Today at lunch, I went to the driving range. Maybe this is an obvious statement, but my skill level is directly proportional to the number club I'm using. In other words, I'm nails when chipping about 100 yards. I'm garbage with a driver. I gotta work on that if I'm ever going to be a Real Golfer.

Anyways, on the way to the range, I had my windows down and my radio turned pretty loud (to drown out the noise of the wind, see?) listening to some sports talk radio. I, of course, forgot this when getting back into my car. So, I put my clubs in the trunk, and hop in the driver seat. I start the car while pushing the buttons to roll down both front windows. The radio delays a little bit before coming on, letting the windows get all the way down before announcing "HAVING TROUBLE WITH MAINTAINING AN ERECTION?! PROBLEMS WITH PREMATURE EJAC...."

I slam the radio button, but just a little too late. A couple people in the parking lot are staring at me.

Ahh... good times.

Weekend roundup

Golf went really well on Saturday! I think it was the best round of my life, actually. We played at an executive course, with four par 4 holes and the rest par 3s. I shot 7 over on the front, with two birdies, and 4 over on the back. It's days like that that are really encouraging and fun. I was supposed to go to a work-boy party that night, but was pretty wiped out, and ended up just hanging around here.

Sunday... Have you ever had a day that you just wish you could erase from history? Sunday would be a good option. No serious catastrophes or anything, but a dawn-to-dusk series of minor inconveniences which weren't offset by anything good happening. Feh.

Today is Tuesday. My cold has moved from my throat to my nose and now is descending to my chest. Last night I started losing my voice, but I think it's back now. I debated not going to work today, but, well, here I go.

Fantasy Football has started. Poker night is on for Wednesday. Everything's coming up Adman!

So...

Yesterday, some of my boys went to the Del Mar Races. I could have gone, but was feeling pretty beat from fighting this cold, and decided to sit it out. Iwan was nice enough to inform me that "Dirty Diana" was racing in the 7th. What a lock. I told him to bet $10 to win for me. When I got home from work, Diana and I gathered in front of the computer and watched live, as Dirty Diana broke from the gates, took an early commanding lead, and won the race by like 8 lengths. Adman wins $21. Fun fun fun.

After they left the races, I met up with the group at The Fish House in Solana Beach. Good food, good friends, good times. Iwan mentioned he doesn't like reading blogs. Makes him feel like he's reading someone else's journal, which, to a degree, is accurate. I told him that they are there to be read, which he understood, but still. Anyways, I like others reading it, I think. Saves me from having to keep track of what funny stories I've told to whom. :)

Today, we've got furniture people coming in the morning to try to fix some glue spots that came with the furniture. Diana's friends are coming into town sometime early this afternoon, staying for the weekend, so that will be fun. I'm going to go into work for a little bit today, I think, and hopefully get in some golf this afternoon. Woot.

Uncle Adam!

That's right! My brother's wife is newly pregnant! Woo hoo! They're going to be great parents. My parents are going to be great grandparents. And I'm stoked to be Uncie Adam. Congratulations to the parents to be, and best of luck with everything!

---

Latest Proof that DJ's are NOT the smartest people in the world:
(Discussing how we'll be able to someday be able down download information into our brain, Matrix-style)
"Well, hey... computer hard drives are just ones and zeros. And our brains run on electricity. It's the same thing."

Uh, no.

Q.E.D.

---

I'm getting sick. Diana was sick with a gnarly sore throat and cough for the last couple days, and I tried hard to avoid it. But last night, I went to bed with a really bad sore throat on one side, and now the other side is hurting. I felt pretty ok today, though, so I'm hoping I can dodge the bullet. Or at least take it in a soft fleshy area.

---

I like the horizontal stripes. I want my comments back!

Random thoughts:


Advertisments.

Again, I'm awestruck by an ad I heard on the radio. This one is for a car dealer called Power Dodge or Power Toyota or somesuch:


"If you need a caaaar... truck or van...
Who ya gonna call? (Call Power!)"

