Month: January 2008 (Page 2 of 3)

Two hours spent fixing the toilet not counting buying a part, checking the tank, and returning it for another part. One hour was spent on this step:The old plastic parts were so old and corroded I couldn’t get the large nut off. After wrenches, knives, and a blowtorch I found success by pounding nails between the nut and bolt and then prying off chunks of the bolt.

And when it was all done and I turned the water back on, it appears that one of the parts in the kit was defective.

I think it will work fine. Probably not worth the hassle of explaining to the Lowes returns cashier that they need to take back just part of this kit and give me a standalone part – for free.

And now I will enjoy the cinnamon rolls I baked today.

Do you ever feel like everything is broken? Here’s our current list:

• upstairs toilet
• Ever since the water came back on it won’t stop running.
• Ben’s watchband
• He tripped and busted a piece off.
• my engagement ring prongs
• They’ve needed replacing for almost a year now. Just had my 6 month inspection/cleaning and they reminded me.
• my macbook keyboard
• stops working for a few minutes periodically. Probably a loose connection. Just don’t want to give it up to get it fixed.
• sewing machine
• has needed repairs for who knows how long. It’s extremely clunky now
• Ben’s uvula
• He woke up with it stretched down, touching his tongue. Icky.
• my ipod
• tells me I need to reformat it. Strange, it worked fine when I had it tuned to windows. Now it doesn’t like the mac 😉
• Jem’s eyes
• Red and oozy since New Years. We have eye drops that help, but it comes back after we stop using them.

grrrrr. And no money to fix any of it. Life is great, eh? I console myself by trying to list the things that aren’t broken. That list is much longer. The others still irk me though.

I finally relented and set up a flickr account. SIGH. I’ve always been annoyed when people link to their photo set instead of actually posting their pictures. But Blogger hasn’t improved their photo upload capabilities and I’m too lazy to go through each Christmas photo individually. So here. I will try my best to continue posting pictures directly on the blog. Like this one of the cake I made for Ben’s birthday:

Do you recognize it?

How about now?He had a portal-licious birthday 🙂

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Neighborhood Flix, originally uploaded by Ben Mason.

Last weekend we saw “I’m Not There” at Neighborhood Flix in Denver. It’s a new theater that combines dinner and a movie in a swank atmosphere. It’s located in the same complex as the new Tattered Cover and Twist and Shout. The crowd was hip and polite. The food was delicious, healthy, and well priced, and the theater had the nicest employees I have met in a long time. What a great experience! We can’t wait to go back for lunch and a matinee, where tickets are only $5. Sadly, they only run a few movies at a time and there’s nothing coming up that I want to see. But you better believe we’ll be back soon.

They turned the water back on, although we hear rumors that the leak actually isn’t fixed. It’s been a big ball of confusion here. For a while the upstairs sink wasn’t working, causing much consternation because everything else worked and it doesn’t make sense. Then we took it apart and found a big piece of crud blocking the spigot. Fixed! For now we are happy. When our hoa fees are increased to cover the (possibly ongoing) repairs we’ll see how happy we are.

The water came on after 2 1/2 hours, and even still we don’t have water in the upstairs sink. Strange. They said they haven’t fixed the leak yet, but they’re giving us water for tonight and then turning it off tomorrow. We were able to do the dishes that were interrupted on Monday (stinking up the kitchen) and flush the toilets (stinking up the bathrooms). I wiped down all counters and refilled the pets’ water. I took a long hot shower. I filled various containers with water so that I can cook dinner at home tomorrow and clean up afterward. Since I won’t be in the office I stockpiled to ensure comfort while waterless. Overkill?

a quick update: as I walked by the work site a plumber said to me “twenty minutes.” that was two hours ago and still no water

Here I sit, nearly 24 since losing water. Still can’t poop in my house or wash my greasy bangs. Then I come home from my office and find that the internet/phone are down. Comcast can’t check on it until tomorrow, when I’m supposed to be in the office again. I jiggled and reset all the wires to no avail. I really hope Ben can fix it when he gets home, and that the water gets turned on soon. Right now I’m at a friends house to use the toilet, and I just jumped on the internet to check emails and such.

What a crappy day. At least I got to spend most of it at the office.

update: Ben determined that our modem was kaput. He got a new one and after registering it on the phone with comcast, we are back in business! Still no water. They’re saying they can’t locate the leak, that it was higher up the pipe than they anticipated when they busted up the parking lot this afternoon. So more digging tomorrow and hopefully it will be resolved by the evening.

Awesome. We’ve been without water since 4:30 pm. It’s 9:20. The HOA just distributed fliers saying it may take 24 hours or more to fix the break in the main line that made it necessary to shut the water off.

I’m glad I have close neighbors who let me use their toilets. I hope I don’t have to go to work greasy-haired tomorrow.