Toilet-tank bolt failures, flu, ‘The Grace That Keeps This World’, Playaway book player, ‘60-Hikes’
(posted from home)
(This post covers 6-22 October, 2008)
---------------------------------------------------------
Wednesday, 22 October-
This morning I had a routine dental appointment in Mechanicsburg. Afterwards I dropped in at the nearby Starbucks. One of the staffers, Jim, is an amateur photographer and we’ve talked many times. This Spring, Jim and I had talked about the Canadian Rockies and today he showed me a terrific photo album he had made about the trip he and his wife took in late August and early September. They had flown to Jackson and spent three days in the Grand Tetons with a daytrip to Yellowstone and then flew to Calgary and drove up the Icefields Parkway to Jasper. Jim is a very talented photographer and had multiple National-Geographic-quality photos of those spectacular areas. What a treat!
I finished the Times and then drove to the nearby Borders. I browsed the books and magazines and had just come to the conclusion that I’ll probably never buy another new book when I saw one I had to have. Labashi and I had gone to a lecture and slide show by Matt Willen at Harrisburg’s Wildwood Nature Center. At the time he was working on a new book and had been taking the photos we saw as he researched the book. And here the book was—“60 Hikes within 60 Miles of Harrisburg”.
I browsed the book, going back and forth over whether to buy it. I know many of the hikes he recommends. But then again I he not only has new hikes but also new twists on those familiar to me. At Shenk’s Ferry Wildflower Preserve, for example, we’ve always just done the out-and-back walk. But he shows it can be made into a loop. Now I have to go do that! Same with Flat Rock (near Colonel Denning State Park). And when I saw he also shows the GPS coordinates of the parking lots, I was sold.
I could, of course, eventually borrow the book from a library but that generally just turns into my forgetting all about it. I bought it.
That afternoon I walked five miles at Pinchot—from the Dam to the Nature Center and back.
That evening we watched ‘Bella’, a romance movie. It was a bit over-the-top in its sentimentality and it plays a bit fast-and-loose with the concept of ‘based on a true story’ but overall I’d recommend it.
---------------------------------------------------------
Tuesday, 21 October-
I finally felt like getting out a bit today. Labashi and I went into town. We had a nice lunch at Isaac’s and ran an errand at Lowe’s. We detoured into downtown York to pick up an Obama sign at the county Democratic Party Headquarters, kicking off a discussion about whether or not our sign is likely to be stolen. If it is, we’ll just put up another.
We spent the afternoon making our final voting decisions and then mailed in our absentee ballots.
Late in the day I walked my four-mile.
----------------------------------------------------------
Monday, 20 October-
The cold/flu is still hanging on. I’ve been spending my time on the web reading CNN, Salon, Slate, DailyBeast, THR, PAFOA.
That afternoon I went to the library. I read the papers and picked up another ‘One Book, One Community’ book from a previous year. This one is ‘The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time’. I also picked up an audio book called a ‘Playaway’ book. This is interesting. It’s an audio book, complete with player. The player is similar to an iPod in that it’s a solid-state memory device with a jack for your headset. It’s about the size of the original iPod with a tiny display to tell you what chapter you are on and controls to move forward or back. The recording is Michael Connelly’s ‘The Closers’.
My first attempt with the Playaway book was a disaster. The player had a battery aboard and an extra in the case. Both were dead. I finally got the player working by installing a new battery I supplied. Then the player had been left on Chapter 41. There’s no way to know how many chapters are in the book and there’s no ‘start at the beginning’ button. So I scrolled backward through all 41 chapters to get to the beginning. I should have gone forward but I had expected the player to have some type of fast-rewind. You can only go back or forward a chapter at a time. And the sound was bad. There’s a control for equalization and speed and they helped get the sound into the realm of human speech but that’s about it.
I also find I’m not a fan of audio books. Maybe they’re okay to listen to while driving somewhere or something but I’d much rather have the print in front of me.
No walking today.
----------------------------------------------------------
Sunday, 19 October-
Today was another lost day. I think the flu may have peaked today and I’m starting down the other side. I spent the whole afternoon reading the Sunday Times.