The Ghostbusters theme?! That's your catchy hook? Are you freakin' kidding me? Don't get me wrong, Ghostbusters is a great movie, but it's 20 years old! By making this commercial, someone is telling me a round table of "ad wizards" couldn't come up with ANYTHING better than rehashing the Ghostbusters theme.

I weep for humanity. Or the subset that green-lights ideas for commercials.

---

The Great Ant Massacre of Aught-3

We're getting creamed by ants. Not really major trails, but lots of stragglers inside the house. So, yesterday evening, I set a decoy. I put some turkey lunch meat outside in the side yard. I checked back on it in the evening, and it was literally covered with ants. I thought it was a brown, dead leaf instead of a nice juicy piece of turkey. There was a nice big trail leading right back to their little hole, so I sprayed 'em with poison.

There were no survivors.

When I was a kid, and would step on ants, I used to picture an ant news report, with little ant families all gathered around watching, and hearing about the flood or flash of light from the giant magnifying glass in the sky or whatever. This was a black day in ant history, I tell you what.

The weekend.

Letseee... what did I do this weekend? I hung out with Eryn. He showed me a game called "Combat Mission", which looks pretty neat. Basically a play-by-email WWII wargame. I gave him a brief rundown and demo of Nethack. It's really hard to show someone Nethack. In my opinion, the true appeal of the game really only presents itself after a couple hours of playing, and a lot of time pouring over the spoiler files, learning what happens when you eat a tengu corpse, or how to uncurse items, or why engraving with a wand is useful.

Saturday, Diana took her Big Math Test. Actually, 3 big math tests. Teachers who want to teach a particular subject need to prove their ability in that subject, either by passing a comprehensive set of tests, or waiving the test by meeting the requirements from their university. Since Diana's university is bass-ackwards, she couldn't waive it, and had to take the 3 tests. She's pretty sure she passed all three, and I couldn't be more proud. It sounded like a gnarly test, with calculus and statistics and proofs and number theory and other Hard Stuff. And when she was away taking this test, I was thinking to myself that while *I* think Diana's smart, I wondered if she really is as smart as I think she is. She called me after the test, and said that out of 90 multiple choice questions, and about a dozen short answer problems, she flat-out guessed on like 2 or 3. My doubt was quashed. Diana is that smart.

While she was gone, I worked on "the speaker problem". I want to put some speakers in the loft area above the living room, and run the wires down to my computer. I bought speakers (at the new Frys near my house. In-f'ing-credible!). I bought wire. I hooked the wire to my computer, and ran it into the wall and up into the crawlspace. The problem now is that I need to get the wire from the crawlspace above my office to the crawlspace next to the wall of the loft. That's about 25 feet through a hot, dusty, spiderweb-ridden, nails-poking-down-through-the-roof attic. One solution has be crawling up there, ubiqitous headlamp on, wire in my teeth. Crawling isn't even the right word, as there isn't even enough verticle space to crawl. More like an army style belly crawl. Dad and I came up with a better solution, involving a blowgun and double sided loops of duct tape (he was initially thinking peanut butter, which sounds cooler, but I think tape will work better).

Saturday night, me and D went out to dinner with Iwan and Baditude. In spite of waiting like an hour for a table, and the meal being pretty sub-par, I really had a great time. We didn't do anything but just sit around and talk, but it just really made me appreciate what good friends I have. Yay friends.

Sunday, me and D were going to see PotC, but it was sold out. So we went back to Frys for a little to return some extraneous stuff I'd bought, and look around. Then looked at furniture. Got some ice cream. Went to Home Depot to look for blowgun darts (!!!) among other things. D has had a really bad sore throat (and basically no speaking voice), which was too bad, so she came home, and I went to pick up my parents from the airport.

And that's the end of that!

Poker!

I'm beginning to really like poker. Like many other classic games (chess, CounterStrike, etc), it's very easy to learn, but there are a huge amount of subtleties that make it very difficult to master. And like those games, I think you get increasing enjoyment as you learn more and more about it.

