Buns of Steel

Last week Kailey punched a hole in the wall of our master bathroom shower...with her buttocks. She was messing around trying to get Kyra to laugh when she threw herself back against the wall, and punched through six, four-inch ceramic tiles, leaving a gaping hole in the wall. How a sixty pound little girl can punch a hole in the wall with her bare butt is beyond me, but it happened. The only thing I can think of is that there must have been a little bit of water damage in the wallboard. It didn't help that the builders of the house used conventional wallboard instead of blueboard in the shower, but that's water under the bridge (sorry).



I was at work, of course, when it all went down. I'm always at work when major home repair issues come up, like this time, or this time, oh this was a good one, or even this time. Not that it would make much of a difference if I were home. I would just do what I told Diane to do...call her Dad, the fix-it master of the universe. Of course Diane was bringing up terms like "complete bathroom remodel", but since we're about $10,000 short of a $10,000 remodel, I suggested we look at other options.

My father-in-law came out, looked at the problem, and had us up and running in about three days. The fix was relatively easy. He cut out the old wallboard, checking for any more water damage, patched the hole with new wallboard, then re-grouted our existing tiles back into place...exactly what I would have done. ;) Thanks, Papa! You da man!

So Diane and I have officially retired from our nightly sponge baths (darn!) and returned to boring ol' showers. Oh, and we're having Kailey's buttocks licensed as a lethal weapon.

All I (Didn't Necessarily) Want For Christmas

It just wouldn't be Christmas without some stupid crap breaking around my house. Nothing major, mind you, but just enough to be an inconvenience. Life during the Holidays is busy enough without having to engage in unplanned home repairs, but somehow they always seem to worm their way into my schedule. On Christmas morning my Father-in-law noticed that the garage door wouldn't stay shut. He pushed the button to close it, but as soon as it closed it would reverse course and open once again. He pulled out the ladder and gave the unit a small adjustment, and the problem was solved...for the moment.

The day after Christmas I went out to the garage after Diane left for work and noticed the garage door was once again wide open. I closed it and it popped right back up. I had to double click the button for it to stay closed. The girls and I were heading up to Phoenix for the day and I didn't have time to mess with it. When we returned that night, I noticed that not only would the door stay closed, but now it didn't fully open either. I was just barely able to get the van in the garage. So I hopped up on the ladder, gave it another little adjustment, and pressed the button. The door returned to its' full "up" position, problem solved.

Until I closed the garage door. The door closed, and stayed closed. It closed so much that the track that guides the door bowed upward out of position. That can't be good. I pressed the button again to reopen the door and relieve the tension on the track. Nothing. I readjusted the settings on the main unit and pressed the button again. Nothing. I cursed and kicked wildly at the door. Nothing. Finally, I conceded defeat and pulled the red emergence release cord, detaching the door from the opener. I had exhausted the extent of my limited knowledge of garage door openers and would need professional help.

I called the Sears service hotline the next morning. Long story short, repairing the opener would cost nearly as much as replacing it. Just having someone to show up and look at the garage door opener would cost $65. So I dropped $130 on a new garage door opener yesterday morning. Ho Ho Ho. Merry frickin' Christmas to me. Just what I always wanted. Installation will commence Monday morning, and the call to the Sears service/installation department will most likely commence Monday afternoon.

Laying the Foundation

Phase 2 of the flagstone patio project has begun. We finished phase 1 in mid-August, and took a couple of months off to recover and allow the summer heat to come to an end. Phase 1 involved building a side patio that essentially covered up a weed pit next to our house. Phase two will extend the back patio into the grassy area of our back yard.



Phase 2 required quite a bit of prep work, first of which was to remove the 10 million tons of river rock filling the space between the patio and grass. The rock looked cool, but just wasn't functional as we grew tired of twisting our ankles practically every time we walked across it, which was often.



We made two large piles of rock on either side of the yard. One afternoon I looked out a back window and saw what I thought was litter that had blown into one of the piles. I walked out to pick it up and discovered it wasn't litter at all. It was a declaration:



I later asked Kailey whether those were her rocks or if she "rocked", to which she replied, "Yes." That's my girl!



Now the hard work has begun. For the past week, my father-in-law and I have been clearing dirt, staking things out, and mixing and pouring concrete. My father-in-law is the brains behind this operation, otherwise I would never undertake such an ambitious project. Of course no project could unfold without running into at least one problem. We discovered that an irrigation line cut through a portion of the new patio area. Most of my time on Tuesday was spent exhuming the lines, splicing them and running them through PVC piping and reburying them so that we could get at them if (when) they leak in the future.



Once we finish laying the cement foundation, we'll begin the long process of hauling the sheets of flagstone that you can see lined up against the wall and creatively placing them on the patio. I'm excited because I know it's going to look great. Hopefully we'll be done by Christmas.

Fini

Phase 1 of the patio project is finished! To say that I am pleased with the results is a major understatement. It was a lot of hard work, but still very much worth it.

After laying the flagstone and mortaring the cracks, my father-in-law rented a saw and trimmed off the edges of the patio and rounded off the corner (pic 2).


We then dug an 8" trench around the patio, boarded it off, and mixed several wheelbarrows of fresh cement on which we laid a brick border. My father-in-law completed the job by filling in the cracks with mortar. I told him that he was definitely the man for the job because he has the patience of a saint when it comes to detail-oriented projects like this. Mortaring brick is a long process requiring much more time cleaning the brick than applying the mortar. I hate that. I just want to slap on the mortar and be done with it. Not so with my father-in-law. When he does a job, he wants to do it right. I really appreciate that about him.

So now we'll take a little break before beginning on Phase 2 of Operation Flagstone Patio: clearing the rest of the river rock from between the back patio and grass and extending the patio to the grass. That's going to be fun.

