Kindred Spirits

Status

I've found I'm often not super-energized after work lately. That is likely due to the fact that my role is both much busier and more challenging these days, both in technical and managerial ways. It is sometimes a little hard to grind out a blog post these days, after work. My fiction writing, likewise, is much more productive on the weekends at the moment.

This is not offered as an explanation for the recent scattershot, point-form-edness of my recent blog posts, but it is a contributing factor, entered as exhibit A for the defense.

Learning From the Mistakes of Others (Home Improvement Edition)

We were having a problem with the upstairs toilet in that the flapper would open and the descending floater would lodge against it, preventing the former from closing and therefore from allowing the tank to fill to dislodge the latter. Stuck helplessly in this primitive endless loop, the toilet would just endlessly churn away, wasting water and generating noise. Since said toilet is adjacent to our bedroom this caused a certain amount of consternation.

Of course, I have just recently read Null's harrowing tale of bathroom repair, and consequently I did my ablest to apply the lessons of his misfortune. When I went to repair the device I was careful to turn off the water supply and keep a bucket close at hand at all times. I was thus able to effect repairs with a minimum of spillage and keeping my person fairly dry.

We replaced the water spout - floater assembly. We experimented with a change in flapper chain, but then the floater (not a spring chicken by anybody's estimation) broke, necessitating a certain expediency in our timeteable.

The newfangled spout-floater assembly doesn't have a big floater on the end of an arm. Instead it has a floater through which the spout shaft runs, and the floater slides up and down it with the water level. This is a fascinating little innovation to my (easily impressed) mind. The triumph of engineering, and all that.

It's also mechanically extensible to fit all shapes and sizes of toilet tanks. What will they think of next?

Bus Strike

The strike is, finally, over. I am now taking the bus to work in the morning. I drive occasionally, but this is now at our discretion, and not forced upon us by externalities.

My usual bus is not running and won't be before April, so I'm taking the busses I used to take to Job A. This was a convenient setup when I worked at Job A, but given that Job B is a good 20 minute walk from Job A, its convenience is somewhat diminished. Fortunately I like to walk and have a good supply of books on tape handy.

It is, never the less, highly motivational to resolve my transportation situation, which has been scheduled.

Cards

I've been building, disassembling, and rebuilding a lot of vampire decks lately. I mention this only as prelude to the observation that I have, not once but twice, knocked large piles of cards, sorted but not yet put away, right off the edge of my desk. 400 card pickup!

Spoiled

My lovely wife made stuffed pork loin with goat cheese and, as appetizer, stewed pears with honeyed goat cheese on baguette. The pears were stewed in a heated concoction of wine, nutmeg and orange zest. The pears ended up being a deep purple colour and extraordinarly tasty. I brought an example to work and shared with Serdic, who enjoyed it greatly, I am given to understand.

I drank some of the wine mixture after the pears were out. It was quite tasty but after half a mug I had to give up and go in search of insulin. (It was sweet before sugary fruit was marinated in it at length. After, it could easily have killed a lesser man.)

Silliness, Part 241

My lovely wife found a list, on the internets, of suggestions for Valentine's Day activities on the cheap. Most of them were ludicrous, if not outright insane (swap houses with a friend! It's like a vacation in a B&B except in every way that matters!). My favourite was the exhortation to pile into a car and take a "mystery trip", only turning left until you get somewhere. I observed that this would be excellent if I wanted to plan a Valentine's trip with RJA, as leaving my house and only turning left will inevitably bring you to the parking lot of the Superstore.

Busy

There is quite a bit going on at the moment. Sometimes I think I may need to cave in and get an organizer to keep track of everything.

Still, as problems go, it's not a bad problem to have.

That's about it for me. Peace out, yo.