Diana and I have been watching the World Poker Tour. It's gotten into the regular lineup, now, where we say "Oh, it's Wednesday night! WPT is on tonight!" and start watching from the beginning (as opposed to just flipping by it and watching for a little). It's fun, and I like that it's something that we both enjoy and are both about equally skilled at (debateable).

We played last night. Adman, Dster, M.Kyle, M.John, and Iwan. Buyin was $20. I think we'd all been watching poker a bit, and the game was a bit different than usual. Usually, pre-flop, everyone calls and sees the flop, and the game sort of starts from there. Last night, there was a lot more pre-flop raising and aggressive play going on, which made for some really exciting pots. One hand, the flop was KQA, and I had JT. Iwan bet, I raised all in, and he called. He also had JT, so we split it. But at times like those, man, my hands get all shaky and my heart starts pounding. It's really exciting.

The big hand for me of the night was as follows. M.John had gotten cleaned out and was dealing. I was dealt 66, and was in a late position. Iwan and Diana call to me, and I raise pretty big, hoping to just steal the pot right there. But Kyle calls, Iwan and Diana fold. Flops comes 644. I've got a huge full house. I bet really big, and Kyle calls. Turn comes 8. I'm getting sort of low on chips now, but bet even bigger. Kyle thinks for a moment, and says "I'm all in". At that point, the only thing he could have to beat me is a pair of 8's or a pair of 4's. I didn't think he had 'em, so I call his all in bet. He's got 55. Two pair against my full house, and nothing that comes on the river could help him. It was pretty lucky on my part, and bad luck on Kyle's that I happened to have that hand when he tried to bully me. He then went "on tilt" and starting going all in, seemingly wanting to either lose it all or double up and get back to even. Diana called him with an ace-high in her hand and an ace on the board, and he had nothing, and put him out of his misery.

Anyways, the night was tons of fun. I had my share of beats, but I ended up cashing out +$40, which was nice. I can't wait to play again!

I swear to God I should be a plumber.

I did some more reading on water hammer. There are little air pockets in the pipes that act as cushions (since air compresses) and dampen the shock when you turn the water off suddenly. These air spaces can fill with water over time, so they stop working. The solution to try is to turn off the water main, empty the whole house of water (thus recreating the air pockets), and turn the water back on again. I did this. And it worked. No more banging pipes.

I hate plumbers.

Ok, I'm done with that now. I did feel incredibly manly turning the hot water on and off, though, and listening to the not-sound of it all.

The Plumber

I hate every plumber I've ever met. That's only like two, and one I only spoke to on the phone, but still.

Intrepid readers will remember that soon after we moved into our house, we had some interesting water issues. You might remember a struggle in the middle of the night when the hot water of the shower wouldn't turn off, and the handle was completely loose in its socket. I unscrewed the handle, and when it got loose, it shot out of the wall and hot water went spraying into the shower from where the handle used to be.

So, we contacted two plumbers. One of them wanted to sell me a $30 part for something like $100 and also, of course, get paid to installed it. The second plumber actually wanted to tear down the entire wall to replace the innards of the shower simply because he didn't have the right valve. In other words, imagine that you have a lightbulb that burned out. Normally, you'd unscrew the old one, and screw in the new one. And if you didn't have a new one that fit that socket, you'd go and buy it and then screw it in. This guy wanted to tear down the entire wall to replace the socket. I finally was able to coax out of him that all I really needed to do was find a replacement valve and I could probably replace it myself.

Fast forward to recent times, with the showerhead that broke off. We called the plumbers again (through our home insurance policy provided by the seller), and they sent out the same guy who wanted to tear down the wall. I opened the door, and said (in a very Jeff Spicoli type of way) "Heyyyy... I know you!". He remembered me, too, and made some crack about seeing if he can fix things without tearing down the wall or something. Anyways, he was able to remove the piece of pipe stuck in the socket, and install the new shower pipe (that we provided) and head. I noticed that he coated the threads of the pipe with some thick gray stuff which probably means that pipe is now permanently bonded in there. Or maybe it's just water tight goo.