Flagstone & Fatigue

The other major project I've been working on, or rather "helping out" on, this week is constructing a flagstone patio on the side of the house. My father-in-law is the brains of the operation; I stick around to learn and help with the grunt work. We laid the concrete foundation a couple of months ago, before the summer heat came, and on Monday went back to work. On that morning I had a special delivery: a pallet carrying over 2 tons of flagstone.

A dude pulled up in a flatbed truck with a gargantuan forklift in tow and asked me where I where I wanted it. I pointed to the back gate. He did a quick survey of the land and then asked if I thought the neighbors would mind if he drove through their yard. I thought, "Probably", then said, "I'll check", and rang their doorbell, twice. Nobody was home (or nobody was answering the door), so I told Dude that it was easier to get forgiveness than permission. That was good enough for him. He hauled the pallet to my back gate, I covered up the track marks in my neighbor's "yard" (it's all rock, not lawn), and we bid one another good-day.

Then my father-in-law came over and the real fun began: unloading the pallet. There were 23 large cuts of flagstone, each weighing around 200 pounds. Armed with only a hand truck and our cunning to guide us, we set to the task of unloading the pallet one heavy chunk o' flagstone at a time. We rolled each piece into the back yard and cautiously leaned them up against the wall. Needless to say, I was sore for a couple of days.

The rest of the week we spent chiseling, laying out, and cementing down the flagstone. It's coming along quite nicely. Our next steps are to fill in all of the cracks with mortar and then build a brick border along the outside of the patio.

Then begins the next leg of the patio project with the remaining 14 slabs of flagstone: extending our back patio which runs the length of the house. That should be fun.

Battered Randomness

A smattering of events in the past 48 hours:

Oh No...Not Another One

I hate that I watch reality TV, and even more, I hate ADMITTING that I watch reality TV. It's like driving by the scene of an accident: you really don't want to see the blood and gore, but you can't help but rubberneck as you drive by. I blame Diane. She's a reality TV junkie. Quick, somebody organize an intervention. Current shows that we watch fairly regularly are Top Chef, Little People, Big World, Dog: The Bounty Hunter, and Kathy Griffin: My Life on the D-List. You have no idea how painful this is for me. Please bear with me as I cleanse my conscience as well as my soul.

Sunday night we added a new show to the list (please forgive me, Lord): Scott Baio is 45...and Single. What's worse is that we stayed up until 11:30 to watch it when we knew we had to get up EARLY the next day to get the girls off to school. Scott (don't call him Chachi) has hired a life coach to help him get through his mid-life crisis, and we get to ride along as he tracks down old girl friends who confront him and tell him EXACTLY what's wrong with him. It's too delicious to pass up! I need serious counseling.

Reading is Fun

Kailey picked this book to read last night before bedtime, and we had a lot of fun with it. The book is Smelly Socks, by Robert Munsch, and it chronicles the adventures of Tina who vows to "...NEVER, NEVER, NEVER, NEVER, NEVER...take them off." You can just imagine some of the chaos that ensues. Kailey and I shared several laughs as we read the story and enjoyed Michael Martchenko's illustrations. Several of the illustrations totally cracked us up prompting Kyra to yell from the other room, "Hey! Keep it down!" If you're looking for a good, slightly gross book to share with your kids, give this a shot.

Life as a Not-So-Handy Handyman

I spent the better part of yesterday afternoon, OK, ALL of yesterday afternoon repairing the leaky shower head in our master bath. Since I usually have no idea of how to fix stuff, and I'm too prideful to call my father-in-law to come over and fix it, I jump on the computer and surf the net to read various do-it-yourself articles until I'm sufficiently satisfied that I won't completely screw up the house by venturing out on my own to do the job.

Two trips to Ace Hardware, two faucet cartridge installs, and several hours later, the repair was complete and the shower head no longer leaks. I ROCK! Sorta. If I would have followed some of the instructions I read online I would have been done much, much quicker. I stretched what should have been a 20 minute repair into a couple of hours. Oh well, live and learn. No sooner had I finished my shower head repair than I noticed one of the zones in our backyard sprinkler system wasn't working. I guess a handyman's job is never done.

Happy Tuesday.

Tubes are the Pits

Ah the joys of homeownership. I'm sitting here waiting for the first of the termite inspectors to arrive because I recently discovered five termite tubes on the northeast corner of the house. That's just frickin' fantastic. I'm about ready to dub this place "The Money Pit" because lately it seems to be siphoning my wallet dry on a monthly basis. We should probably just do a preemptive strike and replace the water heater, air conditioner, furnace, interior plumbing, and re-tile the roof just to be safe. Oh hell, let's just tear the place down and start over! But I digress.

I hopped on the phone the other day to get an estimate of what it's going to cost to cast those little suckers into oblivion. The first couple of places I called set the tone for the morning. "We can't really give you an estimate over the phone. We need to get someone on-site to assess the situation and then give you a free estimate."

"Can't you just give me a ballpark figure?" I pleaded.

Only one place took the bait. "Termite service in Tucson runs anywhere between $400 and $800."

Great. I guess they figure that sending their inspector to your house will make you cave right then and there and pay whatever they tell you. Well, I'm not playing that game. I scheduled six inspections between now and Monday, three nationally known exterminators and three local ones. I'm going to let them duke it out for my business.

Ding dong.

Speak of the devil. Let's get ready to rumble.

I Hope This Isn't A Sign

Who can it BE no-ow...da da da DA da da...
Who can it BE no-ow...da da da DA da da...