We finished ‘Desperate Housewives’- Season Four that evening. The strain of doing a popular series is showing.
----------------------------------------------------------
Saturday, 18 October-
Today was another ‘lost’ day. I was completely miserable with my cold or flu or whatever the heck it is. I napped twice during the day and did a little reading.
----------------------------------------------------------
Friday, 17 October-
Overnight my sore throat got worse. Swallowing became more and more painful and kept me awake for a couple of hours. I finally found some cough drops and those took away some of the scratchiness and allowed me to get back to sleep.
By mid-morning I had drainage and a pervasive ‘blah’ feeling. As the day progressed it was clear I had a full-blown cold and my efforts to stave it off with Vitamin C and Zicam hadn’t worked.
----------------------------------------------------------
Thursday, 16 October-
Today I finished ‘The Grace That Keeps This World’ and turned it over to Labashi. I had read about this book (and the ‘One Book, One Community’ program) in a local arts newspaper (ShowcasePA) and picked up a copy from my local library.
The book is a somewhat-flawed first novel by a creative-writing prof from Susquehanna University in nearby Selinsgrove. But despite its flaws, the story has heart. I found myself more than willing to overlook the minor difficulties for the essential ‘truth’ of the story. And for me it doesn’t hurt that the setting is in the Adirondacks and the main character is a forester and hunter.
I did my six-mile this afternoon and noticed in the last mile that I have a bit of a sore throat.
-----------------------------------------------------------
Wednesday, 15 October-
I’ve been pushing it a bit with the daily walking but I’ve been loving it. I would normally be riding the motorcycle to a local park for a walk but for some reason I’m very content to just walk the roads around home in this extra-beautiful weather. Today I simply did my regular four-miler along the creek.
Otherwise, I’ve been doing a lot of reading. I’ve just about finished ‘The Grace That Keeps This World’ by Tom Bailey, a selection of the One Book, One Community project. This project covers a six-county region of 63 libraries. It encourages us to read and discuss the book and to attend in-person discussions with the author. We’re thinking of attending a session with the author at the end of the month if nothing else comes up.
-----------------------------------------------------------
Tuesday, 14 October-
Well, the toilet still leaks. And it’s still the same teeny-tiny drop over, say, an eight-hour period. So I took another shot at it. After draining and sponging out the tank and then removing the supply hose yet again, I noticed the top of the turnoff-valve thread — the ‘seat’ of the connection-- had a bad spot, a ‘chip’ out of it. Could that be it? I filed out the defect and this time sealed the joint with pipe-joint compound and hoped for the best.
I walked the six-mile course again today, enjoying the remarkably-nice weather we’ve been having for the last two weeks.
-----------------------------------------------------------
Monday, 13 October-
Today I drove over to the hardware store for another water-feed for the toilet. I may have a bad ferrule on the one I bought the other day. The leak is an odd one, only weeping a drop or two over a day’s time or through the night. I’ve not seen anything like this before. It seems to be so slow that evaporation might almost stay ahead of it. On the other hand, this pipe is pressurized all the time. If the ferrule is bad and the leak gets worse, the water pump would just keep pumping water out into the bathroom until we find it. All I could do is install the new one and see what happens.
That afternoon I did my six-mile walk and that evening we watched the extras on ‘The Wire’-Season Five disk.
-----------------------------------------------------------
Sunday, 12 October-
Today we attended my one-year-old niece’s birthday party. (Wheee!!!!)
She had learned to walk while we were in Alaska and this was our first opportunity to see her. It was such a delight to watch her toddle about. She’s the most angelic little thing you can imagine. Mommy had put butterfly wings on her so everybody’s cameras were working overtime. You can’t help but smile at her and when she smiles back you feel like the most special person in the world.
After the party I hitched up the fishing boat my brother and I jointly own so I could bring it back home. My brother and nephews were busy and the weather very rainy this year so they only had the boat out a time or two since my winter trip to Florida and didn’t run the outboard at all. I’ll need to take it out a few times yet this Fall, do some routine maintenance and then prepare it for cold-weather storage.