Anyways, I was pleased with the job that he did, and he seemed pleased to be able to help. I mentioned to him that I was able to find a valve for the shower, and replace it myself. He gave a look of (I'm guessing feigned) mild shock, and didn't ask much more about it.

I asked him about the water hammer (the clunking in the pipes when the water is turned off suddenly). He didn't seem to know much about it (he's not, shall we say, outspoken), but thought it might be air trapped in the pipes. He suggested I turn on all the water in the house and that the air might work its way out. This sort of directly contradicts the cause (and solution, actually) that I read online, which is that there ISN'T any air in the pipes, and to drain the whole house of water to basically create a bubble in the hammer arrestor. I think we'll just be gentle with the handles for now.

*sigh*

Montana rocks...

The travelling went well. We got in yesterday late afternoon, and were pretty beat. We hung around the house.

Today, we had some lunch and went fishing! I caught 5 fish. A couple little guys, and a couple bigger guys (two 6 and one 10 incher). Yay me.

Gotta scoot. Mom needs to use the phone. I'm posting over a phone line?! What is this, the dark ages?

"I've always wanted to see Montana..."

I'm off to Montana. Back Tuesday!

Well, it finally happened.

Someone I know (a work boy) found my blog on his very own, without me explicitly telling them about it.

It's not like this is a secret hidden page or anything. If you search for my name, I think it's the first link that comes up. When I've written stuff, I've left out juicy stuff that I wouldn't want the general public to know about. I haven't talked about anyone behind their back or anything.

And now, I'm feeling glad that I didn't. I'm not a real gossipy or vindictive person or anything, but it would be so easy to write a story about an ex-girlfriend, or mention a co-worker who did something dumb, or something like that. It would also be eay to write more personaly stuff here than I'd like the general world to know about. And when someone unexpected tells me they found this site, it just reinforces the fact that everything written here is totally public, and probably going to be cached for all time in the UberBrain that is Google. (If there is ever going to be a Terminator-esque "rise of the machines", it shall be Google at the forefront).

I learned this lesson a while ago when I posted some news about someone on what I THOUGHT was a private message board. I haven't forgotten the moment when I discovered that she'd found my post and angrily posted back, pissed that I'd aired her dirty laundry (she didn't SAY it was a secret...).

So, lesson reinforced.

(This all makes it sound like I would have written terrible things about my specific work boy that found the site, which isn't true at all. I'm talking about the general case here, people!)

Adman vs. The Cricket (aka "The Little Fucker" (yeah, that's right))
A play in 4 acts

Prologue:
I don't hate crickets. I frequently appreciate their melodic chirping and the images of nature and wilderness that they bring to mind. However, if I'm trying to sleep, and there is one too close to me and too loud, it can be pretty frusterating. In my old apartment, I remember coming out in the middle of the night to one merrily chirping about 3 inches from my dishwasher. Of course, when I came closer, it scurried underneath and wasn't to be seen until the next night. At that time, I pounced on it, and left it trapped under a glass to be dealt with the next morning. Next morning came, and he was extinguished with Windex (aka, 'Spragg's All Purpose Bug Spray')

Act I (a few nights ago):
I'm lying in bed. Diana's next to me. We've finished our evening discussion of the days events and whatnot, and are in the quiet falling asleep phase of the night. But right outside my window is a cricket. He's loud. Actually surprisingly loud. And rhythmic, and I just know I'm not going to be able to sleep. I announce with vigor that I'm going to go get him. Diana scoffs gently, saying I'd never catch him. We made a "gentleman's bet", and I donned my ubiqitous headlamp, and head out into the wilderness.

The hunt is on. I walk quietly. Any loud step, and he shuts up, and I have to stand statue still for a full couple minutes before he starts up again. I grow impatient, cold (I'm mostly naked out here!) and head back to the warm safety of bed (after shutting the window).