I grabbed my cell phone and saw that it was Diane calling from home. As soon as I answered the phone, I heard it.

beep

I immediately detected the frustration in Diane's voice. "OK, now the smoke detector in OUR bedroom is beeping." She was in the process of the girls' bedtime routine, and I, of course, was at work. Like our living room, our bedroom also has vaulted ceilings, and Diane was a little befuddled as to how to work my collapsible, extendable Gorilla ladder. I started to talk her through it when work suddenly required my immediate attention. I told her I'd call back in five minutes.

I lied. It was about fifteen minutes later when I called and Kailey answered the phone. "Daddy, I showed Mommy how to use the ladder!" I about fell off my chair laughing. The girls have been present for several of my home improvement projects that required the use of the Gorilla ladder, and it makes me extremely proud to know that that knowledge stuck. My girls will be able to change smoke detector batteries, hang Christmas lights, and the like. That's pretty cool. Tomorrow I think I'll teach them how to change a tire.

I still had to talk Diane through the actual battery replacement process. "It takes a 9 volt battery...it's in the top desk drawer by the computer...there's a compartment on the side of the detector that slides out..." Diane then handed the phone to Kyra while she climbed the ladder and finished the task. Kyra spent several minutes pouting about how she only got to help Mommy with one thing while Kailey got to help her with TWO things. Typical Kyra. I tried to explain that sometimes the biggest help a little girl can give is by getting out of the way and not pouting, but she wasn't buying.

When satisfied that Diane had the situation under control, I hung up the phone and returned to my work. That's when the little voice began talking. What if it's a sign? The little voice talks to me more often than I'd like to admit. What's worse is that I talk back.

What if what's a sign?

C'mon, two beeping smoke detectors in one week?

The batteries were probably all installed at the same time and are now going bad, that's all.

Sure, sure, you're probably right. You shouldn't worry about anything. I'm sorry I even brought it up. Still, I'd probably sleep with one eye open 'cause you ne-ver kno-ow.

Thanks. Thanks a lot for that, you stupid, STUPID little voice. Now I have to see if the extinguisher still works. And find a good shrink.

Mourning Final Mornings

Tomorrow is the last day of school and we'll be attending Kyra's kindergarten graduation in the morning. After a short summer vacation, both of our girls will be full-timers at school, and that makes me a little sad. Sure, part of me is screaming FREE TIME, which, as a homeowner, I know really isn't true, but there's another part of me that is truly going to miss spending mornings with Kyra.

There were mornings where things just had to get done: cleaning in preparation for a family visit, doctor visits, grocery runs, or the seemingly endless house calls for home repairs/services that were beyond my limited level of expertise. But most mornings I made time for Kyra where we engage in a variety of activities. We'd play board games or cards where more often than not she'd flat out kick my butt in everything we play. Or we played make believe, everything from Star Wars to princesses (I was a prince) to Lion King. We sang karaoke, Disney-style, or I'd pick up my guitar and pluck out a tune for Kyra to create her own song to. We played soccer, softball, and basketball, and when we were bored, we'd make up games, my personal favorite being roll-ball, a game that started out rolling a ball to each other but quickly turned to beaning each other. I tried to take full advantage of the limited time we had together, and as I look back on these times, I'm glad to say that I have few regrets, and I hope Kyra will feel the same way.

I thought yesterday would be my last morning with Kyra, and I wanted to make it special: take her out to breakfast or do whatever she wanted to do before going to school. Tuesday night, that plan was shot to crap with a single KABOOM! The shock rattled our whole house and Diane and I thought a car had run through our garage door. We rushed out to the garage to find nothing peculiar. I then went out the front door to investigate. Nothing. Our neighbor from across the street joined me. He heard the boom over the din of his TV, which is saying something since he is older and hard of hearing; I can sometimes hear his TV from inside our house. We looked around for a few minutes, but still found nothing until I tried to open our garage door. The opener pulled it open about an inch, then stopped. I looked up through the gap created at the top of the garage door and saw two medium-sized springs where one large spring used to reside. It had broken in two, creating the "explosion" that led to our investigation. Mystery solved. I wonder how much THIS is going to cost.

I informed my neighbor of what happened and he told me that he had his spring replaced earlier in the winter. Just another one of those joys of being a homeowner. So I spent my last morning with Kyra on the phone trying to get someone out to fix my garage door. Turns out the door won't open with a broken spring, so I was stranded with both of our vehicles stuck inside. After calling EVERY garage door place in the phone book, I finally arranged to get someone out before I had to get to work. But my original plans were thwarted. I tried to make the most of the limited time with Kyra by challenging her to a rousing game of Monopoly Junior, Disney Princess version. I was thoroughly humiliated as Kyra once again cleaned my clock. I think the game lasted all of fifteen minutes. Then the garage door guy showed up, early for a change, and freed our cars from the prison of our garage. When he finished, it was time to get Kyra to school. Not exactly the way I wanted to spend our last morning together, and I spent the rest of the day fighting a funk.

This morning, though, I caught one of the few breaks that life tosses my way. The girls spent last night at my in-laws because I was working late and Diane was in Phoenix leading training sessions. Kailey had an awards presentation at school this morning and I met up with Kyra and my in-laws for the short ceremony, then I took Kyra home for a couple of hours before taking her to school. I was so thankful to have that time and I gave her my undivided attention. She wanted to sing karaoke, so that's what we did...one hour and fifteen minutes of Disney karaoke. We spent our last morning together doing something we both love: singing our fool hearts out. It was great.

Tomorrow morning, she graduates from kindergarten, and I didn't think I'd experience the range of emotions I'm feeling. She's my baby and she's taking another step in her journey towards adulthood, and right now I'm having a hard time with that. The other night while getting ready for bed, Kyra came up to us and sang, "Start spreading the news...I'm leaving today..." Diane promptly requested for her to be quiet, an indication that she's struggling with this life transition as well. Don't get me wrong, we're extremely proud of Kyra and know that she's more than ready for the next stage of her life. We love seeing her experience new things where she succeeds and learns and grows. But for some reason, it's taking Mommy and me a little longer to get on board the grow-up express.

