Aw, gawd, man, that’s… okay, maybe not THE worst, but still irritating as all hell.
So how come you’re hanging with us instead of fixing their problems, huh, buster?
Good afternoon, y’all!
flyboy That suuucks about the heater.
shoe Got any extra string for Monkey?
As to me, I just voted. There is a 1 item referendum on if the town should buy some land to make recreation/sports fields. In our little town of roughly 5k people, I just had the longest wait of my life in order to vote. I had to be in line for almost 20 minutes!!! I kinda doubt the thing will pass, it’s not the best location, and there are some shady sounding details about who the land would be purchased from.
I don’t recall. I think he got the initial two shots in summer 2021. If he did, he probably didn’t get the third shot at the beginning of 2022.
After that? There’s no recommendation for people under 65 to get vaccinated. Even now. Due to this, it’s a PITA to get vaccinated. I am quite jealous that people can just go to the nearest drug store and get a COVID vaccination. In fact, until recently we were going along with the majority and didn’t think it was really necessary to get vaccinated.
Of course we’re re-thinking that strategy. Now we have to arrange appointments at the hospital, which is the only place in the canton which is offering COVID vaccination.
Thank you. Class of '88 and that was bugging me.
Cupcakes I had a rolling pin with embossed surfaces but I prefer molds. Tomorrow we plan to go to Basel for their Christmas market and we’re going to stop at the Anis-Paradies stall to buy cookies, for the last time. I already have a few molds from them and I might buy some more. I hope they still sell cookies next year, because the cookies are still better than what I bake.
Flyboy, sorry about the hot water propblems. Hope the new plumber is more reasonably priced.
I keep forgetting who NF is. Please remind me.
Snow is melting fast, which pleases me. And tomorrow’s going to be partly sunny, which makes it a good day for going to an art museum, Christmas market (largest one in Switzerland) and eating unspectacular Mexican food. While it may not be spetacular, I don’t have to cook it. And there’s not much better Mexican in Switzerland.
JtC very kindly tucked in one of the “furry balls” she’s mentioned that her G.G. lurves.
I’m waiting until his next attack of the annoying zoomies, so he gets something shiny fuzzy that I can toss around to distract him from the damn curtains.
His box is tossed out (whooof!) and a new one installed. He also got a bit of running around time outside since I was gonna have the side door open anyways.
The Amazon return has also been initiated. I haven’t returned anything in a while; this was weird y’all.
They sent me a QR code, told me to take the item - as is, no box or bag or anything - to a UPS store, and they’d handle the rest. 
O.K.
So I dutifully - but highly doubtingly - arrived with item in hand, QR code saved to my phone’s gallery just in case.
Sure ‘nuff, that’s all they needed. I told the nice lady that I hadn’t returned anything this way before ("Like, no box, nuthin’?") and at least I gave her a good laugh.
Happy mid-afternoon all! The day started cool, like 58/14. Now around 3pm it’s 70/21 on the way up to 72/22 with high thin clouds. Pretty typical winter pattern here: a burst of frigid air heads south from Canada and has almost run out of oomph and cold when it just barely gets to us. Then it retreats north and we re-warm for a few days. Lather rinse repeat. Today was our cool day. And just like farther north, early Dec is much milder than mid Feb when “cool” turns into highs in the 50s and occasionally 40s.
As a couple of other mumpers have said, be sure you’re ready for the can of worms you might open.
There was quite a thread here a couple years ago by a Doper whose wife discovered one of her bio-parents was not who she thought they were. Rather a lot of drama ensued between various extended family members. A faction developed which wanted to get to the bottom and out the perps versus the faction that wanted to let sleeping dogs lie and not spread the news and controversy to anyone not already known to be in the know. Ugh.
Yeah. Used to be you could find decent Chinese sit-down restaurants in many cities & towns. Seems that now cheap buffets and greasy takeout storefronts are all that still exists. Ugh.
Shame about your late docking station and late inspections. Both problems are now behind you. Yaay for that much. On to the next Vexation.
Ah, yes; the dreaded calm day at work. The longer it goes on, the more hinky you get waiting for something to trigger the … “stuff” to hit the … “air handler”.
Flyboy and MetalMouse: Best of luck with the plumbing gods.
I’ve certainly battled them over the years as a homeowner. As the condo honcho, once you have 200 units with 200 kitchens and 400 bathrooms, plus community buildings and a pool all over 40 years old, something exiting is happening somewhere nearly every day. I do not miss riding herd on that one little bit.
My late first wife used to attend a regular “knit and snit” party at a local yarn shop. That’s the knitting version of the quilters’ “stitch and bitch”. A gaggle of ladies get together to yak & dish the dirt while playing with their toys.
Anyhow, you reminded me that the store owner also taught beginning knitting. And one of her constant soothing comments to newbies was “Don’t get worked up. It’s just sticks and string, just sticks and string”. She was sweet. Only slightly smaller than a VW Beetle, but very sweet.
One of the problems with actually being a reliable worker is that it’s so rare a bird that nobody else’s expectations match that. One of my brothers is a one-man outfit. H struggles to get any work done for all the calls from customer’s checking to make sure he’s not flaking on them. He never flakes. Drives him livid that the world of work has come to this. Everyone who does actual work needs a secretary to deflect all the people trying to check on the work, or reschedule the work, or kibitz about the work, or … Gaaah!!!
