life on the wand

After my Sunday nap I went out to examine the hole to see if the water had gone down. It had gone down far enough for me to see I needed to expand the hole by another couple feet. Sigh.
	The sprinkler line had about 9" that were pretty much destroyed. I cut out a one foot section and went to Home Depot to see what kind of repair parts I could find.
They had a 1/2" line with a trap in it -- cute, and it looked like it would go over the Verizon fiber duct and I wouldn't have to flex the line as much. I got all the parts laid out and put together.
	Really not that difficult, except for tightening the compression union in the muck. I ended up needing a pipe wrench and channel locks to have enough grip to tighten it.
Turned on the water and, voila! no leaks! Yes! And, now the job is done, except for cleaning all the mud off my shoes (and the kitchen floor...).

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After sleeping in until about 8 I got up and went jogging. When I got back I mowed, edged, and trimmed the yard. I fixed a few things around the house, including the fountain for the pool. When I got the fountain turned on almost no water was coming out. So, I went to look at the pump and saw the filter was up to 25 PSI.
Oh oh, that means it needs to be backwashed. After backwashing the filter I put chemicals into the pool. It just now occurred to me that I forgot to brush the sides. Oh well, maybe tomorrow. The next project was to get the appliances we took out of the kitchen at Easter out of the garage. I found a place called Christian Community Action in Lewisville and decided to take the double oven, microwave, and gas range there. It took an hour or more to get all the boxes, junk, and Styrofoam off the trailer and the appliances appropriately tied down for the road trip.
When I got to the donation center there was line of 10 cars to drop stuff off! I waited in the line and when it was my turn I was glad they they accepted all of the appliances and helped unload. This place seems well run. When I got back to the house I spent several hours rearranging the garage, breaking down boxes for recycling, and putting some storage bins together. I decided to put the trailer on the other side of the garage for several reasons:

• All the stuff that was on the floor in front of the jeep can be placed on the trailer
• There is enough room at the front of the trailer to get the trash can in and out of the garage
• Whenever we open the garage to pull a car in or out the neighborhood won't see the messy trailer

While cleaning the garage I cleared a path to the lawn sprinkler control panel. I decided to check all the zones and make sure the heads all worked, etc. Well, the very first zone was the front yard, and it had a problem. Right down by the street water was pouring up out of the ground and running into the street. I found a hole the water was coming up out of and stuck my hand down in it trying to find a broken sprinkler head.
I dug down over a foot and didn't find anything, so I decided to abandon the first zone and check the other five. They all seemed okay for the most part. I had to clean out and adjust a few heads. I also learned that the zones are completely different than what is written on the box. They redid the zones and sprinklers when they put the pool in. When Philip and I fixed the fence that blew over we ran into a sprinkler head that was damaged and replaced it. Turns out that sprinkler head had been abandoned when the pool was put in, so I spent $10 replacing a dead head. Ah bon, c'est la vie.
If you look at the bottom picture you can see a brick on the curb. That brick was dug up out of the yard (what it was doing there I don't know), but that isn't why I point it out. Where the brick is sitting is about where the water was pouring out of the ground. I had to dig down about 18" and follow a pipe 3 or 4 feet before I found the leak. I think what happened was when they put the fiber optic line in for our Internet they damaged my sprinkler pipe. The water was following the fiber line instead of the sprinkler. I finally found the leak when I reached the spot where the fiber and the sprinkler lines cross. This is all a bit of supposition because I did this all be feel through mucky muddy water. Hopefully it will dry out enough by tomorrow to get a proper look at the leak.
And, the day ended with a quick dip in the pool, a simple dinner and a long blog entry. And, I am worn out, tired, and sore. It's been a good day.
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Here is a picture I took of Cara and Joyce with Cara's 15th birthday cake. Great cake! We had our birthday celebration Saturday night since Philip and Kyle had a paintball match on Sunday afternoon and John needed to head back to ACU Sunday evening.
On Monday night Philip and Kyle pulled the oil pan off the Jeep to see about fixing the oil leak. Kyle and I then spent an hour or so trying to remove the U-joint on the right front axle that was losing its bearings (literally). After quite a bit of futility we gave up under the suspicion that the axle might need to be removed from the vehicle to be able to replace the U-joint. Tuesday after work we went to the Jeep dealer and bought a new (very expensive very nice single piece) gasket for the oil pan, and confirmed that the axles did have to be pulled to replace the U-joints. So, we came back home and Kyle and Philip installed the new gasket and oil pan, and then we drove the Jeep to the dealer (very gingerly [probably leaving U-joint bits along the path] in pouring rain) and dropped it off late at night so it would be there first thing in morning so the mechanic would have enough time to fix the U-joint(s). Well, he had the Jeep all day Wednesday and until 3 PM on Thursday because the parts arrived later than expected on Wednesday AND the poor Texas mechanic wasn't expecting all the Michigan salt impacts (i.e., RUST), so it took him a lot longer to do the job than originally quoted. Well, Joyce and crew wanted to get to MI by 8 PM tonight, so as soon as the mechanic said the Jeep was done they drove to the dealership and left for Michigan from there (brave -- that rebuilt engine had maybe 30 miles on it!). But, I just got word they arrived safely in Michigan, so 1100 miles later the Jeep was apparently still running relatively well (and well broken in). And, now I am home alone. Oh, and I was finally able to watch the last half of the Pirates DVD tonight.
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I stayed up a bit late last night importing CDs and watching the second "Pirates of the Carribbean" movie. Well, the first half of the movie. I still need to watch the rest. I haven't seen it yet and with the third movie coming out in a month I thought I better try and catch up with the rest of the family. But that isn't what I want to write about. We got a call about 0630 this morning from the mother of one of Philip's friends who was flying down today to visit us. Since he isn't 18 he isn't required to have an ID. When we flew out of DFW they just let him go through security. Well, in Grand Rapids they decided to frisk, search, investigate, complain, bully, etc., to the point he missed his flight. What's with that?? Northwest scheduled him on the next flight which was just as well, as the second time he checked his bag they didn't harass him about his paintball gun. What a hassle. Anyway, he finally made it. Which brings me to my project for the day (no, there is no relationship to the previous rant), which was to install a ceiling fan in the library. The ceiling fan is installed but the cleanup is still to be done, so I can't say I have finished. I woke up with a tremendouse headache this morning and after 800mg of ibuprofen am more or less functional today, but still not on top of the world. So, I am taking it easy and taking lots of time to do the clean up. I had best get on it soon, though, as there are other things that ought to be done.
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Joyce and I are sitting in a Laundromat on N Rampart watching what appears to be half of New Orleans population jog/walk/stumble by. We have 12 machines washing clothes right now -- three extra-large capacity, three large capacity, and six regular capacity. Here are some pictures I took of the event. We've seen Elvis, Captain Marvel, the Grim Reaper, a pregnant woman, several wearing bunny ears, an 80 year-old man, a keg on a wagon with about eight attendants, etc. Quite the show. Unfortunately, our car is parked on N. Rampart and we won't be able to move it until all the "race" is over.




Oh, the lady in the pink jacket is a racer that decided to stop for a smoke break outside the Laundromat. :-)
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