Brush & Bulky Overload

When we moved into our house a little over three years ago, neither Diane nor I knew a thing about landscaping or lawn care. Sure, growing up in the Midwest, I spent a major portion of my summers mowing lawns, but I had no idea of how to keep them green and weed-free. So the past three years have been a hit and miss crash course in yard care, and my new philosophy has become "when in doubt, hack". By the looks of the foliage growing on our property, the previous owners of our home also engaged in this hit and miss course, and we are now suffering the consequences. Several of our trees and bushes were severely overgrown and no amount of hacking could scale them down to an acceptable size and still look good.

Most of our suspect foliage resides in the front yard. Two of our three "miniature" oleanders tower over me. They're huge. And our fruit tree is something of a hybrid gone very, very, wrong. It consists of two separate trees that share a base. One tree is an orange tree, the other, a gnarly mutant tree that produces what looks like tumor infested lemons. The tumor-lemon tree juts up through the middle of the orange tree and stretches up to the sky like an extended middle finger, mocking me. "Whatcha gonna do? Cut me down?" And I swear the fan palms inhabiting the northeast corner of the yard must have rabbit DNA running through their xylem and phloem because they produce fronds faster than I can cut 'em down. There is simply too much going on.

Suffice it to say that Diane and I pretty much hate the landscaping in our front yard and have been looking for an opportunity for change. Enter Brush & Bulky pickup. Twice a year, the city of Tucson arranges to pick up any brush or bulky items, up to ten cubic feet, that you set out on your curb. We're usually not ready for Brush & Bulky, but this year, fed up with our brush, we're MAKING the time to get rid our property of unwanted foliage. Only there was one problem. When we took inventory of everything we'd like to get rid of, it totaled probably closer to thirty cubic feet. We asked Diane's folks if we could use their ten cubic feet of Brush & Bulky pickup and they agreed. ROCK ON!

First, Diane's Dad and I cut down two dwarf fruit trees in the back yard, loaded them up and dropped 'em off on my in-laws curb. SEE YA! That was Sunday. On Monday, I decided I would turn my attention to that finger-flipping mutant fruit tree out front. I figured special occasions called for special tools, so I stopped by Home Depot and picked out a tree pruner. Best purchase I ever made. Monday night, I took my new tree pruner out for a test drive and was not disappointed. That thing cut through those mutant branches like a hot knife through butter. Oooaah, oooaah, ooaah! I was going to enjoy dismembering finger-flipping mutant fruit tree limb by limb.

Tuesday morning, after taking Kailey to school, I grabbed the tree pruner and a bow saw and took the mutant fruit tree down. It didn't go down without a fight, though. Each of its limbs were stocked with sharp, spiky thorns that tried to gouge out my eyes upon their descent to the ground. But I was too quick for them. Every once in a while, the ones on the ground swiped my legs as I moved in for a better kill position around the tree. Eventually the mutant fruit tree was reduced to a series of piles around the front yard, leaving only the healthy, odd-shaped orange tree behind. I loaded the remains of the finger-flipper into the back of the van and transported it to my in-laws curb. SIONARA SUCKER!

In the coming days, I will arm myself with my trusty tree pruner and turn my wrath upon the three pot-bellied "miniature" oleanders. They will join their finger-flipping mutant fruit tree brethren on the curb for the Brush & Bulky folk. Then we begin the daunting task of figuring out just what in the world we're going to plant in their place.

My Cup Runneth Over

Last night we moved into our new home, or at least it felt like a new home since we haven't stayed there for the past two weeks, and the latest of our string of nightmares has come to an end. I'm thankful that we had a place to stay so that we were able to avoid running up an even huger water bill, but I'm even more thankful to be able to sleep in my own bed, shower in my own shower, and shi-nola in my own, er, shi-nola-er.
We were supposed to be back in our house on Wednesday night, but the plumbers extended the job into a two-day affair. To be fair, they had five guys call in sick due to a stomach virus that was running rampant through their offices, or so they said. If that's truly the case, then, by all means, please stay home. Keep your infectious diseases to yourselves, thank you very much.

Two guys showed up Wednesday morning to dig sixty feet of trenching in which they would lay the new pipe. One of the guys sounded like he had the plague. He'd move a couple of shovels full of dirt and then spend the next five minutes hacking and coughing and complaining that he couldn't stop hacking and coughing. The other guy had played in his first pickup basketball game in four years on Tuesday night and could barely move, and he did just that, barely moved. I sat there thinking that we were never going to get back into our house. I felt bad for these guys, but I really needed them to dig a frickin' ditch. At this point, head colds and achy muscles fell squarely into the category of "Not My Problem".

They persevered, and dug throughout the day. Not that speed mattered, because they still had to wait for the "Master Plummer" to show up to tie off the old connections and reconnect the new. He made an appearance at about 12:30 to assess the situation. He had another job to complete and told me that he'd be back in an hour to finish the job at our place. He returned two hours later. By that time, the trench was dug, and the health-challenged trench diggers had been sitting around for at least a half-hour with nothing to do. Shortly after the MP arrived, two more plumbing trucks pulled up in a desperate attempt to complete the job by the end of the day. We now had eight plumbers wandering around investigating the carnage that stretched across the west side of the house. I laughed as I announced to them that there was never a plumber around when you needed one. I was the only one laughing. Apparently, they'd heard that one before. Or they didn't speak English.