And in a funny comment on the world, I wrote the above before I’d scrolled down far enough to read:
I used these: Cheap and reliable:
Just set it at the base of the water heater or washing machine (inside the catch pan if you have one). Easy to test too: just lay your finger across the contacts on the bottom.
My detailed knowledge of the pop music of my youth is pretty pitiful. I instantly recognize lyrics and most pop tunes from then, but usually have little idea who performed them, and no idea what album it came from.
As to me today:
Up early, sheveled, out to solo breakfast at the better-than-Dennys, then off to doc. All nominal there; just a flood of checkups this month. Her Ladyship informed me she’d be out erranding then doing a doc of her own in the afternoon, so I was on my own.
Got a quick snack: Jalapeno mesquite smoked brat with more jalapenos piled high from the roller grill at the convenience market, then off to golf. A real yin/yang social transition there. Did OK, despite my 3-day layoff.
Now home and awaiting Her Ladyship’s eventual return while wasting time w y’all.
Well, I got the correction request sent. Now we wait a couple of weeks for Big Multinational Credit Reporting Agency to complete it.
Speaking of which, I sent 15 or 16 correction requests to them before Thanksgiving. I have a pile of completion notices in my inbox, but I can’t get to them for all of the higher-priority stuff I need to get through. When I receive a completion notice, I have to pull the new credit report and go through each of the Business Identification Numbers (BINs) to ensure they did it correctly. Fortunately, the client isn’t in a hurry.
ETA: The new water heater is in the house, but not yet in the cabinet. I’m not going back to check up on the plumber. I figure he’ll get done faster if I don’t. Wifey, RN just came in the door. She laughed and said to herself, ‘Stay out of the way…’
Ah, the “heartburn special.”
It’s 14 o’clock, and I’m about to have breakfast: A couple slices of pepper jack cheese.
Howdy Y’all! Provisions were procured, nappage and day drinkin’ achieved, and an early sup cooked and et. I do lurve me some shrimpies 'n grits! Now chillage ensues. Life is good right now.
FlyBoy sorry about the water heater woes, but yay on gettin’ one installed so quick. One cannot be without hot water, now can one!
JtC fancy rolls with butter and cream cheese? That’s real high falutin’ stuff there!
I’ve taken cold showers before, when the hot water pipe froze in a hard Winter. But one absolutely cannot be without any water. I could have just turned the water off to the heater, but I wasn’t sure how. Now I know.
What is this “heartburn” of which you speak? Not a word I recognize.
I’ll tell you, the water heater must have just sprung a leak when I went back there. Not too much water on the floor. The Spousal Unit says we’ll definitely use this plumber again. The whole job (including taxes and the credit card fee) came in under two kilobucks. 'He’s a lot cheaper than [the other plumber], she said.
The motorcycle tank still isn’t finished. The body work is done and it’s in the booth, but he needs to put four other things through at the same time because it’s more cost effective for smaller jobs. He said he’ll call me ‘Probably no later than Friday.’
Now back to irk…
Them’s the ones! They are loud enough to be heard inside if you have an external water heater cabinet.
My google-foo wasn’t really working because I was also playing in the kitchen. Besides blanching and freezing a large freezer bag of broccoli, I baked 36 frozen sausage patties, most of which will go back in the freezer and two dozen mini egg bites with cheese, ham and broccoli. Half of those went into the freezer as well, so hubs has breakfasts for a couple of weeks.
The dishwasher is sloshing along and I figured that as long as I had wasted the day by being productive, I’d get some laundry done. The bed has been changed, a couple of loads of clothes have been washed, folded and put away and now the towels are drying. VBC looks forward to warm towel time, I always put the laundry basket on the bed and let her hop in and burrow around in the heat. I’ll fold them after she’s done.
I did say I was a show-off, LOL!!! Oh, I just remembered that my small cookie dough scoop is just the right size for making butter and cream cheese balls. Hurray for another way to waste time just because it looks all fancy!
NoooooNoNoNo…when I said no embossed rolling pin talk I also meant no pretty molds too!
I didn’t mean to forget you, kitchen timer just went off.
NF is New Friend, called that because I only met her less than a year ago. Usually when I tell folks about the surplus boxes they start by taking some of my unwanted food, but then decide they want a box of their own and I’m left trying to find homes for my excess produce again. NF is not eligible for a box of her own because she lives in the wrong zip code, so I always bring her produce and thank her for taking it.
I pick these boxes up to help stop food waste, I feel obligated to be sure that everything they give me gets used.
Don’t go nuts or anything on us.
I had three slices!
Oh – The plumber replaced the 12-gauge water heater wire with a 10-gauge one in a conduit. He couldn’t believe someone had wired it with 12-gauge.
The average water heater draws about 1100W. 12 gauge wire can handle that easily. There are water heaters that draw much more, but I’m doubting that you have one of those.
The old one was very efficient. Never ran out of hot water except for when the pipe was frozen. The new one is even more efficient.
Mrs. L.A. can’t get her slippers on when she’s wearing the socks she’s wearing, so she put on my slippers. She couldn’t find one. When she did, she said, ‘Do I have it on the wrong foot?’ I said, ‘You couldn’t have them on the wrong feet. Those are the only feet you have.’
So the wildcat that was spotted in the door-cam here in our neighborhood was apparently killed by a car. They can’t be positive, but given the rarity of these animals in this area, they’re pretty certain. Makes me sad.
It’s quiet here again. Pasta bake was good. Apple cake was good. Dishwasher is done. Everyone has gone home.
Tahred.