Labashi and I didn’t get home until 2100 but then watched the last two episodes of ‘The Wire’-Season Five.
-----------------------------------------------------------
Saturday, 11 October-
Silly me, I spent most of the day looking for a birthday present for my one year old great-niece. Incredibly, I struck out. I was surprised to see most of the plush-toys I’d consider are for ages three and up and there seems to be a lot of emphasis on faux cell-phones, PDAs, and other electronic junk. No way! I’m a complete failure at this job.
Back home I convinced Labashi to accompany me on my four-mile on this perfect afternoon.
That evening? More Wire-5.
-----------------------------------------------------------
Friday, 10 October-
Today I noticed a very tiny leak around at the base of the new water-supply tubing. I drained the tank and took the tubing off and re-installed it. Everything looked fine so I went ahead and put the tools away and put everything back in place.
Late in the day I did took another walk on the new six-mile course. That evening we watched three episodes of ‘The Wire’-5
-----------------------------------------------------------
Thursday, 9 October-
I spent today resolving the toilet problem. I was able to save the old cutoff valve by carefully cleaning the internal threads. It doesn’t leak but then again it doesn’t completely close off the water feed to the toilet. In those cases where I have to do some repair work on the toilet, I’ll have to turn off the main water valve into the house.
The new flapper valve didn’t fit at all--- not even close. After disassembling the old one and finding the new one didn’t fit, I called the manufacturer and learned their kit is considered a ‘universal’ kit but only works on about 90 per cent of toilets. And that 90 per cent doesn’t include our late-Seventies Eljer toilet. So there I was having removed the old flapper valve and couldn’t put on the new one. I drove to our local hardware store and bought yet another flapper valve and seal, this one designed to work with the Eljer-style cast-in valve-seat and overflow tube.
The Fluidmaster setup had very poor instructions and is much more complex to install than the Korki system I had in there before. In my call to Fluidmaster I learned they have a cleaner-only kit which would have worked with the Korki so that would have been the way to go. But our local Lowe’s didn’t have the kits so I hadn’t seen them.
I eventually worked my way through the problems and by late afternoon had the toilet working again. But I left the top off so we can monitor it for a few days.
Late in the day I picked up some DVDs and did my four-mile walk.
-----------------------------------------------------------
Wednesday, 8 October-
This morning I began searching the web for an explanation of what may have caused the brass tank-bolts to corrode through. It didn’t take long. I found that toilet-tank tablets—the so called ‘automatic cleaning tabs’ going by brand names like “2000 Flushes”--- slowly release chlorine bleach into the tank. And these assume the tank water changes often enough to keep the solution diluted. If the solution is not diluted, it becomes strong enough to corrode tank parts. And of course we were gone for three months on our Alaska trip. Looks like that’s what happened in our case.
We drove into town for the replacement parts and ran into a few difficulties there. I was surprised to not be able to find solid-brass toilet bolts at Lowe’s. They only sell brass-PLATED bolts and the wing nuts aren’t even plated. But fortunately, Lowe’s also sells a Fluidmaster complete-repair kit which has both the bowl-cleaning system we were looking for and solid-brass bolts (in addition to the water intake valve, flapper, and tank-to-bowl doughnut). I had seen the tank-to-bowl gasket on our brand of toilet (Eljer) is a unique design so I bought that separately.
My other problem had to do with the water-supply cut-off valve. My old one didn’t cut off the water flow. I had tried using pliers on it and merely crushed the internal washer and stripped the threads a bit. The design was such that I could unscrew the inner valve portion for replacement so I had that along on my trip to Lowe’s. But the design has changed and parts are no longer available. And that presents a big problem. To replace that valve I’d have to go down into the basement and remove cabinets and ceiling insulation to get to the pipe, then sweat on a new valve assembly or take a chance on a less-reliable valve assembly which uses a compression-fitting. I went ahead and bought a compression-fitting but also had the rubber seal replaced on the old one. If I can clean up the threads on the old one I might be able to put it back in place.