The MP reassessed the situation, then declared that this would probably be a good stopping point for the day. He needed about three hours to complete the job and he didn't want to leave us without water overnight. While I was a little disappointed at the realization that I would not be sleeping in my bed that night, I was OK with the decision. The girls were making their theatrical debut later in the evening, and I didn't want to miss it. So all the plumbers scrambled to their respective trucks and called it a day. They would return first thing in the morning to complete the job.

Their idea of "first thing" is different than mine. I arrived back at the house at 7:30 on Thursday morning, but the plumbers didn't arrive until 9:00. Must be nice. The MP then realized that he didn't have all the materials he needed to complete the job, so he left two guys to putz around at our place while he went on a quest for plumbing supplies. He obviously shops for all his plumbing needs in Mexico because he was gone for three hours. I needed to get to work (I had already taken Wednesday off), so I didn't witness the new line being installed. I wasn't very happy when I left because I had also been told that they should be done by noon. Shoulda-coulda-woulda. Fortunately, once the MP returned with all of the necessary materials, he was able to knock out the rest of the job in a brief period of time.

Diane called me at work at 2:00, and I answered my cell phone to the sound of running water. It was probably just in my head, but I swear I heard "The Hallelujah Chorus" blaring in accompaniment as well. Diane then got on the phone and told me in her sweet, sweet voice that I could come home. I felt all the anxiety and frustration lift from my shoulders. I could go home to my bed. Go home to my stuff. It's great to be home.

Priceless

Locating a water main leak under your driveway: $275.

Hiring a series of plumbers to replace water main: $1787.

Settling the corresponding water bill: $1000.

Sleeping in your own bed: priceless.

My New Life Calling

This experience with the broken water main has opened up a whole new realm of possibilities for me, and I now know what I want to do with the second half of my life. I'm going to become a master plumber. Not a mere plumber or a plumber's assistant, because those guys really have to work their butts off. They're the ones who get stuck with the crap jobs, spending hours digging trenches, cutting out dry wall, or plunging turd-filled toilets. Blech! They do all the dirty grunt work getting the site prepped, but then the master plumber comes swooping in to save the day and hog all the glory! He, or she, is the one who can make the connection. They cut out the old pipe and solder in the new. When the master plumber finishes the job, leaks stop dead in their tracks, toilets flush, and faucets flow with crystal clear, life-sustaining water. And they make a butt-load of money. Oh, and they show up on the job whenever they want, which is OK because once they finish the job, the clients are so thankful to have flushing toilets and flowing water that they forget how pissed they were over how long it took for the job to get done in the first place. Being a master plumber is the bomb. I'm not even going to mess around being an apprentice. I'm going straight to the top, 'cause that's where it's at! Master Plumbers...their crap don't stink!

Bridge Over Troublesome Water

That's what our driveway has become. I received our water bill yesterday, and I just about dropped a load even though I knew it was coming. Actually seeing it printed in black and white was a sobering experience. In our previous billing period we used 6,000 gallons of water for a total bill of $48.48. This billing period, thanks to the flowing river under my driveway, we "used" 105,500 gallons of water for a total of $1004.64. The water company even includes a handy little bar graph on the back of the bill to give you a visual representation of your water usage. Ours was almost literally off the chart.

I called the water company to see how much of that bill we were liable for. I explained the situation to the customer service rep and she asked for my account number in a classic, monotone customer service voice. I gave it to her and she asked me to hold while she located our account. After several seconds of silence, I heard her gasp, "OH MY!!" She apparently found the right account. She was very helpful, but the news was not good. I qualified for a $720 credit that they would apply to our account AFTER our next bill. Basically, they want to see that the problem has been corrected before applying the credit. So we still need to pay the $1000 bill this month, and after that, we won't need to pay a water bill until roughly 2026.

The next question of the day: where did 105,500 gallons of water go? And equally perplexing is the thought of what kind of cavernous expanse lies beneath my driveway. So many questions, very few answers.

...And Into the Fire

It's been one week and $750 since we first discovered the leak/break/rupture in our water main, and we are not much closer to having it fixed. Diane arranged for a plumber to come out early Monday morning, and she was assured that he would be able to locate the break, dig it up, and fix it that day. I met him at the house at 8:00 am, briefed him on the situtation, and he went to work. Most of his work entailed head-scratching. He'd never seen a set-up like ours and told us we needed to hire a leak detection business to locate the leak. That'll be $140 please.

I called the leak detectors, whom up until Monday morning I never knew existed, and arranged an appointment for Tuesday afternoon. He came out and spent the first 15 minutes scratching his head: he'd never seen a set-up like ours. I was beginning to notice a theme. He finally hooked up his contraption through our water heater where he forced air through our plumbing system. He then went through a process of turning the air on and turning the air off, followed by turning the the water on and turning the water off, interspersed with times of plopping down what can only be described as a giant stethoscope on the ground and listening for bubbling sounds. This process went on for the better part of an hour. The problem was that he was looking for the logical route that the water line should take. He eventually deviated from that route and quickly detected the leak...under the sidewalk at the foot of our driveway. He created a duct tape "X" at the site of the breach. That'll be $275 dollars please.

I still didn't know the route of the main line or the definitive point at which it tied into the house. So Wednesday morning the plumbers returned, two of them this time, the owner and his son, and traced the line. They disconnected the water main at the water meter and fed fishing wire into the main until it stopped. They then used a metal detector to trace the line. Their findings left all three of us scratching our heads: we'd never seen anything like this before. The line tied in near the northeast corner of the house. The main shutoff valve is located in the garage on the southwest side of the house. The water meter is located on the northeast corner of our property and there is a three-car driveway separating the water meter and the tie-in point. You can see where this is going.

