A Quiet Week

I spent this week checking out the toilet plumbing situation. Looks like it will be somewhat complicated by the fact I have to go through several floor joists to get to the drain. Although the joists are somewhat short and are not supporting anything other than the bathroom floor, I should probably make sure every thing is properly supported when done. I have to cut through them quite a bit to get the drain pipe in without having several splices. I think I can get away with only cutting two and drilling holes in the rest. I will probably start doing that in ernest next week.

Today I plumbed in the water supply for the toilet. That is the last of the pressurized pipes until I do the shower. No leaks first time I pressurized. I am starting to get pretty confident about my ability to solder copper pipe.

Here I am

Been away for a while. Let's see. I have got much of the bathroom gutted now and have rerouted the sink plumbing to the new wall. That went very well. I only had a single leak when I pressurized the water lines and that was where two elbows butted up against each other. I did not leave enough room between them. Resoldering it worked fine. I think I will reroute some of the electircal next and I have to figure out where I am going to put the new lighting. I have to also put a header in where the bookcase will go in the hallway because I discovered there is a beam in the middle of the ceiling which runs across the hallway. The wall where the bookcase will be is supporting one end of that beam.

Today I took a misstep in the attic and stuck my foot through the hallway ceiling. Damn it! Well, I should be able to patch it pretty easily but I would rather not have to.

I also got to use the snowthrower again. We got a 7 1/2 inch snowfall last night. They were predicting more but that was al we got. The wind has been blowing hard today and drifting it a bit. I may have to shovel a bit later if it blows too much into the driveway.

New snow toy!

I finally got to use my $900 toy, a new snowthrower. It worked really well on the 4 inches of heavy, wet stuff we got. I finished our driveway and decided I needed more practice, so I went across the street and did part of the neighbor's drive. They have several cars in the drive so I could not do it all. But it was fun.

Busy day

Whew, a busy one today. I finally got started with the wall board in the bedroom. I put up the top row across one of the long walls. Well, I had some help. Brian helped be put the bigger boards in place. Those suckers are heavy. But it looks good so far. I will have to apply the "mud" liberally to get it to look good. But the goal right now is to get all the wall board up so it will add to the insulating properties of the walls. Then I will start on some of the bathroom work. I have to get to final inspection by July, when the building permit expires. The details can wait.

So I also helped out with some computer problems today at the local Jewish Federation, where Ellyn is a member of the board and several of our friends work. They just had some minor problems and questions. I also helped Peter out with getting his garage/studio ready for insulating. I think all the wiring is finally done. Next will be putting the connectors on and "ringing" all the lines out.

I finally got some more of my blood pressure medicine today, although even without it, my pressure tested good the other day. Anyway, through a series of unfortunate events, my prescription refill did not come in time so I had to get the Doctor to get me a temporary supply.

We did not get to WW tonight, as we planned, partly because Ellyn got home late and partly because of the bad weather. We are supposed to get 4-6 inches of snow. Will I finally get to try my new snowthrower?

Back to Weight Watchers

Ok, so I put on a few pounds over the holidays and have to go back to WW. I stepped on our scales this morning after getting dressed and it hit 196. My goal weight is 190 and so I can't go over 192. I had been 188 at end of November and I did not go in December so I will have to pay and go each week and continue paying until I get back down to goal weight. This is ok as I have to get Ellyn to go again anyway. My 36 inch pants are feeling too tight too. I don't like it. Hopefully getting back to some seriuos work on the house this week will help so I won't have to diet too hard to get back down to goal. At least I did not go back up over 200. No thanks.

Should I tell anyone?

I haven't told anyone about my blog yet, except my wife, who did not ask for the web address but asked if I was putting anything personal in it. Should I tell anyone? Hm. Maybe I'll wait until I decide whether or not I have anything to say in here.

2004 in regret

I am watching Sunday Morning on CBS and Bill Guist is doing his 2004 year in review. He was talking about the president and showing him unable to recall some things during the debates. "I'm sure something will pop into my head soon." Oh My God. How the hell could the American people have re-elected that idiot? How could the Democrates have NOT come up with someone who could beat him? We will all live (I hope) to regret this decision of 2004.

If it walks like a duck and talks like a duck, it must be a duck. Well I have seen the president (I use the lowercase here on purpose because I have no respect for the office with this person in it) walk and talk and he must be a hick. I am no longer proud to be an American.

2005 is here

So we were out last night until 2:00 am at a party over in NY state. I woke up about 7:00 thinking about a couple projects I am working on; the remodeling and an autoswitching menorah. Finally got up about 9:00 and made us some omlets. Yum. We have another party to go to this afternoon.

Our neice sent an email ranting on the ACLU today, but I went to snopes.com and found the article she was sending to be false. I hate it when people take stuff they read on the web or in emails at face value. There is so much crap out there. I get it the most from an Aunt and Uncle in Michigan and from my former office mate at IBM. They just react to it and send it out without researching it at all. It is always some right-wing rant too. Bah.