab. Of course, her apartment is on the third floor, so the unloading took a little bit and… well let’s just say I’m glad I put on plenty of deodorant. After unloading the bed and assembling it, Jamie offered to buy us lunch for our efforts. She took us to Buca di Beppo, which is apparently a nice fancy Italian restaurant. Before I get started I’d like it to be known that my opinion of a place has absolutely no reflection of my gratitude for the person who offered to buy me lunch at said place. I’ll try to keep my review of this Italian restaurant brief because I have already wasted enough of your time. The Gnocci gets about a 7/10 and was pretty good. The Chicken with Lemon (which apparently changes between the lunch and dinner menu by several critical dimensions and ingredients, and in a way which is inverse of what you’d instinctively assume) gets about a 5/10 due to the disappointing portion size, cost which rivals some major divorce proceedings, and is somewhat made up by its acceptable (not great) flavor. The Cheesy Garlic Bread was just that, bread with huge amounts of Garlic and cheese. I was the only person capable of eating more than one piece and that was after the others had scraped off all of the garlic slices (and they had somehow ended up on my pieces). The soda… was soda. The waiter seemed to be stoned, though he didn’t have any of the obvious symptoms (red eyes, distinct smell, munchies, etc). I give the entire restaurant a 6/10. Anyway, after lunch we headed back down toward home and decided that, since we had the truck and were up on this end of town anyway, we’d stop by Scott’s mothers place and pick up a Washer and Dryer she had so graciously decided to donate to our cause. After forcing my pregnant wife to do all the heavy lifting (some of which took a whip to get her to complete the task) we were loaded up and on our way home (after another stop at JCW’s for a Banana Split because it was far to hot and is in no way connected to the conceived status of my wife *wink*). After we got home, I decided that we’d put up with our old washer and dryer for long enough and that I should try to get these “new” ones installed before the end of the night. No big problem, it was barely 3pm and it should be fairly straight forward as it’s something I’ve done many times before. Of course, any statement which contains even a hint of optimism is sure to be followed by something humorous or tragic (maybe both). The Dryer needed a bit of work. The ducting was missing a part and, as is standard, it didn’t have an electric plug attached to it (this is because every year they seem to change the shape of the standard 220v plug so Dryer manufacturers gave up attempting to guess at what it’d be this year and left little details like that up to the consumer). I just robbed the duct work and the plug off of our old dryer and then cleaned it up a bit and it was ready to be installed. So we pack it in the house and plug it in. Moment of truth… and nothing. So I unplug it and open the back panel to inspect the electrical connections. With 220v if nothing happens something is defiantly disconnected because if it’s connected wrong it’ll start smoking and usually burst into flames (and I have at least some confidence in myself). Sure enough I found two wired which had either been unplugged for whatever reason or had just rattled loose in transport. So I connected them back up, plugged it in and… still nothing. As stated before, “nothing” is odd. So I unplug it again and pull apart the control assembly and find the problem. It appears that a mouse had once upon a time been the unfortunate benefactor of a rodent dare to see what would happen if you use your body to bridge the gap between two high voltage connections. It was not pretty. Furthermore, the short circuit had heated up a relay so much that it had melted the solder which attached it to the PC board and blown it out of the socket, effectively destroying the relay. After a little cleanup work, the relay was the only real problem. A quick search online, I realized that the only way I was going to get one of these relays was to buy from a manufacturer who has a minimum order of $250 (so not cool). So I looked for a used PC board assembly and found that the cheapest I could find one was $256 and was at least a week out (again, so not cool). So despite what my prior experience with melted relays was telling me, I decided to try and rebuild it. Soon our kitchen table looks like Dr. Frankenstein’s laboratory and I’m diving in for major surgery. After about an hour of soldering, rewiring, gluing and testing it appears that the relay just might be working. So I solder the relay back into the PC board and decide that I’ll be damned if our house isn’t going to be filled with smoke caused by an electrical fire this evening. After patching enough of the Dryer back together that it’ll work, I plugged it back in… nothing. I cautiously stand up and reach for the control panel and push the on button and the display actually lights up. I decided I hadn’t pushed my luck quite far enough yet and went ahead and started the dryer. IT ACTUALLY WORKED! At this point I am dancing around the house calling myself the master of electronic repair and demanding that the Nikkinator bow to my excellence (she didn’t in case you were wondering, she just kind of gave me one of those hopeless stares). So after about ten minutes of self praise, I put the Dryer back together and we turn it on again to make sure that it’ll work for more than about half of a second (which is all I dared to leave it on with everything pulled apart). Sure enough, it works great. Now it’s time for the washer. We bring it in and connect it up, almost cringing at the thought of what might happen next. It worked the first time. YAY! We now have a washer and dryer that both work and I didn’t even start any fires! At that point it was time for bed after a little straightening up and putting away all my tools. It was hot last night too, but I slept well knowing that I had snatched the soul of a dryer out of the clutches of silicon hell (because if there is a silicon heaven, then there surely must be a silicon hell and since this dryer had given up the ghost before its time it couldn’t have made it to heaven). So there you have it, the reason I am glad to be back to my regular cushy desk job after a “holiday” weekend.