The pipe used for the main line is a blue, plyable polyeurothane that has since been outlawed due to its propensity towards leakage. That coupled with the fact that the break was buried under 6 to 8 inches of concrete left leak repair out of the question. The whole line needs to be replaced. I asked the plumbers to write up an estimate. For some reason, hmmmm, they were reluctant to run a new line along the west side of the house and tie into the main shut-off at the back of the garage. They thought the best thing to do would be to tie into the original location on the northeast corner of the house. This meant cutting through 28 feet of driveway concrete. Estimate: $3100. I told them I had their number. Oh, and by the way, that'll be $237 for today's visit. I'm in the wrong line of work.

I jumped on the phone and began calling other plumbing companies to come out and submit estimates on the job. The first came out this morning, and, after being shown all of the details, was quick to tell us that his company had done a lot of work in our neighborhood, but he had never seen a set-up like ours before. Thankfully, he had no problem suggesting running a line up the west side of the house. Estimate: $1320...free of charge. I never thought I'd be so relieved to spend $1300 on plumbing in all my life. So hopefully we'll have water early next week. We'll see.

Out of the Frying Pan...

Remember how I said I needed a vacation? I now won't be able to afford one anytime in the near future. Two weeks ago, it was new tires for the van, this week it's a new hard drive for my computer. Next week is going to be much, much worse.

This afternoon I was standing in the control room at work when my cell phone rang. I'm normally alone in the control room, but today it was full of people. It's been full of people for the past two weeks. The station is in process of installing a new system and they're having troubles working out all the kinks. OK, that's a lie. They can't get the frickin' thing to work at all. And this week they brought in a trainer to train us on this new system that doesn't work. So as my cell phone rang, I was standing in a group of about ten people all of whom were staring at a computer screen and scratching their heads. The phone call was a merciful reprieve from this torture, so I excused myself. It was Diane.

"Hey hon," she sounded harried.

"Hey. What's up?"

"We have no water. I tried several faucets and none of them work," she explained. Why does this crap ALWAYS happen when I'm at work and can't do a THING about it.

"Well, the only thing I can think of to do is to call the water company and see if they know anything."

"OK."

We hung up and I returned to my head scratching (as if I would have anything to contribute to the flex capacitor problem). A minute later my cell phone rang again.

"There was a note on the door. It says 'Overuse Investigation'."

What the heck?! Did the H2O Gestapo come and shut down our water because I like to linger in the shower? "Well, Hon, what do you want me to do? Did you call the water company?" I know I wasn't helping the situation, but I was frustrated not to be there to handle it.

"No. I just thought you'd want to know what was going on!" She was annoyed at me, and rightly so. Sorry hon. So we hung up again, and I awaited her next report. It was so not good.

As it stands right now, we have a $1,000.00 water bill. Yes, you read that right. ONE THOUSAND DOLLARS. I can think of roughly one thousand things I'd rather do with one thousand dollars than pay a freakin' water bill. The water company came and read our meter on Tuesday, and when they calculated our bill and realized the magnitude of our water usage, obviously a broken pipe of sorts, they sent someone out to stop the hemorrhaging. Diane's dad came out to the house (thank goodness) to help her isolate the problem, and it looks like we have a broken pipe between the main shut off valve on the street and the shut off valve to the house. Can someone explain to me the deal with broken pipes and my house?!? It's only thirteen years old!! And there's no physical evidence of a broken pipe: no puddles, no mud, no mushy ground, no water running into the street; absolutely nothing to warn us of a potential problem. It's so frustrating!!

So my in-laws gave Diane the name of a plumbing company they've used and trust. She gave them a call, but they can't get to our place until Monday. I'd much rather wait a couple of days on someone who can be trusted than to rush in and hire someone who will stick it to us. Have you ever been screwed by a plumber? Wait. Don't answer that. I really don't want to know.

For now, we're bunking at my in-laws (thanks guys), and I'm working on a fund-raiser, probably something along the lines of setting up my open guitar case on a corner and performing some choice Art Garfunkel tunes. I may even debut the "Rodeo Days" song. I'm going to need to raise some major cash because my next stroke of fortune will probably be my house collapsing into the sinkhole that was created by a month of gushing water. That would be just my luck.

It's Not My Fault...I'm Global!

A few months ago while attending my Grandpa's visitation, I was talking to my Mom and some other family members in the foyer of the church. I was telling them about how crazy it was for me to get ready for the trip: I'd start one task, then remember something else I needed to do, so I'd drop the first task and move on to the second, and so on, and so on, and so on. I eventually completed everything, but was exhausted by all the extra running around.

"You're global," my Mom declared.

I paused and looked at her. "Excuse me?"

"You're global. You get it from me."

I still wasn't quite tracking. I mean, I try to keep up on world events as best as I can, but I had absolutely no idea of how this had anything to do with running around like a chump chasing a greased pig in order to get ready for a trip.

"It's your personality type," she explained after reading my confused expression. "I was at a workshop a while back where I learned about personality types. You're either global or sequential. Sequential people see a list of tasks and complete one at a time. Global people see a list of tasks and complete them all at the same time. I'm global. You get it from me."

"So it's your fault!!" I cried. All these years I thought something was wrong with me, and I was right...I'm global. Can't be helped. It's in my jeans, er, genes.

This morning was a good example of my globalositiness. My Mom, appropriately enough, is visiting this weekend to look at houses for a possible move to Tucson. I just returned from taking Kailey to school, and everyone was in the family room watching the Today Show. I asked if they were ready for coffee, and began getting it ready. As I washed the coffee pot I noticed a light out in the family room ceiling fan. My Mom was reviewing housing information that we picked up from our house hunting yesterday, and she was sitting in a dark spot. I need to change that light bulb!