Act II (the next night):
Very much like Act I. Fully in bed and ready for sleep before making the decision to engage in The Hunt. However, this time, I'm able to creep up on the little guy close enough that by the time he hears me and shuts up, I can actually see him. He's face first into the stalks of some bushes, his little butt in the air, poised for sweet music. I go for him, but he quickly crawls down amongst the roots of the bush, and out of sight and grasp. I'm dissapointed and heartened at the same time: I didn't catch him, but I got closer. I run inside and related the details to Diana. She's mildly impressed.

Act III (the night following):
This time, I hear the little guy as I'm getting ready for bed. My ears are attuned to his chirp and location. I don the headlamp again, and set out. This time, I'm able to, with surprising accuracy, pinpoint his location. It's actually really impressive how our ears can detect the direction from which a sound is eminating. I pull back the cover of some brush, and there he his, frozen in my light! He looks up at me, knowing that the jig is up! I pounce (wondering if crickets bite, or if they have sharp things on them that will poke me). I get my hands over him, but he wriggles free, and jumps on me (which I can only assume was his way of showing off), and then away. Most non-triumphant. Again, I relate my story to Diana and receive adequate encouragement and comments about my cuteness.

Act IV (tonight):
Diana's doing homework. I'm vacuuming. I'm working on the bedroom, and I hear him. I swear to god he's taunting me. I finally give in, grab the headlamp, and head outside. The headlamp batteries are low. I can pinpoint his location, but when I sweep away the brush, I don't see him. The light seriously fades in like 3 seconds from semi-bright to empty at this point. Crap. I go inside and get the mini-mag light with fresh batteries. Aww yeah. By the time I get out there, he's starting a cautious chirp. I take small steps, so as not to lose my balance, and I'm able to get as close as I can without him stopping. This time, I brought a glass with me. I get close, sweep back the bush, and he's there! No time to think, and I trap him with the glass! I shine the light in there, and there he is! Pressing his little face against the glass, knowing that he's finally caught. It would be so easy at this point for him to wriggle out if I wasn't careful. I drag the glass towards me, and that gathers a layer of loose dirt inside the glass, which makes it easy to scoop my hand under.

I immediately run inside and show Diana (still doing homework on the computer). She's very impressed, and encourages me to let him go somewhere in the front yard. Which I do. When I let him go, I put him on my hand, sit down, and let him crawl on my leg. We share a moment, both of us reminiscing the cat-and-mouse game we each love to hate and hate to love. After a moment, he makes a break for it into the front yard bushes. I let him go.

Epilogue:
I learned some things over the past few nights. I don't like being kept awake when I want and need to sleep. Cricket chirps can be muffled with surprisingly few blanket covers over your ears. Human ears are surprisingly good at pinpointing an invisible sound source.

"Who's house? Run's house!
Who's house? Run's house!"

I'm out.

When I was 13, I went to an all boys summer camp. One of the highlights of the summer was an afternoon social event with the girls camp. The activities ended with a dance in the evening. I have a very specific memory of The Fat Girl at the dance. When you're 13, it's not hard to pick out The Fat Girls in the crowd and avoid eye contact with her. I remember walking out of the dance and around the building a little bit to get some fresh air and cool down, and I walked near The Fat Girl and her friend (not fat). She was crying, clearly upset that she wasn't getting any boy attention. I vividly remember clearly hearing her plead "Just for one night, I wish I looked like Miss America... just once!" It was pretty heartbreaking, even for a shallow 13 year old. I looked away and kept walking.


I sometimes think back to that moment, and think about how I should have asked her to dance. I would have taken heat for it from my friends, that's for damn sure. But in the end, I think it might have been worth it.

So, Diana and I have been pretty busy these last couple days!