Late that afternoon I took a six-mile walk. I did the first two miles on my four-mile course, then turned off to walk several sections of country road back to circle back around to home.
-----------------------------------------------------------
Tuesday, 7 October-
This morning I walked up to the garage to bring the Miata home, then walked up there again for Cherry Larry. I put so few miles on them that they’re exempt from the emissions inspection but of course must still pass the safety inspections. Larry needed brakes and rotors this time and I’m starting to wonder if I’m not on the wrong side of the cost-to-benefit ratio. Labashi uses him to haul stuff a few times a year and I drive him in sloppy winter weather to avoid exposing the other vehicles to road-salt. But then again I have to pay insurance, licensing, inspection, and any repairs.
That afternoon I walked another four miles. That evening we finished off Season Four of ‘The Wire’.
That night I noticed a bit of water below the toilet tank- a very small puddle about two inches across. After dabbing that up I started feeling around under the tank. I flushed the toilet to drain the tank and check the mounting bolts. To my astonishment, the right-side bolt broke off in my hand (and of course started draining the remainder of the water in the tank onto the floor!). After turning off the water supply and cleaning up, I also checked the left-side bolt and found I could lift the brass bolt-head right off the bottom of the tank. What the heck is going on???
-----------------------------------------------------------
Monday, 6 October-
Well, last night I was sure I had to go somewhere for a couple of days but today I’m not so convinced. I had thought I might go see the fall colors in the Canaan Valley of West Virginia. Or maybe spend a few days in the Tuscarora State Forest. Or maybe fish a bit in the Kinzua Dam area. But in the end I decided I’ll do something in a couple of weeks — there’s still plenty of good weather left this Fall.
This morning I took Cherry Larry (our beater van) up to the garage for inspection. I walked the mile home, drove the Miata up there too, and walked home again.
I spent a few hours catching up the blog, spent an hour pulling the dual-sport motorcycle out of the barn and getting it prepped for inspection, then went did my four-mile.
=========== END OF POST ==============
(posted from home)
(This post covers 6-22 October, 2008)
---------------------------------------------------------
Wednesday, 22 October-
This morning I had a routine dental appointment in Mechanicsburg. Afterwards I dropped in at the nearby Starbucks. One of the staffers, Jim, is an amateur photographer and we’ve talked many times. This Spring, Jim and I had talked about the Canadian Rockies and today he showed me a terrific photo album he had made about the trip he and his wife took in late August and early September. They had flown to Jackson and spent three days in the Grand Tetons with a daytrip to Yellowstone and then flew to Calgary and drove up the Icefields Parkway to Jasper. Jim is a very talented photographer and had multiple National-Geographic-quality photos of those spectacular areas. What a treat!
I finished the Times and then drove to the nearby Borders. I browsed the books and magazines and had just come to the conclusion that I’ll probably never buy another new book when I saw one I had to have. Labashi and I had gone to a lecture and slide show by Matt Willen at Harrisburg’s Wildwood Nature Center. At the time he was working on a new book and had been taking the photos we saw as he researched the book. And here the book was—“60 Hikes within 60 Miles of Harrisburg”.
I browsed the book, going back and forth over whether to buy it. I know many of the hikes he recommends. But then again I he not only has new hikes but also new twists on those familiar to me. At Shenk’s Ferry Wildflower Preserve, for example, we’ve always just done the out-and-back walk. But he shows it can be made into a loop. Now I have to go do that! Same with Flat Rock (near Colonel Denning State Park). And when I saw he also shows the GPS coordinates of the parking lots, I was sold.
I could, of course, eventually borrow the book from a library but that generally just turns into my forgetting all about it. I bought it.
That afternoon I walked five miles at Pinchot—from the Dam to the Nature Center and back.
That evening we watched ‘Bella’, a romance movie. It was a bit over-the-top in its sentimentality and it plays a bit fast-and-loose with the concept of ‘based on a true story’ but overall I’d recommend it.