I abandoned the washed coffee pot, put on my flip-flops, and headed into the garage to fetch the ladder. My brain immediately began screaming at me: What are you doing! Finish the task! Finish the task! I snapped out of my global induced trance and finished making the coffee. THEN I fetched the ladder. I set it up, climbed up and unscrewed the globe from the ceiling fan, and took down the whole assembly. Then I went to the laundry room to retrieve a light bulb.

The light bulbs are at the back of a shelf where we keep detergent and cleaning supplies. Only I couldn't get to them because there were 30 boxes of Swiffer dusters blocking them, several of which were open and half used. What the heck? So I took them all down and began consolidating the boxes of dusters. Why did I come in here again? Light bulbs...yeah, right! I filtered through the boxes of light bulbs and decided on a 75 watt bulb, then returned to the ladder.

I climbed back up the ladder with the 75 watt bulb and noticed the other bulb was 100 watts. Plus, man was it dusty up there! So I climbed down, went back to the laundry room, grabbed the Swiffer duster and another 75 watt bulb, ran back to the family room, and climbed the ladder where I proceded to dust off the blades. When I was satisfied with the results, I replaced both light bulbs along with the globe assembly. I put the ladder away, then returned yet again to the laundry room to clean up my mess.

All in all, a job well done if I must say so myself. I took a few tangents along the way, and it took me a half-hour to get a five-minute job done, but I did it. Actually, I did a three-in-one job. So don't hassel me...I'm global!

Why Can't Christmas Decorating Ever Be Easy?

I would enjoy the Christmas holiday so much more if someone ELSE did most of the decorating.

Don't get me wrong, I enjoy Christmas decorations. They make our home feel more cozy and comforting during the Holidays. And I'm OK once we get the Christmas tree up. But it's the process of getting the tree up that is so damn frustrating I could just scream! Add to that the frustration of hanging ANY type of Christmas light ANYWHERE, be it on the tree, on the house, around the house, on the lawn, on a tree outside, on a bush, on a shrub, on any frickin' type of plant life, or just randomly dangling inside the house...something will always go wrong. Just guess what my two main Christmas decorating jobs are. DING, DING, DING!!!

My first job was hanging Christmas lights on the eaves outside our house. I tackled that one last week, but it was a two-day job and it nearly cost me my life...again. There's very little traction on a ceramic mission tile roof, something I get reminded of on an annual basis. Add to that several awkward ladder positions, one of which has me dangling roughly twenty feet over our cement driveway, and Christmas-light-hanging becomes a death-defying experience. Anyway, the only reason it was a two-day job this year was because of the light bulbs. One fricking bulb on a 1,000 bulb strand of lights will cause 50 lights to go out, and it's my job to go through each bulb one-by-one to figure out which light it is. Well, this year I said SCREW IT. I am not playing Find-the-Naughty-Light-Bulb this year. This year, I am going to Target and buying NEW LIGHTS so SCREW YOU!! And that's what I did. I even bought an extra set so I don't have to play Find-the-Naughty-Light-Bulb next year either.

The lights had the last laugh, though. The other night as I drove into our driveway, I noticed a section of lights out on the side of the house. They weren't out when I put them up. Looks like I'll be playing Find-the-Naughty-Light-Bulb after all.

This morning began our annual Christmas tree fiasco. Today was the only day Diane and I could pick out the tree together, so we headed out first thing this morning. We got our tree at Home Depot. That's so depressing. When I was a kid, we used to go to Talbot's Tree Farm, grab a hacksaw and trek for hours looking for the perfect tree. There never was a perfect tree, so we'd settle for second-best while freezing our butts off. On second thought, Home Depot isn't so bad.

This morning was not a normal tree shopping day. We picked the first tree we saw: an eight foot noble. I've never picked the first tree. Today was going to be different. Today we were going to break the curse of the Christmas tree.

We took the tree home where I unloaded it from the top of our van and took it to the backyard. I had some other errands to run, so tree setup needed to wait. The plan for this afternoon was: 1.) prep the tree and get it in the stand; 2.) get lights on the tree while Diane takes the girls to gymnastics; 3.) eat dinner and then decorate the tree as a nice family evening. Why do we even bother making plans?

Everything was going smoothly. I returned after running my errands and immediately went to work on the tree. I trimmed off the lower branches. I cut off the recommended two inches of the trunk so the tree can take in water. I shook the crap out of the tree to get rid of loose needles. I had the tree stand cleaned and prepped and when Diane was ready to go, I carried the tree in and placed it in the stand. Diane held it in place and when I had determined that the tree was straight, I went to work on fastening the screws that would hold it in place. Wham! Bam! Bam! Done!

I grabbed a pitcher from the cabinet, filled it with water, mixed in the preservative that came with the tree, and returned to give it its first drink in its new home. I emptied the pitcher and refilled it to top off the stand. I can't believe this went so smoothly! No sooner had this thought gone through my head than I noticed a puddle of water growing on the tile next to the tree. Our stand had a leak. Diane was minutes away from taking the girls to gymnastics. Plan aborted.

We freed the tree from its stupid leaky stand, and I took it back outside where I placed the trunk in a bucket of water and leaned the tree up against the house. Diane and the girls left and I hauled my butt to the store to look for a new stand. Of course I couldn't find one right away, and it was only as I was leaving the store that I noticed the tree stands OUTSIDE. So I bought the stand, went back home, and waited for the girls to get back so we could put the tree in its new stand. I should have gotten to work on checking the lights, but I didn't. I started writing this blog instead. Yes, I am stupid.

We got the tree in the new stand without a hitch, ordered Thai food to go (Gaeng PaNang is a festive holiday dish), and then I went to work on the lights. Only one strand out of the six I had in storage worked. I already bought two new boxes of lights, but I was counting on at least two of my old strands to work. So guess what I did for the rest of the evening? That's right, I played our favorite Holiday festivity, Find-the-Naughty-Light-Bulb.