Wednesday night, we went to the ol' Del Mar Fair. We walked through some of the high school art exhibits. Saw people selling stuff. Walked through the fun zone. There was an actual carnie wearing an actual eye patch. I said to Diana "Dude, that guy's wearing an eyepatch!" Apparently he heard me, 'cause when she looked, she said he was looking right at us. Oops. Oh well. I figure if your a carnie and you wear an eyepatch, you have to be used to this sort of thing. We ate food (neglected to try the deep fried Twinkies), and we gave some love to the piggies and moocows.

On Thursday, I had a half day from work (thank you Mr. B!) Diana picked me up and we went down to the "minis" course and shot some golf. That's a frusterating course, but it's golf. We then headed down to Ikea and bought some furniture. (Side note, anytime I say "furniture", the lyrics from Eminem get in my head about Pam and Tommy burstin' in the door and throwing her over furniture. Go fig.) Anyhoo, we really wanted a high corner bookshelf for the living room. We saw something we liked online, and went and bought it. Then some dinner at Pizza Nova. By that time, we were pretty tuckered out.

Yesterday was the 4th of July. In the morning, we put together said bookshelves. They actually turned out pretty nice, and Diana and I actually put them together as a team without any fighting at all! Not that we fight often (or ever, really), but the two activities that probably bring forth the most arguments between couples are canoeing and building furniture. We were pretty pleased with the results. Then Iwan and Baditude came over with their respective girliefriends. We BBQ'd and hung out and bonded, which was really nice. Then down to see the fireworks, which I was quite pleased with this year. Last year, I remember, they just sort of petered out and the whole crowd was left standing there, wondering if they were actually done or not. This year there was quite a finale, and applause afterwards. Yay fireworks.

Today, we've been pulling out lots of dead shit from the yard. The kind of plants we have have a thin layer of green on top of about a foot of dead stuff underneat. So we've been thinning and pulling out all that stuff as much as we can. I can only take so much of it before quitting. Diana's quite a trooper, though, and is much better at it than I am. This afternoon, we've got some golf plans with Iwan at Lake San Marcos, which will be fun. Maybe I'll bring my camera and snap some shots!

One of my favorite parts of my job is when there is a problem. If it's a serious enough problem, anyone who knows anything about the system where the problem is drops what they're doing and does nothing but try to figure out what the problem is. It's really quite a bit like detective work, in that there are clues and puzzle pieces that can be put together can lead an intrepid sleuth to the answer. As a byproduct of lots of people working on the same problem (both together and seperately), it sort of turns into a race. The winner (in the case of yesterday and this morning, me) is rewarded with the satisfaction of solving the problem, being cleverer (or luckier) than other people working on the problem, and having his boss look him straight in the face and say "Great job!" Aaaaaand, it's the time of the year where we're supposed to brag about ourselves for our self-evaluations. Yay.

In other news. I was going to take a shower last night, and Diana told me she had noticed that water was leaking into the shower from around the shower head where it connects to the wall. Which means that there must have been a leak or drip or something inside the wall. I gently put some pressure on the 8" bent pipe that comes out of the wall (that the showerhead is attatched to), and it broke off in my hand. I looked in the hole in the wall, and could see the end of the pipe still threaded into the socket of the main pipes in the wall. I guess it got corroded enough and really weak and started leaking. I'm horrified to think how much water has leaked into that wall for the past however many years.

Anyways, we placed a call into our home insurance place, and they're going to send out a plumber to take a look. I'm really concerned about the general state of our plumbing. We already had one hot-water valve break on us. I can think of two more off the top of my head that are really sticky and hard to turn. I'm also really concerned about plumbers. The last two that we had out wanted to tear down the wall or charge huge amounts of money to replace a broken valve which I replaced myself for $30. DUMB!

When a young lady refers to her girlfriend, how am I supposed to know if if it's just a friend of hers, or a Girlfriend?! Enquiring minds want to know!

So. I killed a bird today. :(

This morning Diana and I woke up early to a crow somewhere pretty closeby caw'ing every so often. But it wasn't a normal caw. It had a little more of a shriek to it. But that happened a couple times, and then stopped.