---------------------------------------------------------
Tuesday, 21 October-
I finally felt like getting out a bit today. Labashi and I went into town. We had a nice lunch at Isaac’s and ran an errand at Lowe’s. We detoured into downtown York to pick up an Obama sign at the county Democratic Party Headquarters, kicking off a discussion about whether or not our sign is likely to be stolen. If it is, we’ll just put up another.
We spent the afternoon making our final voting decisions and then mailed in our absentee ballots.
Late in the day I walked my four-mile.
----------------------------------------------------------
Monday, 20 October-
The cold/flu is still hanging on. I’ve been spending my time on the web reading CNN, Salon, Slate, DailyBeast, THR, PAFOA.
That afternoon I went to the library. I read the papers and picked up another ‘One Book, One Community’ book from a previous year. This one is ‘The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time’. I also picked up an audio book called a ‘Playaway’ book. This is interesting. It’s an audio book, complete with player. The player is similar to an iPod in that it’s a solid-state memory device with a jack for your headset. It’s about the size of the original iPod with a tiny display to tell you what chapter you are on and controls to move forward or back. The recording is Michael Connelly’s ‘The Closers’.
My first attempt with the Playaway book was a disaster. The player had a battery aboard and an extra in the case. Both were dead. I finally got the player working by installing a new battery I supplied. Then the player had been left on Chapter 41. There’s no way to know how many chapters are in the book and there’s no ‘start at the beginning’ button. So I scrolled backward through all 41 chapters to get to the beginning. I should have gone forward but I had expected the player to have some type of fast-rewind. You can only go back or forward a chapter at a time. And the sound was bad. There’s a control for equalization and speed and they helped get the sound into the realm of human speech but that’s about it.
I also find I’m not a fan of audio books. Maybe they’re okay to listen to while driving somewhere or something but I’d much rather have the print in front of me.
No walking today.
----------------------------------------------------------
Sunday, 19 October-
Today was another lost day. I think the flu may have peaked today and I’m starting down the other side. I spent the whole afternoon reading the Sunday Times.
We finished ‘Desperate Housewives’- Season Four that evening. The strain of doing a popular series is showing.
----------------------------------------------------------
Saturday, 18 October-
Today was another ‘lost’ day. I was completely miserable with my cold or flu or whatever the heck it is. I napped twice during the day and did a little reading.
----------------------------------------------------------
Friday, 17 October-
Overnight my sore throat got worse. Swallowing became more and more painful and kept me awake for a couple of hours. I finally found some cough drops and those took away some of the scratchiness and allowed me to get back to sleep.
By mid-morning I had drainage and a pervasive ‘blah’ feeling. As the day progressed it was clear I had a full-blown cold and my efforts to stave it off with Vitamin C and Zicam hadn’t worked.
----------------------------------------------------------
Thursday, 16 October-
Today I finished ‘The Grace That Keeps This World’ and turned it over to Labashi. I had read about this book (and the ‘One Book, One Community’ program) in a local arts newspaper (ShowcasePA) and picked up a copy from my local library.
The book is a somewhat-flawed first novel by a creative-writing prof from Susquehanna University in nearby Selinsgrove. But despite its flaws, the story has heart. I found myself more than willing to overlook the minor difficulties for the essential ‘truth’ of the story. And for me it doesn’t hurt that the setting is in the Adirondacks and the main character is a forester and hunter.
I did my six-mile this afternoon and noticed in the last mile that I have a bit of a sore throat.
-----------------------------------------------------------
Wednesday, 15 October-
I’ve been pushing it a bit with the daily walking but I’ve been loving it. I would normally be riding the motorcycle to a local park for a walk but for some reason I’m very content to just walk the roads around home in this extra-beautiful weather. Today I simply did my regular four-miler along the creek.
Otherwise, I’ve been doing a lot of reading. I’ve just about finished ‘The Grace That Keeps This World’ by Tom Bailey, a selection of the One Book, One Community project. This project covers a six-county region of 63 libraries. It encourages us to read and discuss the book and to attend in-person discussions with the author. We’re thinking of attending a session with the author at the end of the month if nothing else comes up.