So now the tree sits in our family room, unlit and undecorated while I nurse a margarita and put the finishing touches on this blog. Family decorating night has been postponed until tomorrow.

Home Repair, Part 2

This entry should actually be titled "Home Destruction/Home Repair". My last home repair job was the result of an act of nature; this one, an act of me.

A few days after the roof tile incident, Kyra and I ventured into her room on a quest for toys. Each week part of Kyra's homework is to collect objects beginning with the letter of the week and place them in her "letter can". She then takes her letter can to school and presents her chosen objects to the class. Of course, we had waited until the last minute to put the letter can together, so we were rushing to get it done before she left for school.

This weeks' letter of the week was "A", and Kyra wanted an airplane for her can. One of her toy playsets had an airlpane in it and I made a beeline to her closet to get it. The sliding doors of her closet were both open and overlapped in the center of the track. I spotted the playset and tried to push the doors open to get to it, but they would not budge. Kyra, you see, has a knack for knocking her closet doors off their tracks. I have absolutely no idea how she does it. She's just a little thing, and it takes a fair amount of pressure to get them off track. Normally it's a relatively easy fix, just pop the rollers back on the track. But on this special occasion, both doors were off track and completely jammed together. I shot Kyra a look. I didn't have time for this.

"Sorry, Daddy." she whimpered.

At this point I should have grabbed the airplane and left the doors for later, but I didn't. After a fair amount of pushing, hitting, and cussing (under my breath, of course) I finally freed the doors from each other and was able to get the front door back on its track. The back door would have none of it. One set of rollers was off its track and it would not go back in no matter how much I fiddled with it. I was pissed at this point and decided to pop the other set of rollers out of the track and start from scratch. Only they didn't want to come off. "How did she do this?" I said to no one in particular. Sometime in the midst of all the pushing and pounding, Kyra silently dismissed herself from the room. "I'm three times her size, and I can't even get this thing off!!" The door wouldn't go on and it wouldn't come off. I finally gave it one last frustrated shove. CRACK!! That did the trick. The door broke free...literally. The rollers, still attached to a nice little chunk of door, fell at my feet, mocking me.

Expletive. This one was out loud because I noticed Kyra was no longer around. I really didn't want to buy a new door. I picked up the door chunk, inspected it and thought maybe I could reattach it using wood screws. Cool. I'd get to use my drill. Besides, I figured I'd try anything before buying a new door.

I angled the door to get it out of the closet, but before long, it was wedged in tight between the floor and the upper molding of the closet. Remember, the front door was where it was supposed to be and had easily snapped back into place. I didn't want to remove it to get the back door out. Expletive. I CANNOT BELIEVE THIS!

I finally dislodged the back door...again...removed the front door, and freed the back door from my youngest daughter's demon closet. Now we're getting somewhere. I put the door down on the floor of the den and headed out to the garage to get my drill and some wood screws. After digging around the tool box for ten minutes (man, I gotta clean that thing out), I finally assembled a rag-tag team of wood screws. I grabbed the drill and returned to the door. All I needed to do now was reattach the wood chunk and we'd be back in business.

I set the first screw in place, applied pressure with the drill and pulled the trigger. RRR-RRR-RRR. The battery was dead. "I'm really not good at this," I laughed as I finally grasped the absurdity of the whole fiasco. I left the screw half-drilled into the door and put the drill battery in its charger. That was my final clue that maybe I should take a break. I guess I'm not that good at picking up on clues. I'm certainly not stubborn.

I have no idea of what Kyra was doing this whole time. She could have been juggling chainsaws for all I know. What I do know is that I cooled off and we finished her letter can...without the airplane. I couldn't find it. She had to settle for ants, Ariel, and aardvarks. She went to school with her letter can and I returned to the door after the battery recharged and finished the job...without a hitch. It's amazing what you can accomplish when you exercise a little patience. I may not be efficient, but I get the job done!

Home Repair, Part 1

Bob Vila, I'm not. Tim "The Toolman" Taylor...that's closer to the truth. My luck comes in one variety and that's "bad". This past month was filled with an unusual amount of freakish occurances around the house, putting my limited home repair skills to the test. This is part one.

I was at work on a Friday night about three weeks ago. The ten o'clock news had just finished when my cell phone rang. It was my wife. "We've got problems." She said. She had just gotten home from work and discovered various messages from our neighbors informing us that a pipe behind our garage had burst and flooded our side and back yard. They noticed the flooding around 5 pm that evening and turned our water off via the water meter on the street.

"How did it burst?" I asked. I was having a hard time wrapping my mind around the situation.

"It looks like one of the roof tiles fell and broke it." Diane replied.

"A roof tile fell and ruptured a pipe buried three feet underground??!!" Give me a break. I was tired.

"No, there's a pipe coming out of the back of the garage and there's a chunk missing from it."

Great. "Well, do you see a tile on the ground?" I asked as I helplessly tried to assess the situation.

"Ummm, oh yeah...there's a tile right over here!"

That's just great. That's just friggin' fantastic. Out of all the stinking tiles on my roof, what are the odds of one of them falling off and breaking a 3" piece of pipe? When my luck is involved in the equation, pretty high.

I was stuck at work, which made things worse because I was powerless to do anything about it at that moment. If we had to bring in a plumber on a Saturday it was going to be expensive. Hopefully it would be easy to fix. Finally, my bad luck ran out.

Here's what I found when I finally returned home to check things out:

A roof tile had indeed fallen off the roof and ruptured the pipe. The pipe was plastic pvc piping and took all of 30 minutes and less than $20 bucks to replace. Thank God.

Now I'm waiting for my water bill.