A little later, Diana went outside to say hi to the neighborhood cat (which seems to come by on Sunday mornings to visit), and found the crow. It was just outside our bedroom door, and in bad shape. It was clearly aware, but it was sort of on its back, and ants were already going for it. The cat Diana was playing with was completely oblivious to it, which was a little weird. I got some gloves and inspected the damage. It's right wing was either broken or paralyzed, and it's right foot was floppy. Ants were gathering for the kill, and we decided the poor little guy wouldn't survive, and should be put out of it's misery. I put it in a trashbag and gently smashed it with a shovel a couple of times. Pool little guy. I feel bad, and can't help but wonder if we could have nursed the thing back to health or something (and then it would be my friend, and hop after me to work and stuff). But I doubt it would have lived, and that we did the right thing. Bummer.

Speaking of bummers, I've caught the cold that Diana had a couple days ago. I feel kind of crappy, but Diana only felt bad for a day, and I'm expecting the same, so whatever.

Yesterday was a lot of fun. Diana and I met up with Norm and Teri and played golf at Lake San Marcos Executive. That's a fun little course. Challenging enough for me, but forgiving on the beginners of the group. Everyone actually golfed really well, and a good time was had by all. Afterwards, we went to Teri's parents beach house and met up with another friend of Norm's and his perspective girlfriend. We had some dinner and made a bonfire and had a grand old time.

Today, I've postponed by yardwork plans for a later date, and have been lazing around watching TV. "Back to the Future" was on, and it made me nostalgic for movies of the 80's. Movies today seem so much more about hype and special effects than actually telling an actually fun, interesting story. I'm sure there are examples, but I'm too weary to think about it much more right now. Our furniture for the living shows up sometime today, which is exciting. Diana's parents are also showing up sometime today for some hanging out and birthday celebrating, which will be fun.

"Bendy" and "pointy" are definitely in my top 5 list of favorite words.

Water, water, everywhere...

So. A little emergency. Luckily, nothing too serious. I got home to Diana
welcoming me with a handful of towels on her way to the guest bathroom.
Apparently she was cleaning in the other room, and turned off the water in
there, and heard something from the guest bathroom. Water was spraying out
of the metal tube that feeds water into the toilet (so, clean water,
thankfully). Since this is old had for experienced home-owners like
ourselves, she knew exactly where the water shut-off valve was, and was
mopping up the floor. It didn't look like it was too much water, and didn't
get the carpet wet or anything.

Anyways, we got that all dried up, and I checked out the damage. The little
bendy pipe that feeds water into the toilet had come loose. The cap that is
supposed to hold the thing tight against the toilet had broken, and it had
(probably as the household water pressure rose and fell) dislodged and was
spraying willy-nilly. Quick trip to Home Depot (thank you TrendWest for the
free gift certificates... (suckers!)) and it's good as new.

In a potentially related water problem: when we turn off the hot water in
our shower, the pipes make kind of a clunking, rattling sound for a second.
I read a little about "water hammer" (you have to know the cool terms if
you're ever going to be a home repair guy like me) online. It's pretty rad.
Water doesn't compress, so when you turn off water really quickly, it all
kind of backs up onto itself really suddenly, and creates a shockwave that
travels through the pipes. From a website: "These shockwaves travel faster
than the speed of sound and can exert very great instantaneous pressures".
Neat! So, if you're taking a shower in our shower, please turn off the hot
water slowly!

Swingers

Diana and I rented "Swingers" from our friend Baditude, and watched it
tonight. I really love that movie. I can honestly say that I don't think
I've ever seen a more realistic portrayal of a group of guy friends in a movie.
I'm not saying that I've gone through all the experiences those boys did
exactly (the hockey playing, though is frighteningly familiar), but it
certainly resonates with my own experiences with my own boys, past and
present. I know this isn't really the point of the movie, but that's what I
like most about it.

Dishes, then bed. G'night.

PS: Diana eats cake from a teacup, and I love it.