-----------------------------------------------------------
Tuesday, 14 October-
Well, the toilet still leaks. And it’s still the same teeny-tiny drop over, say, an eight-hour period. So I took another shot at it. After draining and sponging out the tank and then removing the supply hose yet again, I noticed the top of the turnoff-valve thread — the ‘seat’ of the connection-- had a bad spot, a ‘chip’ out of it. Could that be it? I filed out the defect and this time sealed the joint with pipe-joint compound and hoped for the best.
I walked the six-mile course again today, enjoying the remarkably-nice weather we’ve been having for the last two weeks.
-----------------------------------------------------------
Monday, 13 October-
Today I drove over to the hardware store for another water-feed for the toilet. I may have a bad ferrule on the one I bought the other day. The leak is an odd one, only weeping a drop or two over a day’s time or through the night. I’ve not seen anything like this before. It seems to be so slow that evaporation might almost stay ahead of it. On the other hand, this pipe is pressurized all the time. If the ferrule is bad and the leak gets worse, the water pump would just keep pumping water out into the bathroom until we find it. All I could do is install the new one and see what happens.
That afternoon I did my six-mile walk and that evening we watched the extras on ‘The Wire’-Season Five disk.
-----------------------------------------------------------
Sunday, 12 October-
Today we attended my one-year-old niece’s birthday party. (Wheee!!!!)
She had learned to walk while we were in Alaska and this was our first opportunity to see her. It was such a delight to watch her toddle about. She’s the most angelic little thing you can imagine. Mommy had put butterfly wings on her so everybody’s cameras were working overtime. You can’t help but smile at her and when she smiles back you feel like the most special person in the world.
After the party I hitched up the fishing boat my brother and I jointly own so I could bring it back home. My brother and nephews were busy and the weather very rainy this year so they only had the boat out a time or two since my winter trip to Florida and didn’t run the outboard at all. I’ll need to take it out a few times yet this Fall, do some routine maintenance and then prepare it for cold-weather storage.
Labashi and I didn’t get home until 2100 but then watched the last two episodes of ‘The Wire’-Season Five.
-----------------------------------------------------------
Saturday, 11 October-
Silly me, I spent most of the day looking for a birthday present for my one year old great-niece. Incredibly, I struck out. I was surprised to see most of the plush-toys I’d consider are for ages three and up and there seems to be a lot of emphasis on faux cell-phones, PDAs, and other electronic junk. No way! I’m a complete failure at this job.
Back home I convinced Labashi to accompany me on my four-mile on this perfect afternoon.
That evening? More Wire-5.
-----------------------------------------------------------
Friday, 10 October-
Today I noticed a very tiny leak around at the base of the new water-supply tubing. I drained the tank and took the tubing off and re-installed it. Everything looked fine so I went ahead and put the tools away and put everything back in place.
Late in the day I did took another walk on the new six-mile course. That evening we watched three episodes of ‘The Wire’-5
-----------------------------------------------------------
Thursday, 9 October-
I spent today resolving the toilet problem. I was able to save the old cutoff valve by carefully cleaning the internal threads. It doesn’t leak but then again it doesn’t completely close off the water feed to the toilet. In those cases where I have to do some repair work on the toilet, I’ll have to turn off the main water valve into the house.
The new flapper valve didn’t fit at all--- not even close. After disassembling the old one and finding the new one didn’t fit, I called the manufacturer and learned their kit is considered a ‘universal’ kit but only works on about 90 per cent of toilets. And that 90 per cent doesn’t include our late-Seventies Eljer toilet. So there I was having removed the old flapper valve and couldn’t put on the new one. I drove to our local hardware store and bought yet another flapper valve and seal, this one designed to work with the Eljer-style cast-in valve-seat and overflow tube.
The Fluidmaster setup had very poor instructions and is much more complex to install than the Korki system I had in there before. In my call to Fluidmaster I learned they have a cleaner-only kit which would have worked with the Korki so that would have been the way to go. But our local Lowe’s didn’t have the kits so I hadn’t seen them.
I eventually worked my way through the problems and by late afternoon had the toilet working again. But I left the top off so we can monitor it for a few days.
Late in the day I picked up some DVDs and did my four-mile walk.
-----------------------------------------------------------
Wednesday, 8 October-
This morning I began searching the web for an explanation of what may have caused the brass tank-bolts to corrode through. It didn’t take long. I found that toilet-tank tablets—the so called ‘automatic cleaning tabs’ going by brand names like “2000 Flushes”--- slowly release chlorine bleach into the tank. And these assume the tank water changes often enough to keep the solution diluted. If the solution is not diluted, it becomes strong enough to corrode tank parts. And of course we were gone for three months on our Alaska trip. Looks like that’s what happened in our case.
We drove into town for the replacement parts and ran into a few difficulties there. I was surprised to not be able to find solid-brass toilet bolts at Lowe’s. They only sell brass-PLATED bolts and the wing nuts aren’t even plated. But fortunately, Lowe’s also sells a Fluidmaster complete-repair kit which has both the bowl-cleaning system we were looking for and solid-brass bolts (in addition to the water intake valve, flapper, and tank-to-bowl doughnut). I had seen the tank-to-bowl gasket on our brand of toilet (Eljer) is a unique design so I bought that separately.
My other problem had to do with the water-supply cut-off valve. My old one didn’t cut off the water flow. I had tried using pliers on it and merely crushed the internal washer and stripped the threads a bit. The design was such that I could unscrew the inner valve portion for replacement so I had that along on my trip to Lowe’s. But the design has changed and parts are no longer available. And that presents a big problem. To replace that valve I’d have to go down into the basement and remove cabinets and ceiling insulation to get to the pipe, then sweat on a new valve assembly or take a chance on a less-reliable valve assembly which uses a compression-fitting. I went ahead and bought a compression-fitting but also had the rubber seal replaced on the old one. If I can clean up the threads on the old one I might be able to put it back in place.
Late that afternoon I took a six-mile walk. I did the first two miles on my four-mile course, then turned off to walk several sections of country road back to circle back around to home.
-----------------------------------------------------------
Tuesday, 7 October-
This morning I walked up to the garage to bring the Miata home, then walked up there again for Cherry Larry. I put so few miles on them that they’re exempt from the emissions inspection but of course must still pass the safety inspections. Larry needed brakes and rotors this time and I’m starting to wonder if I’m not on the wrong side of the cost-to-benefit ratio. Labashi uses him to haul stuff a few times a year and I drive him in sloppy winter weather to avoid exposing the other vehicles to road-salt. But then again I have to pay insurance, licensing, inspection, and any repairs.
That afternoon I walked another four miles. That evening we finished off Season Four of ‘The Wire’.
That night I noticed a bit of water below the toilet tank- a very small puddle about two inches across. After dabbing that up I started feeling around under the tank. I flushed the toilet to drain the tank and check the mounting bolts. To my astonishment, the right-side bolt broke off in my hand (and of course started draining the remainder of the water in the tank onto the floor!). After turning off the water supply and cleaning up, I also checked the left-side bolt and found I could lift the brass bolt-head right off the bottom of the tank. What the heck is going on???
-----------------------------------------------------------
Monday, 6 October-
Well, last night I was sure I had to go somewhere for a couple of days but today I’m not so convinced. I had thought I might go see the fall colors in the Canaan Valley of West Virginia. Or maybe spend a few days in the Tuscarora State Forest. Or maybe fish a bit in the Kinzua Dam area. But in the end I decided I’ll do something in a couple of weeks — there’s still plenty of good weather left this Fall.
This morning I took Cherry Larry (our beater van) up to the garage for inspection. I walked the mile home, drove the Miata up there too, and walked home again.
I spent a few hours catching up the blog, spent an hour pulling the dual-sport motorcycle out of the barn and getting it prepped for inspection, then went did my four-mile.
=========== END OF POST ==============
posted by Bezabor&Labashi | 23:59
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